A few years ago a bioengineering company called NextGen Biotechnologies discovered a way to clone prehistoric animals. I won’t get into the scientific mumbo-jumbo, but I will tell you what I can. The first few animals cloned were your standard - Woolly Mammoth, Smilodon, and Dodo - but then things started to get more complicated. These creatures were housed in scientific facilities far from civilisation and sometimes zoo menageries if they were showcasing new advancements in the future. Technology was advancing so fast that within a few months NextGen had their first Tyrannosaurus Rex out, then as time went on they started cloning more obscure dinosaurs. Stuff I’d never even heard of before.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are pleased to be housing the newest attraction developed by NextGen Biotechnologies, the Yangchuanosaurus”.
So anyway, this is where my story begins.
Being from Australia I was not familiar with the states, but having friends from America made it easy to get around. My mates and I would often travel around America from highway to highway but most commonly in one specific one from Montana, this time however it was a bit different.
I was driving in my car with my mates, we were all heading up to the next big Paleontological event in Montana. News swirled about how the famous travelling menageries produced by NextGen were settling in there for 2 months.
This exhibition was a few hours from where we lived, so we had to travel down a dimly lit highway to get there.
“They’ve got a new exhibit, the Spinosaurus! It was one of the biggest dinosaurs ever to live!” David said excitedly.
“Scientifically Accurate?” I replied
“Hell nah! This thing’s straight out of 2001!”
“Of course, how could I have guessed?” Jack sarcastically replied.
“Well we’re almost there!” I said with fake enthusiasm. The whole trip I felt uneasy, like something was off.
After a while of silence I noticed how quiet it was, usually when I went down this highway it was filled with calls of birds and mammals. But this time it was silent. The only thing that could be heard was the sound of rocks flicking up onto the car doors and the sound of the rubber colliding with the concrete.
It wasn’t till a bit later when…
“Hey did you hear that?” David said with a tremble in his voice.
“Yeah, it’s probably just a wolf or a bear or something,” Jack reassured - although his voice said otherwise.
Just then, within the flash of a second, a gargantuan, monstrous shape just metres away from of us crashed out of the trees into the clearing, groaning and roaring.
“WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!” Jack screamed. David was in shock, and I went into hysterics - it was all I could do to keep my hands on the wheel.
The monster roared and slammed its 2 and a half ton head into our Ford Ranger, sending it summersaulting and crashing onto the side of the road.
The sound of screeching metal and shattering glass could be heard, then… black.
“Hey, hey, wake up!” Jack shook me awake from the passenger seat. I blinked my eyes open, taking in the carnage. I craned my head behind me to see David’s body still in the car, busted up and bruised as it hung upside-down from the seat. He looked too limp. He wasn’t breathing. “David -?” I enquired. “He’s gone,” Jack’s forlorn voice explained quietly. It was just me and him left.
“You’re alright?” My friend asked, redirecting my attention away from the body.
I was still in shock. “Mostly,” I managed.
“What the hell was that?”
“You don’t think that-“ I started, but cut myself off; I didn’t want to even entertain the notion.
“Maybe,” Jack murmured.
I was still pretty shaken up from the crash, unable to process that David was dead.
Then, hard heavy footsteps crunched on the concrete, followed by a low growl like an alligator.
Jack put his finger over his lip.
Understanding what that meant, I slowly turned my head back to see a hard footstep came booming down a metre from the windshield.
The monster could smell the stench of death and wanted human flesh to satisfy its colossal 15 metre long body.
It lowered its head down as if to check its prey was still in there.
As soon as I saw its skull shape I knew what it was. It was a Giganotosaurus, officially the biggest carnivore the world has ever seen.
A Giganotosaurus is a dinosaur belonging to the Carcharodontosaurid family. It has a huge bulky head, slender arms and stands 6 metres tall and 15 metres long. Think of it like a giant T. Rex but with a bulky but more slender head and longer forearms.
Then, as if a switch had flipped, it slammed its jaws into the back half of the car, the bite so powerful it tore the bottom off with little effort. The sound of compressing metal and tearing plastic was deafening.
It picked David’s corpse up and chewed him in its mouth, then swallowed.
Blood rained down from the jaws of the Giganotosaurus and bombarded the car.
“WAIT GOD PLEASE NO-“
Before Jack could finish the Giganotosaurus roared and lunged its gaping mouth at him.
I gasped, it picked him up by the legs and thrashed around violently, breaking and crushing every bone in his body. Then it swallowed him whole. It then moved its big bulky head to the front of the car and smashed it into the right door. Scared for my life I grabbed an emergency flare gun from the compartment in the front. Loading it in my state of panic proved a little bit difficult - the adrenaline made it hard to rationalise and my tears borne of fear and shock blurred my vision. With a shaky hand I took aim and shot the Giganotosaurus right in the eye. The dinosaur recoiled in pain, roared one final time and proceeded to retreat back into the trees. I just about passed out.
I woke up in a hospital bed; everything hurt. It turns out the accident had left me crippled for life and I had to go psychiatric help for the pain I faced from that terrible night.
I face the wall, face the ceiling but no matter what I do I can still hear the crunching of bones, tearing of ligaments, the screams of Jack and finally the bloodcurdling roars of the Giganotosaurus. No matter where I look I can still see the rage in its eyes, the hanging body of David and the moment that Jack was murdered by an animal driven purely by bloodlust. I live in fear it will come back to finish what it started…