Aggy and the Dinos

Chapter 18

The oven was a homemade pressure cooker that resided inside a glass case. Aggy stood in front of it, looking particularly uninspired.

"It's so the Dinos aren't attracted to the smell of cooking. Holds all the odours. It's pretty quick too."

"Is this going to cook a pig?"

"If we slice it."

"Awesome. Brian? What did you do when it all went tits up?" Brian didn't answer for a little while – he fiddled with some dials on the pressure cooker, a faraway look in his eyes.

"I hid. I'm not very proud of myself for hiding when my colleagues were dying around me, actually I've had great difficulty dealing with myself since then. I felt clever, you know? No of course you don't, you wouldn't have been such a coward-"

"I am, I just hid in my flat."

"Thanks. But I stayed very still for a long time. Eventually I got into a vent, and crawled along until I saw Sean and Jordie."

Pressure cooked pig tasted like manna from heaven after weeks of stolen junk food. Geezer munched happily, pausing every few bites to make happy snuffling noises; occasionally he looked round at Aggy to say 'thanks', and she would slide him a little bit more, to bemused smiles and good natured head shaking from the others. The atmosphere was companionable.

"So," said Glen through fingers covered in pig fat. "How does one manufacture a tar pit?"

"Tar is basically asphalt." Said Sean, putting aside his empty plate and adopting a more business-like position. "Or asphaltum, to give it the proper name – heavy oil fractions, which were in ready supply near the surface during the first reign of our unwelcome guests. Occasionally the asphaltum would harden, forming a crust and trapping passing animals, and eventually the animal's predator. Obviously we don't have enough crude oil to create a genuine tar pit, but we can definitely whip up enough gunk to recreate one."

"You still have enough supplies here for that?"

"The Dinos weren't interested in the store rooms – we have a fairly massive supply of assorted gunk, amongst other things. We will also need some sort of nerve gas or poison, so that we can dispose of the Dinos quicker than nature."

"This has genocidal ramifications you know." Said Aggy.

"They aren't people, Aggy. We can either take care of this, or we can die, if not tomorrow then eventually."

"Should we try and make contact with some of the other survivors? Get them to help?" Dean suggested.

"Not yet," Glen contributed. Geezer farted in agreement. "Let's do a couple of batches, and then get them to help when we know it works."

"Please don't call it that!" Aggy protested.

"What?"

"Batches! Arbeit macht frei, much?"

"Aggy you have to separate this! It is not the same, we are not evil maniacs, we just want our life back. Do you want to do this forever?"

"No. It's just feels so...manufactured."

"It has to be. The only thing we have over these things is science."

"They're still half people."

"They're half human DNA, they aren't actually people. They can't be reasoned with, don't you see that, we can't get together for a Dino summit – they eat anything, anywhere, with no respect for human life."

"No I know that. Look I've been a hippie for a long time now, just be gentle with me, ok?"

"Well I'm just frustrated Aggy, you're on the verge of kicking off because we want to kill some Dinos, but you haven't uttered a peep about the farm animals we're planning to achieve this with, why don't you tell us about that?"