Dinosaur Lake 3: Infestation by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

yet. He’s been busy. But I’ll be telling him
tonight, if I see him.
    “Would you like a bowl of that stew I brought over
before I go? I can warm it up, along with some biscuits, for you?” She couldn’t
stay long. She needed to get back home. The park was dangerous enough when the
sun was shining and Henry was going to be irritated enough at her for leaving
in the first place. Best to get home quick. In the daylight.
    “Stew sounds good. I am kind of hungry now that you
mention it. Thanks, Ann, you’re an angel.”
    Yeah, and she’d be an angel for real if Henry
caught her out gallivanting around like this.
    She heated the stew and biscuits in the microwave,
served it to Zeke, told him to call her if he needed her again, then saying
goodbye, she left.
    Not looking forward to reentering the park, but there
was no other way to get home. She’d just drive through fast. Not slow down or
stop for anything. If one of those little monsters were in the middle of the
road, this time she’d run the thing down before she’d stop. Make dinosaur jam
of it. See if she cared. Maybe she’d make it to the cabin without any more incidents.
    She could hope, couldn’t she?
     
    *****
     
    Zeke was sad when Ann drove away. He felt better
when she was around. The loneliness that had taken hold of him the last year
was always assuaged when she was with him. He looked up when he heard the
chattering outside the kitchen window. One of his squirrels, the baby one, was
sitting outside, talking to him.
    Oh, he knew what it wanted. The peanuts he threw
out to them every morning in the back yard. He had a family of the critters
that had taken to showing up every day and he’d feed them peanuts or pieces of
fruit. The baby one at the window was the friendliest of the lot. It didn’t
seem to be afraid of him at all. He moved to the window and tapped the glass on
his side. The squirrel kept chattering at him and put its paws up against the
glass. Come out. Come out. Feed me.
    Imagine, he thought to himself as he took the bag
of peanuts from the lower cabinet and hobbled towards the rear porch, if
someone would have told him even five years ago that someday he’d be so desperate
for entertainment or companionship, of any kind, he’d befriend a bunch of
fluffy-tailed rats, he would have laughed his head off. Now here he was.
Squirrel daddy. And tickled pink to be. At least it gave him something to do.
Something to care about. Something to love.
    He took the bag and shuffled out to the porch, then
out into the yard. His back wasn’t hurting too much so he carefully made his
way down the lawn to the spot, beneath a towering oak tree at the end of his
property, where the squirrels gathered and liked to eat the treats he gave them
each day. The tree was on the perimeter of the modest woodlands that encircled
Klamath Falls. It was one of the reasons he’d bought the house years before. It
had trees behind it. Made him feel as if he were out in the country somewhere instead
of in the heart of town.
    Sure hot today, he fussed, as he tossed the peanuts
on the ground below and around the oak tree. Sweat was already trickling down
his neck and under his shirt. It made him itch.
    “Ah, there you are, little buddy.” He chortled,
spying the baby squirrel bouncing across the grass towards him. “I knew if I
put out the bait, you’d be here to collect it.” The squirrel darted up to Zeke
and let him hand feed him the peanuts. He even grabbed up with his paws to
grasp them and stuff them into his mouth. Tame little beggar.
    By then there was a mess of the fluffy-tailed rats cautiously
emerging from among the trees and bushes to snatch the peanuts. Most of them
stayed far away from him, but some ventured nearer, unafraid of the human
they’d become accustomed to.
    Zeke looked up at the sweltering sun and the blue
sky, breathed in the warm air full of the scents of summer. Freshly mowed grass
and dirt. Memories of when he was a child and used to run