Carnival of Time

by Alan MacRaffen

  Captain Chaney shook his head, chuckling and staring off at the distant horizon. “Now here comes old Garner all these years later, tracking me down and telling me he’s just come from Carnival. Wants to sail out over the ruins of New York, attack the Lizards out in the middle of the ocean. Says you’ve got a way to finish ‘em all. Do I know if the Lizards are really out there? Hell, no! Do I know how to fight a fleet of flying lightning-ships with nothing but a schooner? Not a clue! All I know is that nobody who ever sailed out past the Appalachians has ever come back to tell about it. And what do I say, damn fool that I am? ‘Sure Gar, why not?’”

  Chaney chuckled grimly and shook his toothy head. “Just like old times. Out of the blue after all these years and he can still get me to follow him on any crazy… What’s this?”

  The old-blood suddenly jumped up onto the rail, holding tight with hands and feet and staring intently at the dark clouds shrouding the eastern horizon. Caleb spun about, straining to see what had startled the keen-eyed captain.

  Caleb spotted it as the captain flew from the railing, shouting orders to the crew. A light moved just above the horizon, red and flickering. It appeared to be moving along a perpendicular course to the Freewind, dipping lower and lower until it vanished from sight.

  Captain Chaney continued to shout orders, clinging to the uppermost mast. “Helm, full about! All hands—stand ready to trim the sails and man the oars! Thompson, Bryant—douse the lanterns and ready the dinghies!”

  Caleb stumbled as he moved to the foredeck, torn between watching the horizon and trying to stay out of the way. He could hear the voices of his friends as they came rushing up onto the deck. A dull thumping and vibration from below told him that Chuck was pacing in the cramped hold. Caleb continued to stare out at the dark horizon, but could spot no light or movement. He glanced to the side as a hand lightly touched his shoulder.

  “What is it?” Tess asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Caleb said. “It looked like a Ne Shaazi ship. It might be the fortress.”

  The two of them continued to scan the waters as Garner approached with heavy footsteps. The old-blood said nothing, only staring into the distance with a tense scowl.

  Suddenly, a patch of clouds parted, casting pale blue moonlight against something large and gleaming. The trio moved to the starboard rail as the ship came about, staring in stunned silence at the spectacle that emerged in the bright moonlight.

  A massive, angular form loomed up out of the sea on the eastern horizon, bristling with antennas and faintly glowing lights. It was difficult to tell at night from such a distance, but Caleb guessed that the structure was well over a hundred feet wide, its tapering, tiered levels culminating in a massive antenna-like spire that rose more than four hundred feet above the water. It seemed that the structure was either partly completed or partly destroyed, for it was covered in uneven patches of metal, glass and jutting girders. The right side had a jagged, uneven outline, as though it had been torn wide open in some sort of explosion, but the other side seemed fairly solid and intact. The structure spread out over the water at its base, fringed with a skirt of docks, piers and floating platforms. Beneath the docks, Caleb thought he could see a sort of dim green luminescence, shining up from the murky depths.

  “It almost looks like a skyscraper,” Tess muttered, staring with nervous fascination.

  “They’re getting the boats ready,” Garner said, gesturing to the small dinghies being lowered into the water. A number of old-bloods were already in the first boat. Caleb could hear Krezahu calling out from the second boat on the other side of the ship.

  “Caleb, come with speed! We must approach quickly if we are to enter unnoticed.”

  Caleb turned back to look once more at the ominous structure with its hauntingly familiar shape.

  “I think you’re right, Tess,” he said, sounding stunned. “It is a skyscraper. We really are right over New York City. That’s the top of the Empire State Building.”

  THE NOISE DREW CALEB OUT OF a deep and dreamless sleep, cutting through the fog of exhaustion that still gripped him. It was a strange metallic ringing sound, uneven and clunking, like a broken alarm clock. Caleb sat up and peered out of the tent, sleep-blurred eyes straining to find the source of the noise. His view settled on a metal cooking pot sitting on a flat stone next to the campfire. As Caleb squinted confusedly, the pot proceeded to vibrate and rattle as if it were on top of an unbalanced washing machine. He could see smaller rocks next to the fire trembling and wobbling, and a deep rumbling vibration came up through his arms as he leaned on the ground.

  Caleb’s eyes grew large, the last traces of sleep quickly washed away by a flood of panic.

  “Dinosaurs,” he muttered, half to himself. “Dinosaurs!” he shouted, looking around the small camp. Several people were standing motionless amid the tents and bedrolls, as if they too had been listening. Others were trying to calm their horses or salvage food that had spilled from shaking pots. Numerous nervous gazes turned in Caleb’s direction, but no one showed any signs of real panic.

  Caleb flopped out of the tent door, struggling to untangle himself from his heavy blanket and stand up, but a strong, gentle hand fell on his shoulder, halting him. Caleb turned and saw the kind, weathered face of Charlie’s grandfather Carlos smiling at him.

  “Caleb,” Carlos said calmly, “it’s not dinosaurs, it’s just more earthquakes.”

  “No, no, you don’t understand,” Caleb panted. “They’re real! I saw them. They’re everywhere and…”

  “I know, Caleb. We’ve seen them too,” Carlos said, still sounding very calm even as the tremors increased and a couple of the horses began bucking and whinnying. “But this is just another earthquake, not the dinosaurs. Haven’t you felt the other quakes we’ve been having?”

  Caleb paused, confused. “No, I haven’t,” he said, trying to recall the details of the past few days.

  “But how could you miss them?” Carlos asked, surprised. “They were huge, some much bigger than this. You would have felt them hundreds of miles away.”

  “I don’t know,” Caleb mumbled. “Maybe I… Oh! The titanosaurs!”

  Carlos looked at him quizzically. “I don’t think any dinosaur could have caused that much shaking,” he said.

  “No, no,” Caleb said, understanding now. “They didn’t do it, I was riding them.”

  “What?” Carlos gasped.

  “I was riding on a titanosaur’s back, so I couldn’t feel the earthquakes through all the thumping and swaying. They make a lot of noise, you know. It feels a little bit like an earthquake, if you’re standing right next to them—or on top of them.”

  Carlos stared at Caleb with a mystified expression. “You… rode… on a dinosaur?” he asked. “Are you sure you’re okay, Caleb? Maybe you need some more rest.”

  “I’m fine!” Caleb said, scowling. He stood up and began looking around for something to eat. A meaty, spicy smell drew his attention to the cooking pot, which had stopped rattling now. Caleb grabbed an empty bowl and poured some stew from the pot, talking excitedly the whole time.

  “We were all on the Golden Gate Bridge when the lights went out. A huge plane came down and smashed out a big chunk of the bridge. Uncle Bill and I were on one side and Aunt Carol and Nina were on the other. Nina was hurt pretty bad. Then the ships came and started blasting everything, and Bill and I had to run. We saw these weird dino-soldier things get out of the ships. Have you seen any of those guys yet? They’re nasty. They were killing people everywhere, and Bill and I hid in the subways. They tried to catch us, but Bill set their leader on fire. I barely escaped with Theresa—this girl that Bill and I found. Her family got eaten by an Allosaurus, but Bill and I saved her. Anyway, we figured Bill would try to meet up with us back home, so we’d been heading to Vernal. We stopped in this town to get food, but it was totally empty, except for a pack of Deinonychus. They tried to kill us, but Theresa hid in a woodstove and I blew some of them up with firecrackers. There
sa got away, but I don’t know if she headed the right way. I hope she’s okay…”

  Caleb fell silent for a moment, a pained look crossing his face. He scowled again, shook his head, and quickly carried on with his story before Carlos could interrupt. “So, then a bunch of huge titanosaurs stomped my bike—by accident—and I figured out how to get on one them. I set up my tent like one of those boxes they put on elephants’ backs and I rode him almost all the way here, until the flood came down the riverbed last night and washed them all downstream. I barely got off in time. I hope they didn’t all drown.” Caleb paused to gulp a large mouthful of stew. Carlos simply stared and blinked.

  “You’re serious,” he said, shaking his head.

  Caleb swallowed another large mouthful. “Yeah,” he said excitedly. “You should have seen how…”

  Sensing another torrent of story approaching, Carlos interrupted.

  “Caleb, what happened to Bill? Did he get away?”

  Caleb suddenly became quiet. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “I think he might have.” A sudden light crept over Caleb’s face. “If he did, I know he would try to get back home. There wasn’t anyplace safe to go in the city, and it’s the only other place where we would all know to go. He must be going home. How far are we from Vernal now?”

  “Not far,” Carlos said, sounding suddenly nervous. “But Caleb…”

  “Is it less than a day away? We should get ready to go this morning. He might already be there. We don’t want to miss him.”

  “Caleb,” Carlos said, more firmly this time. “There’s a problem.”

  “What’s wrong?” he said. “It can’t be that far. Maybe it’ll take a couple of days, so what?”

  Carlos sighed and sat next to the young boy. “Caleb, there isn’t anyone left in Vernal.”

  Caleb stared up at Carlos with frightened eyes.

  “Did the dino-soldiers come?” he asked.

  “No. It was something else,” Carlos said, a haunted look on his face. “After the power went out, we had our fair share of accidents and so on, but nothing too bad. A couple of fires, things like that. We took care of it. But then people started coming from the north side of town, talking about some sort of animals or monsters.”

  “A dinosaur,” Caleb said.

  “Yes, at least two of them. I’m not Bill—I can’t say exactly what they were, but they were big, and very hungry. Once enough people saw what they did to the cattle, they started leaving by the hundreds. No one wanted those things coming after them, especially not after dark, with no power. By the time the things ran out of sheep and cattle, there was hardly anyone left in town. There were still a few people hiding out in some of the big buildings downtown, but that was it. They thought they might be able to lure the dinosaurs close, then shoot at them from a safe distance, but we haven’t heard anything from them in days.”

  “What about Charley?” Caleb said, looking around the camp hopefully. “He’s still here, right?”

  Carlos looked down, swallowing hard. Caleb thought the old man might be fighting back tears.

  “Charley was with his parents in Salt Lake City,” Carlos said, his voice sounding strange. “I… I don’t know what might have happened to them…”

  Caleb was silent, unsure of what he should say. He tried to convince himself that Charley was fine—that the dino-soldiers wouldn’t have attacked Salt Lake City—but he didn’t know that. He didn’t know where his friend might be now, or if he was even alive.

  “Then we have to go back to Vernal,” Caleb said, a desperate tone in his voice. “What if Charley and his parents are okay, and they try to come back home?”

  “I don’t know what we would find there, Caleb,” Carlos said. “We don’t know if there’s anyone left there at all now.”

  “But if the people are all gone,” Caleb said hopefully, “wouldn’t the dinosaurs go too?”

  “Maybe,” Carlos said, “but it’s been awfully dry here lately. Even that flood last night didn’t do much—most of it just ran off. There’s plenty of water just north of town in Steinaker State Park, though. The lake is low, but there’s still water, and animals that big are going to need a lot of water, even more than food.”

  “You sound like you’ve already decided not to go,” Caleb said angrily.

  “It would be very dangerous, Caleb,” Carlos answered.

  “It would be even more dangerous for Bill to go there alone, with no warning about what’s there. The same goes for Charley, or Theresa, or anyone else who comes through. We have to go look for Bill and leave some kind of message for people.”

  Carlos seemed surprised by Caleb’s intense tone and scowling face. He sighed heavily, then scooped himself a bowl of soup.

  “You’re right,” he said between sips. “Of course, you’re right. I’ll go today. You’ll have to stay here, though. There’s no sense risking your life too.”

  “I’m coming,” Caleb said.

  “No, Caleb. I’m not going to let you…”

  “I’m coming,” he repeated. “Whether you let me or not. I came all the way from San Francisco through dinosaurs and floods without a grownup to help me. I am coming with you—you can’t stop me. Besides, you’re going to need me. I know more about dinosaurs than anyone else here, and I’ve seen them up close. I know what to do. I’ve seen the dino-soldiers too, so I know what to watch for. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

  Carlos sighed in exasperation and set his bowl on a rock with a loud “clunk!”

  “I hope you’re right about this, Caleb,” he said, shaking his head. “And I hope Bill can forgive me if you’re wrong.”

  The flies were terrible. Huge clouds of them swooped and swirled everywhere, cruising on the foul drifts of air that rose over the carcass. The smell was even more disgusting than the flies—a thick miasmic haze of rotting meat, slashed entrails and sunbaked blood. Despite the stench and hoards of insects, Caleb crouched down on the street beside the massive corpse, holding his nose as he leaned in close and examined the animal’s wounds.

  It was a predator, easily identifiable by its long legs, tiny arms, and powerful neck and jaws. The beast was somewhere around eighteen to twenty feet long, but the end of the tail was missing, so Caleb guessed it might have been as long as twenty-five feet before it died. Standing up, it would have been about seven-and-a-half-feet tall—big, but not overly large by dinosaur standards. The great, barrel-shaped ribcage was smashed open and stripped of flesh, as were the legs, tail and neck. Here and there, thin strips of flesh, sinew and scaly skin clung to the bones. The right foot, being mostly sinew and bone, was fairly intact, its cream-colored scales gleaming in the bright noontime sun. However, the left foot, as well as most of that leg, was missing. Caleb supposed that whatever killed it had carried the leg off for a later snack, maybe along with the end of the tail.

  Caleb rose from his crouching position and moved closer to the remaining leg bones, swatting flies as he went. Behind him, Carlos paced nervously, his eyes constantly flicking up and down the empty length of Vernal Ave.

  Looking closer at the animal’s massive thighbone, Caleb could clearly see deep gashes, made by huge, powerful teeth. Most of the marks seemed to have occurred when the attacker was pulling the meat off of the dead body, but the gouges on the hip were different. The bone there was heavily scarred, almost cracked apart. Caleb guessed that this was the initial killing bite, intended to weaken and cripple the prey without getting close to its lethal teeth. The shock and blood loss would have quickly killed the animal, and the location of the wound would have insured that it didn’t stray far.

  Caleb rose again, taking a last look at the scarred bone, then headed up to examine the animal’s head. What remained showed that the animal had been a formidable beast. Its huge jaws hung open, displaying a massive array of gleaming white teeth spotted with crusted blood. Looks like he got in at least one good bite before he died, Caleb thought. He circled around the head curiously, pleased that it was mostly in
tact. The attacker had not fed on the animal’s relatively bony and meatless head, instead leaving it to be picked at by birds and vermin. The large eye sockets were already empty, picked clean by scavengers, but the scaly skin remained, revealing a striking color pattern of black stripes over rusty red. Caleb nodded with satisfaction as he spotted the large, blunt horn on the animal’s snout, as well as the two small horns over its eyes. The distinct skull features made identification easy.

  “It’s a Ceratosaurus,” Caleb said confidently, standing up and swatting away another cloud of flies.

  “So…” Carlos said nervously, “What does that tell us?”

  “Well,” Caleb said, circling around the beast again, “ceratosaurs are tough predators. They have huge teeth for their size, so they can hunt things that are much bigger than they are. This one was killed by another predator, but not another ceratosaur. See the big bite taken out of the hip, and the other bite marks from feeding?”

  Carlos nodded and shifted uneasily as he eyed the vicious wounds.

  “Those were made by a larger predator. You can tell by the size of the bite and the deepness of the wound. It wouldn’t have been an Allosaurus or anything like that because they have teeth designed for slashing; they make multiple bites to create bleeding that will weaken their prey. This was something much more powerful…”

  Caleb’s voice trailed off, and a slight shiver ran up his spine as he spotted something hidden in the shadows of the ceratosaur’s empty ribcage. He leaned closer, then crouched down and reached into the carcass, holding his breath and squinting against the surging flies.