“It’s been pretty quiet for a while now,” Bill whispered.
“I’m getting cold,” Caleb murmured.
“Yeah, I know,” Bill answered. “And it’s only gonna get colder down here with all this water. We’re going to have to get out of here. Maybe we can get out of the city while it’s dark.”
Caleb nodded and moved aside as Bill stood up to push and shove at the grate. It took several minutes and quite a bit of banging, but the metal finally shifted, sliding to one side. Bill reached up and hoisted himself out of the hole, then reached down and lifted Caleb into the evening air.
The two began walking slowly and silently down the dark street. The sky overhead was streaked and stained with brilliant crimson clouds, while a few early stars shone in the deep blue sky in between. As Bill and Caleb approached the end of the short block, they heard the pounding beat of several light feet on one of the intersecting streets.
Bill clutched Caleb tightly to his side, tensing for a sudden run. A fleet, silhouetted figure dashed out into the intersection, huffing and wheezing as he ran at top speed. The young man continued across the street, seeming not to notice Bill or Caleb. The two could hear several more sneakered feet following close behind.
Three more people rushed across the intersection as Bill and Caleb watched silently, unsure of what to do. One was a young woman, while the other two were middle-aged men. The first runner was already across the open space, and was now yanking furiously at the rear doors of a toppled van. The door clanged open and smacked on the pavement with a crash, and the man leapt frantically inside. Behind him, the young woman cast a quick glance over her shoulder, eyes wide with fear. She almost stumbled as she looked back, then paused for a half second to call out in a thin voice.
“Oh, God, it’s gaining... Theresa! Keep running!”
The three runners jumped into the van with the first man, just as another pair bolted out into view. The first was an older woman, moving surprisingly fast for her age. Clinging to her arm and struggling desperately to keep up was a small girl, no older than Caleb. Bill was starting to back up, slowly at first but with increasing speed. Caleb couldn’t tear his gaze away from the intersection, wondering what new nightmare was chasing the terrified people. As Bill began to drag Caleb away, they heard another, deeper sound echoing over the desperate cries of the woman in the van. It was a rhythmic booming sound, vibrating more in Caleb’s bones than his ears.
The booming sound grew steadily louder as Bill dragged Caleb down the street at a run. Caleb heard the woman screaming, then the evening air was rocked by a piercing wail, something like a siren mixed with a heavy, rumbling roar. Bill almost tripped and pitched forward onto his face, but caught himself and slowly turned around to stare at the spectacle behind him.
The old woman and the young girl had joined the others in the van, while another man ran frantically across the intersection. He was young and tall, but very heavily built, and slow-moving. The people in the van were screaming in terror and clutching the edges of the doors, ready to slam them shut, but the man stumbled and fell to his knees. As he pulled himself back to his feet, the small girl cried out to him, leaping from the van and running towards the large man. At that moment, another roaring wail filled the air, and a gigantic form swept into the small intersection.
Bill and Caleb both stood staring with a dizzying mix of wonder and horror. The animal was huge; larger than a bull elephant. It stood almost two stories tall, and was nearly forty feet from the end of its long, tapered tail to the tip of its fang-filled mouth. Powerful legs with rippling muscles and talon-tipped toes propelled it across the pavement at racehorse speeds. The lingering crimson light splashed across the creature’s back and neck, and glinted like blood on the ivory teeth and small brow horns. The small girl blanched and turned to run, while the man regained his footing and scrambled madly for the van. Caleb lost track of the girl as he watched the five-ton beast bear down on the screaming man with shocking speed. Bill’s hand turned Caleb’s head to the side, just as he heard a final terrified shriek and a wet crunching sound. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the dinosaur shaking something limply in its razor jaws.
The people in the van were still calling out to the little girl, then the dinosaur roared again, and the doors clanged shut. Caleb was able to see the animal striding swiftly over to the van, its throat pulsing slightly as it swallowed some large object. Only a few yards away from the van, Bill and Caleb suddenly spotted the small girl cowering in a large, overturned waste barrel. She watched silently with wide, teary eyes as the dinosaur reared up over the van, sniffing and twitching its taloned forelimbs.
With a quick, jerking motion, the creature leaned forward and bit into the side of the van. Metal screeched and glass splintered across the street, then the creature released the vehicle, roaring and shaking its head distastefully. Caleb could see the people cringing and screaming inside through a two-foot hole in the van’s wall. The panicked cries seemed to excite the creature, and it attacked the van again, this time bracing its clawed foot against one tire and biting furiously at the jagged hole. In less than a minute it had opened the wall enough to slip its massive jaws inside.
Caleb flinched and squeezed his eyes shut as a warbling scream echoed out of the ruined vehicle. Beside him, Bill stood frozen, wanting desperately to flee but unable to tear his gaze away from the small girl huddled in the garbage barrel only a stone’s throw from the feet of the dinosaur. The creature pulled its snout out of the hole and Caleb could see something clutched in its teeth, flailing and shrieking. Caleb turned his head and buried his face in his uncle’s side as the dinosaur began shaking its head viciously, snapping the man’s body like a whip. The screaming stopped almost instantly and Caleb heard a damp thump on the pavement a few feet away. He opened his eyes just long enough to see the vague outline of a human leg lying bodiless on the street.
Caleb grabbed hold of Bill’s jacket and began tugging him slowly toward a small alleyway. The dinosaur had once again jammed its mouth into the van, bringing a new chorus of horrified screams from the blood-splattered interior. Bill moved slowly as Caleb tugged at his arm. His gaze flickered from the van, to the girl, to the leg. Suddenly he stopped, placing a hand on Caleb’s shoulder.
“Caleb, go,” he whispered pushing Caleb toward the alley. “I can’t just... They’re all... Go, Caleb!”
With a final push, Caleb bolted for the alley. He looked back over his shoulder to see Bill reaching down and grabbing the severed leg as the dinosaur pulled another writhing body from the van.
Bill ran swiftly and quietly across the street, trying to stay out of the dinosaur’s field of view. The creature remained oblivious, preoccupied with the new mouthful of meat that slid slowly down its throat. Bill paused at the corner of the intersection, then swung the bloody leg in a wide arc and sent it soaring across the street. It landed with a skidding thump on the pavement several yards in front of the dinosaur. The creature looked up, seeming quite surprised. It sniffed for a moment, then began walking curiously toward the battered limb.
Bill waved frantically at the girl hiding in the trash barrel, gesturing for her to run to him. She stared back with a fear-stricken expression, casting nervous eyes at the lumbering dinosaur. She seemed as if she were about to run, then began shaking and weeping uncontrollably.
The dinosaur was now standing over the leg, staring down at it with a mixture of hunger and uncertainty. It sniffed again, then picked the leg up in its teeth.
Bill continued to wave the girl toward him, to no avail. The screaming in the van was dying down, and now Caleb could see a tear-streaked face peering out of the hole and staring at Bill in astonishment. The young woman began climbing out of the hole, and the girl stared up at her from the trash barrel. The woman waved at the girl as she climbed down from the van, gesturing for her to run. Caleb breathed a sigh of relief as the girl leapt out of the barrel and sprinted quietly across the street.
The dinosaur
was now chewing on the leg and pulling at it with its claws, pausing now and then to shake it curiously, as if expecting it to move.
Bill took the shivering hand of the terrified girl and looked from the dinosaur to the young woman standing beside the van. She was gesturing for the young man to climb out, but he was struggling with the limp body of one of the middle-aged men, who seemed to have been knocked unconscious in the rocking van. The woman reached up and gripped the wounded man’s arm, pulling him the rest of the way out of the vehicle. As she did so, the man’s limp leg smacked against a section of cracked window glass, sending a tinkling shower of shards onto the pavement.
Watching from the mouth of the alley, Caleb sucked in a nervous breath. Everyone stood in frozen silence, staring at the massive dinosaur and listening to the faint echo of clinking glass. The beast paused, then lifted its blocky head and glanced back over its shoulder at the van. For a brief moment, the creature stared at the four cowering humans, one last strip of shredded leg-meat hanging from its teeth. With a blur of motion, the creature suddenly whipped its massive body around, filling the cool air with another ear-splitting roar.
The animal began charging furiously toward its escaping meal, digging gashes in the pavement with its giant claws. Bill snatched the small girl up in his arms and bolted across the street toward the alley, screaming hoarsely at Caleb.
“Run, Caleb! Run now!”
Caleb wrenched his gaze away from the thunderous charge of the dinosaur and sprinted down the alley. Behind him, he could hear the rapid pounding of Bill’s feet as he slipped into the alley, followed by the frantic screaming of the young man and woman as they dashed across the street.
Caleb didn’t look back, afraid that he might trip over the scattered refuse lying in his path, but he could clearly hear Bill’s footsteps close behind him. The dinosaur roared again, followed by a piercing human shriek and the sound of the young woman screaming someone’s name. Caleb kept running.
Bill was very close now. Caleb could hear his gasping breath and the sound of the young girl’s panicked sobs. Caleb was amazed and horrified to discover that he could still hear the pounding rumble of the dinosaur’s charge following them down the narrow alley. A clamorous explosion of twisting metal erupted behind them as the dinosaur plowed through a low-hanging fire escape as if it was cheap cardboard. He could hear the young woman, still screaming wildly, but the young man’s voice was chillingly silent.
The dinosaur roared once more, and the sound of it within the narrow walls of the alley was enough to rattle Caleb’s teeth in his skull. Somehow, he was still able to hear the voice of the young girl, screaming out to the woman behind them. He could vaguely hear Uncle Bill gasp something like “Don’t look, don’t look...” The woman screamed a final time. It was an awful sound that rose in pitch and intensity until it rang in Caleb’s ears, then cut short.
Caleb kept running. His lungs seemed to be filled with fire and his heart was pounding like thunder in his chest, so loud that it sounded like the footfalls of the dinosaur. Bill was only a foot or two behind, gasping and wheezing with the exertion of running and carrying the girl.
They ran for several minutes, or several hours. It was impossible to tell. It wasn’t until they heard the distant echo of the dinosaur’s roar far behind them that Caleb slowed to a stop. Bill stood beside him on shaky legs, gently lowering the wide-eyed girl to the ground. She stood silently, looking back the way they had come with glazed eyes.
“Where’s my sister?” she whispered. “Where’s Jeff?”
Bill looked down at her tear-streaked face, and Caleb saw a shadow of exhaustion pass over him.
“Is the T-rex gone?” the girl asked in a tiny voice. Bill looked up at the darkening sky, then slumped down to sit beside Caleb and the girl.
“Giganotosaurus,” Bill muttered. “That was a Giganotosaurus, and yes, it’s gone now.”
Caleb plopped down on a crumpled cardboard box next to Bill. “Allosaurus,” he said.
“Huh?” Bill said, looking up with an odd expression on his face.
“Allosaurus,” Caleb answered. “I’m not sure what exact species. It looked like Allosaurus fragilis with those hornlets and that nasal ridge, but it was really big. Maybe a new species, or maybe just a really big specimen. But its skull definitely wasn’t right for a Giganotosaurus. Their skulls are more wedge-shaped.”
Bill stared at Caleb as if he had just grown a second head. “You’re kidding me,” he said. “You noticed all that while it was trying to kill us?”
Caleb nodded sheepishly. “I didn’t know if I’d ever get to see a real one again so I paid close attention.”
Bill stared at Caleb, then looked over at the girl, who was watching the conversation with a lost look on her face.
“Don’t worry,” Bill said to her. “Nothing’s going to sneak up on us with this kid watching.”
A FOREST OF THICK, COLUMN-LIKE legs strode slowly over the flat, moonlit ground. The round, heavy feet thumped softly on the rich soil and soft grass, carrying seven-ton barrel-like bodies. This walking forest was adorned with a swinging canopy of ten-foot necks and twenty-foot tails. Small, blunt-skulled heads munched grass and shrubs, blinking lazily and occasionally emitting a gentle, rumbling hum. Spiked clubs swished through the air at the tips of the animals’ tails, forty feet distant from the tiny head.
The animals were basically similar in form to a brachiosaurus or diplodocus, but only half the size. Their unusual clubbed tails marked them as shunosaurs. The herd was a large one, nearly thirty strong, and was making short work of the grassy clearing amid the sparse forest of the Snake River Valley. The long necks hung low to the ground, swinging back and forth in wide arcs to gobble up the thick grass and succulent shrubs.
From his vantage point on the ridge of a small hill overlooking the clearing, Caleb had a clear view of the herd’s choreography as the animals wandered across the field. The livelier young adults moved with a hungry energy at the leading edge of the herd, devouring the choice plants, while the older, larger animals remained clustered in a close group at the center of the herd, forming a tight circle around the juveniles. The circular protective formation reminded Caleb of the great circle of caravan wagons and the songs of the old-bloods.
As Caleb sat in silent reflection, hearing the tunes of long-lost songs echoing in his mind, the shunosaurs began to change their course. The young, energetic animals began to slow their pace, falling into a more steady, rhythmic gait. At the same time, the larger dinosaurs increased their strides, until the entire herd was plodding along in sync, their clomping feet making a soft drumbeat in the night air. The juvenile animals were practically prancing as they tried to keep pace with their parents. Their frolicking footfalls added a light, lively beat to the larger animal’s steady rhythm. Caleb seemed lost in thought, unaware that the entire herd was marching along in complex, interweaving circular patterns below him. The larger animals were rumbling and humming, while the younger ones hooted and called in higher tones. The excited whistles of the babies completed the tune, which exactly matched the song echoing in Caleb’s memory. Still, Caleb sat in silent contemplation while the shunosaurs made their music.
A soft rustling in the bushes half-roused Caleb from his thought. He turned to see the moonlit form of Tess standing beside him and staring down at the field with an expression of amazement.
“What the hell is that?” she gasped.
Caleb turned his gaze back to the field. The dinosaurs were still moving in rhythmic circles and hooting musically, but they seemed to be quieting now. Caleb stared for a few more minutes, trying to remember if he was really awake or if this was just a dream.
“Did you do that?” Tess asked, unable to take her eyes off of the spectacle below.
“I... I don’t know. I guess maybe I did,” Caleb said.
“Son of a...” Tess whispered as the animals finished their song and began slowly resuming their grazing. “You just made a herd of dinos sing and
you weren’t even trying? Jeez, Caleb you’d better be careful with that.”
“Yeah...” Caleb muttered. The significance of what had just happened was finally starting to dawn on him. “I was just thinking about the music from the caravan and...” A dark look crept across Tess’s face and Caleb fell silent. “Well, anyway, Krezahu said this new power would be like a dam breaking. I guess he wasn’t kidding.”
Tess looked back out at the shunosaurs and nodded. Caleb kicked himself mentally. He could practically see the emotional walls slam down when he mentioned the caravan. He looked back through the trees at the distant glimmer of the cooking fire. Krezahu and Chuck were just visible through the thick foliage.
“Um, listen,” he said quietly. “About the river. You know, the Baryo—I mean, the fisher-dragon. I never really thanked you properly.” Tess continued to stare out at the dark night sky. Her tense, withdrawn expression made her look as distant and unreachable as the moon.
“Well, ah,” Caleb muttered. “Thanks. Really, thank you. You saved my life back there. I really owe you one, big-time.”
Tess nodded, but her gaze was fixed on the herd. Caleb stood in awkward silence for a moment, then turned to walk back to the camp. Tess spoke as he turned to leave.
“Caleb,” she said, sounding lost in thought. “What kind of dinosaurs are those?”
Caleb stopped and turned back, standing quietly by her side.
“What do you call them?” he asked.
She stared out at the herd for a moment. “We call all those big long-necked guys brontos. These ones are hammertail-brontos.”
“Makes sense,” Caleb mused. “The scientific name is Shunosaurus lii. They used to live in China about a hundred and seventy million years ago.”
Tess was silent, staring out at the animals. Caleb looked out too, then shuffled his feet a bit and turned to walk away. Once again, Tess stopped him.
“Caleb,” she said softly. Caleb turned to look at her. “You’re welcome. For saving your life, I mean. But you don’t owe me one. I think I might still owe you.”
Carnival of Time Page 12
