Age of Monsters by John Schneider (a book to read txt) 📕

– history – all it took was turning out the lights and it just no longer existed.  There would be no ancient scrolls for future explorers to ponder – it would all just be deleted.

And down planet-side, the Food of the Gods was 'blooming' again.

Tom had picked up the expression from one of the last surviving broadcasts – the kids in Japan, who had managed to establish a brief network of their own – connecting with other scattered survivors, sending in  messages and video – a lot of it in English, now, as they started making contacts – all broadcast right from one of their dorm rooms.

Smart kids – in a bizarre way, they actually seemed to be enjoying the opportunity to exploit their talents in a crisis.

They had also been the first to report the incoming second wave.

Tom hadn't heard from them since.  That had been a week.

Likewise, Kristi-in-Alaska's broadcasts had become more intermittent.

She had also stopped talking to the camera – most of her new clips were nighttime, using the bright camera beam to scan her yard – always with darting shadows just at the edge of sight – growing ever-more bold.

Most new data he had been receiving came from remote sources – security cameras and stoplights – pieces of automation that somehow survived and simply droned on, mindlessly recording what was in front of them.

Tom had at least managed a little progress on his own front – accessing a number of satellites, and for the first time, he was able to collate images from the entire globe, recorded during the entire event – he was even able to focus telescopes on specific areas of the planet's surface.

He ran all the images together – chronologically documenting the Apocalypse.

Even from space, Tom could see that it was not over.

The beasts were on the move – particularly the giants, which seemed to be traveling in large packs.

Tom also noted that the warring-factions held.

Along the North American west coast, for example, tyrannosaurs had consolidated in the north – the carnosaurs in the south.

And from what Tom could gather, that was a contested situation that was likely going to be decided soon.

Tom had gotten some good clear views of infected Carcharodonts – code named: 'Shark Tooth' – marching in tandem, moving up from San Francisco.

The satellite image provided no sound, but Tom could only imagine the thunder of footsteps.

Besides the giant Carcharodonts, there were other flesh-eaters – other carnosaurs and megalosaurs – and even a number of herbivores – in fact, a rather large number of ceratopsians and several large sauropods.

And while the majority of the exodus were giants, the other end of the spectrum was represented too, with swarms of sickle-claws – from infected giants, to 'normals', that darted between their ankles like biting dogs – all the way down to those odd sickle-clawed scavengers he could see riding the giants' backs like birds on a hippo.

Tom had hunted up files on these little guys as well.

Sickle-claws in general were a bit of a departure from the theme of gigantism – apparently there had been some effort to breed for intelligence.

As it turned out, however, sickle-claws really weren't that smart.

In particular, this little guy – code-named: 'Otto' – displayed none of the predicted higher-functions – with the literature suggesting that some cognitive functions were simply not available on what was basically still a primitive, proto-avian/reptilian model.

Otto's base genome was a creature called a 'Toodon' – which Tom remembered had once invoked speculation that its relatively large brain-case might have eventually developed real intelligence – scientists had even fashioned a speculative 'dino-man' model that had received wide-circulation at the time.

Otto, himself, however, was described in the literature as a bit of a dud – although he did demonstrate remarkable vocalizations as well as a parrot-like talent for mimicry.

And while Otto might have torpedoed the idea that sickle-claws were smart, from what Tom could gather, he had become kind of a project mascot – there were pictures of members of the science team with the little lizard perched on their shoulders – often more than one.

But near as Tom could tell, 'Otto's' function in the new ecology was as a ghoul.

And uniquely, this also meant they were never affected by the Food of the Gods, because they didn't touch the giant carrion – they ate the dead people.

Almost as if it was their preference.

Tom wondered if that had been bred into them too.

Even from space, Tom felt a twinge of revulsion.  Disgusting creatures.

The way they skittered across the giants' scales; Tom wondered if they itched like fleas.

On the other hand, some of the big sauropods would have approached two-hundred feet in length before the Food of the Gods – he'd seen direct evidence they wouldn't even notice a gunshot.  Once they were infected, munitions-fire barely bothered them.

And the blooms were starting up again.

The infected areas were also no longer sequestered around the cities – it simply erupted wherever infected beasts died.

It was an unavoidable, inexorable pattern – soon every beast in the area would be infected – repeating the cycle of destruction – a traveling doomsday that just kept on going.

Tom found himself imagining ever-more disastrous scenarios – he wondered if the infection could be spread by mosquitoes.

Of course, he reminded himself, non-engineered organisms couldn't contain the chemical – a mosquito that fed on an infected giant would likely just pop.

Unless, it was an engineered mosquito.

He shut his eyes – now, why did he even have to even go and think that?

Because, he sighed, that was one of the things that was really bothering him.

This and other things that fit into the category of 'non-random'.

Cell-towers, for example, had been taken out in nearly every major city.  Even given the totality