Carnival of Time

by Alan MacRaffen

  Caleb knew that a tyrannosaur’s jaws were more than strong enough to crush through bones—even the very large bones of other dinosaurs. Paleontologists had found fossilized T-rex droppings containing the pulverized fragments of triceratops and hadrosaur bones. As they approached the intersection of Vernal Ave and Main Street, Caleb glanced back again at the carcass and grimaced. Even at a distance of a few hundred feet, the stench of death was strong, made worse by the unseasonably warm sunshine.

  If he didn’t eat that in one sitting, he must have already eaten a lot, Caleb thought. He shuddered as he remembered that they still hadn’t seen any signs of the people who had stayed in town. Maybe the T-rex… No, he thought nervously. No, it was probably just full of cattle meat or something. But it will get hungry again sooner or later, and it’ll probably come back for the rest of the Ceratosaurus.

  Caleb roused himself from his thoughts as they rounded the corner onto Main Street. “Carlos,” he said suddenly, “The T-rex isn’t done with that carcass. There’s still meat on it, and marrow too. We should find a way to leave a warning quick, so we can get out of here before… There—that’s it!”

  “What?” Carlos gasped, looking ahead to where Caleb was pointing. “Did you see the dinosaur?”

  “No, no. Look,” Caleb said, pointing excitedly at the marquee of the Vernal Theatre. “We can spell out a warning with the letters. Anyone who comes down Main Street will be bound to spot it.”

  Carlos nodded appreciatively as they approached the theatre. “Not bad, boy. You don’t miss a beat, do you?”

  Caleb grinned proudly as Carlos lowered him from the high saddle.

  After they had tied the horse to a parking meter, the two headed into the silent theatre to search for more plastic marquee letters. They were able to find the box of letters quickly, as the office door had been left unlocked. However, they still needed a ladder to reach the marquee, and the maintenance closet was securely locked. After a little while spent rummaging through the office and behind the counters, they found the proper key and dragged the large metal ladder out onto the sidewalk.

  Carlos steadied the ladder while Caleb scrambled up easily with the small box. He had to climb back down several times to reposition the ladder, as well as to hunt for the right letters, but soon enough, Caleb’s message was complete.

  He clung tightly to the top of the ladder, proudly examining his bold but simple message.

  .

  “So, how’s it look?” Caleb asked. When he looked down, he was mildly disappointed to see that Carlos wasn’t paying any attention. Instead, the old man was scowling and looking down the eastern end of Main Street.

  “What are you…” Caleb started to ask. He stopped short as he looked up and spotted the distant pile of rubble spread halfway across the street. It was several blocks away—they hadn’t even noticed it when they first set foot on Main Street, distracted as they were by the idea of the marquee. Now, from his unobstructed vantage point, Caleb wondered how they had ever missed it.

  It looked as though one of the large brick buildings had been blown up, its crumbled walls spilled out onto the pavement. On the other side of the street, broken window glass glittered in the bright sun, as if the panes had shattered from the blast. Caleb began intently scanning the rest of the street, searching for any further signs of violence. It’s the fire station, he thought. He knew the area very well—it was directly across the street from the Field Museum.

  “That looks like it might be the fire station,” Carlos said, a bewildered tone in his voice. “The others were saying they might try to set up a trap there for the dinosaur. Can you see anything else from up there, Caleb?”

  Caleb was silent. Carlos looked up and was startled by the look of shock on the boy’s face. He seemed to be staring at a much closer part of Main Street now. Carlos followed his gaze to a small store on the corner of the closest intersection. For a moment he saw nothing, then he gasped in horror as he saw what lay on top of the store’s awning.

  The object gleamed bright blue and pale white in the sun, streaked with splotches of deep red that had spread onto the fabric of the awning. For a moment, Carlos thought he was seeing a person stuck halfway through a hole in the fabric, but he quickly realized that only the lower half of the body was present.

  “My God,” Carlos breathed.

  Caleb hopped off the lower rungs of the ladder and stood beside Carlos, never taking his eyes off of the grisly remains on the awning.

  “I think we’d better check the fire station,” Caleb said softly. “There could be survivors.”

  Carlos nodded silently and began untying the horse.

  The scent of blood and death in the fire station put even the gutted ceratosaurus to shame. In the past hour, Caleb and Carlos had been able to account for only two other human bodies, though there was enough blood and gore strewn throughout the rubble to indicate that few, if any, had survived. Carlos had initially insisted that Caleb stay outside the wrecked structure, claiming that it was too dangerous. In truth, the rubble was actually fairly stable, but he hoped to avoid subjecting the boy to any more scenes of carnage. When he had found the second ceratosaurus, however, he simply couldn’t keep Caleb away any longer.

  The animal was inside the collapsed garage section, propped against the side of one of the trucks. Most of the roof had been smashed away—seemingly from the inside—leaving the body mostly uncovered to bake in the warm sun. Although almost all of the meat and half of the bones were missing, the stench was still overwhelming. Caleb circled around the body excitedly, holding his breath as much as possible and prodding at the remains with a scavenged aluminum pole. After just a few minutes of investigating, he had already found several interesting details.

  He emerged from the garage holding a large fragment of the animal’s shoulder blade in his small hands. Carlos leaned in to look as the young boy proceeded to explain the details of his discoveries, seemingly unfazed by the gore that crusted his small fingernails or the terrible destruction all around him.

  “I’m not sure what this mark is,” he said, pointing to the upper edge of the scapula.

  Carlos inspected the gouge in the bone. “Bill probably never took you hunting, did he? I’m pretty sure that’s a nick from a bullet.”

  “Oh,” Caleb said, his eyes widening in understanding. “There are tons of these all over the body. It must have taken a lot of shots to even weaken it, never mind kill it.”

  Carlos gulped slightly, trying not to let his nervousness show.

  “So it was probably several shots to the head that finally killed it,” Caleb continued, “but even that would have taken a while.”

  “They would have had to get it at just the right angle to hit the brain,” Carlos added, “which would have been really hard if it was moving around a lot. And look at these other marks here,” Carlos pointed to several shallow, straight lines scored into the bone. “These are from some kind of knives or blades. The bone’s been shaved off in a few spots, like they were butchering it for the meat after they killed it.”

  “For food?” Caleb asked. “How would they know it was safe to eat?”

  “They wouldn’t,” Carlos answered. “But maybe they were all excited after they finally killed it, and wanted to celebrate. Besides, with that strange mold spoiling everything that’s not canned, it’s hard to find good food now.”

  “Oh yeah. But these other marks,” Caleb said, indicating the jagged, broken edge of the bone. “These were made later—you can see where they interrupt the knife marks that were already there. This is damage from a tyrannosaur. It wasn’t a killing blow; the Ceratosaurus was already long dead when this happened. This is damage from feeding. There are tooth scrapes all over the rest of the bones, and most of the big ones are smashed, to get at the marrow. This must be what filled the rex’s stomach so it didn’t bother finishing the other one.”

  “So… Do you think it will come back, or has it eaten enough?” Carlos asked, glancing up a
nd down the street.

  “Oh, it’ll be back sooner or later, that’s for sure,” Caleb said, hardly noticing the tight expression on Carlos's face. “But look what else I found.”

  He set the heavy bone down on the street and fished into his pockets. He withdrew a number of small fragments of some sort of porous, curved material. Carlos guessed that they were about an eighth of an inch thick. The pieces were brownish-white on one side, and mottled red and white on the other.

  “Are those what I think they are?” Carlos asked, peering closely.

  “Yup. Eggshells,” Caleb answered, grinning excitedly.

  “They’re huge,” Carlos muttered. He picked up one of the larger pieces and felt its strength and thickness. “These have to be from a dinosaur, right?”

  “Yeah,” Caleb answered, pocketing the other fragments again. “But why would they be in the fire station? I doubt the ceratosaurs were nesting there.”

  “Well, let’s think about this,” Carlos said, rubbing his chin. “We know the others were going to try to use the fire station to ambush the dinosaurs. So maybe these smaller dinosaurs…”

  “Ceratosaurs,” Caleb offered.

  “Right, maybe these ceratosaurs were hunting the sheep and cattle. The footprints I saw before we left were about the right size. So the others stayed here to kill the ceratosaurs, but they needed a good plan. They probably tried to shoot at them out in the fields, but they would have been too far away, and moving too fast to get a good shot. Instead of wasting bullets that way, they decided to catch them in a sort of trap.”

  “Wait, I think I get it!” Caleb said, his mind rapidly playing out the scenario. “The ceratosaurs were obviously a mated pair, with a nest full of eggs. Somebody must have found the nest while they were away, and brought the eggs here. They put them in the back of the garage, and waited for the parents to come in after them! Right?”

  “Makes sense. And it worked okay for the first one…”

  “I think it’s the male,” Caleb explained. “This one is smaller than the other, which is normal for male dinosaurs. The females are the big ones.”

  “Okay,” Carlos nodded “So the male walked right in, and they shut the doors and shot at him until they figured out how to hit the brain or just got a lucky shot. While they were shooting him, he crashed all over the place and smashed the eggs. Now they had a dead ceratosaur and a bunch of broken eggs in here. Then they got all excited and decide to make a dino-barbecue.”

  “So now there was the smell of dead Ceratosaurus—some raw and some cooking—mixed with the smell of the eggs,” Caleb said, pacing excitedly. “Nobody here stopped to think that this might drive the mother nuts, and they didn’t know that there was a T-rex around here either. The T-rex would have been really hungry, because the ceratosaurs ate or chased away all the sheep and cattle, and he’s got one of the best noses there ever was. A T-rex could track down a scent faster than a whole pack of bloodhounds.”

  Carlos nodded. Despite his nervousness, he was both pleased and surprised by how quickly Caleb helped piece together the clues. He pointed to the collapsed sections of firehouse wall. “So in came the T-rex while the people were partying. He walked right up to the fire station, smashed in through the garage doors and knocked the roof out from the inside while he was attacking everybody. They probably shot at him a bunch of times, but they were so scared and surprised that they didn’t aim very well, and he killed all of them except for three. Two guys ran into the other part of the fire station so they wouldn’t get eaten, but he tried to go after them and knocked the walls down on them. Those are the two we found in here. The other guy ran outside…”

  Caleb jumped in again. “But the T-rex was faster and he caught him near the theater.”

  “And shook him like a dog with a rabbit,” Carlos added, glancing at the distant awning where the partial remains still lay.

  “A while later, the mother Ceratosaurus showed up, following the same smells, and she ran into the T-rex. She tried to get away, but the T-rex was too tough and fast and he caught her on Vernal Ave. He killed her and ate some, but left the rest for later because he already stuffed himself with the first one. That’s probably why he didn’t bother digging for the others we found or picking that part off of the awning. And then after that, we showed up.” Caleb stopped and took a deep breath. “Sounds reasonable, right?”

  Carlos bent down and stared Caleb right in the eye. “Yes,” he said. “It makes sense. You know, Caleb, you really are an extremely smart boy.”

  “Thanks.” Caleb smiled, not sure what else to say.

  Carlos’s smile darkened. “How long do you think it will be before the T-rex comes back?”

  “I don’t know,” Caleb shrugged, suddenly at a loss for answers. “I guess it depends on how many sheep and cows it ate before the other stuff. It’ll come back when it’s hungry, but I couldn’t say how soon that will be. I’m sorry.”

  Carlos stifled a laugh. “Don’t be sorry, Caleb,” he said patting the boy on the shoulder. “I’m already glad I brought you along.”

  Caleb grinned, then turned suddenly to stare at the ruined fire station.

  “Did you hear that?” he said, stepping closer.

  “No,” Carlos said, listening carefully. “What was it?”

  “It sounded like some metal thing squeaking in the back of the garage—near those loose pieces of roof. Maybe there’s still someone alive in there.”

  “We’d better check one more time,” Carlos said, moving in front of Caleb and picking his way carefully through the debris littering the garage floor.

  The back end of the garage was filled with slanting sections of broken roofing, propped up here and there by the ends of the large fire trucks. Caleb followed Carlos into the shadowy area, pointing him toward the spot where he had heard the noise.

  They both froze in place as the sound came again, each trying to pinpoint its location. It was a series of three short, high-pitched squeaks accompanied by a soft, scrabbling, scratching noise—like a cat clawing at a screen door. It seemed to come from the large mound of debris in the far corner.

  “Hello,” Carlos called. “Is anyone in there?”

  The scratching stopped abruptly, but no one answered. After a moment, the scratching started again, faster than before.

  Carlos moved closer, taking care not to disturb any sections of fallen roof. “Can anyone hear me?”

  The noise continued this time, followed by three more loud squeaks. Caleb cocked his head to one side, listening carefully. The scrabbling sound persisted without pause, punctuated by yet another set of squeaks.

  “What the…” Carlos whispered. “Is that metal squeaking, or is there some kind of bird stuck in there?”

  “It’s not quite a bird,” Caleb said, eyes suddenly alight. “Wait here, and keep an eye on the pile.”

  “Caleb, wait! Where are you doing?” Carlos cried frantically, but the boy had already run out of the garage. He returned a minute later carrying a can opener and a large can of beef stew from the horse’s saddlebags.

  “Caleb, what are you doing?” Carlos asked. Caleb pushed past him hurriedly and crouched down next to one of the sections of roof.

  “Shhh,” he whispered, listening closely to the pile of rubble. Following the sound of the scratching, he peered closely at the debris. Suddenly, he spotted a small puff of dust rising from a gap in the roof fragments.

  “There!” he said excitedly, tugging at one of the pieces of broken roof. “Come here—help me get this off.”

  “Careful Caleb,” Carlos said, stepping forward to help steady the sliding section and drag it away from the pile. Caleb crouched down again and peered into the small opening they had uncovered in the rubble.

  For a moment, he saw a tiny pair of bright golden eyes blinking in the darkness. With a frantic scrabbling and a loud squeal of alarm, the eyes retreated out of sight.

  Caleb reached over and grabbed the can of beef stew, opening it quickly with the
can opener. He peered into the hole again, whispering a few reassuring words, then dumped half of the can out onto the floor in front of the hole.

  “Caleb,” Carlos said, edging closer nervously. “Be careful. What is that in there?”

  Caleb silenced him with another gentle “Shhh,” and watched the opening expectantly. The scratching noise grew louder, and a tiny, blackish-brown snout poked out into the light. The miniature nostrils sniffed delicately at the nearby stew, then retreated into the hole again with another set of plaintive squeaks. Caleb slowly reached out and picked up a small piece of beef from the stew and put it in his mouth, smacking his lips loudly.

  With a particularly loud and nervous squeak, the tiny animal stumbled awkwardly out into the light on a pair of long and gangly legs. It was very small, hardly any bigger than a duckling or a month-old kitten. Even with its long tail, it barely reached twelve inches in length. Its large, bright eyes stared inquisitively from its tiny face. Slender, delicate jaws opened and closed hungrily, revealing a full set of dainty white fangs, each less than an eighth of an inch long. The face was covered in fine scales, so miniscule that the skin appeared almost smooth. There was a pair of tiny bumps over the eyes, where the animal’s adult horns would develop, and a larger hornlet on the end of the snout that had served as an egg tooth to crack open its shell. Though the face and feet were scaly, the rest of the creature’s body was covered in a soft coating of fluffy down. The scales and feathers were a reddish-brown color, with bold black stripes and a creamy underbelly, nearly identical to the colors of the adult ceratosaurs. With a single nervous glance at Caleb, the animal hobbled forward and began nibbling excitedly at the chunks of beef stew.

  Caleb slowly picked up another piece of beef and held it out in front of the animal’s snout.

  “Watch your fingers, Caleb!” Carlos hissed.

  Caleb only chuckled as the animal sniffed the meat, then snapped it up eagerly.