Cretaceous Sea

by Will Hubbell

  'did on the beach." She envisioned telling them all about her narrow escape as they walked back to the plane. They'd arrive to find that the water-softened earth was easy to dig. "No .. . they'll have already dug it out. I'll step in and we'll fly away."

  In an effort to realize this happy vision, Con climbed again to the rainy hilltop. The sky was darker than before, and the view was even more limited. The rain muffled her hoarse cries. She returned to her shelter more chilled and more discouraged.

  Before an utterly black night enveloped the world, Con made three more fruitless and disheartening trips to the hilltop. By the last visit, her voice was barely audible. She forced herself to eat more meat before settling in for the dark hours ahead. Con stuffed mud into the cracks in the stone wall and decided her damp shirt would keep her warmer if it sealed the doorway. She set it in place by feel since it had become too dark to see. Then, curling into a tight ball, she tried to sleep. Eventually, she suc-ceeded and dreamed of kissing Rick on a warm sunny beach as the world ended.

  WATER FOUND ITS way into Con's den and woke her. It was absolutely dark outside, but her ears told her the rain was falling heavily again. She stuck her hand out into the night and found it was colder than before. She had no idea where the rain had penetrated her defenses. In the dark, there was no point in venturing into the downpour to investigate. "Best to wait for light." Until then, she was resigned to endure the puddle that was forming be-neath her.

  She ate some and drank a little from the puddle outside her doorway. Awake, she pondered a new dilemma—she was losing her voice. Every time she spoke to herself, it was evident. "How will I call for help?" She recalled that hikers were advised to carry whistles because their un-natural pitch attracted attention in the wild. "That's use-less information." She wished she had learned how to whistle. She pursed her lips and blew, but the skill that had eluded her for eighteen years still did so. Con pon-dered if there was some other way she could signal Joe and Rick. She recalled a lecture about aboriginal art that discussed musical instruments. She remembered flutes made from wood . .. clay . . . reeds . . . and bone.

  "Bone!" The lecturer had shown a picture of a man piping a tune on his enemy's arm bone. "I could make a flute!"

  Groping in the dark, Con found the Tyrannosaur's forearm and the tooth. She worked by feel to strip away the skin and muscle around the two bones of the arm. Deciding that the smaller of the two bones would make a likely flute, she set to work using the serrated tooth to saw off the bone's ends. The hard tooth enamel cut through the softer bone, but only slowly. Not being able to see hampered her. She did not finish the job until dim light returned to the sky. By then, both ends of the bone were scored all the way around. Placing the bone on the ground, she set the tooth edge in the scored groove and struck it like a chisel with her stone. The tooth broke through the bone into the marrow. Con turned the bone and repeated the process until the end of the bone fell off. She did the same to the other end. The result of her labors was a seven-inch-long marrow-filled cylinder about an inch and a half in diameter. Con gouged some of the marrow out with her fingernail and ate it. The fat it contained produced a pleasing sen-sation in her mouth. She got out as much as she could with her finger, eating it all greedily. Then she splintered the other bone, using two rocks from her wall. She ate the marrow in that bone also, but what she really wanted was the splinters. She used one to clean the remaining marrow from the cylinder and to scrape its interior walls. She looked through the hollow cylinder and judged its walls were still too rough.

  Con removed the lace from her shoe and threaded it through the hollow bone. Then she pushed mud into the bone to serve as an abrasive and, clamping the bone with her teeth, pulled the lace back and forth with her hands. She polished her bone flute in this manner until the lace frayed and snapped so many times she could no longer tie together a usable length. She washed the bone clean in the puddle and inspected the inside. It looked smooth.

  "Now I'll see if it was all worth it." Con put her lips to the bone and blew across the open end like the man pictured in the lecture. The sound of wind came out, nothing more. Con tried different ways of blowing, and sometimes the windy sound would rise in pitch. She con-tinued to experiment until, for a fraction of a second, she produced a tone. It took many tries before she made the tone again. "At least I know it works." She practiced until she found just the right lip shape and position to consis-tently produce a note. Then she worked on volume. After a while, she could blow the note loudly whenever she picked up the flute.

  Con emerged from her shelter into a torrential rain. If it hadn't been cold, she would have appreciated how the rain washed the mud from her body. She took her wet tee shirt and put it on before trying to waterproof her shelter. The trench she had dug to divert the rain had clogged, and a puddle had formed against the back of the Tyran-nosaur. She redug the trench, draining the puddle. Only when that task was finished, did she set about signaling with her flute.

  The rain had turned the view from the hilltop into one of unbroken gray. Even the river below was invisible. Con pressed the top of the flute against her lower lip, formed her upper lip into the correct shape, and blew. She moved the flute slightly until a clear tone issued forth. / should blow in a distinctive pattern, she thought. She settled on three short notes followed by a pause and then one long note. She played it over and over until her frigid hands Shook too violently to make a steady tone. I've got to get out of the rain. Con sensed that getting this chilled was life-threatening. It would be hard to get even marginally warm in her meager shelter. Signaling from the hilltop would be a delicate balance between the hope of rescue and the threat of exposure. A miscalcu-lation would be fatal. Con envisioned herself dying from cold while signaling to no one. Then she imagined Rick and Joe walking by as she hunkered beneath the carcass. Each scenario was as frightening as it was probable. At the moment, the cold heavy rain made up her mind for her. It seemed to be doing its utmost to defeat her efforts. Con doubted if her notes carried far or that Rick or Joe would even be out in such weather. /

  should eat something and try again when the rain lessens. She stum-bled downhill, cold and defeated, to get the tooth and cut some more meat. When she approached the Tyrannosaur, she noticed that some of its rib cage was exposed. It wasn't like that before! She was positive that part of the carcass had been untouched when she climbed the hill. Something else is eating it, too. She looked about warily into the gray rain. Nothing. Nevertheless, she was not reassured. Con quickly cut some meat from another part of the carcass, then retreated to her shelter. She bailed out the puddle on its floor with her hands, assured herself that the rock wall was intact, and removed her shirt before entering. Inside, she carefully stretched the tee shirt across the doorway. Then, she placed her rock and the Tyrannosaur tooth where they were readily at hand. Only then, did she eat. As she curled up half-naked in the mud, a bit of warmth returned to her. The racing metabolism that kept her constantly hungry also allowed her to warm up. Within half an hour, only her bare feet felt frigid. Now, she shivered only when she thought of what might be outside.

  RICK AND JOE slogged by the riverbank in the gloomy half-light of noon. Despite wearing ponchos, they were wet and miserable. The rainfall had increased all morning until it fell in a near-blinding torrent. Everything more than twenty yards ahead was obscured. Still, they contin-ued, keeping tense eyes out for whatever the river had washed up. Both pretended they were looking for food. They were really looking for Con's body.

  "I should have been the one to hold on to her," said Joe in a low, sad voice. Rick reacted as if Joe had struck him. "I didn't let go, goddamn it!"

  "I was going to protect her ..."

  "And I screwed up," said Rick. "Why don't you come out and say it."

  "She's gone, isn't she?"

  "She let go of my hand to grab her shoe."

  "So that makes it okay," said Joe bitterly. "As long as it isn't your fault. . ."

  "Is that what you th
ink, Joe?" shouted Rick with anger and anguish. "I loved her!"

  "Love?" scoffed Joe. "You only knew her a few days. You had the hots for her. That's not love."

  "How the hell would you know?" answered Rick.

  "I'll tell you what love is," said Joe. "It's holding your baby girl for the first time and knowing the woman you adore is her mother."

  "Too bad you abandoned them to make drugs."

  Joe's face tensed with rage. He turned on the gun and flicked off the safety. "I could kill you for that."

  "Go ahead," said Rick. "You think I care?" He strug-gled to keep from sobbing. "Come on. Do it. Then I'll be with Con."

  As Joe watched Rick, the anger left his face to be re-placed by profound sorrow. He switched off the gun. "I'm sorry, Rick. I'm so down, I'm talking shit."

  "I never met anyone like her, Joe. She was so damned brave and funny and smart and pretty. She was wonder-ful."

  Joe sighed deeply. "She was something, all right."

  "I know she went down fighting."

  "No question about it," said Joe. "We'll find her and put her to rest." They walked for a while in the gloom before Rick spoke again. "Joe, I didn't mean it about..."

  "I know your didn't," said Joe. "What made me mad was, in a way, you were right. I was so wrapped up in my company, I forgot to take care of them." He shook his head dolefully. "Yeah, I abandoned them." The shape of a mangled duckbilled dinosaur, washed up by the river, loomed out of the rain. A nightstalker was feeding off the carcass. Joe raised the gun and fired. The little carnivore tumbled into the river. Rick ran to fetch it before the current swept it away. When he re-turned, Joe looked at the dead animal with undisguised disgust.

  "Filthy creature," said Joe.

  "It's better than eating carrion," said Rick. He began to butcher it on the spot.

  "It tastes like carrion," replied Joe. "We are eating car-rion, only secondhand."

  "I was hoping for a change, too," said Rick. He cut off the lower leg at the knee, then sliced off the meaty upper leg close to the pelvis. It looked like a huge turkey drum-stick. Rick did the same to the other leg, then threw both on his shoulder as he and Joe resumed walking. The rest of the nightstalker lay in the mud to rot.

  "I don't understand why there are so damned many of those things," said Joe. "They're the only living animals we've seen since the fire."

  "I don't know why either," said Rick. "Maybe they lived in burrows and were protected. Maybe they're just tough."

  "They're tough, all right," said Joe. "Even Pandit couldn't make one edible."

  "Chewing gives us something to do at night."

  "At least Pandit cooked it," said Joe.

  "We will, too," said Rick. "When the rain stops."

  "I'm not holding my breath."

  The rain fell unabated as Rick and Joe continued their melancholy search. They walked another a mile before encountering a swollen stream that barred their way. For the third time since they abandoned the plane, they had to make a lengthy detour into the foothills to find a place to cross. By the time they approached the river again, it was getting dark.

  "Better find some high ground," said Rick.

  "Yeah," said Joe tiredly.

  They climbed to the crest of a small hill overlooking the river and dug a circular drainage trench. Rick placed his poncho over the muddy ground inside the circle; then, Joe stepped on it as Rick slipped under Joe's poncho. Rick and Joe sat down and used the shared poncho as a tent. Taking out his knife, Rick peeled away part of the hide on the nightstalker's drumstick. He cut a piece of the muscle and handed it to Joe.

  "Thanks," said Joe as he made a wry face and began to chew. After he swallowed, Joe pulled out a water bot-tie. "Care for some Chateau de Floodwater? I recommend it with nightstalker."

  "What vintage?"

  "I believe it's 65 million B.C."

  Rick sniffed. "A disappointing year."

  "You can say that again."

  Eating together under the poncho, Rick and Joe shared body heat. The warmth they obtained was the closest thing to comfort they had the entire day. As Rick ate his foul dinner, he felt a deep bond to the man so close to him. Despite their differences, theirs was the special comradeship that soldiers had experienced since the be-ginning of time. It was a kind of love, though Rick would not have used that word. Now, it's only the two of us against the whole world. Their adversary, Rick had little doubt, would win eventually. But not before we bury Con, Rick resolved. After that, I don't care what hap-pens.

  27

  AFTER DARKNESS FELL, THE PATTER OF THE RAIN LESS-

  ened. Huddled in her den, Con could hear soft, squishy foot-steps and occasional hisses from beyond her thin cloth door-way. There seemed to be more than one animal outside. How can they know what they're doing? she wondered. Somehow, they did. Her hearing, made acute by fear, picked up the sounds of teeth scraping bone and of sniffing. Perhaps one is sniffing outside my doorway, tired of rotting meat. The image terrified her, and she clutched her rock and the tooth harder. How can I fight something I can't see? The answer was she couldn't.

  Sometime during the long stretch of night, Con's exhaus-tion substituted the terror of dreams for the terror of what roamed outside. She awoke, tired and stiff, to dim light, rain, and fear. She had not dared to drink from the puddle all night, and she was very thirsty. / can't hide here forever, she told herself. Cautiously, she pulled the shirt aside and peered out. The nocturnal visitors were gone. Emboldened, she drank deeply from the puddle, despite the water's unpleasant taste. When her thirst was quenched, she withdrew into her den to eat. The raw flesh that lay on the muddy floor smelled. Con questioned the wisdom of eating it, but decided she had little choice. She swallowed only a few bites before she vom-ited.

  Con crawled from her den and let the rain wash the foul-ness from her body. It was a gentle rain, though raw. Con was thoroughly chilled before she felt clean enough to put on her shirt. She drank again from a puddle, attempting to cleanse the taste in her mouth with dirty water.

  The Tyrannosaur's night visitors had accelerated its ruin-ation. Most of its ribs were exposed, and much its viscera lay half-eaten on the ground. The odor of putrescence filled the dank air. One look, and Con knew the carcass could no longer serve as food or shelter. / won't last long in this rain, she thought drearily. As she stared at her former refuge, Con realized the creature's hide had held back the assault of de-cay. Because that defense had been so thoroughly breached, rot had set in rapidly. Con saw that the waterproof skin might be a resource for her survival. She surveyed the hide for a large area that was still unmarred; then, using the tooth, she began to flay it. The thick hide did not peel away easily. Con found she had to carefully run the tooth between the skin and the body to get it loose. It was hard work that left her covered with blood and rancid grease. Her most trying moment came when she slipped and her leg entered the Tyrannosaur's abdomen up to the knee. The smell that issued forth was almost over-powering.

  After much hard work, Con was able to drag a heavy patch of hide from the carcass. Its irregular shape was approxi-mately five feet square. She carried it to the crest of the hill, then stretched it out with the raw side to the ground. With that accomplished, she walked down the hill to the river. She bathed the smell of the carcass from her body and thoroughly washed her clothes. The process chilled her even more, but she dared not smell like the carrion eaters' food. When she thought all the taint was gone, she returned to her den for the tooth, her stone, and the flute.

  The nightstalker appeared as she was retrieving her things. It stepped quietly from behind the Tyrannosaur, then froze when it saw Con. I'm supposed to be invisible, she thought. Clearly, she was not. The carnivore stared at her intently with its large yellow-brown eyes. Although it was slimly built and stood less than four feet high, its sharp teeth and wicked claws made it fearsome. The animal appeared to be in its element, with feathers as unruffled by the rain as a duck's. The tragedies that had unfolded upon the wor
ld appeared not to have harmed it in the slightest. Rather, they seemed to have provided the nightstalker with abundant opportunities. Con sensed it was trying to determine if she were one of them. Tucking her flute and the tooth into a pocket, Con sur-veyed her shelter wall for a likely rock. She slowly bent over and picked one up. As she did so, she saw the nightstalker's two slashing toe claws rise. Con threw the rock with the quick fluid motion she had acquired pitching varsity baseball. The projectile grazed the dinosaur's chest. It gave a cry and retreated ten yards before turning to stare again at Con. She picked up another rock and threw it. This time was a near miss. The nightstalker did not retreat, but it did not advance either. Con sensed a delicate truce. With a wary eye on the nightstalker, she quickly removed her shirt to use for carrying stones. She spread it on the ground and piled all the rocks that were suitable for throwing upon it. When she was done, she gathered up her bundle and retreated slowly, never taking her eye from the creature that stared back. As Con retreated, the nightstalker advanced until it reached the Tyrannosaur. It stopped there and began to feed.

  Con circled around to the hilltop. She rolled up the hide, slung it over her shoulder, then picked up her bundle of stones with her spare hand. Spying another hill about a mile down the river, she headed for it. Between the hills was a small stream that was not too swollen to cross. She unrolled the hide and began to scrape it with the tooth and scour it with mud. Every once in a while, she rinsed it off in the running water and sniffed it. She repeated the process several times before she was satisfied its scent was unlikely to attract nightstalkers. She bathed one last time before heading to the next hill. By the time Con climbed to the hilltop, she was thoroughly cold and exhausted. Cutting, cleaning, and carrying the heavy hide and the repeated bathing had cost her dearly in terms of warmth and energy. Her stomach cramps had returned, and there was nothing to sate them. "Perhaps it was all for nothing," she said tiredly. She emptied her shirt of rocks and put it on. Then she dug a small circular trench to drain off the rain and a basin to catch it. She arranged her possessions within the circle—the pile of rocks, the cobblestone, the tooth, and the flute—then sat down among them and wrapped herself in the hide. She suddenly thought of the shoe she had left behind. "I won't need it." She lifted the flute to her lips and blew three short notes, paused and blew one long one. This would be her song. She intended to stay upon the hill and play it until dark. If she survived the night, she would play it the next day. Con knew she was capable of nothing more. Those four notes would be her last cries for help and, perhaps, her dirge. RICK AND JOE began to walk the riverbank as soon as there was light to see. Although it was springtime in the northern hemisphere, the darkened "days" were short be-cause the sun's light could penetrate the atmosphere only when it was high in the sky. They walked in a nether world where everything was a dimly seen shadow. Each rock, each corpse by the river revealed its true nature only when they approached closely. This dreary world did not lend itself to conversation, and they seldom spoke.