“It’s growing on the gas,” he mumbled to himself. “That’s crazy... What kind of mold grows on gas?”
Caleb shook his head, an unsettled expression on his face, then pushed on. As the hours passed, the sun continued to beat down out of the clear sky. The heat blurred Caleb’s vision and created mirages over the blistering pavement. Images rushed through his head: Nina and Carol on the bridge, Bill in the tunnel, Theresa in the basement with raptors all around...
He had stayed in the tower of the fire station all night, listening to the sound of distant flames and angry dinosaurs. Both noises faded with the daylight, and Caleb could see from the tower that the fire had burned itself out and the animals left for the day. He had slowly and silently made his way out of the fire station and through the streets, expecting the shrill scream of a deinonychus to erupt from around every corner. No attack came, however, and he soon stood next to the scorched ruins of the old store. One half of the building had collapsed in on itself, falling into the empty end of the basement and smothering much of the fire. The end of the basement where Theresa had hidden was filled with fallen wood and bricks, but mostly intact. Caleb found the empty stove, its door left wide open. There was no sign of Theresa there. After a couple of circles around the building, Caleb spotted the sooty tracks leading out of the front of the building—small girl’s shoes and bicycle tread-marks. The trail faded quickly on the town’s main street, leaving no clue as to where she was headed. Caleb quickly scavenged another bike and some more canned food and supplies, then headed off on his original course, hoping that Theresa was doing the same. There had been no sign of her yet, but Caleb remained confident, as she had obviously gotten a head start. By late afternoon, however, his enthusiasm began to waver as heat and exhaustion took their toll. Caleb was forced to stop in the shade of a big flatbed truck.
The truck had been transporting all sorts of flowers, plants, and shrubs to who-knows-where, but now it just lay on the edge of the highway at an odd angle. The driver’s door hung open, exposing the empty cab, and the bed of the truck was nearly overflowing with a thick, wild tangle of leaves, vines, and young saplings. Caleb could see that the plants hadn’t been packed in so tightly before; the vines were beginning to wrap around the sides of the truck bed, and the roots of the small potted trees and shrubs were poking out of the cracks and holes in their containers. One of the taller saplings had roots extending out of its pot and right into a large bag of fertilizer. There was already a tiny sprout of a tree poking through a small hole in the top of the bag, growing right out of the larger tree’s roots.
Caleb just stared for a moment, then shook his head in confusion and settled in the truck’s shadow. In minutes, he was fast asleep, dreaming of overgrown hedge mazes and strange forests filled with trees that walked.
He slept for some time, not noticing the setting sun or the arrival of darkness. It wasn’t until he heard the strange crunching and snapping sounds that he woke up.
His eyes opened slowly, blurred from sleep and straining to adjust to the darkness. He could just see his bike beside him, and his backpack. Behind him, the truck was visible only as a black, leaf-topped mass of shadow. All around, he could see the shapes of massive tree trunks growing right out of the road, encircling Caleb in an unearthly grove. There was a noise of wind, also, like giant bellows blowing with a steady rhythm. Above was a massive canopy, solid and dark. Small leaves and bits of twigs fluttered down on Caleb’s face as he stared up at the impenetrable blackness of the overhanging trees. The crackling, snapping noise continued somewhere above, and Caleb wondered if there was a storm coming, considering all the noise and falling leaves.
Abruptly, one of the massive tree trunks lifted clear of the pavement and swung forward, bending at the knee before planting itself firmly back on the road with a heavy thump. Caleb scrambled backward, under the bed of the truck, gasping in shock and surprise. On the other side of the truck stood other “tree trunks,” and some of these also stepped in slow strides as he watched. He noticed now that there was a low, rumbling sound all around. It reminded him of the vibrations from the lowest notes of a church’s pipe organ—the kind of sound that shakes the floor and thumps in your chest; more felt than heard.
After several moments of watching and listening from under the truck, Caleb slowly edged back toward where he had slept. Moving slowly, he dragged his backpack under the truck, out of the way. He then turned around to get his bike. Just as he turned, a splintering metallic screech filled the air, followed by a deep trumpeting snort. Caleb saw one of the massive elephant-like legs lift up from the pulverized remains of his bicycle, twitching slightly to shake part of the handlebars from between its toes. Before he could even blink, the foot came down again, seemingly startled by the squeal of breaking metal, and smashed the bike into twisted scraps. Almost simultaneously, a tremendous thundering boom rocked the night air, like a massive cannon had just been fired. Several of the other animals snorted nervously, shifting their feet and stomping in agitation. Another boom echoed from the other side of the truck, causing Caleb to cradle his ringing ears in his hands.
After a few moments, the animals seemed to settle down again and the ringing in Caleb’s ears subsided. He remained in place for some time, not daring to move, captivated by the sight and sounds of the dinosaurs. Soon, however, they began to drift away from the truck, ambling slowly across the highway and heading east, into the fields.
Caleb could see all of them now. There were five of them, four adults and a juvenile. They were gigantic animals, perhaps seventy feet long from the tip of their muzzles to the end of their tapering, whip-like tails. Although they were roughly similar in shape to most large, long-necked sauropods, their backs were covered with a distinctive layer of bony, armored knobs. They had small heads, somewhat horse-like in shape, on the end of massive, eighteen-foot-long necks. Their necks didn’t rise up above their bodies like a giraffe’s, instead, they were held straight out in front of them, angled down toward the ground slightly. They would swing these great crane-like necks back and forth as they walked, sweeping a wide path across the lush grass and rumbling softly to one another. As Caleb watched, one of them stumbled across a sleeping flock of birds, sending the whole flock screeching into the air in a panicked cloud. The animal started at the sudden movement, spinning around with surprising speed and flicking its thirty-five-foot tail. The tail, tree trunk thick at its base, tapered to a whip-thin end, which cut the air with an explosive boom. Caleb smiled in glee at the sight, crawling out from under the truck to watch.
“Titanosaurs,” he whispered. “They can make noise with their tails! I wish Uncle Bill could see...” He let the sentence trail off; suddenly recalling just how alone he was now. His gaze dropped to his feet, then to the shattered shards of bicycle littering the ground around him. Panic gripping him, he peered down the long stretch of highway still ahead of him, then back to the ruined bike.
Now he would never catch up with Theresa! What if she got there and found Bill, and then they both came back to look for him? That might be okay, but what if they missed each other on the way? There was plenty of room to get lost out here, and plenty of roads to travel. What if they both thought he had died, and left without him? He might never find either of them again! He glanced all around frantically, searching for any kind of salvation, but found none. He couldn’t possibly catch up with Theresa without his bike, and there was no way to fix the ragged piece of scrap lying in front of him. He couldn’t drive one of the cars—they didn’t work and he didn’t know how anyway. He wondered if he might find another bike on the road or in one of the cars, but cast that idea aside almost instantly. There was no telling how long that would take, and most of the drivers had probably taken any bikes when they abandoned their cars.
“Oh, shit! I am totally screwed!” he wailed, forgetting to watch his language. There were no grownups here anyway, he thought angrily. What did it matter? There was no one but the dinosaurs to hear him.
He glanced up again to stare at the departing titanosaur herd. They marched away from the highway at an angle, heading almost directly east instead of following the road’s northeastern direction. His eyes suddenly drifted past the herd, to the distant mountains beyond them.
“Wait a minute...” he muttered, his face setting in a thoughtful scowl. He ran to the other side of the truck, peering out across the waving grass. There—he could see the dinosaurs’ path clearly! They had veered only slightly off course to munch on the truckload of shrubbery. He spun about and snagged his bag from beneath the truck, grabbing frantically for his map. A quick check confirmed his suspicion. The herd seemed to be migrating steadily eastward in a straight line, ignoring all roads and wading through the fields with ease. Caleb stuffed the map back in the bag and began running after the herd, wondering exactly how he might do this without getting flattened.
.
.
The herd had traveled straight for several hours, leaving Caleb to follow on wavering legs through miles of flattened grass and churned mud. He thought he had lost the herd at one point, but he found them gathered in a patch of woods at the edge of a small river, sipping eagerly and munching on low-hanging branches.
Caleb slowly stumbled closer, dizzy with fatigue. He circled around the herd to the water’s edge, but found the water thick and muddy. Reluctantly, he circled back around to the upstream side of the herd, where the waters weren’t clouded by their churning footsteps. Caleb quickly drank in the cool water, then filled his canteen and splashed the mud off of his face, arms and legs.
The animals were still drinking and browsing at this point, so Caleb began to work out a plan in his weary mind. He had seen lots of nature films where birds would walk all over an elephant’s back without bothering it. When the dinosaurs walked through the trees, all sorts of branches scraped all over their backs, and they didn’t seem to care at all. Maybe if Caleb could get in a tree above one of the animals, he could just drop onto its back as it brushed the branch and, voila: instant transportation!
Looking back, Caleb would later decide that this plan was heavily influenced by lack of rest and profound desperation.
Summoning his last reserves of strength, Caleb crept cautiously through the thick underbrush and began to scale a large tree overhanging one of the dinosaurs. It took him some time to reach a proper height. By the time he was anywhere above the animal he found that it was beginning to move away to graze on fuller branches. The branch he had reached was too high to jump from, and he actually had to climb down to another branch closer to the animal’s back. At this distance, Caleb could clearly see the rounded, bumpy knobs covering the animal’s back. He realized that he would need to improvise some sort of saddle if he was to hop onto that armor without cracking his tailbone. As quickly and quietly as he could, Caleb pulled his sleeping bag loose from his pack. He folded it double for extra cushioning, wondering if he could drop it in place and still make the jump before the animal began to move.
By then, the beast had wandered completely out of reach, crunching contentedly on another tree. Caleb glanced about frantically, wondering how many times he might have to attempt this. Behind him, he spotted another titanosaur that was moving slowly toward his branch. Gripping the folded sleeping bag tightly, he readjusted the straps of his backpack with his free hand and readied himself for the jump. As he tugged at the pack, his small metal cooking pan slid out of its pocket, dropping toward the ground in agonizing slow motion. Clinging to the branch, there was nothing he could do to catch it.
The pan dropped to the ground, landing on a section of upraised tree root with a terrible ringing crash. The animals snorted in alarm, turning right and left to try to spot the source of the noise. One of the larger ones whipped its tail instinctively, cutting several saplings in half and sending branches flying through the air. Caleb felt a blunt piece of wood slam into his back as the animals began splashing into and across the river.
The jolt knocked his grip loose, and for a brief moment, Caleb found himself tumbling into open air. His free hand closed around the branch at the last second, leaving him hanging like a monkey as the last titanosaur charged toward him through the trees.
Caleb screamed in terror and swung his legs up, barely missing the swaying neck of the dinosaur. Before he could catch his breath, the animal’s arched back slammed into the branch, tossing him up into the air in an uncontrolled flip. The sleeping bag flew free from his hand, somehow managing to land across the animal’s back. Caleb came down a moment later, just in front of the titanosaur’s shoulders, and just shy of the sleeping bag. Caleb groaned in pain as he balanced on the base of its neck, grasping desperately for a handhold. It felt as if he had fallen on a pile of round river rocks. The beast thundered after the others, splashing through the shallow river and spraying water into the air and all over Caleb.
Caleb managed to stop screaming long enough to reach back for the sleeping bag before it slid off into the water. Shoving the bag beneath his bruised buttocks, he positioned himself solidly on the base of the dinosaur’s neck. It was all he could do to keep from getting thrown off into the river or underfoot as the animal crashed into the woods on the other side of the water. Leaves and slender branches whipped violently across Caleb’s back and head, but he kept his face pressed into the dinosaur’s skin and his arms and legs wrapped tightly across its broad neck. Soon the animals began to slow down, and Caleb’s dinosaur caught up to the group, seemingly oblivious to its passenger.
The other dinosaurs had leaves and branches hanging over their backs, much like Caleb was, and he hoped that they would mistake him for just another bit of debris. With a few final thundering tail flicks from the largest dinosaur, the group settled down, resuming their ponderous trek through the fields and woods. Caleb tried desperately to keep his eyes open, terrified that he would fall and be trampled to mush, but the trauma of the adventure overtook him, and he faded into a fitful sleep, nestled among the herd of marching giants.
COUNTLESS VOICES ECHOED MERRILY WITHIN THE rough stone walls of Carnival’s Council Tower. The great central hall was a huge circular chamber of rough-hewn stone and massive timbers, nearly a hundred feet across and twenty feet high. All around, lanterns and torches cast warm golden light over the large oaken tables and carved wooden chairs. Dozens of mirrors of all shapes and sizes were hung along the upper walls, reflecting and multiplying the light. A massive cooking fire flickered and cracked in the center of the hall, and the smell of roasting fish and game drifted out the open doors and windows to mingle with the cool night air. The many tables and chairs were arranged in a circle around the central fire. Some of the seats were large, high-backed affairs, while others were simple stools or benches. Some were high and small-seated for tiny guests, while others were massive and low-set for the largest old-bloods. Nearly all had open backs, allowing room for tails of various lengths. Every seat in the hall was filled, with other diners standing by the fire or against the walls. Nearly a hundred old-bloods were gathered in the hall, along with several dozen regular humans, or “true-bloods,” as they were called here.
Caleb had been surprised and thrilled to see how many true-bloods there were in Carnival. As the group of newcomers was escorted over the bridges and through the city, he had seen hundreds of them, living and working in harmony with their old-blood neighbors and families. Caleb had been afraid that he wouldn’t be accepted among the dinosaur-people. Though he never voiced his concerns, he wondered if he would be treated with suspicion and anger, as most old-bloods were treated in other communities.
This city was different, though. The group had been guided through the city by Terrance, the ornitholestes-man who had led the initial welcoming party. He explained that many of the true-bloods had come to Carnival with old-blood family members. Still others had been born here, some to old-blood parents. They had learned that some children of old-blood families were born true-bloods; just as some true-blood families produced old-blooded child
ren. Unlike the other communities, however, all people were given equal respect in Carnival.
Terrance had explained that the city and the land it was built upon was believed by them to be a kind of gift; a miracle that could save them all and which was not to be taken for granted. Before the lights went out, this lake and island had simply been a beautiful oddity and popular tourist attraction. But the water couldn’t have supported a community, fed only by slow mist and rain and never draining except by evaporation. By all rights, it should have remained uninhabited or even been destroyed, leveled or wiped away by the countless massive quakes which ravaged the entire world. But instead, it remained remarkably untouched except for three perfect changes.
First, the rapidly growing vegetation that sprang up after the lights went out anchored the soil, preserving the contours of the crater rim and island. Secondly, a single fissure split the edge of the crater rim, stopping almost exactly at the level of the existing lake. Thirdly, the ancient volcano that had formed the crater and island in the first place stirred, just enough to start a small thermal spring, which pushed warm drinkable water up through the foundations of the island, into the tiny crater pool at its top.
Somehow, against all probability, the lake was not only preserved, but reinvigorated with fresh flowing water, making it the perfect place to settle a thriving, sheltered community. And as if to confirm its destined purpose as a haven for old-bloods and true-bloods alike, the Ne Shaazi seemed to remain completely oblivious to its presence. Caleb wasn’t sure if he believed in the destiny of the lake and the city upon it, but he could certainly understand Terrance’s conviction, and that of all the others who now lived here.
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