He parked his Murray BMX racer in a clump of viney thicket next to the dirt road that led from the main highway, up the side of the mountain to Fletcher Brice’s log cabin. He camouflaged it well enough so that the chrome wouldn’t reflect in the sunshine. Dale didn’t want it discovered if the old man got a wild hair and decided to walk into town for groceries that day.
After he had stashed the bike to his satisfaction, Dale dug through his knapsack for his camera. It was a Nikon 35mm with a 70-210mm zoom lens. His dad had bought it for him with the insurance money left over from his mother’s funeral. He rummaged through the junk in his pack and, finding the camera, slipped the nylon sling around his neck. Then he shrugged the knapsack onto his back and began the long hike up the mountainside.
Dale was a small, slightly built boy of nine. With his mousy brown hair and thick-lensed eyeglasses, he looked like terminal bully-bait—a card-carrying nerd if there ever was one. Which was true in a sense, but only because he was a shy and intelligent child. He kept mainly to himself, especially after his mother’s death, and preferred to spend his time immersed in the two great loves of his life.
The first, of course, was photography. Since his father had given him an old 110 Instamatic when he was six years old, Dale had been hooked. By the time he reached the third grade, Dale had redeemed enough aluminum cans and soda pop bottles to buy an inexpensive 35mm camera, the Made-in-Taiwan type you saw advertised on the Home Shopping Network. His specialty was landscapes, and living in the heart of the rustic Tennessee mountains, he had no limit of scenery to shoot. But Dale longed to master the quirky and tedious art of wildlife photography. It was nearly impossible to get a clear shot with his old camera, especially with its fixed lens. The Nikon, however, had what it took to catch the nervous darting of squirrels or the airborne flight of a red-tailed hawk.
It was a shame that tragedy was what had bought him his expensive toy. The thought of his mother’s life insurance policy paying for the outfit was a little disturbing; it gave his photography a bittersweet aspect that he couldn’t quite shake. Dale remembered praying for camera equipment shortly before his mother had been diagnosed and he sometimes wondered if God had granted his wish, orchestrating his mother’s demise to provide the money that was otherwise nonexistent. But Dale tried not to think of it in that way. To do so only conjured sad and guilty feelings, and he had enough of those to deal with already.
Dale’s second hobby was dinosaurs. The subject of prehistoric life was utterly fascinating to the boy. He had a shelf full of books at home, as well as plastic models of all his favorites—brontosaurus, triceratops, and the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex. He watched every PBS or National Geographic special he could find on the subject, figuring that maybe he would set his sights on paleontology if the photography didn’t work out. He had spent many a summer day exploring the mountain cliffs and creekbeds, searching for evidence of fossilized remains; maybe a nest of petrified dinosaur eggs or a 200 million-year-old trilobite trapped in a hunk of rock. But so far, he had been unable to discover anything to link the Cretaceous Age with the humdrum present of Tucker’s Mill.
During his ascent up Pale Dove Mountain, Dale thought of the strange name of the place and its history. The Indians had called the mountain such because of its peculiar abundance of white birds, as well as a wide range of other albino creatures. The Cherokee who lived on the mountain during the 1700s had watched over the pale critters, regarding them as sacred beings or wandering souls who had not yet found the route to heaven. They fought any threat against the peaceful albinos, defending them against the hunger of wild animals and the sport of the invading white man. Eventually, though, the tribe was defeated and Pale Dove Mountain had been claimed by Efram Brice during the exploration and taming of the territory that later became Tennessee. Even then, the mystic respect for the bizarre creatures was upheld, each generation of Brices taking up where the last one left off.
Halfway up the peak, Dale began to wonder if the old legend wasn’t just a big crock. He had spent half his film on ordinary foul and game during his climb, and hadn’t glimpsed a sign of anything out of the ordinary. He got a few good shots of a couple of quarreling blue jays and a possum who clung sleepily by its tail from the limb of a sassafras tree, but there had been no stark-white critters with blazing pink eyes to be captured on film.
He decided to alter his direction a bit and head for the northern face of the mountain, mainly to avoid a possible confrontation with Fletcher Brice and his infamous shotgun. Half an hour later, after scaling a rocky bluff, Dale reached a coldwater stream and stopped to rest. He sat on a smooth stone surrounded by moss and tall ferns, and nibbled a peanut butter and banana sandwich he had wrapped in wax paper and tossed into his backpack before starting out that morning. He had finished the snack and was balling up the wrapper, getting ready to toss it into the rush of the creek, when he spotted something unusual out of the corner of his eye.
It was a tiny bullfrog sitting on the hump of a sandbar in the middle of the creek. The sight of the amphibian wouldn’t have been very strange at all, except for the fact that the bumpy flesh of the frog was snow-white and its bulging eyes were bright pink in color.
“Just sit right there, Kermit, and don’t move a muscle,” Dale whispered. He checked the Nikon’s settings and peered through the viewfinder, slowly focusing in on his minuscule subject.
The bullfrog simply sat there on top of the smooth pebbles and eyed the boy without interest. Its pale throat bulged, expanding and contracting, and it let out an occasional croak, but that was the extent of its activity.
“Yeah, yeah…good little froggy.” Dale let off with a burst of three shots, then took a few steps into the stream and took a couple more at a side angle. “What’d you do, pink eyes? Swallow a bottle of bleach?”
As if in answer, the frog unleashed a disdainful ribbet.
“Naw, I reckon not.” Dale stood there and regarded the pale amphibian for a lengthy moment, before his curiosity got the best of him. He walked through the creekbed, soaking his Reeboks clear up to the ankles. Before he could give it a second thought, Dale bent down to pick up the little toad. It jumped a second before he could catch it. It eluded his grasp several times and started hopping toward the edge of the sandbar and the safety of the babbling brook.
“Hey, not so fast,” muttered Dale in growing exasperation. “I wanna check you out before you go skinny-dipping, okay?” He scrambled across the sandbar and caught the frog by a hind leg before it could get away. It kicked and struggled, then settled into frightened immobility as Dale cradled it gently in the palm of his hand.
After a while of petting the frog and marveling over its lack of color, Dale knew there was one of two things he could do. He could do the decent thing and return the frog to its natural habitat, or he could do the tempting thing and take it back home for a pet.
“Sorry, froggy, but you’re coming with me.” Dale dropped the toad into the front pocket of his T-shirt. “Don’t worry, though. I’ve got this super aquarium at home, stocked with goldfish and algae-sucking snails. You’ll really like it there. I’ll even buy you your own plastic lily pad and everything.”
The frog crouched like a damp lump in the boy’s pocket, croaking softly, the rise and fall of its ballooning breath tickling Dale’s chest.
He continued on up the mountainside. The woods thickened as the incline began to level out into a partial plateau. Tall stands of oak, beech, and silver poplar crowded in like the dark folds of a primeval forest. The ground was covered by a blanket of honeysuckle and knee-deep kudzu. Every once in a while, Dale heard the sound of tiny things moving beneath the lush ivy and thoughts of lizards and snakes sneaking around his feet, unseen, came uncomfortably to mind.
He was near the edge of the forest, in sight of an open clearing of green clover and colorful wildflowers, when a noise drew his attention. It was a deep, rolling sound that rumbled with a deep resonance. Dale looked up past the leafy branches of the trees
, thinking that maybe a thundercloud was passing overhead, but the sky was as clear and blue as when he had first started out. Then the pounding came again and he could almost imagine it to be the weighty footfalls of some gigantic creature walking the Earth. Curiously, he approached the mountain clearing. Sunlight arced through the trees, warming his face and arms.
At first, the bright rays glared off the lenses of his glasses, momentarily blinding him. He squinted through the brilliance, and when he made out the clearing and its unexpected occupant, he felt his stomach bunch into a knot and his breath lodge midway in his throat.
Dale couldn’t believe what he was seeing at first. Its presence there didn’t make logical sense, even to a boy with an imagination as wild and fertile as his own. The creature that stood in the center of the sunny clearing, munching leisurely on spring clover and buttercups, was the biggest animal Dale had ever seen in his young life. Or, rather, the biggest reptile, for that was certainly the species it belonged to.
He guessed the creature to be nearly thirty feet long and knew it must weigh as much as a good-sized dump truck. Its scaly hide was jet black, from its hooked snout to the tip of its thick tail. Its body was bulky and rounded, and was supported by wrinkled legs as sturdy as tree stumps. Its head was the main point of interest. It was a huge, reptilian head sporting a rhino-like horn above its nostrils and two six-foot horns jutting from a bony plate that encircled the back of its neck. Each horn was wickedly sharp and possessed an iron-gray color in contrast to the ebony of the hide. And the eyes—the eyes had no pupils whatsoever. They were blank orbs—pools of tar blackness, concealing thoughts that were bound to be as equally dark and full of shadow.
The boy could only gape for a moment, because he actually knew what this monstrosity was. He had a dozen reference books at home, showing artists’ conceptions and pictures of reconstructed skeletons of this particular creature. Although his mind balked at the thought, he knew that the thing that stood in the clearing, no more than fifty feet away, was undeniably an honest-to-goodness dinosaur.
“Triceratops,” he uttered beneath his breath. His eyes widened in sudden realization, brimming with awe and sheer fright.
He stood stone still, afraid to move and draw the creature’s attention. His mind clicked off the reasons for such an impossible phenomenon, discarding each one for an even more outlandish explanation. Finally, he gave up even trying to rationalize it. The born photographer in him broke through the paralysis of fear and he slowly brought up his camera. He adjusted the settings on the zoom and took six rapid-fire shots of the beast, whole body, then three more of the great, horned head.
The frog in his pocket began to squirm, as if trying to escape. “Behave yourself, froggy, or I’ll have your legs for lunch.” His hushed words seemed to do the trick. Dale frowned as the little toad grew moist and limp against his shirtfront, thinking that the pale amphibian had peed on him. Then he turned his attention back to the thing in the mountain clearing.
The boy moved a good ten yards to the right and got three side views of the cumbersome creature. The thing still hadn’t noticed him yet. Maybe it’s like a rhino, he thought as he watched the dinosaur drop its massive head and chew on a clump of dandelions. Maybe it’s nearsighted and can’t see me yet.
Dale Tucker was about to leave with a dozen mind-blowing shots and his good luck intact when he suddenly noticed that something strange was going on inside his shirt pocket. He peered down into it and saw that the white frog was gone. In its place was a pulsating mess that looked like a cross between snot and Elmer’s glue. “Yuck!” he said and reached to remove it. His fingers recoiled at the touch of the bubbling concoction; it was warm and wet and alive. And it made a faint crackling noise that reminded him of that candy his father used to sell at the store; the kind that sizzled and popped when it mixed with saliva.
He watched, even more fascinated and horrified than when he had first glimpsed the black dinosaur. The thing in the pocket was reforming. But this time it was becoming something entirely different. Instead of the warty skin of a bullfrog, it seemed to be sprouting white feathers. He watched as two tiny pink eyes emerged from the pale goo and, beneath them, a small beak with a yawning pink mouth.
“Holy crud!” blurted Dale as the head of a dove lashed out and pecked him on the tip of the nose. The bird’s body expanded and its wings attempted to unfold, but the constriction of the shirt pocket held it snugly in place. The dove began to sing loudly, but it was not the gentle cooing that Dale was familiar with. Instead, it was the shrill cawing of a crow that split the quiet, spring air.
Knowing that his secrecy had been blown, Dale turned his eyes back to the beast in the clearing, just as its dark eyes turned on him. They stared at Dale in accusation, burning with a mixture of alarm and anger. Reptile and boy stood deadlocked for a long instant. Then the triceratops began moving across the grassy knoll toward him.
Dale turned around and ran. He sprinted through the forest, his feet snagging ivy and honeysuckle vines that threatened to entangle him. In his pocket, the dove continued to scream its puzzling birdcall, while behind him, the dinosaur crashed through the trees like a runaway freight train. He could hear the thunderous pounding of its elephantine feet drumming the earth and the hoarse bellow of its enraged cry. There was also the snap and crunch of saplings and brush being trodden underfoot as if they were nothing more than bothersome weeds.
It’s gonna catch me, thought Dale as he scrambled down the steepening slope of Pale Dove Mountain. And when it catches me, it’s gonna bite my freaking head off, even if it is a vegetarian!
He was nearly to the creek when he chanced a glance over his shoulder. His heart did a somersault when he saw an unbelievable thing happen. First, the bulky reptile seemed to lose substance. It seemed to sink out of sight, as if it had stepped into a crack in the earth. But no, on second thought, it seemed to be melting into a wide, black pool—a pool that crackled and popped like a string of Fourth of July firecrackers set off at both ends. Dale slowed down a little, then sped back up when he saw that the thing was still moving. The boiling, black slime was flowing over the ground like a stingray over the ocean floor. And while it was moving, it was changing.
Dale splashed through the creek, leaped over the sandbar, and landed on the opposite bank. He was coming to the rocky bluff that ran like crude steps down the remainder of Pale Dove Mountain when an ear-piercing screech sounded directly behind him.
He looked around and watched in horror as the changeling rose from the ground and took to midair. He recognized its features at once—the leathery wings, the hooked talons, the slender reptilian head with the shark-like teeth. A pterodactyl! his thoughts reeled in panic. I’m being chased by a freaking pterodactyl!
Dale was so engrossed with the creature that pursued him that he forgot where he was going. He looked around just as he was stepping over the edge of the cliff, his feet working, propelling him into open air. Dale screamed as he felt himself falling. He saw the hard stones of the mountainside rushing up, eager to break his youthful bones. He screwed his eyes tightly shut and waited to hit bottom, thinking of his father and the disrespect he had shown by hiking up the mountain against his orders.
However, the moment of crushing impact didn’t come. Just as he was sure he would die on the jutting rocks, he felt something latch on to his knapsack. There was a sudden jerk as the shoulder straps bit into his armpits, and then he was being hauled upward at an incredible rate of speed. He opened his eyes and cried out in shock.
He was soaring over the wooded crest of Pale Dove Mountain, his sneakered feet treading air. Dale looked up and saw the graceful wings of the pterodactyl lifting them ever upward. The elongated head smiled down at him, the teeth glittering gray like sharp chips of granite.
“Let me go!” screamed Dale, his voice sounding as shrill as the schizophrenic dove in his shirt pocket. The thing that had a hold of him seemed to grin even more, as if relishing the boy’s panic. The pterodactyl di
d a sweeping loop-the-loop, eliciting more pleading from the child, then went into a breakneck swan dive for the hilly base of the mountain.
They were only a few hundred yards from solid earth when Dale felt the nylon of his knapsack begin to rip in the reptile’s grasp. He closed his eyes, knowing he would take a bad spill if the pack didn’t hold. Before he could prepare himself, it gave way. The boy screamed loudly as he felt himself airborne again, this time without the assistance of the dinosaur bird. He spun end over end, and landed mercifully in a soft clump of dense honeysuckle. Dale hit on his back and the impact knocked the breath from his lungs, but that seemed to be the extent of his injuries.
He lay there for a dizzy moment, fighting to regain his senses. When he finally decided to open his eyes, he found the pterodactyl bearing down on him from above.
Oh God, it’s gonna eat me now! It’s gonna rip me wide open and pick my guts clean out! The muscles of his belly tightened as he awaited the unpleasant sensation of razored talons burrowing into his flesh to fish for the tender prizes locked within.
But again, his most terrifying expectations failed to come true. He felt only a gentle pressure as the creature straddled him. It balanced its awkward form on the frame of its gigantic wings and stared at him with tiny black eyes. They were the eyes of the triceratops, except in miniature.
“Well, what’re you waiting for?” piped Dale. He could smell the foul breath of the dark creature. It smelled like a dead animal that had lain out on a hot asphalt road for a day or so. The bloated, gassy scent of decayed flesh.
The long, gawky head of the pterodactyl dipped toward his chest and he could picture its sharp beak burrowing through his ribcage, coming away with his nine-year-old heart. But the thing had no desire for Dale’s internal organs—only the thing in his T-shirt pocket.
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