A Survivor's Guide to the Dinosaur Apocalypse

Welcome to the Big Empty, the world after the Flashback, a world in which most the population has vanished and where dinosaurs roam freely. You can survive here, if you're lucky, and if you're not in the wrong place at the wrong time--which is everywhere and all the time. But what you'll never do is remain the same, for this a world whose very purpose is to change you. So take a deep dive into these loosely connected tales of the Dinosaur Apocalypse (each of which can be read individually or as a part of the greater saga): tales of wonder and terror, death and survival, blood and beauty. Do it today, before the apocalypse comes. I'd barely had time to investigate when I heard him shout, "Hooper! Get out here!" I folded the paper and took it with me, exiting the building through the jammed-open front doors, and saw him crouched over the asphalt in the corner of the L-shaped shopping center, beneath the Great Clips' cornice. "What is it?" I said. "What did you find?"He stood and indicated the sidewalk. I stared at the pavement, which was webbed with roots and lichen, and saw a single shoe lying on its side-a Nike Lebron, which had been stained maroon like the surrounding concrete. More, there was something sticking out of it-two somethings, I realized, broken and brownish-yellow-tibia and fibula bones, obviously, snapped in two midways up their shafts, crawling with maggots and flies. I used the newspaper to wave away the insects. "Jesus," I said. "What in the hell happened here?"I scanned the scene, which looked like someone had spilled a 5-gallon bucket of maroon paint (and then flailed around in it), saw an impression the size of a pizza pan in the dried blood. "What the hell is that?"I glared at Maldano but the bearded astronaut only stared back at me. I knelt over the impression, or rather the impressions, for there were other, smaller ones next to it-three, to be exact-and studied the configuration."This is a-""A print, that's right," said Maldano. "Further, I'll characterize it. Or at least what it isn't. It isn't the print of anything that was walking the earth when we left." He added, "It's not that of a bear, for example."He knelt beside me and indicated the larger impression. "Yuh, see, this would have been left by the lowermost extremity of the metatarsals, the foot bones that connect directly to the tibia and fibula-locked together, for strength." He indicated the smaller ones. "And these, these are the phalanges, or toe bones-see how they're splayed to support the animal's weight? That's because this was a big creature, 7-8 tons, at least. Other than that, they're not so different from our own; here's the proximal phalanx, which is connected to the metatarsal, and the middle phalanx, and the distal phalanx. Or at least that's where they would have been beneath the flesh, which is what left the impress-""Stop it," I snapped, and stood abruptly. "Just ... Look. What are you saying?""I'm saying this was left by a member of the theropoda clade of the Saurischia order, division Carnosauria." He looked up at me as though it should be obvious. "Whose family was probably-"I grabbed him by a system umbilical and yanked him to his feet, began shaking him like a ragdoll. "Talk sense, damn you! What are you saying? That whoever that shoe belonged to was attacked by a-by a-"I paused, trying to get a hold of myself, as his face hovered mere inches from my own. At last I released him and quickly stepped back, breathing heavily, repulsed by my own behavior."I-Jesus, I'm sorry. It's just ... it's just that none of this makes any-"That's when I saw her: like a ghost, or an ashen specter, just staring at me through the glass, through the Great Clips' window, not close to it but much further back, crouched by one of the chairs. That's when I saw her (and she saw me): standing abruptly, stumbling over a broom, regaining her balance in time to bolt for the back door ...