TRANSCRIPTION OF AUDIO
DOCUMENT CONFISCATED FROM
Dr. Jordan Johnson

(Recording begins) This is Dr. Jordan Johnson recording in Searchlight, Nevada, on (DATE CENSORED). My team and I have been called in during the midst of a media flurry currently taking place because of a strange animal attack in the Mojave Desert. If that wasn't enough, they've discovered an enormous hole in the middle of the desert, and the first person to be lowered into the hole was killed on camera by something we've never seen before. I'm at the end of my rope here. The heat and the confusion are starting to get to me. Pebbles grinding under my feet all the time, making my skin crawl. I am constantly caked in sweat, and we have fewer answers than we did before the team was assembled.

A pregnant woman and her little boy were ripped to shreds behind a gas station by what the storeowner identified as two bipedal lizards. The animal's tracks confirm that it walks upright, but they also confirm that it walked upright some three or four miles into the desert to where the hole was discovered. The owner of the service station maintains that the animals walked exclusively on their hind legs "like dinosaurs." Of the known bipedal lizards, such as the basilisk, the zebra-tailed lizard (Callisaurus draconoides, which is native to Nevada), and the spiny-footed lizard (Acanthodactylus erythrurus) to name a few, none of these exhibit the capacity for such a hind-leg trek. Even if they did, lizards known to attack humans such as the Komodo dragon and the Gila monster have never been reported to tear fetuses from the wombs of expecting mothers. Aside from all that, none of the native reptile species match the descriptions given or the footprints discovered. When shown photographs of local lizards such as the zebra-tail and the chuckwalla, the store owner waved them away in frustration and continued to describe something that sounded more like an animal that has long been extinct.

I've become increasingly distant from the ordeal. Smell of urine and body odor seems constant. I've worked in similar conditions numerous times before, but for whatever reason, my life force is being rapidly sapped. Everything out here looks as if it's shrouded in gasoline fumes.

Several herpetologists have arrived and are gathering data like a couple of Hardy boys. They mumble at the dirt and nod their heads stoically at one another as if speaking a language that only they can comprehend, squinting and sneering from somewhere within their long beards. They may as well smell individual grains of sand and come to a conclusion. From within the hole, some twenty feet across, we've heard all sorts of sounds. Chirping, buzzing, screaming, crying, and of course laughter. Always laughter. The team stands around hearing all this and discusses a game plan as if what we're hearing makes any sense at all. I don't think I'm going to go home after this.

The gas station owner who was selling glimpses of his exotic lizards keeps describing whatever attacked those people, and his description becomes more fantastic each time.

"It has a kind of beak," he says. "It had some kind of bone on its head, like a crest or something." He puts his hand, fingers together and pointed straight up, on top of his head, mimicking the animal's alleged headsail.

The herpetologists murmur to one another, and I overhear one of them as he says, "Tracks and description are in keeping with some kind of oviraptorid." The other specialist nods solemnly, running his fingers through his beard.

"Beg your pardon?" I interject. "Begging your pardon, Mr. specialist, Sir, but did you just say oviraptorid? As in oviraptor? As in dinosaur?"

"That's right," he replies plainly. "The oviraptor. The egg seizer. Or perhaps his cousin the citipati."

"Or, I don't know," I muse, pinching my chin in a gesture of mocking thoughtfulness. "A Cassowary bird? Or how about an albino kangaroo or a dodo bird? Or wait!" I cry out, grabbing him by the shoulders. "It was probably the chupacabra! Check the goats!" I start scrambling around in the sand, as if foraging for goats. Standing over me, the herpetologist remains static and seemingly unamused. My search in the sand slows; I drop my head in despair.

"Wait," I sob mockingly. "There's a big problem."

"Doctor..." The herpetologist interjects.

"The problem is this..."

"I understand what you are getting at."

"Oh, excellent!" I cheer, clapping my hands together. Sand blows in my eyes and mouth, and I spend a few moments spitting everywhere then say, "I was afraid you didn't get it."

"Occam's razor states that—"

"I know what Occam's razor states," I interrupt venomously.

"Well, Sir, my colleague and I are simply asserting that the gentleman's description, coupled with the animal's tracks, points most conclusively at this point to a species of oviraptorid dinosaur."

"Oooooh!" I sigh, relieved. "I thought it was something crazy. My bad."

"They don't talk, right?" the storeowner suddenly asks.

"Not in a way that makes sense," I answer, gesturing helplessly at the herpetologists.

"Not the scientists," he laughs. "The egg stealers. The ovirappers."

"Oviraptors," the specialist corrects him.

"Whatever," he barks, shaking his head as if frustrated with both of us. "They don't talk, do they?" he asks again, this time like it's a rhetorical question. The herpetologist squints at him, possibly suspecting more mockery, then looks to the other scientist and back at the storeowner again.

"They did not."

"Okay, well these things did," he blurts matter-of-factly, and nods, looking to all three of us like a new hypothesis is soon to follow.

A moment passes and the herpetologist finally asks, with genuine apprehension: "Perhaps you're mistaken?"

"No sir." He shakes his head at the sand. "It definitely talked. Both of them did. Made jokes with each other."

I turn and walk away. Back at the mouth of the hole, the chief of police is making preparations to join a second team being lowered into the cave.

"What is it, Doc?" he asks without looking at me as he's assembling some firearm.

"Sir, I'm not sure how much good a lot of us are doing out here."

"You and me both." He grunts.

"The witness is going on about talking dinosaurs, and the reptile experts are listening to it." My voice trails off as I stop to rub the sweat from my eyes.

"Well, that ain't good," he sighs. "That's what the other witness said as well."

"What other witness?"

"The one who blew his own brains out on his web cam before we could ask him anything."

"Blew his brains out?" I murmur to myself, confused. "I'm sorry, wait, what is it that he said?"

The chief looks at me for the first time.

"That the animals talked."