Sometimes I think this city is just a meat grinder.
People come here from far away thinking this will be a fresh start, this is how they’ll make it. Most of them wind up trapped in some dead-end job, spending most of their paycheck on bills and the rest on necessities, scraping by enough to afford the real luxuries like personal transportation and clothing.
Even as I kicked open the back door to the Hilltop, on my way to dump the combined trash from three different cans into our dumpster out back, I could hear at least three different sirens down in Eastport’s largest city center. Two different frequencies of police sirens and the blaring wail of a firetruck. Ambulances were a constant, so I sort of tuned those out after my first month.
Derek and I had spent so many shifts up here listening to the overlapping sirens and comparing notes on the news apps we subscribed to that I could say with 95% certainty that there’s a fire rig heading down 33rd street toward the column of smoke rising off one of the southern warehouses, a drug bust going down over on the north side of 45th, and a car chase heading right up the mainline towards the Hilltop.
From the distant crackle of gunfire, it sounded like this chase was a little more lively than usual, but I was not concerned. Whoever was running from the cops in this town must have been either extremely stupid or extremely desperate.
Or perhaps a bit of both.
The cacophony of crime and punishment coming from the city mixed in with the rumbling of the offworld landers rising and falling through the air surrounding Hodgkin's Skyport to the northwest—in Eastport’s unofficial second city center—rose and fell like the tide; washing up against the dense forests surrounding the Hilltop on all sides and fading to silence against their impenetrable majesty.
For a second, maybe two, I think I lost myself in the frantic pulse of the night air. That life-and-death struggle between the quiet inevitability of the forest and the desperate violence of the city. Maybe I could wax philosophical on just how strange that juxtaposition was and how it felt to stand here on the Hilltop that stood between each of these places without truly reaching any of them. Maybe I had just been working here too long.
It had been a full year since my first day on the Hilltop, and it was not like I was in a better place—financially, physically, emotionally, you name it—than when I started. Or maybe I’m just getting a little second hand high from all the weed Derek smokes back here on his breaks.
The back door to the station swung wide open again and my coworker stumbled out with three trash bags held awkwardly in his tiny arms. Short and skinny, with wire-frame glasses and a hint of a mustache that he was very proud of, Derek was the kind of guy who could eat and eat and eat without ever gaining a single percentage of body fat. Poor guy looked like a strong wind would yank him right off his feet.
“Hey Ryan, you gonna stand there listening to the music all night or you gonna give me a hand with this shit?” Derek demanded, glaring at me from behind his glasses.
I groaned internally. That phrase ‘give me a hand’ was meant to be hurtful.
“No problem, man. Here, catch!” I waved my left arm as if I was throwing it to him. Derek was full of hand-related jokes and was one of the only people at the Hilltop—or anywhere for that matter—who did not treat me differently just because my arm ended just below my elbow. Unphased by the grisly sight of my stump, he just kept right on glaring at me, and I amused myself by imagining my illusory severed hand smacking him in the face and falling to the ground. Flipping him off all the way down, naturally.
“Not funny. I’m half your size, why should I have to pull your weight too!”
I rolled my eyes and started towards the dumpster once more. “It’s only fair, what with me carrying you through our shift every night. I do most of the work and in exchange you take out half the trash.”
“Hey,” he whined, hurrying to catch up. “I share my weed with you, man!”
He had a point. The green stuff made my head do weird shit—like see different worlds hiding in between the seams of our own—but it was the only thing strong enough to end those phantom pains that I’d been having ever since the accident, yet weak enough not to ruin my life any worse than it already was.
Working with Derek had plenty of negatives, don’t get me wrong, but it also came with exactly two perks. Sure he was a lazy know-it-all who would spend the entire shift talking my ear off about computer stuff and all the nerdy shit he was into instead of helping me around the station, but every so often he would pass me one of his joints and I’d get an hour or so without the constant reminder of the worst day of my life.
The other perk I already mentioned. He was the only one who still saw me as Ryan, and not ‘oh poor Ryan.’ Weed or no, that was worth enough to me to put up with this guy no matter what. Unfortunately, he knew it, and used it to his advantage at every available opportunity.
“Oh yeah, that’s why I keep you around, man. The weed! Thanks for the reminder!”
It was Derek’s turn to roll his eyes.
With a casual flip, I spun my trash bag around like a softball pitcher winding up for a throw and let it go, giving it an underhanded twirl up and away. The momentum carried the stuffed-to-bursting bag of trash up and over the metal gate, dropping it into the dumpster with a perfect bullseye.
I spun around to see Derek shaking his head in disgust at my display. “You’ve gotten way too good at that y’know? Pretty soon we’re going to have to find something else for you to waste your talents on. I still have no idea how you manage to move these things, much less spin ’em around like a magic hammer. They’re so heavy!”
“Well, Derek, some of us have this extra stat that’s missing from your real life character sheet. It’s called ‘strength,’” I teased.
Derek sighed as he shuffled closer and used his foot to drag the gate open. “You gonna help the weakling out?”
“Oh sorry, man, I’d love to but uh—” I lifted the stump of my arm and made a face.
Derek was not amused, or so I gathered from the string of curses he mumbled out of the corner of his mouth, but he was perfectly capable of taking out the trash on his own. I left him to it and strode over to the edge of the parking lot to take in the view.
The Hilltop was situated atop the three-pronged highway intersection known as Junction Three, overlooking downtown Eastport with a clear view into the center of the city. I stepped away from the dumpsters and faced the city as the sun dipped down below the horizon. To my right, due north, was Hodgekin’s Skyport, with its constant buzzing of cargo and passenger landers flitting to and from the big city. At my back, to the west, was nothing but the old forest; an impenetrable wall of green and shadow that even the most experienced hikers could, and often did, get lost in.
Everything south of Hilltop was none of my business. I was never going back there.
Aside from all the smoke and sirens, Eastport was a very beautiful place…to visit.
“Ryan, can I get a hand?” Derek asked, sounding like he was really struggling.
“I believe in you, buddy,” I called back absently, still drinking in the view.
My attention faltered from the scenery as the ongoing car chase began to draw nearer and nearer towards Hilltop. Closer, in fact, than I had seen anyone get during the whole year I had worked here. It was close enough that I could even make out more details than just the swirling red-and-blue cop lights. There was a whole line of cop cars swarming behind a red sports car that was making them all look like they were standing still.
As I watched, the sports car swerved across three lanes of traffic, bypassing the turn lane that would take them to Hodgekin’s and speeding right past the lazy right hand drift that would take them south to start climbing the offramp. The same offramp that would lead them straight up to Hilltop.
“Uh, Derek?”
With a grunt of effort that left his glasses askew and his face heavily reddened, Derek finally managed to shove the second trash bag up into the dumpster. He set both hands down on his knees and just took a moment to breathe, ignoring me or perhaps not even hearing me over all the blood rushing past his ears.
“Oi, Derek! We’ve got a problem.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve got your joint man I just need to get this last stupid bag.”
“Dude forget the bag, look!” I demanded. But I was too late, he was already bending down to pick up the last bag and completely ignoring the red car speeding around the bend.
Cursing in frustration, I took three long strides back to the dumpster and ripped the bag out of Derek’s arms. It was heavy, sure, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I tossed it over our heads and into the dumpster with ease and then gripped Derek by the shoulder; shoving him around and pointing—with my stump—towards the incoming chaos.
Derek’s eyes went wide as he finally realized what was going on.
“Holy shit, dude!” he shouted.
“I know, come on!”
We ran back into the gas station as the sports car came screeching through the gas pumps, narrowly avoiding a collision as the vehicle spun through the parking lot and left black stains across the concrete.
I lost sight of it as I followed Derek through the back door and yanked it shut behind us, flipping the lock into place as I went, but I heard a terrible metallic crash that made my heart plummet.
That better not be my car.
“Fuck,” Derek cursed from the front counter. “Your ride just got totalled!”
I ran through the back and into the front of the store, catching a glimpse of a very strange sight in my peripheral. My car and the red sports car were both reduced to scrap metal, which was more than slightly upsetting but quickly became the least of my concerns once I saw the driver. Striding from the wreckage was a…a humanoid dinosaur.
My initial gut response to what I was seeing was that it looked like a gorilla and a triceratops got a little freaky and then their terrible mutant baby grew up on a strict diet of protein and steroids, and then that roided out hybrid baby-man got possessed by a demon.
At least six feet tall even before taking into account the bony frill sprouting from his skull, Mister Triceratops had the hulking arms of a gorilla and the scaly skin of a crocodile. Everything from his claws and his three horns to the spikes ripping free of his joints was jet black. Except his eyes. Those were blood red, glowing, and staring directly at me.
This thing was holding the red door of its sports car in his hands like it was a shield, and it was stomping right towards us.
Derek reached into his back pocket and started towards the door, fumbling for his keys.
“Dude, what good is a locked door going to do against that thing?” I demanded.
Derek gave me a weird look. “Dude, chill. It’s just some guy. The cops are right behind him. He looks a little drunk so he’ll probably pound on the glass for a bit and demand to be let in. The cops’ll show up, taze him, and we’ll all be good to go. I mean, besides your car, but you got insurance right?”
“‘Insurance?’” I repeated dumbly. “That’s a freaking dinosaur walking towards us!”
Derek made a face as he turned around and focused on locking the door. “Don’t be rude, man. He’s probably not even fifty! I don’t think you can call someone a ‘dinosaur’ until they’re past the half-century mark.”
“You’re telling me you don’t see the jacked dino-dude marching over here with bright red eyes and horns and shit? That guy looks like he just climbed out of the Jurassic circle of hell!”
Derek laughed. “Oh Ryan, you say such…things.”
The door made a mechanical clicking sound and Derek nodded, seeming proud of himself as he stepped away from it. In the same moment he stepped back, blue and red lights appeared around the bend of the offramp and a trio of squad cars arrived, fanning out and swarming the station. Six doors opened and six officers stepped out to train their handguns on the big guy.
“See?” Derek said smugly. “We’re fine.”
A garbled voice started ordering the man to, “Stand down!”
Triceratops-dude stopped less than five meters from the front door and turned towards the cops with an evil gleam in his glowing red eyes. He reached up with one of his giant three-fingered hands and snapped his fingers.
In spite of the cops outside shouting at the man to get down on the ground, over the hum of machinery and fluorescent lights inside the station, and even over the buzz of a helicopter circling overhead—probably a news chopper following the chase, but it might have been more cops—I heard the distinct snap of the man’s middle finger connecting with the pad of his thumb as a sharp note that cut through everything else. It was as if the whole world suddenly paused. The flashing lights atop the cop cars stopped rotating. The cops grew completely still, their guns no longer wavering threateningly and instead simply remaining level with the triceratops-guy. The hot dogs on the hot rack stopped rotating. The lights stopped flickering. Even Derek seemed frozen in place, mid-gloat.
Only two people were still moving.
The monstrous dinosaur guy.
And me.
His red eyes focused on the glass door Derek had just finished locking, and he drew the severed driver’s side door back like he was preparing to throw a fastball.