Fear, Loathing, and Zombieasaurs in Las Vegas | ONC 2021

Game Stop

RRRAAAAWWWWWRRRRRR!

Greg ducked and squeezed Death around the waist as she zipped through the legs of a brontosaurus in order to outrun the T-Rex which had dogged them from his street.

Riding a scythe pole wasn't easy. He kept nearly slipping off whenever Death tilted to the side. And it was so uncomfortable— like riding on the top bar of a bicycle with no padding. Still, it was better than trying to take his bike.* This got them off the streets, which were packed with panicked people in their vehicles shouting and honking at each other. It was a good thing natural disasters were rare in Vegas, because Greg was pretty sure nobody would survive.

He looked back over his shoulder and watched the brontosaurus crush a convertible with one humongous foot. 

"I really hope the people in that car got out," he whispered to himself.

It doesn't matter, Death's voice sounded in his head. Nobody's dying today.

Greg jerked around, frowning. "What do you mean? I saw one of my neighbors get torn in half by two raptors. He's definitely dead."

The guy totally deserved it, though. He was the head of their HOA and decided to create and enforce the most idiotic rules around the neighborhood.**

Death didn't answer.

"Take the next right," he called out, squinting into the wind, his thighs burned as he held on through the turn onto a large boulevard. "Stay on this road for about two miles and the Game Stop should be on the right."

He still didn't understand why they were going to a Game Stop***, but Death apparently wasn't in the mood to answer questions, only for directions, and it was hard for him to focus on his thoughts when his brain was filled with screams of terror, car horns, and the eerie bellows of dinosaurs who were at different stages of decomposition.

He'd asked about that too, about why any of the dinosaurs weren't all just bones, but Death hadn't answered then either.

A thunderous crash sounded ahead of them as a brick building exploded outward, tossing debris across all eight lanes of the road. A humongous Triceratops swung its half-fleshed head back and forth as it emerged from the wreckage of the building and went barreling into the road, knocking cars aside.

"WATCH OUT!" Greg shrieked as a minivan tumbled through the air straight toward them. Death gave a burst of speed just in time as the minivan slammed into the ground, narrowly missing the back end of the scythe.

Sorry, forgot you were corporeal, she said.

"Well, please remember in the future?" he managed to squeak out around his heart which had made a new home in his throat. She said nobody was dying, but he got the feeling there was more to it than that and didn't want to test the theory. At least it seemed to be true since he couldn't see any more than the usual lingering spirits, and he'd been anticipating a very large crowd today.

They veered into a strip mall, the heat of the sun hitting him full on the moment they stopped moving.

"It should be just over there in the corner," he said, pointing to a darkened area of the mall. The overhangs cast deep shadows in the harsh morning light and Greg couldn't see a thing, but there was a long line of ghosts queued up in front.

That didn't seem very normal for a Game Stop.

They hopped off the scythe, ran toward the shadows. No zombieasaurs seemed to have made it this far yet, and as they stepped into the darkness it seemed to dampen the cacophony of the outside world.