Thankful Applause

Six and a half hours of work went down the drain faster than the two hours defrosting, many teaspoons of seasoning and hours cleaning guns or making sure Gwendolyn was put away. Nona had just taken the lid off the roaster to let the turkey cool only to hear little tinkling in the hall outside of her apartment. Gone was Nona for maybe two . . . three minutes. Normally the drug addicts dragged their zombie carcasses into her foyer to shoot up. Nona grabbed a broom on the way out.

Her home was a glorified rectangle trying to be a one bedroom, one bath apartment. An eight by ten-foot apartment opened into a kitchen-slash-dining area that took up one hole side of a room shaped like a backwards letter L. Her craft station for welding and handyman stuff took up the corner. The upright part of the Letter L was a living area. The three-quarter bathroom and foyer were across from the nude portraits of floating abs in her living room. A fairly modest abode for an old spinster living alone.

Old woman stood to the side of her door. She didn’t hear any incomprehensible screaming or the hydraulics of an epi-pen full of fentanyl. The Caucasian adjusted her grip on her broom. She counted to the count of three only to slam open the door. Someone crashed into her storage rack. Several creatures scattered for the hills leaving a kid way too young and way too clean to be living in the streets.

Nona stood about five foot two inches plus a hundred pounds soaking wet. Her messy, low bun had gray mingled with the ginger framing a wrinkled face. Downturned, blue eyes blinked in disbelief at the kid who was probably her polar opposite in every way possible. The kid’s hair was freaking green! Pale skin that would have looked perfect for a goth boy band compared to the sun spots splattered down her peaches and cream hands. Whatever was left of his polo shirt, chinos, loafers, and expensive blazer went through a shredder. Forget clothes being bought ripped, he came to the door and got ripped up.

Nona closed the outside door. She threw the broom up to catch it at the bristle end. She poked said stranger with the stick end of the broom. Was he alive? She tapped him the head and bolted. The stranger stirred. He stretched. He was five feet five inches tall. Nona huffed thinking, yeah, she could take this man in a fight. He didn’t have prosthetics or crazed look in those pink eyes. They went round in fear.

“Hold up! Don’t hurt me!” he begged for his life and curled into a ball, “Just take what you want man! Compsognathus ate my wallet, keys and phone alright?!”

Nona heaved a sigh.

“A Comp-soak-Nathan?” Nona rumbled, “Now what in Pumpkin Pie is a Comp-slog-whose-its and why would I want your . . . whatever? Who are you again?”

The young man pulled at his hair in anguish.

“A comp-sog-nay-thus . . . you know like in the book, Michael Craton wrote!” he said, “Except uh,”

“Ohhhh,” interrupted Nona.

She didn’t science very well but she read a lot of books to the cat her landlord hated.

“I-I-I I’m Pugnax,” he said, “I go to college at the university.”

Nona frowned.

“Boy, you look like a drugstore cowboy not a college educate,” Nona drawled.

“Hey! My Dad bought me that tuition!” he started but stood up to his full height. He steeped his fingers. One deep breath in. He started again, “Look, my homework ate my stuff and I need it back. It was for a modern art project.”

Nona narrowed her eyes.

“Modern art?” she professed.

“It’s for school! I was supposed to create something of life and I . . . I need to get it back. Did you see which Compsognathus ate my house keys?”

“. . .” Nona shook her head no.

A crash clattered across the kitchen. Nona threw open the inner foyer door and shuffled into the apartment. Little lizards about a foot tall and a yard long tore into a turkey Nona spent hours working on. Instead of shriek like a normal person, Nona cussed like a sailor. She launched over the couch and swung her broom down. The creatures scattered. Their claws on the tile mimicked the tinkling Nona heard in the vents. Several of them gobbled her turkey akin to rabid dogs. She swung her broom. They scattered like pigeons.

Ancient angered one gripped her weapon so hard her knuckles turned white.

“Your bastardy blink born buzzards!” Nona snapped.

Her hand shot out before the dino sensed her grip. Nona squared her stance. Hand around the dinosaur’s throat and kept swinging round and round. G-forces slowly divorced the head from the neck. Flocks of its brethren bore down on her. Scratches and bites. Yet the power of fury kept Nona focused.

“You know how long I worked for that turkey! Left-overs are the best part of Thanksgiving and you bastard buzzards wouldn’t know generosity if in it ripped your head off!” she screamed.

The body popped off in Nona’s grip. Artery blood rocketed it into the nearest wall. The Compsognathus tried to walk its death off. That’s when Nona noticed a Compsognathus wasn’t as impressive as her imagination lead it to be. Compsagnathus was maybe a yard long. Two thirds of that length was garter snake tail shoved up the derriere of a bird squished sideways. She opened her hand to find the head as narrow as a turkey skull ending in a crocodile muzzle . . . squished into a wedge shape. She leered at Pugnax. Pugnax raised his arms in surrender.

“Hey! Don’t look at me! I didn’t bring them in here!” the collegiate lamented with a clap of his hands.

Beep-beep-beep beep beep~ beep-beep-beep-beep.

WAH

GRAWR

A tsunami of pests smashed into Pugnax’s rib cage. Pugnax screamed bloody murder. The more Compsognathus he slapped off, the more climbed up until he was a running pile of feathered snake tails slapped by a broom in a desperate attempt to get them off. Nona stomped her foot. She threw down her broom and cupped her eyes to survey the situation. There was only one thing left to do.

Nona clapped her hands.

Beep-beep-beep beep beep~ beep-beep-beep-beep.

WAH

GRAWR

One dino’s belly glowed. It cried out. The flock surged forth. Nona shuffled sideways. She up ended the table. Multitudes crashed onto its surface. More ambled over the side to get to Nona. Yet the broom smashed into them before they could reach her. Pugnax yelled something incomprehensible.

The two ran to Nona’s bedroom in a flurry of swats and kicks. Compsognathus arms and legs got shut in the sliding doors. Squeals deafened the kitchen. Pugnax beat at the beasts again and again until one by one Compsognathus critters scraped their limbs out. The duo slammed their backs against the door and slid down for some semblance of respite.

Pugnax’s hair spiked in disarray akin to bat wings struggled in a net. His pants were holier than thou and his blazer barely covered his shirt ribbons. His complexion went from white as a Strigoi to striped in lacerations. Nona’s hair was coming out of its bun. Her dress had holes all over it. Her cardigan ate up in holes. Pugnax wiped tears from his eyes. Nona took a deep breath from through her nose. Air exhaled from parted lips.

Nona got up. She dusted herself off.

“FUCK!” yelled the old woman.

Nona started again.

“Okay Drugstore Cowboy,” said Nona, “I mean, Pugnax. Okay from the top. What are those blinker buzzards and how are you involved in them.”

“My Dad bought my way into this art school because he wanted me to get kicked out of the house.” Pugnax said, “He’s dating a sugar baby.”

“Whoa-whoa not that far back Cowboy,” Nona corrected, “Just before you got stuck in my foyer.”

“Oh . . . Sorry,” Pugnax ran a hand down his face looking as tired as Nona was old, “For modern art we were supposed to do an art project focused on life. So, a bunch of us got to together, bought a bunch of eggs, a bioengineering kit off some shady guy in the hallway.”

“You’re insane,” Nona judged.

“Hey! It’s modern art, if a guy can put his head up a cow’s rectum to experience being in the womb, a bunch of college kids can bring back the dinosaurs,” Pugnax tried to defend himself, “No big deal.”

That “No big deal” crashed another thing in Nona’s house. Amidst the unholy screeching, the angered attitudes and Compsagnathus tearing apart Nona’s prized turkey, it proved a disappointing deal. Pugnax hugged his knees to his head. Nona pulled on his arm.

“Come on Cowboy, get up.” Nona said, “You fucked up. Just get up, dust off, yell fuck, and restart.”

“How is THAT supposed to help!” Pugnax complained.

Nona stared a hole through the boy. She strode to her closet. The doors pitched open revealing several pistols and blunt instruments on the left door. The right door glowed in psychedelic colors. Nona threw her cardigan on the bed revealing muscles ripped into her lean figure. Her arms bulged when she pulled on the knob. Purple eyes popped open from inside the closet.

“Uh . . . ma’am,” Pugnax tried to speak up.

“My name is Nona, I’m a fourth deployed super soldier, retired from a corporate army.” She told him.

Pugnax gulped. Buff grandma was the only words coming to mind but she was reassembling a Morningstar mace and tossed it to him. Pugnax buckled under its weight.

“Oh yeah I forgot nanites enhance strength not gauge strength,” Nona stated, “You’re puny.”

“Hey! I-I exercise!” Pugnax stammered.

He flexed his biceps to demonstrate. Guy was so thin the only muscles he could pump up were a couple of foothills. Nona pumped one arm. Her biceps were a mountain range bulging with rivers of blood vessels and the little barcode on her shoulder. Pugnax slumped in defeat then remembered his homework.

“You don’t have any cats here, do you? I don’t want them eaten.” He exclaimed.

“Have you seen my closet,” Nona hinted.

She parted the clothes. What unfolded out of the closet was a tall, Amazonian Goddess . . . If Goddesses dressed in purple. Black banes swept to frame a face of half-closed, gray almond eyes. She had doll joints at the elbows. Boobs filled the upper half of her wasp-waist build. Purple hair fell to the top of her hips. Yet purple spotted ears poked out of the top of her head. Long spotted tail carried in a point. She leaned forward to rub her cheek against Nona’s. Pugnax’s circulation pooled into his nose. He bit back a squeal.

“Pugnax, this is Gwendolyn,” Nona said, “Gwendolyn this is Pugnax. Together, we are going to help him with his homework.”

“Yay!” Gwendolyn mewed.

“We are going to murder Modern Art!” she leered.

“Yay!” Gwendolyn cheered again unwary of what she just said.

Pugnax’s brain bluescreened. He wondered where did a spinster get a sex-bot for a housecat. On the other hand, why. Pugnax didn’t want to know why. Gwendolyn didn’t care she just started throwing everyone clothes instead.

“Nana,” Gwendolyn complained, “I already have clothes.”

“We’re fighting tiny dinosaurs,” Nona reminded her cat . . . cat-girl . . . pet robot. “I don’t want to ruin our good clothes and sweatshirts provide a semblance of protection.”

Pugnax didn’t know what to do. A Modern Art degree in this city was an expensive training in bullshitting. How was he going to Bologna Bard this to the teachers.

“Okay, I’m getting dressed over here. Gwendolyn you get dressed with your back to him. Cowboy, you get dressed with your back to her. Screw the dry-cleaning bill. Just wear the sweatshirt.” Nona bossed everyone around with her back to them.

Pugnax took a deep breath as he looked at the bright pink “#10 Grandmaster Grandma” sweatshirt. If he put this on, there would be no point of no return. His dignity and his pride hung in the balance until he pawed the back of his pants. His homework tried to shear off his butt. The point of no return never returned.

“Gwendolyn, do you have a pair of pants I could borrow?” he asked Nona’s Gwendolyn.

“Mrrr?”

“I need pants or a stapler,” he trailed off.

“Sure! Here!” Gwendolyn purred.

She threw a pair of pants over his shoulder. Pugnax turned to thank her only to be bombarded with naked legs and Gwendolyn’s leopard print panties. Pugnax turned around quick. No one had time to correct the situation of the wardrobe. He was just lucky her “I’m a Classic” purple sweatshirt was large enough to end mid-thigh on her bod.

Nona threw Gwendolyn a pair of pants.

“Confound it Gwendolyn, we’re fighting prehistoric chickens. Get your legs protected.”

#

The Compsognathus flock formed a tower of themselves to the ceiling grate wobbling back and forth from the bottom to the top. A knife bared in their little claws and wrists that don’t bend coupled to hands without thumbs. The bottom dino chased his tail prompting the tower to slowly spin. The knife started unscrewing the last screw. Little by little the hundreds of Compsognathus battered against the grate, enough to take over the whole building. Yet one headless body in the corner was stuck in the sink. The gravy boat filled with blood. Commander clapper belly hid behind all its compatriots, barking orders in a series of clicks and whistles from the back.

Applause erupted from the bedroom.

Beep-beep-beep beep beep~ beep-beep-beep-beep.

“WAH!” cried Commander Clapper Belly.

All available hands abandoned ship to attack the door. The grate fell out flooding tens more into the tiny kitchen. The door slammed open. Hammer smacked across wedged skulls. Pugnax had not the strength to smack a prehistoric bird-goblin into jelly. A blunt instrument didn’t need as much precision as a knife. Gwendolyn’s eyes lit with flames at her good cookery spread across the floor. She dropped her broom and went straight for the cleaver.

Slash sideways. Slash the other way. Nona swung down the middle. Her sword hand snaked back to thrust. Compsognathus were monster fodder for the madwoman. What the dinos lacked in poison they made up for in sheer numbers ambushing the old woman. Teeth and claws scratched at head and arms.

“Duck! Nona!” yelled Pugnax.

He swung his hammer. The beasts splattered among the scattered. Nona double backed around the couch. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the pistol. Her hand gripped high on the tang. Other hand wrapped around the firearm slotting one thumb into another. Her trigger finger turned off the safety. She said a prayer. Pugnax ducked out of the way.

Blam!

Blam!

Gunpowder and buckshot scattered the Compsognathus too unlucky to dodge Nona’s sight. Pugnax winced from the bang. Green eyes boggled in his skull.

“You brought a gun?!” Pugnax screamed.

“Bring overkill into a knife fight,” Nona cackled, “Chew on this BUZZARDS”

She emptied an entire magazine into the mob. The clip fell out of the end of the handle. Nona jammed another magazine into the gun.

Meanwhile, Gwendolyn scurried behind the mob with barbed wire and car batteries. She stifled her giggles. A scoot in the wrong direction had Gwendolyn jumping over dinosaurs. Her tail puffed out in alarm as she almost got caught.

Commander Clapper-belly zeroed in on Gwendolyn. He dove for her face. Pugnax gasped. He clapped his hands as loud as he could. The resonating beeps followed Commander Clapper-belly. Its personal mob ganged up on Pugnax in a maelstrom of clawed fury. Nona switched places. Barbed wire hooked up to the car batteries. The circuit left open in the middle between them and the exit. Nona whistled for Gwendolyn and Pugnax. Pugnax ran, throwing off lizards who squirmed all over him. Their teeth gnawing on his borrowed outfit. Nona yanked the two inside. The Foyer door slammed shut. She shut the outside door to her apartment for good measure too.

“Uh . . . Nona,” Pugnax gulped, “Did . . . uh . . . Did you just let my homework kick us out of your house?

“Yup,” Nona agreed, the puh sound popped on her lips.

Pugnax was covered in scratches. He wiped his cheek only to smear more blood on his cheek. Nona, for some odd reason, was slowly healing from the many bite wounds she received. Her skin cells each flipped over as the nanites racing through her DNA did their work to stitch her back up underneath the blood smearing her clothes. Pugnax guessed most of that blood was not hers.

Gwendolyn’s ears pricked forward, wiggled to and fro at the various ticks and tocks going on. She saw glowing eyes in the foyer vent. Like a good kitty she smashed their hands. Compsognathus ran off sucking on hurt fingers. With Gwendolyn’s six-foot-tall height, batting at buzzards was merely a game. Nona passed her a piece of wood and a set of nails. She hammered the board over the grate effectively blocking their exit.

All that was left . . . was the foyer.

Nona started clapping her hands. Pugnax blinked his eyes. He would have rubbed them in disbelief if they weren’t so dirty. Gwendolyn clapped along as happy as clam. She didn’t know what the hell was going on. She was delighted to include herself. Nona elbowed Pugnax. Pugnax went oomph!

“Hey, come on cowboy,” Nona said. “Let’s give a round of applause.”

“Those monsters nearly killed you!” Pugnax yelled.

Nona shrugged. She elbowed him again in a friendly manor but her bony elbows hurt.

“Have you ever noticed the commander of Compsagnathus hid behind everyone and let its friends do the fighting for it?” Nona pointed out, “It happened every time your house key’s clapper went off.”

Pugnax took a deep breath through his nose. He couldn’t believe what he was doing and he was the Modern Art student. Sometimes Modern Art was a heaping helping of half What the Fuck with a smidge of bologna barding and half philosophy. Nona seemed to have no connection until the dinosaurs attacked.

Compsognathus wailed in pain as more and more troops got tossed at a perpetual circuit between two lethal batteries. Nona took a break to light a cigar. The lighter lit deep frown lines around her eyes and lips. Cracked lips puffed away on the wrapped nicotine. The turned off lighter got tossed onto a shelf. She blew smoke out her nose. Pugnax and Gwendolyn’s applause were background noise to the cries of dinosaurs thrown to electrocution.

“Thanksgiving, a time of harvest,” Nona said, she strode in. Hands behind her back. Cigar smoke trailed above.

The foyer doors slid open with a whoosh. Nona stepped over the decimated Compsagnathus who dirtied their floor with their blackened, fricasseed corpses. The Compsognathus remaining scattered every which way to escape a calm, quiet Nona. She glared at the remains of her precious turkey.

“We give thanks for what our harvest gives us,” she stated, “Even if it’s harvested from a garden or lobed out of the frozen foods section of my favorite grocery store.”

Nona clapped her hands. Commander Clapper-belly’s tummy glowed with every beep. Yet everyone on its side ran away, straight into Gwendolyn’s awaiting gunny sack much to their horror. Nona snapped her fingers. The robot cat-girl scurried around hanging a clothesline tied from the top shelf of the storage rack next to Nona’s computer (that survived) and the bookshelf catty corner next to the living space.

Her hand shot out faster than his eyes could follow. Commander Clapper-belly cried, screamed, and struggled in Nona’s grip. She handed it to Gwendolyn. Gwendolyn hung Commander Clapper-belly upside down on the clothing line by his feet. He and his remain troops hung helplessly like prisoners of war before a shooting range.

“No one the hell should have messed with what I was thankful for,” Nona glowered. The cigar went from one side of the mouth to the other. “And if you start the fight. You finish even if you lose.”

Nona flipped the knife around. She held the handle out to Pugnax. Pugnax’s eyes widened. His gaze switched between the knife and the remaining Compsognathus he created. A thousand doubts clambered in his head. They got louder as his hand curled around the handle. It was one thing to breed an animal. It was another to remember how close death was at hand. Old spinster Nona pointed to the remaining Compsagnathus. Little monsters created on a shoestring budget in a world where getting god complex tech was cheap and easy.

‘No one ever told me taking a life is so physical,’ Pugnax thought as he gulped.

He started on the Compsognathus on the far side from Commando Clapper Belly. Pugnax held the creature’s head in his free hand. He squeezed his eyes shut. He sawed at the neck back and forth, back and forth. The serrated blade sawed into flesh and bone. Too soon the arteries sprayed. Pugnax gasped. Sticky liquid squirted out. Some of it landed in his mouth.

He gagged and gagged . . . and gagged.

“Again, Cowboy,” Nona scolded, “Slice hard. Slice fast. You actually kill more mercifully if you make it efficient. Like this.”

Nona borrowed the blade. She held the head. She slashed sideways. The head popped off. Blood sprayed to the floor, the disembodied carcass struggled to its last. Commander Clapper Belly watched in horror as its own creator practiced kills on its fellow beasts one . . . by . . . one until they came . . . to it.

By the time Pugnax made it to the last of his homework, the light in his eyes died inside. His lips steeled into a determined frown. Hand adjusted its grip on the blade. Pugnax looked him in the eye. His hands closed around his creation’s head.

“I’m sorry,” Pugnax choked out.

He brought his arm up until his knife hand was level with his ear. His heart pounded inside his head. Blood rushed to his face. Nostrils flared. He licked his dry lips. He didn’t know why it was so hard. He could see the torso rise and fall in teeny breaths. It couldn’t be the fact he had never butchered an animal before. Or maybe it could be the fact he never butchered an animal before. Servants usually made Thanksgiving Dinner at his Dad’s house. The closest he came to cooking was boiling water for cup noodles.

Then his brain asked him, what about his diet. Well, can’t say much. He never cooked before.

“I’m going to need my keys back,” he said and with one whack it was over.

Clapper-Belly’s head fell to the floor.

#

Nona was still a wee bit bitter at having her turkey ruined by knock off Dinosaur Park. Luckily a Compsognathus was still a bird, even a very reptilian looking bird. Much of the same things used to prepare poultry could be used on a Compsognathus. Pugnax did make a lot of those things.

The kitchen got scrubbed from top to bottom. The side dishes, like the pies, the sweet potatoes, the vegetables and casseroles were no worse for wear. Only problem was what to do with Pugnax. He looked like he got traumatized and hadn’t even fought in a war yet. Tears welled in his eyes. The very thing he put work into was now getting shredded and put into barbecue sauce for a pulled meat sandwich as if, the less he wanted to see any resemblance of his art, the better.

Nona flicked ash off of her cigar into the ash tray. She offered a comforting hand on his shoulder yet what could someone say to a kid who played mad scientist. He wasn’t Dr. Moreau. He cloned creatures. Yet was it any different than raising a lamb to be butchered.

“I’m sorry about your . . . Turkey,” Pugnax tried to find the right words, “I didn’t know I was playing God.”

“No, you were being retarded,” Nona said point blank. “Life needs a purpose. God gives people a purpose even if people don’t believe in God.”

Pugnax tried to smile through his tears. He just raised an animal only for it to wind up in a crockpot. It wasn’t too far off.

“That’s an insult to retards,” he said.

“No retarded is as retarded does,” Nona debated, “Though I guess we are supposed to call that “disabled” nowadays and it rubs me the wrong way to call kids that. Let’s agree to disagree. Can you call home?”

“My Dad kicked me out of the house,” Pugnax said, “He told me not to come back until I made a thousand creds.”

“His loss.” Nona shrugged. She shouted over her shoulder. “Gwendolyn! Put one more plate at the table please and get that darn thing out of your mouth.”

Gwendolyn eyed her master with a piece of electrocuted Compsagnathus tail hanging out of her mouth. She ran to get the plates. Pugnax did his best not to stare at where her sweatshirt ripped. Nona had on her apron that was covered in various bikini babes.

“Okay! But can I keep it.” Gwendolyn begged.

Nona stared a hole through Gwendolyn. Her eyes narrowed as Gwendolyn’s lower lip stuck out. She through the last of the mess in the trash. The trio sat around the table to a Thanksgiving dinner of the usual fixings accessorized by Compsognathus meat sandwiches. The taste was hard to wrap a tongue around. Red meat akin to an ostrich, white meat like poultry, but uniquely hinted with gator. Gwendolyn couldn’t eat but liked to gnaw on the bones. The end of her tail hid a plugin that plugged into the nearest outlet. Nona wasn’t one for conversation. That was okay. It got Pugnax to process his emotions when he realized, yeah, it’s okay to be thankful, just don’t play God.

After all the ups and the downs make the thank yous all the more lovely.