Circumstances were suddenly far worse. Concern for their absence wouldn’t manifest into a search effort for at least two more days. Jack, Spencer and Jocelyn had effectively disappeared; they could be lost or in terrible trouble for all Marcie knew. The wind picked up again sending a chill straight through her body and into her soul. Debbie’s condition was worsening bit by bit, they were almost out of food, and the chemical heat packs that made the nights bearable were nearly gone. As far as Marcie Van Wormer knew, she might soon be the sole survivor of their ill-fated trip to explore the island. A tear streaked her cheek as she slowly walked back to the makeshift shelter, and its origin had nothing to do with the wind.
* * *
Spencer could feel hot, fetid breath on the back of his neck. This was it. His life was at an end. It was strange, he thought, that in the last few seconds of his existence he would experience a clarity of mind he'd never before encountered. Images of his mom and dad flashed by, and scenes from his neighborhood came to mind: Charlie standing beneath the umbrella of his hot dog stand, old Lady Perrault holding a chicken wing in her boney fingers.... But the last fleeting snapshot to enter his mind's eye was one of Marcie. It was lunchtime, right after they'd dined on fried seal meat prepared by Ittuk, and she was beaming at the thought of going on an expedition to explore the coast of the island.
Spencer suddenly realized he would never see his folks, his friends or Marcie again. That thought didn't sit well with him—not one bit. A surge of resolve shot through him. He decided then and there that no ugly, two-bit, oversized swamp rat with a severe case of halitosis and a brain the size of a walnut, was going to turn him into its next meal. That was NOT going to happen.
Knowing that he wouldn’t make it to safety in time, he came up with a last ditch plan. When he sensed that his nemesis was just about to pounce, Spencer juked to his left, then broke sharply right. It was a beautiful move, executed to perfection. If his basketball coach had been there as a witness, it would certainly have earned Spencer an immediate spot on the team.
Although fleet of foot, the large carnivore wasn’t as agile as its prey. The animal fell for the fake and took a hard left. Propelled onward by its own momentum, precious seconds elapsed before it realized what had happened and tried to change direction. Spencer headed for the tree. He began to climb as the attacker skidded to a halt and reversed course, once again accelerating towards him. This time, however, it was too late. Jack’s strong arms reached down to grab Spencer and pull him to safety as the fearsome jaws of the leaping crocodilian snapped shut mere inches from his foot.
Pale and trembling, Spencer collapsed against the trunk of the tree. He closed his eyes, and for several minutes stayed motionless as his breathing slowed and his heart rate returned to some semblance of normal. The predator began circling the tree, knowing that a meal was still just a short distance away. When Spencer had sufficiently recovered, he looked down and his eyes locked on to those of his aggressor. The looks they exchanged conveyed more than words. Cold, spiteful, malevolent thoughts seemed to radiate from the animal’s primitive brain. Extending both middle fingers, Spencer unleashed a stream of expletives sufficient to make a sailor blush. He then slumped once again against the tree and received a very spirited and relieved pat on the back from Jack.
“Nice going, Spence. I gotta tell you though, that guy down there doesn’t drive a cab. This isn’t New York.”
Spencer was too tired to laugh. For several more minutes no one spoke. Together they watched the huge beast pace beneath them until it finally gave up and trudged away. Jocelyn was the one to break the silence. “There is no way I’m leaving this tree with that…that ‘thing’ down there.” She relaxed and heaved a deep sigh. “What have we stumbled into here, guys? Admit it; this is like no other place on Earth. Are these things from outer space or did they just evolve in some freakishly isolated way?”
To her surprise, Spencer definitively answered both questions. “They’re not from outa space, ‘an they ‘dint evolve in a freakish way. The fact is they stopped evolving…period.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged, “I mean they ‘dint evolve. That animal that chased me? It was an archosaur.”
“A what?”
“An archosaur. Probably hasn’t changed much, if at all, since the late Permian or early Triassic. That’s what I mean when I say these animals ‘dint evolve. This appears to be some sort of isolated, stagnant ecosystem.”
“I don’t know if I buy that, Spencer,” Jack said. “You mean to tell me that this is some sort of prehistoric place?”
Jocelyn thought for a moment and suddenly grew excited, “Gymnosperms!”
“Huh?”
“All of the plants we’ve seen; they’re all gymnosperms.”
Jack was amused, “Sounds a bit racy to me. Are you saying these plants have macho sperm that work out in the gym?” He adopted a fake German accent and did a body builder flex, “Ya, dey get all pumped up—for dey’re eggs.”
“Men,” Jocelyn chided, “why do guys always have to relate everything to sex?” Jack and Spencer laughed and shared a high-five. She groaned and continued, “Gymnosperm is Greek for ‘naked seed.’ There are plenty of gymnosperms in the modern world, pines for example, or cycads like those I identified earlier. But most modern plants are what are called ‘flowering plants;’ they produce seeds in ovaries.”
“So, what’s your point?” Jack asked.
She looked at each of them in turn, for emphasis. “Flowering plants didn’t enter into the fossil record until about 140 million years ago.”
“That fits wit' the animals we’ve seen,” concurred Spencer. “Near as I can tell they evolved through the late Permian to early-Triassic, ‘an then something weird happened. This island somehow isolated this whole environment,” he swept his hand to indicate everything around them, “’an it just stayed this way.”
“So how long are we talking about?” asked Jack. He was becoming more accepting of Spencer’s theory—at least it sounded good, and he couldn’t come up with anything more plausible.
“If I hadda guess, I’d say all this sorta froze in time about 250 million years ago.”
Long shadows and the orange glow of reflected light off clouds heralded the arrival of nightfall. Their friend ‘Malarkey,’ a name created by Jocelyn by combining the words ‘malevolent’ and ‘archosaur,’ had been gone for hours, no doubt engaged in a continuing hunt for sustenance.
Before it got too dark, Jack decided to make their campsite a bit more comfortable. They had no choice but to spend the night in the tree, and he didn’t want anyone falling out. Tentatively he descended to ground level and began gathering dead branches to pass up to the other two. At one point he risked a trip to the ‘bamboo’ grove to retrieve several stout logs to serve as flooring for the treehouse. Using lengths of para-cord supplied to them by the resourceful Marcie, they constructed a platform just large enough for all three to lie on. Per Jack’s instructions, each tied a four foot length of cord from his belt to a limb of the tree to guard against an inadvertent fall.
Jocelyn fidgeted in her seat. Jack’s platform was uneven and one particularly stubborn twig was poking her in the butt. “Spencer, how come you know all this stuff? What grade are you in anyway?”
“I’ll be a sophomore in Septembeh.”
“Well, I’m impressed. They must have pretty good schools in New Yoahk.” She drew out the last word in an exaggerated imitation of his Brooklyn accent.
Spencer smiled and acknowledged her effort by flipping her the bird. “Actually I ‘dint learn this in school; I read it on my own.”
“Ah, you were one of those kids who was interested in dinosaurs,” said Jack.
“Eh, yeah, I guess. But I ask ya, who wouldn’t be? They’re fascinatin’ animals. But I was more interested in where the dinosaurs came from. They ‘dint appear outta nowhere, right? They evolved. These ‘tings here are their ancestahs. We owe a lot to ‘em when you think
about it. These guys survived the Permian-Triassic extinction. We wouldn’t be here if they hadn’t.”
“I thought it was an asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.”
Spencer rolled his eyes and explained. “That was the Cretaceous-Tertiary, or K-T, event of 65 million years ago. I’m talkin’ about what happened almost 250 million years ago. Since life on Earth began, scientists have noted at least five major extinction events from their study of the fossil record. Everyone is familiar with the last one, the one that you just mentioned, but by far the biggest was the Permian-Triassic event. It almost wiped out all life. More than 90% of species went extinct, and that included about 95% of marine life and 30% of insects. It’s really impressive that insect life was so significantly affected; no other extinction put that kinda hurt on bugs.”
“It must have been some asteroid to do that much damage,” Jocelyn said. She’d forgotten about the nuisance twig and was fascinated by the lecture, becoming ever more impressed with what this kid knew. He was a walking encyclopedia. “Do they know how big?”
“Nobody knows for sure. It might notta been an asteroid, or it might ‘a been a series of asteroids that hit over a period of a coupl’a million years. Another popular explanation is that volcanic activity stepped up ‘an put so much ash ‘an CO2 in the air that it radically changed the climate.”
“Like global warming?”
He shrugged, “Yeah, maybe. What I find interestin’ is the big effect on ocean life. You’d ‘a thought that bein’ in the water would ’a protected most of the fish ‘an stuff, but that ‘dint happen.”
There was no moon that night. Even though the Sun never dipped below the horizon this far north in the summer, it did drop below the level of the mountains to the northwest of where they were. That and the heavy cloud layer plunged their world into near total darkness. That’s when the noise began.
“I can’t sleep,” complained Spencer. He rolled to his left, onto Jocelyn, who pushed him back.
“C’mon Spencer, for heaven’s sake try to get some rest; have some sympathy for the rest of us.”
“He’s got a point, Jossy, the darn bugs are making an awful racket,” groaned Jack, “not to mention the creepy crawlies that seem to have come from nowhere.” He brushed one away from his face. “We should be thankful they don’t bite.” No sooner had he spoken than he slapped his arm, “Ow!” His assailant was a nondescript insect that absconded unscathed. “Correction: most of them don’t bite.”
Jocelyn attempted to run her fingers like a comb through the tangled mess that was once silky smooth hair. She could feel little visitors moving around on her scalp, occasionally scurrying across her face or getting in her ears and nose. But until Jack had brought up the subject she’d been too exhausted to care.
“They’re roaches,” Spencer noted.
“Eeeew,” Jocelyn sat up straight and began flailing at the little critters. “Roaches…that’s disgusting. I hate those things.”
“Get used to it,” Spencer grinned, “about 90% of all insects in the early Triassic were roach relatives.”
“That’s just great,” Jocelyn’s tone was laden with sarcasm, “90% of the bugs around here are revolting roach kinfolk and the rest are noisemakers. Almost makes me want to throw myself at Mr. Malarkey’s feet, ask him to put me out of my misery.”
“For youah edification, the noisemakehs are probably some type of cricket, which makes ‘em roach ‘kinfolk.’ Most people don’t know that roaches ‘an crickets are distantly related.”
“For heaven’s sake, Spencer, I’ve got to stop talking to you. All your fascinating tidbits are things I’d rather not know about.” She curled up into a ball and did her best to wrap her head and neck in her windbreaker, leaving a hole barely big enough to breathe through. “Good night,” she said with finality.
Morning dawned on the three exhausted travelers. None had gotten more than four hours sleep in the last two nights. They were listless and bleary-eyed, and self-conscious of bad cases of morning breath. Without a word, each consumed his last energy bar. Red, itchy welts had appeared on wrists and ankles, souvenirs from tiny nocturnal blood-sucking guests, all of which required scratching until the skin was raw.
“These are flea bites,” Spencer stated matter-of-factly, “they hadda lotta fleas back in the Triassic—along wit’ the roaches.”
“I’m warning you, Spencer,” Jocelyn growled, “Until I’ve had my morning coffee, I’ve been known to gut and dismember purveyors of unwelcome insect trivia.” She massaged her neck which was stiff and sore from lying in her cramped spot in the tree nest. “Shit,” she moaned, “I’ve got to pee so bad my eyeballs are floatin’, but I don’t want to leave this tree.”
“My bladder’s about to burst too,” Jack confided. “If you’ll turn the other way, I can relieve myself right from here.” Jocelyn gave him a hard stare, which, of course, was just what he wanted. “That reminds me,” he continued, “and I think you’ll have to agree; there’s one thing that men can do far better than women.”
“What’s that?”
“Pee on a campfire.”
She rolled her eyes. His logic was unassailable. “Okay, that may be the one thing men can do better, but I can’t list the things at which women excel, it would take too long—and I really do have to pee.”
Jack smiled but again turned serious, “We can’t stay up here much longer; that’s for sure. Let’s cross the river and hike up the east side. For Debbie’s sake we’ve got to find a way out. If we stay close to the water, at least until we get out of the valley, we should be relatively safe from Malarkey and his buddies. Keep your noses on high alert though, just in case.”
With Jack’s words of advice lingering in their minds, they cautiously descended from their perch. All was quiet save for a few residual insect troubadours plaintively trolling for mates. Fog had rolled in during the early morning, but was beginning to lift as the Sun’s influence intensified. The first few steps toward the river were psychologically difficult. Each remembered the speed which the archosaur had mustered in its attack upon Spencer, and every meter of distance from the safety of the tall trees represented a potential life-or-death defining interval.
At the water’s edge, just above the lake, they stopped. They were at the head of the delta where the first of three significant streams flowed past. The first was the largest of the three and presented the greatest obstacle. Upstream from where they stood, the stream was rocky and the current dangerously strong. Right where the lake began, however, it fanned out to about forty feet in width, and the water was slow-moving and deep. Jocelyn looked at the other two. “If we’re going to cross, this is the spot,” she said definitively. There was no doubt in the minds of everyone that she was the expert when it came to such matters. Having grown up on the coast, Jocelyn had spent the better part of her life either in or on the water. Whether it was swimming with friends in a river or sailing in Corpus Christi Bay, she had developed an uncanny ability to analyze surface flow patterns, wave chop, ripples, underwater obstacles—anything that might pose a hazard to the activity involved. “See where the water gets deep about ten feet out?” She pointed to where the water was calm, “we’ll probably have to swim for about twenty feet until it’s shallow enough to stand. Those reeds near the other side are the same as those on shore, off to the left. When we get to them the water can’t be more than a few feet deep—piece of cake.”
“I don’t know, Jossy.” It was Jack who spoke. “Heck, you’re the expert here, don’t get me wrong, but wouldn’t it be best to pick a spot to just wade across?”
“Like where?”
He nodded to a point upstream.
“Jack, the current is way too strong there; don’t underestimate its power. If you try to cross up there, you’ll be knocked off your feet and swimming in this hole before you can count to three.”
“Well, what about that hippo we saw yesterday? Something like that may be lurking here. You never know.”
“That dicynodont is a herbivore,” said Spencer. “He made no aggressive move toward us. Remembeh? My vote’s wit' Jocelyn. Let’s swim across heah.”
Jocelyn knew something was wrong. The apprehension in Jack’s demeanor was obvious. “What’s the matter, Jack? Is it that you can’t swim?”
“I didn’t say that, did I?” He sounded exasperated. “It just pays to examine all the possibilities, that’s all.” He stared at the others for a few moments. Finally his shoulders slumped in defeat. “But, yeah, I can’t swim.” He looked away, embarrassed. “I had a bad experience at a lake when I was a kid; I almost drowned. Ever since then, well…” his voice trailed off.
“But what about our trip out here in the zodiac?” Jocelyn asked in wonder. “You didn’t seem scared then.”
“I wasn’t scared, okay. Maybe I was a bit nervous, but I had a life jacket on and another one at my feet. I figured the risk was minimal.”
After a brief silence, she said, “Give me your pack.” She took off her own and held both over her head as she waded into the lake and then swam, uneventfully, to the other side. She deposited their gear on the bank and made her way back easily. The entire trip took her less than two minutes. “I only had to swim about fifteen feet,” she reported. “I was a lifeguard for several summers. If you relax and trust me, I can swim across with you, Jack. No problem.”
Jack was frightened. He felt helpless, trapped by his inadequacy to perform such a simple task and worried that his friends would lose respect for him, believe him to be a coward. Jocelyn had made it look so easy. Maybe he could do what she did; the distance was minimal. “Sounds like a plan.” He smiled disarmingly, doing his best to adopt a brave, carefree façade.
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