Jurassic Backyard — John T. Cullen

A smart, attractive young woman on vacation with her girlfriends unexpectedly meets the horrors of nature. She learns that nothing has changed since the age of dinosaurs. Worst among raptors are those deadly sociopathic humans who swim silently among the good, searching for their next victim. Alina and three fellow professionals, young single women, are on vacation at a posh western US resort, enjoying sunshine, lake boating, and good cuisine. They chat and joke with nice fellow tourists, including handsome young men, on a street of lakefront bars with dancing, drinks, and dating opportunities.Among the young people dancing in a crowded, throbbing sports bar is a silent young man you'd never notice unless you looked directly into his dark, crazed, hateful eyes. He is nameless, has a swastika tattoo, and never actually connects with other human beings or any other living creature for that matter. He is a sociopath, lacking conscience and social connectedness. Tonight, he chooses Alina as his target.A new date rape drug is the ultimate hallucinogen, which he drops into Alina's drink. In seconds, her life is transformed as dark visions rise from her subconscious. The horror that awakens in her is hard-wired in our human DNA and lying asleep for millions of years in a Jurassic swamp pre-existing most mammals, and all primate life. As Alina learns in a terrifying night, the dinosaur age lives on among us - in our back yards, on our streets, and even in many homes.Luckily, Alina's three girlfriends rescue her and take her back to her hotel before Mr. Swastika can do any more harm... but her nightmare only begins.Alina is a professional woman in her twenties, a progressive, humane, highly educated, dedicated, and capable Nurse Practitioner. She and her friend Dori, an RN, are on vacation at this fabulous resort with balmy winds, bright sunshine, white-washed cottages, and a sparkling lake full of sailboats under a blue sky. Joining them are pals Laura and Sheri, school teachers - to relax, enjoy butterflies and birds, inhale the pungent blossoms of spring, and go dancing in sleek nightclubs.Everything changes when that shadowy young man drops a pill in her drink. It's a Jurassic moment, causing Alina's subconscious knowledge to rise from the evolutionary swamp and take over her civilized life.Alina is a history buff on the side. Lately, she's been reading about the Belle Époque (Beautiful Era) in the decades before World War One. In the fabulous cultural center of Vienna during the years 1907 to 1913, two unknown (but later famous) young men walked the same boulevards and breathed the same air. Who knows if they even rubbed shoulders or spoke with each other? One was young Jewish author named Felix Salten, who would soon create the children's classic Bambi (which carries its own ominous, shadowy message, easy to see if we open our eyes and really look).The other youth in Vienna was a vagrant, a purposeless drifter, a homeless youth of 18 brewing evil: Adolf Hitler, filled with an inner, growing Jurassic ferocity that would tear apart the world with reptile claws to orchestrate mass slaughter on an industrial scale never before seen; whose seeds continue to quietly germinate in the sweet soil all around us in our daily lives. Like a deadly pandemic that seems to have died away, the insanity is waiting to unleash its next horrific wave to sweep across our world...