by Kay Woodward
Cutter shrugged. ‘They have no idea what they’re looking for,’ he said. ‘Even if they did, they wouldn’t know how to go about finding it.’
‘But you do?’ asked Claudia.
‘I’ve seen Stephen track a wounded animal through the rainforest for ten days at a time,’ was the professor’s reply.
Claudia studied him thoughtfully. ‘Your wife went missing somewhere near here, didn’t she?’ she asked.
Instantly, the professor stiffened. ‘Is that relevant?’ he said, his voice hard.
She raised her eyebrows. ‘Just wondering what the real agenda is –’ But before Claudia could finish her sentence, an unearthly growl pierced the gloom.
At once, the small party stopped dead.
Stephen shone the torch around them, noticing that nearby foliage had been disturbed and low branches snapped. And then he looked upwards, his eyes resting on a point above them. Immediately, he nudged Cutter, who followed his gaze to the dead cow, still suspended in the high branches.
But something else was puzzling Connor. ‘Professor?’ he called, his eyes wide and confused. He held out the compass in utter bewilderment.
The needle was spinning around like crazy.
Ben ran in panic from the monster, stumbling over rough ground and forcing his way through spiky undergrowth. His breathing was ragged with terror. Up ahead, he saw the trees thinning. He must have reached the edge of the forest at last. He was safe now. But then he realized that it was just a clearing.
Ben gulped. A strange, flickering light shone from between the trees. Slowly, he moved closer. There was a mysterious disturbance in the air, almost as if a gash had been gouged there. Glittering shards of light danced all around.
It was beautiful.
His fear momentarily forgotten, Ben walked over to the light and reached out to touch it. He gasped in awe as his hand disappeared, then hesitated for a moment before popping his head into the rippling air… In every direction, there was nothing but sand and rock. He was in the middle of a desert – a prehistoric desert. The sun was huge in the sky and it was baking hot, totally unlike the cold, dark, gloomy forest. Suddenly, a flock of flying lizards just like Rex zipped by, millimetres from his nose. Ben gasped in amazement and pulled his head back sharply… into the forest.
Wow!
Ben caught his breath. Then he grinned with excitement. He’d seen another world beyond the forest – another world, another time! Wait until he told his mates about this. They’d be so impressed. He was just about to jump right into the mysterious desert when he heard an unmistakeable growl in the distance.
Ben didn’t hang about. The desert could wait. Right now, he needed to get out of here.
The boy dodged between the trees, catching his clothes on stray branches and tripping over rocks. He ran on and on until – at long last – he reached the edge of the forest. His pace slackened as he neared exhaustion. He knew he couldn’t run for much longer. Suddenly, he saw lights in the distance and hurtled down the hill towards the road – and home.
As Ben vaulted the fence that bordered his garden, he grazed his hand on the wire. Sucking the bleeding wound quickly, he rushed to his house and opened the door, crashing it shut behind him.
Inside the house, Ben thundered up the stairs and into his room, slamming the door and leaning against it. He was safe.
‘Ben?’ called his mother anxiously. ‘Where have you been?’
He didn’t have enough breath to answer. With a huge sense of relief, he slumped on his bunk bed, his back to the window.
Slowly, majestically, a huge sabre-toothed head rose into sight outside the window. Eyes glinting wickedly, it stared into the boy’s bedroom. Then a shaft of moonlight revealed the Gorgonopsid in all its fearsome glory. A savage predator, the beast was like a rhino, only larger. Its head was massive, with razor-sharp canines, tiny eyes and holes for ears. And it was separated from its prey by only a single pane of glass.
Ben felt a prickling sensation on the skin at the back of his neck. He was being watched – he knew it. Slowly, oh so slowly, he turned until he was eyeball-to-eyeball with a beast from his worst nightmares.
For a split second, boy and creature simply stared at each other.
Then all hell broke loose.
The Gorgonopsid’s huge front claw smashed through the glass and grabbed at Ben. He leapt up like a jack-in-the-box, just as the monstrous creature jammed its head through the broken window, teeth bared in a ferocious snarl. Ben scrambled backwards, to the far end of his bed. But the animal lashed out, catching the bunk. One end of the bed collapsed, sending the boy sliding down towards the Gorgonopsid’s hungry mouth.
Frantically, Ben clung to the top of the bed with one hand, using his free hand to hurl anything within his grasp into the creature’s face. Then, just as he began to lose his grip, he spotted his glass globe by the bedside. He lunged for it, then threw the globe right at the animal.
He scored a direct hit. The glass exploded into thousands of tiny pieces, sending the startled creature reeling back. It flailed furiously, then lost its balance and dropped out of sight.
Crash! The bedroom door ricocheted against the wall.
This time, it wasn’t the Gorgonopsid. But it was someone equally scary.
‘What on earth is going on in here?’ demanded Mrs Trent. She slowly surveyed the smashed window and overturned furniture before turning back to her trembling son. ‘Right, young man,’ she said. ‘I want an explanation for this mess. Now.’
Abby spun round desperately, lost in the maze of trees.
‘OK, Rex,’ she muttered nervously to the creature cradled in her arms. ‘Which way?’
She moved forward a couple of paces, before freezing at the sound of heavy, shuffling footsteps. Rex sniffed the air suspiciously. Terrified, Abby looked behind her. Seeing nothing, she turned back –
‘Arrggghhhhh!’ she screamed as she crashed headlong into the most monstrous beast she’d ever seen. It was about three metres long with short, thick growths protruding from its gargoyle head. Very heavy upfront, it had a short tail and stumpy back legs. Its leathery hide was dotted with knobbly ridges.
Abby dropped Rex and staggered back in horror. But instead of ripping her to shreds, the monster stared at her with gentle, cow-like eyes before bending down to munch at the shrubs dotted around its feet.
Suddenly, a torch beam pierced the darkness and Abby blinked in its glare.
‘Don’t move,’ hissed a man’s voice.
It was Professor Cutter. He and his team appeared from between the trees. And as they did so, the animal backed away warily.
Abby looked around in confusion. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Some kind of experiment, maybe,’ Cutter mused, his eyes fixed on the huge creature. ‘A hybrid or throwback…’ He paused before switching his attention to Abby. ‘Who are you?’
‘Abby Maitland,’ she said, trying to keep calm. ‘I’m a keeper at Wellington Zoo.’
‘What do you know about this?’ asked Cutter.
‘Nothing…’ said Abby. Her voice trembled as she spoke.
Stephen gave her an encouraging smile. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. ‘You’re safe now.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Abby.
Stephen shrugged. She had a point.
By now, Cutter’s curiosity had overcome his shock. He circled the beast, talking quietly to himself. ‘Reptilian… four to five tonnes at least… large supratemporal bosses… huge osteoderms on its back.’ He stood back. ‘Must be some kind of anapsid,’ he concluded.
‘A tortoise?’ scoffed Abby. ‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ As Cutter disappeared behind the beast, she noticed it becoming increasingly restless. ‘Stay in his field of vision,’ she told him. ‘You’re making him nervous.’
Cutter looked startled, but nevertheless did as he was told. Instantly, the creature became calmer.
Abby smiled. ‘Rhinos are just the same,’ she said.
Claudia had been
eagerly watching the proceedings. Now she could keep quiet no longer. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong,’ she began, ‘but this creature shouldn’t exist?’
‘Obviously not,’ said Cutter infuriatingly.
‘Then why is it standing right in front of me?’ demanded the woman from the Home Office, just as Connor held up his mobile and took a photo.
The flash surprised the animal, making it rear back, lowing in distress.
At once, Claudia whipped the phone from Connor’s hand and quickly deleted the photo. ‘Whatever it is,’ she snapped, ‘it’s classified until I find out what to do about it.’ She tossed the mobile back to the speechless student.
Abby calmed the anxious beast, which responded to her gentle reassurance immediately.
Cutter was impressed. And that was when he noticed Rex sitting in the grass.
Stephen followed his gaze. ‘Crikey,’ he said. ‘There’s two of them.’
‘A local boy found him nearby…’ explained Abby, her voice failing as the horrible truth dawned. ‘Oh no!’ she cried. ‘Ben!’
It didn’t take long for the group of three to reach the Trents’ house. While Abby and Cutter made sure that Ben was OK, Claudia hung back to use her mobile.
‘No, I can’t use the police,’ she said urgently. ‘This is too sensitive. Now get someone down here, fast.’ She turned off the phone, took a deep breath and went inside.
Professor Cutter and Abby were speaking to Ben and his mother.
‘I’ll be making a complaint,’ said Mrs Trent crossly. ‘She’s filled his head with all sorts of stupid ideas. Look at the state of his room!’ Angrily, she pointed at the chaos.
‘It was the monster!’ cried Ben. ‘Tell them, Abby –’
Cutter butted in. ‘The simple truth is that Miss Maitland got carried away,’ he lied calmly. ‘Ben’s pet was nothing more exotic than Draco volans, the South-East Asian flying lizard. I’m afraid your son has been lost in the woods during this adventure.’
‘It was a monster,’ Ben said, stubbornly sticking to his story. ‘Tell them, Abby.’
Abby raised her head to find that Claudia Brown’s intense gaze was fixed on her. She hesitated before guiltily muttering her response. ‘I don’t really know what happened, Ben,’ she said. ‘We got frightened, that’s all.’
‘But I saw the past!’ the boy insisted. ‘Prehistoric times! I was there!’
‘You saw the past?’ asked Cutter.
‘I was standing right in it,’ said Ben. ‘There was a desert, rocks and things…’
His mother sighed. ‘I blame the telly,’ she said. ‘They make it all seem so real that the kids start believing there’s a dinosaur round every corner.’
Moments later, Cutter, Claudia and a very guilty-looking Abby stood on the pavement outside the Trents’ house.
‘I know you feel bad about lying,’ Claudia said sympathetically to Abby, ‘but who knows what the consequences might have been if you’d told the truth.’ She regarded them with a serious expression. ‘You’re both going to have to sign the Official Secrets Act.’
Cutter raised his eyebrows. ‘Since when did this become an official secret?’
‘About ten minutes after I finally persuaded my boss not to have me sectioned,’ Claudia replied. ‘You try telling a senior civil servant to put the SAS on monster alert.’
The professor smiled, but his expression quickly grew thoughtful. ‘Right now, we have a more urgent problem,’ he said seriously. ‘That creature we saw may be many things, but it’s certainly not a ruthless predator that drags its prey up into trees.’
‘You can’t be sure of that,’ Claudia said.
‘He can,’ said Abby. ‘It’s a herbivore. Pure veggie.’
The woman from the Home Office went pale. ‘You mean there’s another one out there?’
Cutter nodded, but already his mind was elsewhere. ‘What did Ben mean when he talked about seeing the past?’ He looked uneasy, before adding thoughtfully, ‘These animals have to be coming from somewhere…’
‘What are you saying?’ Claudia asked.
The professor paused before replying. ‘I’m saying the answer is out there in that forest – and maybe Ben found it.’
Connor and Stephen were still watching the strange beast.
‘You know this is going to win me the Nobel Prize?’ Connor said, wearing a look of dreamy self-satisfaction.
Stephen rolled his eyes. ‘We don’t know what we’re dealing with yet,’ he reminded the student.
‘Come on,’ said Connor. ‘It looks like a dinosaur. It behaves like a dinosaur. It’s a dinosaur – a missing link to the ancient past. And I discovered it.’
‘What about the rest of us?’ asked Stephen.
‘Don’t worry,’ replied Connor, smiling generously. ‘I won’t forget the little people.’
It was at this moment that the animal stopped grazing and began to amble away.
‘Where’s it going?’ asked Connor bleakly, watching its departure in dismay. ‘Stop it!’ he told Stephen.
‘You stop it,’ said Stephen, not moving a muscle.
An urgent shout interrupted them.
‘Let it go!’ called Cutter. He appeared through the trees with Claudia and Abby. ‘It’s frightened,’ he puffed. ‘Let’s see where it thinks it’s safe.’
They chased after the beast, crashing through the forest, pushing aside branches and tripping over the undergrowth.
Suddenly, they found themselves in the clearing that Ben had discovered. The beast plunged towards the glittering shards of light. In seconds, it had vanished into sparkling air.
‘Where did it go?’ whispered Claudia.
‘Home,’ said the professor simply.
Early the next morning, the official government response began. The clearing was cordoned off and, inside the flimsy barrier, there was a frenzy of activity. Scientists scurried to and fro, their progress hampered by military personnel unloading weaponry.
Abby sat by a nearby tree, her fingers closing gratefully round the coffee that Stephen handed to her.
‘How are you feeling?’ he asked.
‘Confused,’ said Abby. ‘Frightened. Exhilarated.’
‘Snap.’
They smiled at each other, before hurriedly looking away.
Connor was very pleased with himself. While gazing in awe at the rippling fault in the air, he’d accidentally dropped his metal pen. Rather than tumbling to the ground, it had flown towards the anomaly – as the scientists had chosen to call it – disappearing with a faint pop of energy. ‘That explains the compass,’ he said proudly, remembering how the dial had spun the day before.
Now Cutter was interested. ‘What could cause a magnetic field so powerful?’ he wondered, watching as the student aimed more and more objects at the disturbance.
‘Oh,’ said Connor. ‘That was my front-door key.’
Cutter rolled his eyes.
‘You said that the creature had gone home,’ Claudia said to the professor. ‘All right, I’ll buy it. Where’s home?’
This was something that Cutter did know about. ‘Everything about the animals we’ve seen so far is consistent with vertebrates that last appeared in the fossil record hundreds of millions of years ago.’
‘You mean they’re like creatures from the past?’ she said.
‘I mean they are creatures from the past.’
Claudia’s eyes opened wide. ‘So… you really believe I could step through that… thing… and somehow go back millions of years in time?’
‘There’s only one sure way to find out,’ replied Cutter.
She shivered, before turning businesslike once more. ‘The Home Office brainiacs are on their way,’ she said. ‘Maybe they’ll find out more. We have to go now.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ said Cutter. ‘There’s a dangerous predator on the loose.’
‘I need your help,’ Claudia said urgently.
Cutter didn’t budge. ‘You’ve got your own expert
s.’
‘They didn’t see what we saw,’ she replied. ‘And they don’t know what you know.’ She walked away before the professor could argue.
Frustrated, Cutter turned back towards the glittering phenomenon.
Stephen joined him. ‘You’re thinking that Helen went through,’ he said softly.
Cutter nodded. ‘It explains everything.’
‘Except why she didn’t come back,’ said Stephen. ‘It was eight years ago. Even if you’re right, she couldn’t still be –’ Abruptly, he stopped, but they both knew what he’d been about to say.
Alive.
Lester stared disdainfully through the two-way mirror. Inside the interview room, Cutter and Abby were being questioned by the secret services. He sighed. This was all he needed – a bunch of scientific busybodies and a forest full of supposedly extinct creatures. He smoothed his hands over his pinstriped suit, looking up as a smartly dressed woman approached.
‘Claudia Brown,’ she introduced herself. ‘Home Office. I’ll be working for you on this case.’
‘Yes,’ he said snootily, ignoring her outstretched hand. ‘I’ve seen your file. James Lester. I’ll be in charge of coordinating our response.’ He turned back to the interview room. ‘You shouldn’t have brought them with you. They have no security clearance. I don’t like civilians in these situations.’
Claudia raised an eyebrow. ‘Professor Cutter’s qualifications speak for themselves,’ she said calmly. ‘And the girl is a reptile specialist.’
Lester shook his head in tired disbelief. ‘You spend your entire career making contingency plans for just about any crisis imaginable, up to and including alien invasion, and then this happens,’ he said.
As soon as the interview was over, Cutter and Abby found themselves trailing after Claudia and the increasingly grumpy Lester through the glass and metal maze of the Home Office building. They reached a laboratory with glass walls and stopped outside.
‘Where’s Rex?’ asked Abby. The reptile had been whisked away from her as soon as she’d arrived and she was beginning to worry about him.
Lester tried to smile reassuringly. ‘He’s quite safe.’ He turned back to Cutter. ‘This… phenomenon, Professor. Claudia tells me you have an explanation.’
