Lanterna Rally

Author: Wayne Kyle Spitzer

Publisher: Hobb's End Books

Published: 2022-07-29

Total Pages: 652

ISBN-13:

Dark, nuanced, and sometimes twisted dinosaur stories for adults ... From Terrible Lizards: “Don’t thing I haven’t noticed it,” she said, slurring slightly, and added, “I see the way you look at me.” I uncorked the bottle and filled my glass. “You’re a very beautiful woman,” I said—and sat the bottle between us—too hard, I think. “And a talented one. What would you expect?” I watched as she shimmied and did a little pirouette. “And I’m enjoying the conversation—more than you could know. You move beautifully, by the way. Like a cat.” And then she attempted to spin again but only stumbled suddenly and fell smack into my arms; at which we just looked at each other, she with her boozy, breezy smile and me with an apparent moral dilemma: i.e., should I make a pass at her, like I wanted to, or should I just put her into bed and tuck her away safe (as though she were a simpleton, perhaps, or even a child) like, say, John-Boy Walton might. A dilemma I answered by taking her head in my hands and kissing her—heatedly, hot-bloodedly, restlessly—what a friend of mine used to call a “come fuck me” kiss; because she was no child. And I was no John-Boy. And then we went to her room and lay together; drunkenly, sloppily, unspectacularly, and after a while, I dreamed: of lightning permeating everything and rain pounding the roof like nails, like hail; of wives and friends and girlfriends and my father—most of whom I hadn’t seen in years; of small, predatory dinosaurs, deinonychuses, with dark skin and wet backs—who held vigil around our bed like cultists, like priests, and who trilled, softly, faintly, as though they were meditating. As though they were communing.