Later that evening, Officer Rubble is playing Clock Solitaire from his booth at the west end of Flagstone. After losing last night's poker game, he got stuck with tonight’s patrol. Great, just great, that means leftovers for dinner again. He grumbles as he draws his next card.

“Dang!” Officer Rubble slaps the fourth King onto the table.

Coincidentally this marks the fourth time in a row he blew it. When his son showed him how to play, he made it look so easy…

Officer Rubble shuffles back in his cards and gets ready to try again. The third time wasn’t the charm, or the fourth, but maybe the fifth…

*POOOMF* *POOOMF*

*CRAAAAAACK*

*SNAAAAAP* Nature is sounding awfully unnatural right now, even by Flagstone standards.

Officer Rubble whips out his flashlight and looks outside his window. He can’t make anything out…

*BBBRRRRSSSSH* …but he feels the ground shake beneath his feet. The bike outside the booth even topples over.

Officer Rubble hops on his trusty bike and rides towards the sound. He puts the pedal to the metal as he follows the echoes of the commotion that grow louder until he’s practically right on top of it. Then, the sounds suddenly cut off as he rests at the top of Seaworthy River. He holds an ear to the left and then to the right, nothing.

He drifts the flashlight blankly across the ravine. Officer Rubble chuckles. The weather report said they’d be in for-

*KAAAAAAAAA-POOOOOOOOWWWWW* A violent typhoon erupts across the landscape!

The startled Officer Rubble is sent careening and rolling all the way down to the bottom of the hill. From the right angle, it almost looks like the bike is riding him. Picking up more and more momentum, he slides right into a slick ramp of mud and goes airborne!

While in the air, several, several feet in the air, he prays for mercy as his face gets closer and closer to the ground. He crashes through numerous thick branches, which are just enough to break his fall. Officer Rubble clasps onto a firm branch. He breathes a sigh of relief, but the moment he does, it snaps, and he lands ass first in a bush.

Officer Rubble pops out and brushes the leaves off his big nose. He knocks on his flashlight, flips it back on, and heads deeper into the woods. Poking around trees, his jaw drops when he finally gets the answer to the earlier commotion. It’s the bloody, battered carcass of a Baryonyx…

…and a robed figure with a skull helmet…

‘IT CAN’T BE! OL’ MUDSNAPPER?’ Alarm bells go off in Officer Rubble’s mind. Rightfully so, Mudsnapper is one of the local riff-raffs known to terrorize any townspeople or even fellow dinos that wander too far from home.

Clearly, this poor, poor traveler must have befallen an unwelcome encounter with the brute! Whatever the circumstances, it might as well be a public service that Mudsnapper stays down for the count.

Officer Rubble rushes in. “Are you ok, Sir? Madam? Umm….” He sees a long lizard tail twirling from the back of the figure’s cloak.

They do not respond as rain droplets drip from the skull helmet.

‘...I need to lay off the sauce…’ Officer Rubble turns away to inspect the woods ahead of them, just in time for a large tree to crash to the ground.

Many, many shattered trees line the area around them. Some are even stuck on the branches of other busted trees! Oddly enough, most of the impromptu deforestation rests in the direction right where they are standing. Odd indeed.

“What did you do? Threw ’em through the forest like a football?” Officer Rubble jokes as he adjusts his hat.

The figure isn’t laughing.

Officer Rubble coughs awkwardly and carries on. Being an “excellent” sleuth, he postulates with what few functioning synapses his brain has left the following theory:

Mudsnapper must have chased this poor, poor “whoever this person is” through the woods, tripped, and crashed through the brush!

One problem with this theory…is the unusually beaten body. Officer Rubble brushes it off. Mudsnapper is always getting into scuffles. He could’ve easily been roughed up from an earlier encounter before harassing this poor, poor “whoever this person is”.

Officer Rubble pats the figure on the shoulder. “You’re safe now! Mudsnapper won’t be waking up from that!” Then he looks down…

The figure is not responding to him at all, but they are driving their foot deep into Mudsnapper’s nape. Only stopping after a faint pop. More blood spews out of the dino’s mouth to the sounds of rainfall as it patters on the grass.

“...or that either, I suppose…” Officer Rubble looks around and luckily locates his bike!

He eagerly waltzes over to retrieve it. “...there’s a station nearby, I think? Anyway, we’ll fill out some paperwork. Run a psychiatric evaluation. Blah. Blah. Standard procedure.”

Officer Rubble takes a single pedal forward. “Then you can be on your way-”

*URF* *MMMMMFFFFFMMMM* *MMMMMMMPPPHHHFFF* The tail of the figure yanks Officer Rubble by the head right off the seat!

Officer Rubble desperately claws against the tail as it holds him high above. He can’t breathe. It’s getting tighter. He feels his round nose is going flatter than a pancake. Officer Rubble is going numb. Clawing with fading desperation, his palms grate in vain against the scaly ridges of the tail.

A nearby and curious avian watching from afar swoops in for a closer look.

Officer Rubble thinks that instead of wasting precious time clawing, there’s a small sliver of hope that if he simply pushes up under the tail, then-

*CRRRUUUUUUUUUNCH*

-he goes limp, blood dripping down the side of his arms, down to his feet, and mixing in with the rain puddles forming below.

The figure had caved his entire head in so intensely that the rest of Officer Rubble’s lower body eventually slumps to the ground on its own. The tail releases the leftover slop of what was once his face sans eyeball onto the soaking grass.

The figure tickles the underbeak of their faithful Vulture companion. “...eat…” Their voice is low and is carried by the wind.

The Vulture grins and happily complies, feeding on fresh mangled flesh. More shadows that were lying in the reeds emerge. Hands reach for the corpse of Officer Rubble.

“...leave it…” The figure hisses, and the shadowy companions back off.

After a blood gargling belch, the Vulture retakes perch on the shoulder of her master.

These tourists have taken an interest in the small town of Flagstone, but not for any rest and relaxation. They are on the job, and they take their jobs very seriously. They have lost property, and they have come to collect.

The master will take back what is theirs. Even if they have to one body at a time. The group makes their exit. To keep things nice and clean, the figure punches through an oak tree. Tumbling down, it splats ever so snugly on the corpse of Officer Rubble and the downed Mudsnapper. After all, you never know who else might be snooping around in the woods on a night like this.

The figure picks up the loose eyeball of the fallen lawman, tossing it up and down like a child.

Poor, poor Officer Rubble, surely he died valiantly going toe-to-toe with 3,700 pounds of predator!

The figure chews on and swallows the eyeball. Then, with the Vulture, they cackle together in harmony.

-CHAPTER END-

-SET IN STONE-