Great Black Huntress, Chapter 2
Chapter Two—-Austin Ackman
Austin Ackman sat next to the driver’s seat of his SUV, wearing a cowboy hat, plaid shirt, blue jeans, and snakeskin boots. A white man in his early twenties, he had a slender build, suntanned complexion, sapphire eyes, and side-swept golden hair. Virtually everyone he ever met complimented his handsomeness, which had won him a prosperous career in the fashion modeling industry, magazines declaring him “the sexiest man in Texas”, and tons of fan mail from lovesick teenage girls.
He loathed it all.
All the praise he got was for simply looking good while walking down a runway wearing clothes someone else designed. Almost no one said anything positive about his intelligence, personality, talents, or anything he had actually achieved on his own. As far as the public was concerned, he was just a pretty face, and nothing more.
That was going to change. He was going to show the world that he was good for more than posing for the cameras. He was going to accomplish what scarcely anyone even dared to do. He would bring down five of the most dangerous dinosaur species of the late Cretaceous Period: Ankylosaurus; Alamosaurus; Dromaeosaurus; Triceratops; and the king of them all, Tyrannosaurus rex.
Austin peered through the window at the jungle growing on the other side of the electric fence that protected the asphalt road. In sixty-seven million years time, this would become the sun-scorched deserts of southwestern North America, yet the warmer, wetter climate of the Cretaceous nurtured a humid tropical forest here. Although humans from the mid-twenty-first century had colonized this time period for over thirty years now, the jungle still retained a verdant, primordial beauty, as if it had never been disturbed by man. Occasionally, Austin would see evidence of animal life, such as brightly colored prehistoric birds fluttering under the canopy, or maybe a tiny mammal scrambling up a tree trunk. However, he hadn’t seen any dinosaurs yet.
After an hour passed, Austin could see ahead of the SUV a large white building about two stories tall with a red roof built in Mediterranean style. Posted above the building’s front door was a wooden sign saying “Cretaceous Safaris” in bold Jurassic Park font. Standing by the front door were three people.
The SUV pulled into a driveway in front of the building and halted near the front door. Here, Austin got out of the SUV, thanked the chauffeur, and turned to face the three people who had been anticipating him. One was a squat, pudgy brown-skinned man in his forties. The second was a tall muscular man in his forties, also brown-skinned, sporting a black moustache. The last was a thin yet curvaceous black woman. All three were dressed in tan slouch hats, bush jackets, and shorts.
“Hi, I’m Austin Ackman,” Austin spoke with a thin Texan accent, offering a handshake to the short man.
“Hola, Sr. Ackman, and welcome to 67,000,000 BC!” Miguel responded, shaking Austin’s hand, “I am Miguel Gomez. I am responsible for expedition planning and coordination. The big gentleman here is Senor Ricardo Chavez; he is in charge of the equipment. Also keeps the porters in line. And the black woman, she is Senorita Joanna Watson, our great black huntress. She will be your tracker and guide. She knows almost everything there is to know about the region and the dinosaur life within it.”
“Pleasure to meet you all,” said Austin, shaking Ricardo and Joanna’s hands, “When do we leave?”
“We should be off by 1:30” Miguel answered, “But first, we need to sort out some paperwork and get all the equipment ready. Also, are you hungry?”
“Famished.”
“Then why don’t you have lunch with us over at the restaurant inside our lodge here? They say our quesadillas are the best served by any safari outfitter, whether in the Mesozoic or Holocene.”
***
“Have you ever hunted before, Sr. Ackman?” Ricardo asked as he cut up his enchilada.
Joanna, Ricardo, and Austin were seated in the lodge restaurant. The restaurant wasn’t very large, but it was fancy, with snow-white tablecloths and vases filled with Cretaceous flowers atop every table. The mounted heads of various dinosaurs, including one large T. Rex, decorated the walls. Salsa music played on a radio in the background.
“I have hunted ducks,” Austin answered Ricardo, after swallowing a morsel of quesadilla, “When I was a kid, my dad would take me to this pond near our ranch in Texas, where we would shoot ducks with a shotgun.”
Ricardo laughed. “Congratulations, then, you’re already a dinosaur hunter!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Most paleontologists agree that birds are members of Dinosauria,” Joanna explained, “It’s been consensus since the 1960s. Wouldn’t they have told you that back in high school biology?”
“Oh, must have forgotten that. Now, how long have you been hunting dinosaurs?”
“Almost all my life. I grew up in this log cabin about two hours north of here; when I was a girl, my parents would take me out to the jungle for some hunting. At first, the game we took was small, like Ornithomimus or Dracorex, but as I grew older we graduated to larger gun. I shot my first Triceratops when I was twelve.”
“Twelve? Holy fuck. That must have been scary.”
“Yes, but also thrilling. Plus the meat was delicious. Tasted like a gamy mix between beef and chicken.”
“Sounds yummy. Hey, have you hunted T. Rex before?”
“I have guided five T. Rex-hunting expeditions while working here. Normally, though, I avoid them as much as possible. Much too dangerous to hunt alone. In fact, I’m more than a little concerned that you’re going after T. Rex and all these other big dinosaurs with such limited hunting experience—-they are not for novices. Even experienced hunters have been killed. Are you absolutely sure you want to go on this hunt again?”
“What do you take me for, just a pretty boy? I can handle them!”
Joanna sighed. “If you insist. But you must promise me that you will listen to us and obey our orders at all costs. Otherwise you will get yourself killed. Understand?”
“I understand.”
“Good.”
Tagged as Critique, Trexmaster.Comment
By trexmaster
on Feb 8, 03:23 PM
After reflecting upon this story, I’ve decided to discontinue it. There are already a lot of dinosaur-hunting stories out there (Sound of Thunder, Gun For Dinosaur, Deathbeast, etc.), so I felt my premise was too hackneyed. Plus, I wasn’t happy with how the story was developing in my brain; it threatened to become a repetitious string of dinosaur attacks.