Welcome author Joseph
Erhardt as my guest blogger for today’s
Supernatural Friday. His collection of short stories was just released and is
now available, and he is here to blog about dinosaurs.
Pamela K. Kinney’s Supernatural
Friday column is, well, for the supernatural. But before we go there, I’d like
to take just a few lines to talk about monsters that are, or at least were, Real.
Dinosaurs.
Most of us
remember our first exposure to dinosaurs. For many, dinosaurs arrived in our
lives via the television or the movie theater. Whether Jurassic Park or The Valley
of Gwangi—or even any of the Godzilla
movies—these ancient behemoths brought forth a feeling of excitement, of awe.
In a way, the dinosaurs were frightening without being that frightening.
For others,
the first dinosaurs appeared in books off the school library’s shelves. I
recall the first book about these creatures that I read, and how it began with
the illustration of a dimetrodon, a synapsid that looked like a large lizard
with a vertebral fin (probably for heat-exchange), but which was actually in
the line that eventually led to mammals. Only later in this volume did it show
brontosaurus (no apatosaurus at that time) and stegosaurus and tyrannosaurus
rex.
For me, my
first exposure to dinosaurs occurred in a bowl of cereal. Yup. Mom poured out a
bowl of flakes, added milk, and set the bowl in front of me. Three spoonfuls
later, I spotted a green leg among the flakes and said, “Mom! Mom! There’s an animal in my food!”
That’ll get
your attention all right.
For the next
several weeks, I ate only cereals that included, as premiums, small plastic
models of various dinosauria.
So what is it
about dinosaurs that makes them, well, likeable?
The dinos that
walked on four legs and ate plants probably reminded us of elephants or
rhinoceroses stretched out to sizes that made them even more stupendous and
impressive. Because they didn’t eat meat, they were cuddly and good big friends
to have, especially for a child so dependent on adults that having friends like
brontosaurus or stegosaurus diminished that feeling of helplessness, of not
being able to fend for yourself.
But the dinos
that walked and ran on two legs—those
fascinated because we, too, are
bipedal. Our sense of awe here may be sparked by an innate, automatic
anthropomorphication—these dinosaurs were, in a way, like us.
Today
dinosaurs are still popular, especially as movie monsters, because they have a
basis in fact, viz., they were the products of eons of natural selection. The
ways they looked, acted and ate were that way because of evolutionary
pressures. They were not artificial, ungainly monsters made up in some artist’s
or writer’s fever dream. This gives dinosaurs a verisimilitude that other
monsters simply do not have. These guys were our monsters. They existed, they lived on this planet, and they
ruled it for millions of years longer than the arrogant genus Homo is likely to
survive.
Heck, it took
a whole asteroid and the subsequent volcanism of the Deccan Traps to knock
these guys over. They deserve our
respect. And awe.
---
Of course, one dinosaur did survive. And this scaly
old curmudgeon has recently collected his tales of speculative fiction into a
compendium known as The Dinosaur
Chronicles. The foreword explains just how he survived, and who is
responsible. The stories run the gamut from straight SF to fantasy to
speculative mystery. About half have been published in paying print markets;
most of the rest were just too long for the markets of their day. Included in
the book are the following tales:
The Blue Smoke
Test -- An over-the-top tale of a scientist who creates a time machine and
precipitates the Ultimate Disaster.
The Men with
the Power -- An aging, retired diplomat crashes a diplomatic soiree and uses
his special talent against a dark-side version of himself.
Two Steps
Forward -- A soldier with PTSD has his tormenting memories erased, which works.
For a while.
Punkin' Vipers
-- A Halloween tale of a man with car trouble and a field of corrupted orange
orbs.
Evensong -- Of
what use is a planet with a 20,000-year lifespan? And why would it be a locus
for murder?
Open Frame --
Karma meets reincarnation in a bowling alley.
Eliza's
Quick-Drying Polar White -- Crickets and an alternate dimension provide irony
and amusement.
Who Mourns for
Spring? -- An AA meeting ends with everyone really needing that drink.
Sheep in
Wolf's Clothing -- A man infiltrates the annual meeting of the undead. Events
do not unfold as expected.
Letter of the
Law -- Sometimes being literal is being cruel.
The Practical
Meek -- A man of the street exacts a painful vengeance for the death of this
friend.
Edges of
Memory -- A killer kills, and then forgets--utterly--that his victims ever
existed. A nurse investigates and discovers a shocking secret.
Crawl Ice -- A
couple is stranded in their Colorado cottage by an antagonized creature that
they can't see, and it's getting bolder and smarter as the hours go by.
The Great
Aribo -- Two boys at a county fair find the world's greatest juggler, who has a
secret both wonderful and double-edged.
Excerpt from
“Crawl Ice,” (Copyright 2015 Joseph M. Erhardt)
Evan Fisher
lugged the suitcase down the walk, across a spray of ice and snow, and heaved
it onto the opened tailgate of his neighbor’s pickup truck.
“That’s the
last of it,” Fisher said, stuffing his gloved hands into his jacket pockets.
“Thanks,
Evan,” Hank Stricker said, shoving the suitcase crosswise. He latched up the
tailgate and added, “I just wish you’d get out of here along with the rest of
us.”
Fisher looked
back and watched as Hank’s wife locked the front door of their house. “Don’t
see a need, Hank. I’ve got wood for the fireplace and enough gasoline to run
the generator—when I need it—for two weeks. Power should be back by then.”
“There could
be aftershocks,” Hank said. “Slides. If Mountain Electric can’t get their
trucks to the lines—”
Fisher put his
hand on his neighbor’s shoulder. “Hank, you worry too much.”
Snow crunched
as Hank’s wife came alongside.
“Hank’s a
worrier, all right,” she said, winking at her husband. “It keeps him out of
trouble.”
Hank blushed
but added, “So how’s Samantha feel about this?”
Fisher
hesitated. “She’s not crazy about staying.” Then he grinned. “But I told her it
would be romantic—just the two of us, all alone in town. Almost like pioneers.”
Hank’s wife
laughed. “Evan, a weekend in a nice motel is romantic. Two weeks in a cold,
dark valley in Colorado is a nightmare.”
—
Fisher watched
Hank’s truck crawl up the winding north road. From time to time, the
early-afternoon sun flashed across the tailgate, giving it one last lick before
the truck finally disappeared into a cleft.
Fisher turned
and trudged slowly up the block, to the rancher he shared with his wife. He
wondered if the coming isolation would be a good thing or a bad thing for his
marriage. Samantha had complained about being ignored, being neglected. For at
least the next week, he figured, there would be no one else to “nore” or “glect.”
She should
appreciate that.
As Fisher turned
from the street into his walkway, he staggered as a sudden loss of traction
threw him aside.
He righted
himself and looked down.
A six-foot
area of his front walk had iced over.
Ice in the
middle of a Colorado November was no surprise. But he’d cleared the walk just
that morning, and it had not gotten warm enough for any melt.
For a moment
he contemplated the idea that Sam had poured water on the walk to spite him
or—and his gut twinged at the thought—to deliberately injure him.
Sam might’ve changed her mind about staying, Fisher thought, but
she’s not crazy.
Fisher walked
to his door and let himself in.
The front door
opened into the living room.
Sam’s voice
carried out from the kitchen. “Evan?”
“Yes.”
“You
sonofabitch!”
Fisher rushed
into the kitchen. His wife sat in jacket and panties, her bare right leg
elevated on the kitchen table. A bloody bandage and a bag of ice lay across her
knee.
Sam spat out
the words: “You said you cleared the walk!”
“I did!”
“My ass!
There’s a patch of ice—”
“I know! I
nearly fell on it myself!”
Sam’s voice
dropped to a menace, and she bared her teeth.
“Do you really
mean to get rid of me?”
“Dammit, Sam,
it’s winter out there! You’ve got to watch for the hazards, always!”
“You said you
cleared the walk!”
“And I
did—this morning. I don’t know how the ice happened. It couldn’t have happened. It never got above freezing today!” Fisher
took off his gloves and reached for her knee. “Does it hurt? A lot?”
Sam sliced her
fingernails across the back of his hand. “Do. Not. Touch. Me!”
Joseph Erhardt’s Bio:
Joseph Erhardt is a published short story author and
professional editor/writing instructor. His short fiction has appeared in Keen SF!, Maelstrom Speculative Fiction, Andromeda
Spaceways Inflight Magazine and Talebones,
among others. He’s currently working on two novels and, along with Linda
Lyons-Bailey, helped edit Robert E. Bailey’s final novel, Deja Noir, which is currently being marketed to the publishers. His
editing services are described here: Joseph Erhardt’s
GSC Editing.
You can buy The Cultural Dinosaur on Amazon KINDLE.
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