Dromiceiomimus

Something had been eating the apples. My orchard was the joy of my life. Every waking hour was another hour I got to spend tending those beautiful trees. It made my heart sing. My husband had never come back from the war, and my two sons worked in the city now. They came back on the weekends to visit, but lately I wished they were around more often. Whatever was eating the apples didn’t seem natural.

I have seen enough chipmunk and squirrel gnawings to know when a small animal gets ahold of some fruit. They eat greedily, but they’re not large enough to finish the whole thing, so they leave clear signs of their work. Birds peck holes into the fruit. It’s a waste, but it makes sense. Larger animals eat the entire apple in one go, so all you usually see is a few broken stems. Whatever was at the trees now was cracking branches down and picking them bare. It was big, and it was hungry.

I thought I had seen it early one morning, but I couldn’t make out the shape of it. It seemed to be big and grey and somehow fast. What prompted such a creature to move so quickly? I couldn’t imagine it was afraid of me. Frail old women are low on the food chain, at least when it came to what could hurt what.

I rolled over in bed, still thinking back to that misty, wispy glimpse of a wary beast. It should have frightened me more than it seemed to. I was more curious than anything. Perhaps its fear of me had made me bold. I heard a noise downstairs. The courage I thought I had vanished in an instant. I lay still, ears straining. I heard a soft crackling, then nothing. My door creaked open, and a head poked in at about chest level. It was reptilian looking, but it was covered in downy grey feathers. The yellow eye was staring right at me.

I rolled away and fell out of the bed, scrambling for the shotgun hanging over the dresser. I realized a moment later that I was screaming at the top of my lungs. The creature had stepped into the room now, but my theatrics must have intimidated it. It stood at least seven feet tall with a long thin neck descending into a muscular body. It looked like a cross between bird and a lizard. It was clawing the air with its feet. I tried to back away, but the claw at the end of its toe caught me across the shoulder.

I fell down. My arm was useless and I couldn’t prop myself up. Now that it had bested me, the creature paused. It watched me. I could feel my strength leaving me. The strange beast turned and gobbled up the basket of apples by my window. They were damn good apples, after all.