by M. J. Konkel
Joe stuck the revolver in his jacket pocket, grabbed a pair of binoculars off a hook on the wall and together they headed for the ridge's edge. When they got there, they could see Brown's Station below them a little to the left and they even saw a couple of cars on the two roads down in the valley.
“At least we are not alone,” commented Anne.
“Should we be able to see anything else?” Johnny asked.
“Yeah. We should be able to see some of the buildings of La Crosse up there.” Anne pointed upriver to where there were only trees, fields and swamp – no buildings.
Johnny put the binoculars up to his eyes. “I don't see anything up that way. Not even radio towers. I know there should be towers there. There is a tower downriver a bit, but there should be several up near La Crosse. It looks like La Crosse is gone.”
“Gone? A city can't just disappear.”
“Well this one has. We need to get down to that town down there.”
“That is Brown's Station. What about my Mom and Dad? Shouldn't I stay here at the house?”
“How are they going to get here? Do you know what I am thinking?”
“What?”
“I think that they are all right. We are the ones that are in trouble. That storm sent us through some wormhole or time warp or something like that. I think that we should get down there and see if the people down there know anything about what happened.”
“Storms can’t do that.”
“Well, somehow we have been sent someplace we don’t belong.”
They headed back to the house, each with their own worries. Johnny was afraid he would never see Tiffany again and Anne was having the same thoughts about her parents.
“You don't have a car, do you?”
“My car is in the shop. I ... ah, sort of had a little accident.”
“Accident?”
“All right. So, I backed over a fire hydrant.”
Johnny gave a little chuckle, but then continued, “No other vehicles here we could use? Like a farm truck?”
Anne was relieved that Johnny didn't hassle her about her driving. Everyone else she knew certainly had. She was always being reminded of her mistakes and her clumsiness. Except on the court. There she could dribble and shoot like no one else. “No. Dad's truck is over at Uncle Barney's farm. Dad hauled some parts over there and left it. That's about ten miles west of here. Oh! But there are tractors in the shed up there.” Anne pointed to a big building with gray cinder block walls and a steep shiny metal roof. Big huge sliding doors were open, but the interior was too dark to see in from where they were standing.
“Tractors? How do you drive one?”
“Oh, there's really nothing to it. It's easy.” said Anne proudly. She knew how to do something that he didn't.
Anne led the way to the shed and through the big open door. A whooshing noise came from the dark interior and they both raised their shotguns, but it was only a spooked flock of pigeons. Their eyes quickly adjusted to the decreased light and they saw two tractors and a combine. They found, upon inspection, that one of the tractors had a nearly empty tank of gas, but the other had half a tank. The tractor with gas had a shovel on the front with two long tines attached to it. Anne jumped in the seat, started the tractor's engine, pointed and shouted over the loud noise, “This lever here raises and lowers the lift.” She raised the shovel a few feet off the ground. “This lever controls the angle on the lift. The tines on the front are for carrying hay bales. To get going, you just have to push the clutch in. It is the pedal down there on the left side. Then you put it gear, starting with first. Let out the clutch slowly.” They started moving. “Then push the clutch in and shift to the next gear,” she shouted over the tractor's rumbling. “The gas is the right-side pedal, but you can instead pull this level down to the speed you want, and then you can let go of the foot pedal. It is sort of like cruise control. The other pedal here on the right is the brake.” They rolled onto the winding county road, turning north this time. Anne smoothly shifted gears a couple of more times and they were soon rolling along at its top speed of about twenty mph, the cool air whipping through their hair. Johnny stood behind Anne and held onto her seat as they soon passed his car. He was not sure if he should curse it or be thankful that it stalled when it did. After another ten minutes, they could see the other end of the road. Ahead was just tall thick woods complete with foliage.
“Stop here,” Johnny yelled over the tractor's engine. After Anne stopped the tractor about hundred and fifty yards from the trees, Johnny explained. “We don't know what is in there. Remember how that other dinosaur got ambushed back there by the wood's edge. I don't want the same thing to happen to us here.”
“Fu... frickins!” she caught herself. “We're trapped. There is no road out.”
“Let's get back to your house. We should pack up some provisions and go on foot.”
Anne nodded and turned the tractor around. “I guess this means I won't be playing ball tonight.”
“Basketball?”
“Yeah, the tournament starts tonight, and I won't be there.”
“I don't think anyone from here is going to that game. Is that why you didn't go with your parents?”
“Yeah, that and because I just hate funerals. I refuse to go to them.”
“Hey! Can I try driving?” Johnny asked.
“Sure! If you think you can handle this bad boy,” said Anne as she patted the steering wheel before sliding over sitting on the fender over the right side back wheel. Meanwhile, Johnny scooted into the seat. He put it into gear and let out the clutch a little too fast, causing the tractor to jerk as it started to move. Shifting into the next gear was easier and they were soon rumbling back down the road. They had not gone far when Anne tapped Johnny hard on the shoulder and emphatically pointed back down the road behind them. Johnny turned to look and saw another of the tyrannosaur-like dinosaurs following them. Or maybe it was one of the same ones they saw earlier. It had come out of the woods where the road ended.
“He's gaining on us. Is there any way to make this thing go faster?” yelled Johnny over the engine noise.
“You have it on full throttle. This is as fast as it will go. The lift and balance weight on the back are slowing us down,” Anne yelled back.
Johnny glanced around. “Only empty fields on both. There’s no place to hide.” Johnny slowed the tractor and did a U-turn before stopping.
“What are you doing?” Anne screamed.
“No time to explain. Get off and get going up the road.”
“Are you crazy?” Anne started to protest.
But Johnny pleaded, “please, just do it. We don't have time. I'll catch up. I promise.”
Anne got off and Johnny handed her the guns and tossed down the provisions pack that they had brought. She started jogging up the road. But she had to see what was happening, so she turned around. The tractor was barreling towards the beast. Johnny was raising the shovel up high while the dinosaur was still charging towards the tractor. When the tractor was almost under the dinosaur, Johnny jumped off the back and rolled. The dinosaur suddenly tried to stop, surprised that its prey was charging back. But it was too late. The tractor plowed into the giant beast, burying its tines deep into the belly much like a Triceratops might do. The dinosaur was knocked backwards and toppled over while giving a tremendous painful roar. The tractor, turned by the collision, went careening into the ditch and tipped over onto its side, with its wheels still spinning. The dinosaur did not stay down. It got itself back upright and lumbered back towards the trees, but it did not get far. Ribs were cracked, and vital organs were punctured. It fell with a huge crash to the road that Anne felt through her feet. Johnny did not get up. What was wrong? He was supposed to be running back. Anne's heart was beating hard. What if he is badly hurt or even dead? She was suddenly worried. She couldn't carry him if he was hurt and even if she could, where would she take him? She dropped the guns and the pack and ran back to him as fast as she could.
When she got up close to him, she could see his arms were moving, and she heard him moaning. She turned him over onto his back. “Are you OK? Say something.”
Johnny opened and closed his eyes. He opened them again. “The light is so bright. Ooh! My head hurts. What happened?”
“You didn't catch up. Are you nuts? You almost got yourself killed!” Anne shouted.
“Not so loud, please,” Johnny said, clutching his head.
“I'm sorry! It's just that you scared me. I suppose I should be thankful you're alive. When you jumped off the tractor just before it rammed the dinosaur and you were not moving, I got really scared.”
“The tractor? Oh, yeah. But I don't remember jumping. Ooh, my head!” He put one of his hands back up to his head.
“I think that you are suffering from a concussion. You must have hit your head on the pavement when you jumped.”
“That would explain this goose egg,” he replied while rubbing the back of this head.
“I know a guy on the football team that got a concussion in a game once. Dirty hit. He didn’t drop the ball though. He had a game before that when he fumbled, like, four times. The coach made him carry the ball with him everywhere for the next week. He was supposed to never let it touch the ground. Some of the other teachers weren’t happy when he came in holding a football for the whole week. Anyway, for about a week, he couldn't remember getting hit. Eventually, he did though. Maybe it will be the same for you. You’ll start to remember after a while.”
“I hope so.”
“Does anything else hurt?”
“Everything hurts, but I don't think that anything is broken. Did I get him?”
Anne smiled down on him. “Yeah, you got him. Right in the old keg. Do you think you can stand up? We really should get outa here.”
“Keg?”
“Belly.”
Johnny got to his feet. “I think you should hold my arm. I feel a bit dizzy. My ears are ringing too.” Anne helped steady him as they made their way back to the house. It took much of the rest of the day to get back. With Johnny's concussion, they couldn't go too fast and they had to stop frequently for rest. Luckily, they brought water and food to replenish themselves and Anne did for him what she could. Even more luckily, they did not see any more dinosaurs on the way back. Johnny didn't remember the roar of the dying dinosaur but when Anne described it, he said that it probably scared away most of the other dinosaurs. And those that weren't scared away were probably fighting over who got the best parts of the dead one. Anne thought that it was a good sign that he was talking coherently and seemed to be thinking clearly even if he was feeling a bit dizzy. Still she wished she could get him to a doctor to check him over. There wasn't a hospital or clinic in Brown's Station, but one of her favorite teachers was married to a doctor. Maybe, she could look at him – if she is still in town.
Chapter 7
Joe took Highway 26 up to where it ran into Highway 11 and then he crossed the bridge over the wide Mississippi into Wisconsin. Even this far north, the Mississippi was already close to a mile wide at Brown's Station. But it was much narrower at the bridge. Once across, he turned north at the Highway 85 junction. Highway 85 was a two-lane highway that wound along between the river and the hills next to it. Closer to La Crosse, it turned into a four-lane divided highway. The grass in the ditches, in the occasional fields and in people's yards was starting to turn green, but mostly it was still brown from the winter and all the trees were bare, except for some budding which gave some patches of trees a faint reddish cast. After all the fog and stormy weather of the previous night, the morning was much different with a baby blue sky and only a few scattered fluffy clouds. The air was different too. It seemed cleaner, as if the storm somehow cleansed the air, and it seemed easier to breathe. He wished he had swung by the house to make sure Karen hadn't returned and he should have left a note explaining where he was just in case she came home while he was out looking for her. He should also have left a warning about the dinosaurs. But then he thought that she wouldn't believe such a warning anyway. But a note was something she would have remembered to do. It was probably all right though since she would look for him at his parents and they could explain. About three miles up the highway there was a small valley that wound to the east and a farm was nestled in the midst of it. There was a white country farmhouse near the highway and a red barn and silver tin shed behind the house. Out in a corn field that still had dead stocks sticking up from the previous year, he spotted a small herd of upright dinosaurs. He pulled over onto the shoulder and watched them for a minute. He counted them – there were eight. These dinosaurs were quite a bit larger than the raptors, weighing a ton or two and, they were gray with colorful crests on the tops of their heads. He wondered if these were like the ones Grace Higgins saw. These were eating corn stocks, so they were herbivores and probably not a threat. But just the sight of more dinosaurs made Joe anxious. What had happened? Where did these dinosaurs come from? Why was every form of communication out? And most importantly, where was Karen? As he pulled back onto the road, the noise of the truck spooked the herd and they lumbered off into the woods on the far side of the corn field. In a bit of anxiousness, he stepped a little harder on the gas pedal. He had to get to La Crosse to find out what was going on. He was alert, watching for signs of where Karen's car might have gone off the road and for sight of any other dinosaurs. He rounded the next corner and then slammed hard on the brakes. The truck screeched to a halt just a few feet short of a stand of huge oak trees that were not there the day before.
“This cannot be,” he muttered to himself. He got out of the truck and, leaning against the car door, he looked up at the huge wall of trees that appeared to be centuries old and had full size leaves hanging on them already. He stared into the forest, trying to penetrate its depths with his vision. He had to admit to himself that an idea that had been festering in the back of his mind had to be true. The dinosaurs didn't come to Brown's Station. Brown's Station came to the dinosaurs. They had somehow become lost in another world or time like in those old Bermuda triangle movies. In the movies it was always on some boat or plane out over the Bermuda Triangle or over the Pacific somewhere. Not in the middle of the country. Nonetheless, he could not deny he was no longer in the time and place he knew. But where was Karen?
He thought it just might be possible that there was a way around the blockage – at least he would try to find one. He was desperate. He turned his truck around and started back down the road. Spotting a red SUV coming up the road, he stopped the truck and flashed his lights. The SUV slowed down, stopped and a man inside opened his window.
Joe recognized the man, but did not know him. “This road just ends. It is the strangest thing. There are trees blocking it, a whole forest,” he yelled across to the guy. The man in the other vehicle gave him a strange look and pulled away.
“Well, you will just have to see for yourself,” muttered Joe. “Damn! Am I going crazy? Trees don't just suddenly spring up in the middle of a road. Do they? And I am certainly talking to myself.” He listened for a moment. No. Those trees were real. And so were those dinosaurs. He trusted his sanity, no matter how insane the world now appeared.
Joe put the truck back into gear and went back to the junction, and then started to head south on 85 along the east bank of the river. Not more than a quarter of a mile down the road he spotted a rusty old blue pickup truck coming up the road. He slowed down and so did the oncoming truck until they were stopped alongside each other.
“You can't get through that way,” the woman in the truck yelled. “Oddest thing! It just ends in a tall grassy field. Greenest grass you’ve ever seen. I just went down that way the day before yesterday. Must be some type of landslide or earthquake shifted everything.”
“It was no earthquake. I don't know what happened, but the road also ends about ten miles north of here. Beyond that is nothing but trees,” Joe informed the woman. “There are strange beasts roaming around here as well and
some of them are very dangerous. I think that you should go into Brown's Station and stay there.”
Joe was not going back to Brown's Station quite yet, though. He was going to check out Highway 26. It led up to the US 90 Freeway. It was a longer route to La Crosse, but if there was any chance that it was open, Joe was going to take it. The women drove off towards the bridge and Joe turned his truck around and followed her. At the junction, they got behind the red SUV that had returned and was heading back towards Brown's Station. Once on the other side, he took the first exit and then turned right, instead of the left into Brown's Station that the other vehicles took. He drove a little slower on Highway 26 than he did on Highway 85, wary of the unknown.
With normal driving conditions, it would have taken about 45 minutes to get to La Crosse using Highway 26. Not being sure of what to expect, he was driving only about 35 to 40 mph, so it was going to take a lot longer. About nine miles up the road he rounded the bend near the Root River and started to go up over a small bridge that crossed the river. The Root River, a small tributary to the Mississippi, was known for the otters that made it their home and for the great trout fishing in its upper stretches. He spotted a stranded car down on the left side and he was distracted by it and the large white balls that were lying in the grass.
He slammed hard on the brakes and his truck's tires screeched hard on the pavement a second time that morning. He saw the end of the bridge and braced himself for going off the end and into the river. He felt himself jarred upward and his head hit the roof as the front end of his truck went over the edge. The truck stopped though. He couldn't see anything in front except for the wilderness of the opposite bank of the river. There was no more bridge in front. No road. Turning to his left, he found himself staring down at the enlarged river. Even though he had been alert, he hadn't been able to see as he came up the road that the second half of the bridge was just gone. What was left of the bridge angled a few degrees down towards the river. The wheels on the front end of his truck went over the edge and his truck threatened to topple into the river. He shifted the gear into reverse and tried to back up, but the rear wheels just screeched as they spun in place and started to smoke. Then he caught sight in his rear-view mirror a commotion behind him, a hundred yards or so back down the road. The trees were swaying wildly. Then as several of the smaller trees toppled over onto the road, a large upright dinosaur that must have stretched over thirty-five feet from its head to its tail crept out of the woods. He twisted his head around to get a better look at it. It looked like those in pictures that he had seen of a tyrannosaurus, except for a spiny ridge of bones down its back and large crests over its eyes. This beast dwarfed the dinosaurs that attacked him and his boys at the garage. It stopped on the road and turned an enormous head, looking way too big for its body, to look in his direction. Its tail whipped around as it turned itself and then it started trotting its five-ton body up the road towards him. “Oh shit!” he exclaimed as he grabbed his shotgun and scrambled out of the truck. His ankle twisted upon hitting the pavement as his foot skidded on an oil spot that happened to be where he stepped. He whipped his hand out to catch the door, but his hand slipped off the door and he started to slide down over the bridge. His gun flew out of his hands and went skipping across the pavement. His body slid on the oily spot and he slid over edge of the bridge. His right hand miraculously caught a metal rod that was sticking out of the end of the bridge and he managed to hang on. In the river about twenty feet below, he spotted out of the corner of his eye what appeared to be two huge crocodiles. Crocodiles did not live in the Minnesota that he knew. He got both hands on the metal rod and was holding tight, knowing that if he fell into the river, the crocodiles would be on him in seconds. He was caught between the dinosaur and crocodiles. He flailed his legs in the air until one foot caught a metal girder beam. He then swung himself under the bridge and got both of his feet on the beam. He knew that he was still not safe. He could feel from the vibrations through the beam each step the dinosaur took. It was like rhythmic mini-earthquakes. He managed to crawl onto the beam and then he quickly squirmed back under the bridge towards the bank. Then the bridge itself started bouncing as the dinosaur came onto it. The already damaged bridge started to buckle from the extra weight, almost knocking Joe off into the river. He tightly held onto the girder beam. The bridge didn't collapse, but the end buckled with the last section of the bridge afterward angled down towards the river at a steeper angle than before. His truck slid off the end and fell front end first down into the river and the huge dinosaur followed behind it, crashing its head into the back end of the truck at the bottom. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion due to the enormous size of the dinosaur. It flopped over on its side and did not move further, though the crocodiles did. Joe carefully inched himself along the beam the rest of the distance to the rocky bank. He turned around to look at his truck with the dinosaur's head lying on the hood. The crocodiles were tugging on the touch skin of the dinosaur without success. They would have to wait until the flesh started to rot, provided other scavengers didn't get to it first.
