by David Rhodes
Steve rolled over on his stomach and reached behind him trying to get to his med pouches. Then suddenly he was being lifted up. He thought for a second that Ben had come back for him but then he realized he was at least ten feet in the air. Then the pain swept over him. He arched his back and turned his head and saw his shadow on the ground. His arms and legs were flailing as he tried to get away from the pain. But he couldn’t.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WALKS
After an hour of slow walking they began to leave the forest behind them. As the trees began to thin out they were exposed to a cloudless sky and the sun beating directly down on them. “It’s hot again,” Danny said.
The trees were replaced by wide open spaces of flowering plants and ferns. There were no trails through these areas, so Charles used a long stick to beat the plants in front of them to scare away any animals or snakes. Anytime she heard something moving away from her, she paused.
“This is scary,” Lisa said. “I remember the snake from our jumps and then Blonk stopped us because of the one he saw. We can’t see anything through all of this.”
“You’re doing great,” Ben told her. “Charles, just keep making noise and everything will stay away from us.”
“Or hear me and come to see what’s making the noise,” he replied.
“I need a rifle,” Stoney said.
“I have one more,” Ben said as he opened a pack and handed it to her. “I couldn’t find any pistols or helmets that weren’t damaged. Only one DOPE survived, and it is still wrapped up and we have a lot of ammunition. We have food and still have some water though I hope we get to the time machine before we need to worry about needing more.”
“Stoney, how’s your leg?” Lisa asked.
“It’s still there,” she replied and didn’t say anything else.
They had slowly been making their way toward a low ridge and now as they climbed to the top Lisa said, “It’s beautiful. I wish Ron and Lauren were here.”
“I do too,” Charles agreed.
Before them lay a valley filled with a sea of green vegetation. There were more flowering plants and short ferns; some about five feet tall and bushy and others shorter and more spread out. There were what they thought were short palm trees and intermixed with them some larger trees that looked similar to the modern oak.
As they started down into the valley Charles stopped and ran his hand along some eight-foot-tall green blades and said, “This looks like grass. But I remember Ron said grass hadn’t evolved yet.”
“It could be grass, or a grass of some type,” Lisa confirmed. “I remember Ron talking about some new discoveries that indicated grass was much older than was thought. He said it was significant because paleontologists would view the diet of the herbivores much differently.” She touched the grass too and continued, “He would have loved this. He would have probably laid down in it.” She paused for another second then turned abruptly and started moving again.
“We could hear a lot of insects in the jungles we were in,” Danny said. “But because this is so wide open we can see them too. Look at all the bees moving around all the different colored flowers. They’re huge. This isn’t what I thought it would look like. We didn’t run into anything like this with Taggit. Look at the bees going from flower to flower like they do in our time. I wonder if they make honey?
“And the butterflies,” Danny pointed out. “They’re not very pretty, but there they are.”
“I thought those were moths,” Lisa said.
“Maybe they are,” Danny said. “ They are smaller so maybe that’s what they are. But they do seem to be interested in the flowers and I don’t think moths are.”
“What did you think all of this would look like?” Ben asked Danny.
“Nothing but jungle. Jungle and animals. Some would just walk by you while some wanted to eat you. But this, if it weren’t for the predators, this would be paradise.”
Lisa turned around and said, “There’s no such thing as paradise.” Then she held up her hand and said, “Look how far behind us Stoney is.”
Everyone stopped, and Ben went back to where Stoney was. As he hooked her arm over his shoulder he said, “Don’t let us get too far ahead. We need to stay together.”
“I just started falling back as we were going up the hill,” she told him. “And by the way, I think Junk is dead now.”
“Why?”
“She’s not bleeding anymore.”
Ben walked a few more steps then stopped and asked, “Had she been bleeding? I mean, was she leaving a trail?”
Stoney seemed very weak as she replied, “Yeah, I guess she was.”
As soon as he got back to Danny and Lisa, Ben checked Junk and shook his head as he said, “You’re right, Stoney. Junk is dead.” He stood up and asked, “What should we do with her? What do you think, Charles? Charles?”
“What? Oh, sorry. I was thinking about Lauren and all that has happened and what I need to do.” He looked around as if he were seeing the valley for the first time and then looked down at Junk. “What did you ask me?”
“What should we do with Junk? She’s dead.”
They were by another thicket of the tall grass and Charles said, “Let’s put her in here. She’ll be found sooner or later, but let’s try to make it later.” Ben picked her up as Lisa slapped at the tall grass to chase out any animals. He stepped a few yards into the thicket and gently laid her down then he stepped back out and started to lead the way.
“Stop,” Lisa said. “I don’t want to just walk away anymore.” She turned toward the grass and said, “Junk was one of the nicest people I’ve met. She helped us become part of their Team by understanding what we needed to do and helping us do it. She didn’t deserve to die now or like she did.” She paused and then finished with, “This is for everyone else too. May we all get back the lives we lost.”
As they started walking again Danny asked, “Stoney, why don’t you lay down on the sled for a while. Save your strength.”
“No, I’ll keep – ”
“I insist,” Danny said as he smiled at her. She didn’t resist as he led her to the sled where Ben and Charles helped her lay down.
“That was nice, what you said back there,” Ben told Lisa. “We should have said something for everyone. But the first death was business as usual and the next death wasn’t ever expected. We forgot the value of life, lost it somewhere in time and never got it back.”
“We can’t do that again,” Lisa said. “We have to remember how valuable we all are.”
“Charles,” Danny started, “if you don’t change the timeline, are you afraid that human bones will be found? We’ve had a lot of people die.”
“No, not in the conditions we’ve been through. Everyone…” he choked for a moment, “…has been eaten quickly. Even Junk will be gone within a few hours. The acidic level of jungle floors will break down any leftover bone long before it could be fossilized. And here, in this place, there are too many animals for any part of Junk to survive. No, I don’t think anyone will ever know we were here.”
He paused then continued, “But I won’t fail. One way or another I will change things.”
“Can someone talk to me?” Stoney asked. “My leg is hurting and I feel like I’m slipping away. Talk to me. Keep me in the here and now. Tell me about the ocean we were in.”
Danny started, “If Ron or Lauren were here they could tell you more about it than I can. But I can talk about it a little. This whole area that we are walking in, and really have been in since we first arrived, used to be underwater. The Western Interior Seaway stretched basically from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to the Arctic Ocean. That’s about 2,000 miles or so. It was about 500 miles wide, or maybe more, and it split the United States and Canada into eastern and western parts. Back then, most of the southern states were at least partially covered by water. There was no Florida I remember, and a lot of Mexico was underwater too.
“That’s why you can find
fish and shell fossils in states where you wouldn’t think they would be. And I mean all kinds of fossils. I went to a few commercial places where you could dig up your own fossils. I have several different types of fish and some shark teeth and in one place I was really lucky and found most of a sea turtle shell. After our last jumps I really got into fossils for quite a while.”
“I didn’t know that,” Charles said. “Why didn’t you tell Ron and Lauren? They would have loved taking you out on a dig.”
“Hey, this is about me, remember?” Stoney said. Then she continued, “Danny, why didn’t you tell us?”
Danny smiled and replied, “I thought about it, but I thought they might think it was funny or something. I don’t know. Mostly it was I didn’t want to be around any of us for a while. Too many memories.”
“Stoney, ask him about the sponge,” Charles said.
“You heard the man. What’s so important about sponge?”
“Let me see if I can get this right. All animals have a common ancestor and then like a tree, a tree is the usual way to explain it, other animals started branching off of it. The sponge was first, the first branch. So, the sponge is the sister…the sister group, of all other animals. I just thought that was interesting.”
“You liked Aria, didn’t you?” Stoney asked. Danny didn’t answer for a minute and Stoney continued, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I just thought I noticed something.”
“Yes, I did,” Danny answered. “She was understandably overwhelmed by things, didn’t understand why all of this had happened to her and Tony. But she was strong, and she did her best, she even took a watch. I didn’t get to talk to her much, but yeah, I wish I could have gotten to know her better.”
“We need to stop,” Ben said. “Stoney is bleeding again and so am I.”
As they set Stoney down, Charles pointed out, “You can tell this used to be underwater. Look at the rock formations and how some of them form bridges. You can see where water has slowly cut underneath - ”
“Ben, you didn’t tell them about Junk’s blood trail,” Stoney interrupted.
“What?” he asked.
“Remember, I said Junk was bleeding but she had stopped. We have company.”
Everyone turned around and then instinctively ducked down. There were five small dinosaurs on top of the ridge, but they were bent down like they were following a trail. They couldn’t tell what kind of dinosaur they were but when they got to the tall grass they darted into it.
“We’re okay,” Danny said. “They didn’t look that big. Let’s keep going.”
“No, we can’t,” Charles said. “Look.”
The others looked back again at the ridge and saw four larger animals following the same trail as the first five. Then they ran into the grass too. Because of the distance it took a couple of seconds for the sounds to get to them. Sounds of fighting.
“Something is not going to eat which means they will still be hungry. We need to hide,” Charles said.
“I have a plan,” Ben told everyone. “Let’s go.” Lisa and Charles started dragging Stoney as Danny moved up beside Ben and asked, “What’s the plan?”
“Over here. I saw it after we put Junk in the tall grass.” He led them to a low rock formation and ducked inside an opening which was about three feet tall and two feet wide. After shining his light inside for several seconds, he said, “Okay, come in and let me explain this to you.”
Danny followed then Charles and Lisa pulled the sled through the opening. They were in a small tunnel, about ten feet long, that led completely through the rock they had crawled into. The tunnel started off with a ceiling of about four feet and slowly got smaller until it ended with a small exit, about two feet in diameter.
“Look, we can block the back opening with some of these rocks that are lying around,” Ben said. And we can block the entrance we came in with the wood from the sled. We’ll be safe for a while.”
“That sounds good to me,” Danny told everyone.
When everyone else agreed, Ben moved Stoney gently off of the sled and then crawled quietly outside the tunnel entrance and pulled some flowers and ferns across the opening to hide it. “If they can’t see it hopefully they won’t figure out it’s here,” he said. Then he untied the sled limbs and used some of the webbing to make a barrier across the entrance. He put some stones around it to hold it in place.
“I agree,” Charles said and then he crawled toward the end of the tunnel and blocked it off with several large rocks. “There. It’s not completely blocked, air can still move through, but an animal will have to dig their way in. That would give us time to shoot it.”
No one spoke for a few minutes and then Danny said, “You know, I actually do feel safe in here. I know we have to go back out in a little while but I’m starting to relax.”
“I am too,” Lisa admitted.
“I’m cold,” Stoney said. Immediately everyone moved closed to her and she told them, “Thanks.”
Then Ben said, “You know, we were all sweating in the hot sun and since it’s cooler in here we’re all going to start feeling colder. There is a breeze coming in from the west, so I could light a small fire to keep us warm and the smoke would keep moving away from us and out the smaller end since it’s not completely blocked.”
“That sounds great,” Lisa said. “But I’m not only getting colder, I’m starting to really hurt. I think the adrenaline is wearing off from the attack.”
“I think it is too,” Charles agreed. “I know we’ve only come about a half mile, but I can feel every cut and bruise on my legs.”
“We all lost blood too,” Ben reminded them. “Not as much as Junk or Stoney but we’re all still badly injured. Adrenaline can only take you so far.”
“I hate to suggest this,” Lisa started, “but should we just stay here tonight? I’m starting to be in a lot of pain right now, as I imagine all of you are too. I know we’re close, but we were getting slower out there. I’m afraid if we go back out we literally won’t have the ability to walk another half mile. I think we would though if we ate and rested here out of the sun. Let’s start first thing in the morning.”
Danny immediately spoke up, “I was thinking the same thing. I couldn’t make it. I just couldn’t. I don’t have any energy left at all.”
Everyone looked at Charles who said, “I don’t know if I could make it either, but I was willing to try. If we stay here we’re putting off for another night getting to the time machine. We need to get back to get medical attention and to start making things right. But, I want us all to make it back. So, since I’m not sure I could even get there, let’s stay here tonight. But we have to get there tomorrow. We have to.”
“We will,” Danny said. “But you’re not thinking right. Only you have to make it there. If we have to go with you to see you make it then I’ll have a half mile in me tomorrow. I think everyone else will too. We have got to get you to your machine.”
“I got a half mile,” Stoney said.
“Me too,” Lisa and Ben added.
Ben treated everyone again and promised, “I’ll give everyone the last of the pain medication later, so we can sleep tonight. Until then though you’ll have to just bear it. Sorry, it never occurred to us that we would need medication for a lot of people for a long time.”
As they started eating, Stoney said, “You know what really bothers me? I liked Otto. I thought he was interesting to be around. He could dumb things down so that we could understand them. He had a personality, unlike Steve. Sorry, Paycheck, but I always found your brother to be cold and distant. There was just something about him. I mean, I can’t look back and say I knew this was going to happen, but he was always odd.”
“I have to agree with you,” Ben said. “But I’ve known him all my life and he was always strange, but in a strange way I understood. He was smart, a genius, so of course he thought differently than me. He went to college, so I accepted his attitude. To me, he was just my little brother. But now I
can look back at certain things that I should have picked up on and not just accepted as Steve being Steve.
“And I liked Otto too. Smart and he could think of things in a way that I found amazing. And like you said, he could explain them, and he actually wanted to explain them to you. I knew he was smarter than Steve but of course I never told Steve. But I can’t think of anything that Otto did that set off any alarms then or even now. What happened?”
“Greed. Power,” Lisa answered. “If Lauren was here she could tell us. All the things she was worried about, but we were looking in the wrong direction. Well, no we weren’t. Steve did try to leave us behind first, but Otto was smarter, or just worse.”
“What about everyone that went with him?” Charles asked Stoney. “Did you get along with them?”
“Yes. There were cliques of course, but we all spent some time together at the beach or just watching a game. I thought Maybe was a little arrogant and sometimes her not knowing what to do act got a little old, but there was nothing that led me to believe there were two different teams. I was completely surprised.” She paused and looked at Danny and said, “But you got them.”
“I hope so,” he replied. “Think of the damage they would have done if they had gotten back. Plus, well it was bad enough when I realized what Steve was doing, but then to listen to Otto. I had to do something.” He was quiet for a moment then added, “Lauren warned us.”
“She did,” Charles replied. “But we didn’t understand how bad Steve was until you told us about the man you found that said he had been left behind. We thought we were in control, no, I thought we were in control. I knew Steve had stolen my work and Tony was working for him, but I thought we could fly under the radar and surprise him.” He looked at Lisa and said, “Sorry we didn’t tell you and Ron, but we were afraid you would give things away before we got our answers.”
“And you would have been right,” Lisa agreed. “I wouldn’t have acted the same and Ron wouldn’t have known how to act. He just kept being Ron, excited and more excited.” She clenched her jaws and said, “I miss my Ron, but I will cry later. For everyone. Right now, I’m concentrating on what needs to be done to make sure this never happens again.”