The Egg Hunt

This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.

The Egg Hunt

By Plot Roach
　
“Welcome to the Mythic Tech Easter Eggstravaganza!” Declared a multicolored banner hanging over the entrance to the parking lot. Phil paid his parking fee and collected the paper ticket, displaying it prominently in the front window of his van.

“Do we have to go to this lame picnic, Dad?” Tyler whined from the backseat.

“Yes, son. We at least have to make an appearance.” Phil said, looking into his son’s eyes via reflection of the rear view mirror.

“You might have fun! Give it a chance.” Sarah, Phil’s wife, said from the front passenger seat squeezing Phil’s knee and winking at him.

Their other son, Michael said nothing, too busy punching the buttons on his handheld electronic game to notice the world outside his headphones.

Phil lurched the car into the next available parking space, which seemed a mile and a half from the park itself. He vowed once again to get and earlier start next year in order to get a better parking spot, only to remember that he had made the same vow last year. He sighed, pulling out the hand wagon and loaded it with chairs, the cooler and the picnic basket full of food that they would need that day. Sarah was busy with the boys, pulling Michael’s headset off and pocketing his electronic game and trying to get Tyler out of his seat and into a better mood.

“It will be fun, and maybe you’ll make some new friends.” Sarah proclaimed, her eyes squinting against the overpowering sunlight as they made their way to the park. The boys both rolled their eyes at her and promptly began fighting one another as all boys do when deprived of anything else to take their anger out upon. Sarah yelled to another of the families, strolling ahead to gossip, leaving Phil to struggle with the overloaded handcart and two boys scrapping in the dust laden parking lot.

Maybe over by the duck pond? Phil thought, thinking to score a spot next to some shade. But no, he remembered that Sarah had a thing about wild fowl. Something about the bird flu or was it that she watched the “Birds” as a kid and never got over her phobia of being pecked? Phil decided to head toward the barbeque pits and stopped himself halfway there, remembering that Tyler had asthma and that the smoke would set him off for sure.

Unable to make the right decision, Phil decided to drop the handle of the cart where he stood. They would set up here, and if anyone complained about it, they could move the cart themselves. He sighed and pulled out the four lawn chairs, setting up each one to look over the rest of the park, specifically where the games would be held. He set up the beach umbrella, using a sand weighted base rather than attempting to anchor the thing in the grass, just in case he should happen to break through a sprinkler line and upset the park employees. He opened the cooler and pulled out Sarah’s signature Jello salad, he reached over to hand it to her only to notice that she was already halfway across the park, talking to yet another family. He sighed, setting down the bowl of wiggling foodstuff and asked his sons to help with the rest of the gear. He looked up to find himself alone, as his sons had split up and were now talking to their peers, no doubt trading tales about how lame their parents were for bringing them to an event such as this.

So Phil unloaded the rest of the cart, setting up a picnic oasis that his family would never appreciate, or ever use. Once unloaded, he walked Sarah’s dessert over to the main food tables set aside for the potluck feast. He spied several other gelatinous concoctions and set Sarah’s contribution among them.

He spied the games list and signed up for the three legged race with Tyler, put Michael and Sarah’s names down for the egg toss and signed both boys up for the egg hunt. By the time he made it back to the rest of the family, they were all in agreement that they should move the whole mess over to a shaded spot thirty feet over.

Phil told them of the games and events he had signed them all up for and they responded with the usual moans and complaints. “We are here as a family and we need to act as a family.” he told them.

“Can’t we have fun on our own?” Tyler moaned, his brother agreeing with him for once.

“Maybe we could do things a little different this year, dear.” Sarah suggested.

“Fine” Phil said, pulling a beer out of the cooler. “Then you can all move the chairs and the rest of this crap on your own, if you want to try something different. I’ve worked for this company for fifteen years, you never bitch about the money I bring home. But you’ll complain when I ask you to volunteer a little time of your own?” Phil did not wait for a response. He merely twisted the cap off the beer bottle, tossed it over his shoulder and strode back to the games clipboard to scratch his family’s names off the lists.

Once at the table, leafing through the games lists a coworker, Bernard, pulled him aside with a panicked look. “I need your help, Phil.”

“It’s my day off, Bernard. Even the family doesn’t want to be around me.”

“I’m deadly serious about this.”

“What could be so bad?”

“The eggs in the egg hunt.”

“What, did you run out of chicken eggs and use the ones in the hatchery?” Phil joked, swigging his beer. He nearly chocked when he saw the pale look on Bernard’s face. “Please tell me that you didn’t…”

“I didn’t, but the new guy in sector seven -Ryan, I think his name is- did.”

“What kind of an idiot?…”

“Evidently one who is the nephew of the Big Boss Man himself and can’t get fired, or even blamed for his actions.”

“But we can?”

“Right you are, old boy. If we don’t get all sixty seven eggs back in their incubators by sundown, we’ll lose countless millions in research.”

“He didn’t boil them, did he?”

“No he was smart enough to only paint the outside of the shells with vegetable bye. But we have to find them quickly, or the embryos will die.”

“How many have you found so far?”

“Only thirteen. Evidently he was really good at hiding things.”

“And he can’t find the other eggs?”

“He’s too stoned to remember.”

“Great. So which types of eggs did he take?”

“All of them.”

“All-?”

“All the ones in the hatchery, slated for ‘birth’ in the next few days.”

“Dad! Come here, quick. I found an egg and it hatched -can I keep it?” Phil turned toward the voice. It was Michael, clutching a lizard like creature covered in the remains of the shell it had incubated in. The dark grey mass attempted to chew on Michael’s thumb, but did not have much in the way of teeth since it had just hatched. It was covered in what looked like sharp pink freckles, which Phil knew were only bits of the shell that had adhered to its skin.

“Well it is a pygmy tyrannosaur, so it won’t grow any bigger than a Great Dane…” Bernard said, looking over to Phil. “But you probably should have the teeth pulled about the time it comes into adolescence unless you want to wear a full suit of chain mail every time you need to take it out for a walk.”

“Let’s just find the others.” Phil sighed. “What was in the hatchery at the time?”

“Everything from endangered to extinct and a few mythic cross breeds as well.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“Some condors, dinosaurs, a couple of hydras and at least one basilisk and a cockatrice.”

“No gorgons? A phoenix or maybe a Pegasus?”

“No. The phoenix needs higher heat to hatch properly, and is incubated in an incinerator. The Pegasus needs a cooler temperature, and was in the secondary incubator. As for the gorgon, it lays a leathery like egg that hatches within hours, so there’s no need for outside incubation.”

“That’s some good news at least.” Phil said, scratching his head and eyeing the grayish lump that struggled in his son’s grasp. “Get as many men as you can and equip them with earplugs and mirrored sunglasses, we won’t know which eggs belong to the basilisk or the cockatrice, so we’ll need to take all the precautions we can. Close off the park and evacuate all nonessential personnel. But be sure to keep a couple of the kids, since they have a knack for finding stuff that they shouldn’t play with. It’s going to be a long day."

“Yeah. And an Easter we’ll never forget.”