In the end, muscle memory and reflexes delay my demise. I dive to the side, avoiding the Nephilim’s grasp. Or did I? When I roll back to my feet, the giant thunders past, his hands redirected toward a carnivorous dinosaur that partly resembles T-Rex as I remember it from Jurassic Park. The shape of its skull is a little different, and at twenty-five feet in length, it’s a might smaller. But what really sets it apart is the coat of iridescent feathers covering most of its body. The shimmering green plume seems to glow in the diminished sunlight.
The dinosaur is beautiful, until it opens its jaws, revealing teeth the length of my hand.
Without a trace of fear, Tsul’Kalu leaps at what I assume is an Appalachiosaurus. Its skin doesn’t match what we found by the torn fence, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t ravage the men stationed here. Whether or not it did, I’m glad it’s here now.
The dinosaur might be a killing machine, but I doubt it has Tsul’Kalu’s intelligence, or his ability to hold a grudge.
Then again, as good a hunter as the giant might be, he’s clearly never fought a dinosaur before. The Appalachio turns its head sideways, catching Tsul’Kalu by the waist. The massive jaws squeeze. Teeth plunge into the hunter’s flesh. Bones crack from the pressure.
Tsul’Kalu screams in pain.
Or is it pleasure?
Is he grimacing in agony, or smiling in perverse delight?
The scene unnerves me. As I start to back away, the Appalachio gives Tsul’Kalu a vicious shake. Purple blood sprays, coating the building’s wall. Organs slip from his ruined gut, decorating the predator’s snout and feet.
But the taste of him must not agree with the dinosaur. It gives him one last shake and tosses him to the side. When it turns toward me, snout oozing purple, I realize that, instead of standing transfixed by the unreal violence, I should have run like hell. Now instead of staring down a demi-god with a hankering for chaos, I’m facing off with an apex predator from the Cretaceous.
I suppose part of me wanted to see if Tsul’Kalu could be defeated, but now that he has, curiosity transforms into a thick syrup of ‘ohh shit.’ The difference is that I’m pretty sure bullets will do the trick.
But I don’t want to kill the Appalachio. It’s just doing its job, killing and eating, culling the weak, helping evolve species toward humanity’s eventual rise. It doesn’t deserve to die by modern weaponry.
So I aim for its leg and squeeze off two rounds.
The bullets punch through the thick skin but lack the energy to exit the other side. The dinosaur’s leg flinches up. It scratches at the air, chomps its teeth together in my direction, and then forgets all about the wound.
To a creature accustomed to battling its own kind and herbivores with spikes, horns, and armor plating, the slugs might feel like insect bites. It plants its feet firmly on the ground, leans forward and unleashes a bellow that hurts my ears and smells of rotting flesh. Tendrils of drool warble at me, stretching out and falling to slap the pavement at my feet.
And now…it’s time to run.
The Appalachio’s roar comes to a sudden stop when I start running. The sound is followed by the thump of large feet, vibrating through the concrete.
The door is just a few feet ahead, but not close enough. I can feel hot breath on my neck. Can feel the shadow of the dinosaur’s head wrapping around me.
With a shout, I dive through the doorway, sliding across the smooth flooring while the wall behind me explodes inward. Bricks pummel my body. Dust swirls in the air. And then, the Appalachio roars again. Inside the building, the sound reverberates.
I slap my hands over my ears and turn back to find myself just inches from its open jaws. The teeth clap shut, the sound like the crack of a toppling tree. The dinosaur shoves against the wall, spilling free more bricks and inching closer.
Dust makes my feet slip as I scrabble back, my retreat made pitiful by the best shock and awe campaign the Cretaceous has to offer.
When the dinosaur withdraws, my senses return. I push myself and turn toward the building’s far exit. From there it will be a quick run past the ruined fence and into the lush forest, where a creature my size shouldn’t have much trouble hiding.
Unless Inola’s white-faced mystery creature is there. I know now that the past is far stranger than anyone would have guessed. If creatures like the Nephilim can exist, erased from the fossil record by the Smithsonian, what else might we come across? With hundreds of millions of years at play, the possibilities seem endless. Modern people have only been around for 200,000 years. If the Earth is billions of years old, contrary to what many religious folks in Appalachia believe, that’s essentially 0%. It seems entirely likely that in all that time, things beyond our imagining and not recorded by the fossil record, could have come and gone.
Which is what’s going to happen to me if I don’t get the hell out of here.
Before I can make a break for it, the side wall crashes inward, toppling a sheet of bricks toward me. I stumble back as a massive tail crashes through the space, slamming into desks, chairs, and nearly my head.
The Appalachio isn’t just hungry. It’s pissed.
While the wall continues to fold inward, I bolt from the room, hoping the dinosaur won’t think to peek inside. I slam into the hallway wall, denting it with my shoulder, before sprinting for the far exit. I hit the push bar a little too hard and spill out into sunlight, more orange than I’ve ever seen before. The staggering beauty of it holds my attention for a breath.
Then the Appalachio roars in frustration.
It knows I’m out, I think, sprinting toward the forest.
When the concrete underfoot shakes nearly hard enough to knock me over, I glance back to find the predator rounding the building’s corner. It’s far more agile than I would have guessed, making the turn with two quick steps, keeping itself upright with its long tail. The dinosaur hits its stride a moment later and it becomes painfully clear that I’m not going to make it even halfway to the forest.
I have no choice, I decide, readying the rifle.
What comes next plays out in my mind’s eye first. I’ll stop, spin around, drop to one knee, and then unleash a full-auto barrage into the Appalachio’s face. Unloading the magazine’s 38 rounds will take just a few seconds, thanks to the bump stock, and it should be more than enough to take the dinosaur down. The question is, will it hit the ground, or land on top of me? Making a mental note to dive out of the way if necessary, I stop hard, spin around, drop to one knee, raise the rifle, and—hold my fire.
I have the dinosaur in my sights.
Killing it would be a simple thing.
But I can’t.
Not because I lack the will, or because of a desire to become the first PETA member in the history of time, but because what I’m seeing behind—and above—the Appalachio is mind-numbing.
Tsul’Kalu leaps off the power station’s roof, soaring a good hundred feet into the air. His body trails an arc of purple blood, gore, and a dangling tangle of his own entrails.
How is he not dead?
How is he moving at all?
What’s most astonishing is that he’s holding several cords of his intestines between his outstretched arms.
Frozen in the moment, unsure of who I should be shooting at, I decide to once again hold my fire. I’ll need the bullets for whoever wins the continuing battle—one that the dinosaur believes is over. Until the giant lands on its back and slings his insides around the dinosaur’s neck.
The moment Tsul’Kalu draws back on the intestines, tightening the cords, and yanking the massive head back, I know who’s going to come out on top, and that the forest will do nothing to save me.
So I adjust my aim, pull the rifle forward and let the bump stock unleash its hellish, fully automatic fury. A few rounds hit the dinosaur, but most strike the hunter. Purple flower bursts trace up his chest, but they miss his head as he leans to the side.
Definitely protecting his head, I think.
The barrage
loosens the giant’s grip, allowing the Appalachio to buck him off. The dinosaur spins around, jaws snapping in rage.
Still holding on to his own insides, which are now hanging from either side of the dinosaur’s head, Tsul’Kalu pulls himself off the ground and delivers a solid kick to the dinosaur’s chin. Teeth snap together. The Appalachio staggers from the impact, but doesn’t slow. It whips around, striking the Nephilim with its massive tail. Like a bat against a ball, the giant launches. But he never lets go of his tether.
Instead of spiraling away, the hunter swings in a wide arc that brings him back around the dinosaur. He takes two running steps upon returning to the ground and then leaps onto the ancient predator’s back, resuming his strangle hold. As the dinosaur thrashes and gags, Tsul’Kalu locks his confident and unnerving eyes on mine.
He doesn’t say it, but I can imagine his thoughts.
Run, rabbit.
Despite the carnage and the agony he must feel, the giant is having the time of his life. I turn tail and sprint five steps before I’m confronted by a thousand pound creature, rearing up on its hind legs. I pull my rifle’s trigger, but the spent magazine has nothing to give.
And it’s a good thing. Had I fired, I would have shot both horse and rider.
“Get on!” Cassie shouts.
I waste no time mounting the horse. “You weren’t supposed to—”
“‘Thank’ and ‘you’ are the only two words that should be coming out of your mouth,” she shouts, spinning the horse around. “Now hold on!” She gives the horse a solid kick with her heels, but I don’t think our ride needs any more inspiration to reach full speed than the nightmare playing out behind us.
I glance over my shoulder as we gallop into the dense and darkening forest. Behind us, the Appalachio falls face first to the ground. Tsul’Kalu rides the creature down, standing on its back, tightening his strangle hold. And then with one last parting glance, he smiles at me.
Despite the wonders of Earth’s natural history on display with every flux, I’ve decided that the past can go right to hell.
We punch through the forest’s far side, entering the broad clearing of tall grass in which Black Creek has been deposited. The town is right where we left it, but it has company—a herd of fifty-foot-long behemoths that not even Tsul’Kalu could suffocate with his insides.
Right to fucking hell.
46
The giant dinosaurs resolve as we gallop closer. They’re duck-billed, but far larger than I’d ever imagined. Unlike the Appalachio, these behemoths have no feathers. Their thick, wrinkled skin, like that of a rhino, is gray with black smudges—not quite spots, not quite stripes. In the shadows of a thick forest, it would make clever camouflage, not that they need it. I doubt there is much hunting them. At least, I hope there isn’t.
Walking on all fours, their weight is dispersed, but the ground shakes beneath the herd like a constant low-grade earthquake.
They’re oblivious to the structures in town, scratching themselves against building corners and tasting metal surfaces. They’re a rowdy bunch, their deep resounding bellows like fog horns. What I can only assume are the males, bump into each other on occasion, snapping at their neighbors and slapping their long tails. While their grandstanding macho behavior might help them woo the larger females, their indifference to the town’s presence means it’s taking a beating.
Walls crumble as tails whip back and forth. A few buildings are nearly flattened. I wonder how until I see one male headbutt another in the side, toppling him into a storefront, which folds inward.
Black Creek is under assault, and soon there will be nothing left.
I’m relieved I don’t hear gunfire. Bullets and buckshot might just enrage the beasts. Right now, they’re just passing through. No need to start a war. But the duck-bills have clearly demonstrated that living in a traditional town, during the Cretaceous, might be impossible. Like all living things in this time, we might need to become nomadic, capable of moving, running, or fighting at a moment’s notice.
Cassie slows the horse as we approach the ruined outskirts of town. It looks like the dinosaurs all but charged down Main Street, funneled by the buildings. I don’t see any bodies among the debris. The townspeople no doubt heard and felt the herd’s approach. The lack of bodies is a relief, but the assault isn’t over yet.
“We shouldn’t get any closer,” I say, and Cassie brings the horse to a stop. “Don’t want to spook them.” If the herd becomes a stampede, they’ll trample the small town to dust.
“Look!” Cassie says, pointing toward the herd’s core.
For a moment, all I can see is long dinosaur legs and swishing tails. Then I see a group of people, five in total, comically small among the behemoths.
“What are they doing?” I ask, as they run through the herd, narrowly avoiding being crushed. The dinosaurs either don’t notice the small creatures among them, or simply don’t see them as a threat. They show no reaction to the presence of people, other than indifference.
We watch in silence as the small group reaches the center of the overgrown street, and one by one, they disappear into the ground.
“They’re retreating to the tunnels,” Cassie says.
“Won’t be much of a town to stage an ambush from,” I note. “And after seeing these things, I doubt anyone feels safe above ground.”
I realize that Synergy’s maze of tunnels, and the facility atop the mountain, will likely become our home and the birthplace of humanity on Earth. But will that change the future? With a hundred million years between us and the first ape-like pre-humans, an entire civilization of people could come and go in a self-made apocalypse with barely a millimeter in the geological record as evidence. Modern human civilization didn’t begin until six thousand years in my present’s past, and we’re already nearly on the brink of wiping ourselves out. If we do, we’ll have barely put a razor thin line in the timeline of history.
When a second group hurries outside and into the tunnels, I wonder if my father and Owen have already made the trip. Was this my father’s idea? Or did Flores take over upon his return…assuming he did return?
I get an answer when a group of six horses breaks away from the backside of town and gallops toward us through the field. Flores is in the lead, followed by Inola and Levi. I’m not thrilled to see my father, with Owen, on the saddle in front of him, following close behind. A horse with no rider brings up the rear—my replacement ride.
“Kuzneski is leading the people underground,” Levi says, slowing to a trot and circling us. “They’ll wait there until we come back for them.”
“You know what those things are?” Cassie asks, pointing to the creatures clumsily destroying our town.
“Big-ass-osaurus.” He shrugs. “I ain’t no paleontologist. I don’t—wait, no, they’re Hyps…Hypsibema. Pretty much all we knew about them was that they were big plant eaters. I think Big-ass-osaurus is more descriptive. How do you say ‘big ass’ in Latin?”
“Magnum asinus,” Flores says, coming to a stop. Then he turns to me. “Glad to see you made it.”
“Wouldn’t have, without some prehistoric help,” I say.
“And…” Cassie gives me a sidelong glance.
“A very stubborn…” The sentence trails off when I realize I was about to say girlfriend. On one hand, it’s rather presumptuous. This stage of our relationship has just begun. But she’s also so much more than a girlfriend…and yet, not my wife. My father and Owen’s arrival spares me from having to finish.
When they come to a stop in front of us, I vent my frustration at my father. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know you’re an adult, but you’re still my son. Didn’t sit well with me, letting you face danger without my having your back.”
“Dad…” I’m touched by his concern. I’ve been desperate for it most of my life. But at the moment, it’s misplaced. If he had seen what I just had… I motion to Owen. “You have to take him back.”
&nbs
p; “I’d find a way out, if you left me,” Owen says. “We started this together, we’ll see it through together.”
Bold words from an eleven-year-old. They leave me a bit stymied. “I…don’t remember being this…”
“Stubborn,” my father says.
“Forthright,” Cassie adds, like she remembers this side of me well.
“Stupid,” I say.
“Well, maybe you’ve got a shitty memory, too,” Owen says, then turns to my father, and raises an index finger to silence him. “We are lost in time, and dinosaurs are destroying our town. I can damn well say ‘shitty.’”
My father smiles despite everything my young self said being true.
“Look,” my father says. “The McCoys stick together.”
“And you’ll be alright if we die together?” I ask. “Because that’s something McCoys also historically do.”
“Owen,” Cassie says, nudging me. “Geez.”
“So long as we go down fighting,” my father says, revealing his own stubborn streak.
Memories of things that will never come to pass flit through my mind. Whispers at the wake and funeral, hushed stories at school. My father didn’t die in the first cave-in, he died because he refused to evacuate. He died trying to rescue people.
“I’ve been given a second chance at life, right?” my father says. “I’m not going to waste it sitting by, while people I love are in danger.”
“It’s what got you killed the first time,” I say, sliding down from Cassie’s horse.
I’m surprised when my father slides down from his, standing eye to eye with me. He puts his hands on my shoulders. “And you don’t think that has anything to do with the kind of man you’ve become? I’ve seen you risk your life a number of times, and not just for loved ones. Life is precious. You know that better than most, I reckon. I learned it when your mother passed. You remember that old cross-stitch hanging beside the bathroom door?”
I nod. It’s still there, made by a mother I never knew.
Flux Page 27
