(sorry for the 4 month hiatus, I was extremely preoccupied, and forgot to continue the series, previous installment for in case you forgot what was going on)
Told from the perspective of Scout Richard
"So are we heading to the house dad?" My brother asked.
"Soon son, but I want to get a map of the town, and the park, plus some firewood if they have it. There should be a souvenir shop around here, at least there was when I was a kid... ah ha, here it is".
We pulled up to a small shop called "The Trading Post, Souvenir and Ice Cream shop." Upon getting out, I realized just how cold Alaska truly was. I felt a cool breeze run across my face and my body get cold, very different to the climate of Florida I grew up in.
We walked inside, there was no one in the store aside from a young man who was at the cash register.
"hello, how can I help you?" The man said.
"I'd like to buy a map of the town, and some firewood," my dad replied.
"Firewood is outback, maps are free and should be right here... oh wait, it appears I'm out, but that's okay, there should be some in the back, if I can find them." The man said.
He began looking around for the maps, but clearly he had no idea where they were.
"you need some help?" my dad said.
"I would appreciate it," the man replied.
"By the way, I never introduced myself, Lewis Richard, and this is my daughter Scout," my dad said as we both walked into the back room to search through boxes for these missing maps.
"Gray Brown," the man said.
"you don't know where your own maps are in your own store?" My dad asked Gray.
"Oh this isn't my store, this is just a "summer" job to earn some extra bucks while I'm in Richard's landing. I'm actually an intern up from the University of Alaska Fairbanks who is working in Denali." Gray told us.
"What kind of work?" I asked.
"Paleontology, Denali National Park is home to the Cantwell Formation, a geological formation preserving many ichnofossils from the Cretaceous," Gray replied.
"Ichnofossils?" I asked.
"Footprints, many fossilized footprints of dinosaurs have been found here," Gray responded.
As we continued looking for the maps, I came across another room.
"hey, could the maps be in here?" I asked as I walked into the room. Much to my surprise I saw some sort of submersible in the room, like one of those ROVs scientists use to explore the ocean remotely. On the wall there was a map of Richard's Landing and Denali, with all the lakes marked.
"HEY! what are you doing here?!" Gray shouted pulling me out of the room.
"sorry," I said.
"It's fine, just don't go in there again, anyway, me and your father found the maps," He said.
"So how long are you folks in Richard's Landing for?" Gray asked.
"We're moving here, I'm a park ranger and I was originally stationed in the Everglades, but now I've been transferred up here by the park service," my dad replied.
"Ah well I'll see you around," Gray said.
"hey one question for you before we go, you say that footprints from dinosaurs have been found up here, but have any other remains been found, like actual body fossils?" I asked.
"Historically no, but I'm about to change that," Gray replied with excitement. He reached into a cabinet and pulled out a fossilized claw.
"I found this beauty while driving through the park yesterday, it's the claw of a Therizinosaurid, and herbivorous distant cousin of the Velociraptor with massive claws. We've found footprints of Therizinosaurids in Denali, but no actual fossils, so this is a major scientific discovery," Gray said.
"Why didn't you tell Gray the real reason we're here?" I asked my dad after we left the shop and loaded the firewood into the back of our truck.
"It's personal problems, and I don't want to be sharing them with strangers," he replied.
"So to the house now?" My brother asked as he got into the truck.
"Yep," my dad said.
I honestly thought Richard's Landing would be a quiet town, with no one around much, but there were people walking outside and talking to one another. Some people were even wearing shorts and T-shirts, despite the relatively cold weather. "Alaska is so much weirder than I thought," I thought to myself.
Then I thought back to the Therizinosaurid fossil that Gray showed me. I didn't know much about Paleontology, but I remember hearing that a fossil is formed when bone in an animal's skeleton is slowly replaced by rock. But that claw didn't look like a rock, it looked... fresh. And then there was that mysterious car crash and the cryptid sightings. Could this claw belong to one of the cryptids? Or was I just letting my imagination run wild.
Something very strange was happening in this town.
