A Shattering Sound
"Careful, the sediment isn't loose enough around the edge of the radial joint." Craig was grasping the lip of a make-shift tent, merely canvas and sagging heavily from rain.
"I know, just hold on while I dust out this section, then we can place and pin the tarps. How's the rain coming?" Doctor Rhene felt the edges of the fossilized bone at his fingertips, judging where fossil ended and sedimentary rock began. He was wasting time, mulling around in his head. They both squat between the steep banks of a long-silent river, storm clouds looming over them. A sound of thunder was rattling the dust around them. While they were planted in the valley, they intended on successfully discovering and uncovering the recent dig they sent out on. This rain wasn't allowing for much success yet, though.
"Can we get a move on? My arms are killing me, and we haven't even tarped down yet." Craig was very slowly lowering his arms, the tent beginning to stream pooled water down into their 4'x4' dig site. Rhene felt his backside getting wet where he sat, and shouted, standing upright and stomping out of the site, yanking out the tarp and pinning from his pack.
"Whatever, just give me a hand, then."
From their typical proximity, they could hardly tell what the fossils where telling them. A few things were submitted: due to the location in the bed of the ravine, but the lack of aquatic fossils in a similar shallowness, this creature did not drown. It must have died after the river had dried and even after the nutrients had slagged off; Rhene figured as much from the quartz-like structure encasing some of the bones. The sand which this creature stood on must have been super-heated somehow. Sunlight can't cause such heat, so they suspected lightning.
The area in question was prone to sporadic lightning storms, so much so that it had become inhabitable. As they took time to pin the tarp down ever few inches, limiting the possibility of a landslide wash-away, the two of them could smell the ozone, increasingly pungent.
The two of them weren't exactly worried about the lightening.
Rhene stood up, Craig putting the finishing touches on their tarp. The rain began to increase only slightly, a horizontal mist turning into fewer big wet drops on their brows. Craig took a bandana to his face, wiping the sweat away before the salty drops hit his eyes.
"Lunch?" Craig offered, the two of them lifting out of the small ditch they had dug. Rhene shrugged and took some beginning steps toward the ladder which led to their camp.
"I think we have our hands on something, I really do. You don't find five-fingered and five-toed biped every day." Craig was trying to lift the mood, hoping that he hadn't annoyed the boss to such an extent that it left the rest of the day as tense as the upper-atmosphere.
"Let's get going, I have to finish the reports from last dig. You can eat if you want." Rhene muttered back, dusting his knees off as he dismounted the ladder, walking to the cramped camper, and shutting the door behind him.
With sand everywhere, his hair, and boots, and underwear, Craig would have really enjoyed a shower-- but the water was only turned on for exterior bathing from the inside. He was not about to intrude once more. He grieved for his hygiene today, feeling like a cat sleeping in its litterbox. Either way, food was in order. The tented grill was perfect for a few hot dogs out of the outdoor cooler, and so he tossed on several.
Once again, the almost acrid scent of ozone fell with a fury around him. Humidity was turning the area into something more like a swamp than a desert. Nearby dunes and hills stilled as rain pelted them in the distance. Something else was in the distance, dancing closer.
"Log five-four-nine: today we uncovered the dig, but only revealed 12% more than the previous day. It is 11:34am and we're closing up shop. I suspect that Mister Craig is growing tired with his internship." A crack of thunder caused him to pause, an impatient look on his face, wanting to finish the report. He continued, lightning fluttering at the back window. More thunder, and something like a bird caw remained at the back of his mind. "Reminder: contact Jeff about future interns being women."
Craig was running now, shouting for help, almost comically around the camper. Lightening had made leaps and bounds, dancing along the dunes toward him and the dig. In a panic, he falls the eight feet into the ravine. For a moment, it seemed that the rain had stopped falling, sunlight shining on his face, as the lightning approached. This isn't to say that the lightening had a human-like demeanor, because before Craig could right himself to run, the lightning had passed through him and dissipated.
For about an hour of silence, and the increasing stench of burning hotdogs, Rhene finally exited his shell to find smoke pluming around the briquettes on the grill. His expression held back fury. He didn't want to make a trip back to the city so soon just for food. His eyes searched for Craig. "This is bullshit."
Another smell overcame him, beneath the burning pig-meat was a similar burn. It raised his appetite to the point of wishing that the hot dogs were still edible. His nose searched, and brought him to the lip of the ravine, peering down to see a burnt ladder. There lay Craig.
His hair, and boots were all that was still in tact, other than his bones. There hung some meat from them as well, but that was not the focal point. Adorning is splayed form were the dangling ornaments of glass where hair was. A crown of fibers and crystalline glass strands cooled under the delicate rainfall.
The true amazement in Rhene's eyes was in response to the man's boots, planted flat on the ground, and upright, as if inclined to walk. His ankle bones were shattered, along with the midway point of his shinbone. Through the soles of the boots were holes and rips, where glass shards had jutted out during such a heated episode.
Rhene assessed the situation, figured there was no point to check for a pulse, and turned his back to what remained of the corpse. His phone was already dialed, calling Jeff: "Jeff. I'm going to need another intern.... Yea, it happened again. Oh, by the way, let's make it a woman this time." He continued on the phone, casually striding into the camper. "Oh, I think a blond would be lovely."
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