The Dinosaur Four

by Geoff Jones

  - - - - -

  Tim drove straight toward it, only a block away now. He pulled on his seatbelt. He would slam into it, breaking both of its legs. Tim floored the gas pedal.

  Ahead, the tyrannosaur entered an intersection and looked down the side street, where it saw something friendly and familiar in this world of concrete and asphalt. It spotted the Cherry Creek greenway, a canal-like chasm which ran along the edge of the downtown district. A small creek bordered by grass on both sides ran down the middle, one story below street level. The greenway was a lush oasis in a desert of concrete and asphalt.

  The tyrannosaur turned the corner seconds before the white pickup reached it.

  Tim screeched through the intersection, locking the brakes and frantically spinning the steering wheel to turn the truck around. He looped back and started down the street in time to see the tyrannosaur stop at the edge of the canal. It roared and stepped down onto the grass below.

  Tim sped up again. The dinosaur’s head stuck up out of the canal at the end of the block. He grabbed the shovel and crammed its blade deep into the crevice at the back of the passenger seat. Again, he pressed the gas pedal against the floor. The eight-cylinder engine roared forward.

  The truck crashed through a short iron railing at the edge of the greenway, ripping it from its concrete footings. The impact barely slowed the vehicle, but it was enough to trigger the airbags. White balloons exploded in Tim’s face, blocking his view and saving his life.

  The Dodge Ram sailed through the air and collided with the tyrannosaur’s shoulder. Five thousand pounds of Detroit steel shoved the animal into the opposite wall of the canal.

  The tyrannosaur’s body crumpled under the impact. Eleven ribs broke clean through. Three of them punctured one of the dinosaur’s lungs, causing it to collapse. The truck held in the air for an instant before falling backwards. Its rear wheels splashed in the creek. Tim waved the white nylon airbag free from his face and tugged the shovel out of the passenger seat. As he jumped down from the cab, his right shin screamed at him. His tibia had sustained a hairline fracture in the crash.

  Tim hurried around the front of the vehicle as the stunned dinosaur started to regain its senses. Its head lay before him, one eye looking up. Fresh blood oozed from the gash in its nose where Tim had struck it inside the café, sixty-seven million years earlier.

  The tyrannosaur pulled a leg underneath its body and shifted its weight. The dinosaur grunted and pulled the second leg under its body. The truck rolled a few feet away as the tyrannosaur lifted its torso from the ground.

  It now focused on Tim. Its head, still low, ratcheted back. The thick muscles in its neck coiled. One quick snap would eliminate this annoyance that had just brought so much pain. It opened its mouth and inhaled.

  Tim lifted the shovel overhead and used all of his strength to plunge it directly into the dinosaur’s left eye. The blade split the three-inch eyeball like a water balloon. He pushed deeper and felt the snap of the thin bones surrounding the eye socket.

  The head of the shovel disappeared into the dinosaur’s skull. The tip of the steel blade penetrated the tyrannosaur’s brain. The beast reared up, pulling Tim three feet off the ground, and then collapsed in a heap.

  Still holding on to the shovel, Tim put one foot on the dinosaur’s cheek, just below the eye socket. Time was running out. He yanked the shovel free, splattering his shirt with white bits of sclera from the eyeball. He turned to the monster’s belly.

  A bicyclist approached on one of the pathways running alongside the creek. “What the hell? Do you need some-?”

  “Get away from here!” Tim growled. He didn’t have time to explain and he sure didn’t want anyone close by.

  He heaved the shovel into the dinosaur’s underbelly. It felt like striking solid rock. The blade bounced off of its thick hide. “Shit!” He didn’t have time for this.

  Tim reared back, ready to try another strike, and noticed scabbed blood around one of the holes created by the Triceratops’ horn in the battle by the cliff. He shifted his stance and rammed the shovel at the hole. It penetrated the wound, widening it. After four more heaves, Tim knew he had found the stomach. Blood, mixed with an oily yellow fluid, burst from the opening and onto his hands. The acrid stench of stomach acid, bile, and decomposition poured over him as he dug into the dinosaur’s gut. Every passing second felt like an eternity.

  Foul, partly digested hunks of meat spilled out onto the bike path. Tim tried to ignore them, to avoid noticing which were Triceratops and which were human. Dear God, don’t let me find Julie. He rammed the shovel deep into the body cavity, testing different areas. Finally, the head of the shovel clanged against something metal.

  “Ah Ha HA!” Tim shouted. He threw down the shovel and reached into the hole with both hands, covering himself in gore. Out came the football. Its light blinked on and off through a sheen of blood.

  [ 60 ]

  Cradling the blood-slicked time device in two hands, Tim spun around. He would run to the café and trigger the fail-safe. He would clear everyone out. He would stop it all from happening.

  No, wait.

  This was the perfect spot. If he triggered the device near the café, it might swap out someone standing nearby. It might cut someone in half. The path on the Cherry Creek greenway was deserted, though Tim noticed a crowd beginning to gather on the street above.

  He dropped to his knees and rolled the device over in front of him. The LED screen had gone blank. Tim lifted the plastic lid from the fail-safe button.

  “Please work.”

  He slid his finger under the lid and pressed the button. The ticking began immediately.

  Tick. Tick-Tick. Tick-Tick-Tick-Tick TICK TICK TICK TICKTICKTICK-

  The dead tyrannosaur and the Dodge pickup disappeared, but everything else looked the same. Of course. He had only traveled back in time twenty minutes. He glanced around for body parts, to see if anyone had been split in half at the edge. Thankfully, there were none.

  He looked down at the device. The LED now read 0:00:09:54 and counting down. That answers that. The device had gone twenty minutes into the past and would stay here for half that time. Then it would automatically jump back forward, returning to the moment he had just left.

  The timer was now down to 0:00:09:42. He had less than ten minutes to get back to the café.

  Tim ran up the pedestrian ramp. Next question- How long before the café disappears? He held the football tightly as he ran, each step sending pain up his leg. Had he been fast enough? He tried to remember how much time had passed since the café had returned. The chase to the creek had taken at least five minutes. Maybe more. Probably more. It had felt like an eternity digging the stupid machine out of the tyrannosaur’s guts.

  Tim reached street level and ran down the sidewalk, drenched in blood and cradling the metallic ball in his arms. The morning crowd, that slow-moving sea of suits, parted around him.

  Rounding the corner, he saw the café, two blocks away and still intact. It had not gone back yet. He still had a chance to save everyone. Tim sped up, ignoring the pain in his leg.

  A woman approached the café from the opposite direction, pulled along by a brown mutt that looked familiar. Morgan Jackson walked a few steps ahead of her.

  Buddy! Morgan! Recognition, followed by realization. “NO!”

  Tim was still a block and a half away when the café disappeared. The pop echoed down the street. Cinderblocks fell from the walls above. Prehistoric river water splashed onto the street. The woman on the sidewalk, Buddy’s owner, held up her handless arm.

  He was too late. William. Hank. Patricia. Beth. Morgan. They were all on their way to their deaths, and there was nothing he could do to save them.

  In front of the empty cavity where the café had been, the woman collapsed to the ground, clutching her arm. Tim stood and watched, wondering what he should do now. Blood from the tyrannosaur slowly dripped from his clothes onto the sidewalk. There was no way to prevent t
he trip. The café would return with the tyrannosaur in any moment.

  A woman in a blue coat passed by. She made a wide circle around him and headed in the direction of the café.

  [ 61 ]

  “JULIE!”

  She turned at her name, but her smile quickly disappeared. “Oh my God, Tim? What happened to you?”

  Before he could answer, a loud pop came from the café down the street. They both turned and saw dust rolling away from the building. Tim realized he was witnessing the moment he had lived through just over twenty minutes ago. The café had returned with Tim, Callie, Lisa, and Helen inside. And the tyrannosaur.

  Tim’s heart jack-hammered in his chest. The tyrannosaur would come out any second now. He grabbed Julie and pulled her into an alley. He laughed hysterically. “You’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive!” He backed into a wall behind a dumpster.

  “What -”

  “I love you,” he told her. He put the time device down on the ground and kissed her on the lips. She gave him a half-smile, half-grimace.

  “Please tell me what’s going on.”

  A crash came from outside the alley and they heard screeching cars.

  “Don’t worry, you’re safe. You’re safe! Just stay down. Take cover.” He started to kiss her again but he froze, his mind racing.

  I’m back. A second Tim had just arrived in the café. He knew he needed to let the football jump him forward to a world where there was only one of him, but he felt a strange urge to go into the café and tell the other Tim what he had done. He wanted to march Julie over and show him that she was alive. He had saved her life.

  Any second now, the T-rex would come out of the café and it would not kill her.

  Tim stopped breathing. What will happen to Julie then?

  The Tim in the café would have no reason to chase down the dinosaur. No reason to go back in time and save her. If he didn’t go back in time to save her, how would she end up in the alley? Tim squeezed his eyes shut. Time travel didn’t make any fucking sense. It felt like an endless loop.

  A roar came from the street outside the alley.

  “Tim, what was that?”

  He ignored her. If the Tim in the café doesn’t see her die, he won’t come back and save her. He won’t be here to pull her into the alley. I won’t be here to pull her into the alley. He had to decide quickly. The football would go off soon. The timer showed 0:00:05:52.

  Tim pulled out his phone. He would call himself. He would call the Tim that just returned in the café and tell him what to do. No matter what, Julie needed to be pulled into the alley. It dawned on him that he would be calling with the exact same phone, with the exact same number. “I can’t use this.”

  He looked up at Julie, knowing how crazy he must seem. “Give me your phone. Call my number and hand it to me. Hurry!”

  Julie fished her phone out of her pocket, only snagging her hand once this time. She pressed a few buttons.

  Oh no. He was holding his phone in his hand. Which phone would she connect to? Tim dropped his phone on the asphalt and smashed it with the football.

  Julie looked at him with disbelief. He grabbed her phone and held it to his ear. There was no answer, only an electronic ringing every few seconds. Just as he started to hang up and try again, he finally heard a voice, his voice, from inside the café. “Hello? Julie, you are not going to believe what-”

  “Tim, this is you, from the future.”

  “Huh?”

  Tim froze as the tyrannosaur passed by the alley.

  “What the hell was that?” Julie asked.

  He ignored her and continued into the phone, giving instructions to the Tim who had just arrived but had not seen Julie get eaten. “Take the shovel and grab the white truck across the street. Drive it into the T-rex and kill it. Cut the football out of it and use the fail-safe. Go back and find Julie. Keep her away from the café or she will die! Then call yourself.”

  “Is this some kind of -”

  Tim screamed into the phone: “Shut up and do what I said or JULIE WILL DIE!” He heard a click on the other end. “Please,” he whispered.

  Julie backed away. “I don’t like this. It isn’t funny. Why did you say I would die?”

  “You won’t,” he said, hoping it was true. He handed her the phone and kissed her on the forehead. “Please just stay here, out of sight, until this is all over.”

  She grabbed for his arm, but he pulled free. “I’ve got to get out of here. I don’t have much time.”

  He picked up the device. 0:00:03:25 flashed on the display. He looked at her one last time. She was alive. Would she still be alive when he jumped forward? He wanted to stay here, but he could not. There was another Tim here.

  He took a deep breath and stepped out of the alley. A white pickup truck swerved to avoid him. “Yes!” he shouted. “Go get him!”

  He ran straight toward the creek as the truck raced in the other direction, pursuing the dinosaur. All the way, he silently urged the counter in his hands to slow down, to give him enough time to get back. His leg screamed at him as he ran.

  He reached the pedestrian ramp. The greenway at the bottom was empty. Tim ran down the gentle slope. At the bottom of the ramp he looked around helplessly, trying to figure out exactly where to stand when the device went off again.

  0:00:00:23

  A roar came from above and the tyrannosaur stepped down directly in front of him.

  Oh shit. Tim froze, silently urging the counter to speed up.

  The tyrannosaur took two steps forward and opened wide. There was nowhere to go and no way Tim could outrun it.

  The white truck barreled through the guardrail and slammed into the tyrannosaur. It knocked the giant off of its feet. Tim stumbled down the bike path, trying to get far enough away before the device went off.

  A woman pushing a jog stroller ran up in his direction, craning her neck to look at the dinosaur ahead. Tim shouted at the top of his lungs, “Stay away! Get away from here!” She turned around.

  The ticking sound began again. Tim sat down and watched as the other Tim climbed out of the truck and stabbed the tyrannosaur in the eye. The final few seconds flashed by on the timer. The ticking stopped with a pop and Tim was transported ten minutes forward.

  Upstream, the gutted carcass of the tyrannosaur lay next to the truck.

  [ 62 ]

  Where is Julie? What happened to her? He concentrated and the memories flashed in his mind. He saw her die. He saw her ripped to pieces. It had happened. He still remembered it.

  A piercing pain ran through his head. Tim collapsed, lying back in the grass. The muscles around his fractured leg trembled. He had seen her die, but the memory felt foggy and dreamlike. There was something else. He began to remember something different. He remembered standing up in the café as the tyrannosaur stepped out of the building. Lisa put her hand on his shoulder. Callie had been there too, helping Helen, who had received yet another cut that would not stop bleeding.

  They had all been together: Tim, Callie, Helen, and Lisa, soon to be dubbed “The Dinosaur Four” by the press. Buddy made five, of course, but they didn’t count the dog. They all climbed out into the bright morning sunlight and watched the tyrannosaur lumber away. Buddy barked incessantly, but the dinosaur ignored him. Across the street, a man gaped from a white pickup truck on the sidewalk.

  Tim remembered feeling a vibration in his pocket. Had he answered the phone? He remembered the words. “Take the shovel and grab the white truck.” Had he spoken those words or had he heard them? He wasn’t sure. He remembered both. Thinking about it sent the sharp pain through his head again. He remembered taking the man’s truck and not really understanding why.

  Tim lay next to the slow burble of Cherry Creek, feeling cold and clammy. Sirens grew close. Above, at street level, an excited crowd gathered along the edge of the canal. Dozens of phones were out, snapping pictures of the dead dinosaur, the smoking pickup truck, and Tim MacGregor, exhausted and covered wi
th gore.

  He closed his eyes and tried again to sort out the images in his head. All of his memories from the prehistoric era were the same. Ten people had gone back, but only four had returned. The fuzziness began when the tyrannosaur lumbered out of the café. Two memories overlapped, one full of anger and despair and another full of confusion. Had the timelines actually merged? Both memories included him killing the tyrannosaur and cutting the device out of its gut. Was the football still here, lying beside him on the grass?

  He opened his eyes to look for it, but before he could turn his head, he saw her in the crowd above. Up at street level, Julie shoved her way to the front. Tim didn’t care what he remembered. Julie looked down at him. His face broke into a wide smile as he took her in. The blue pea coat. The blond hair resting on her shoulders. And the most beautiful eyes in the world.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  My heartfelt thanks go out to those who read early drafts and provided feedback. You helped make this book better. Thank you especially Jacob Beucler, Cathy Bowen, Melissa Dixon, Poornima Farrar, Tara Giovenco, Ben Gomez, Ned Harding, Amy Holland, Jordan Itkowitz, Reed Knight, Steve Love, Mark Wayne McGinnis, Sara Moeller, Michael Starks, Brandie Stephens, Jacob Stephens, Nate Stormzand and the Louisville Writers Workshop.

  I could not have written this book without the support of my wife Erin, my daughters Shannon and Sydney, my parents, Bill and Lida, and my brothers Christopher and David. I love you all.

  Thanks to Rachel Weaver for editorial services and David Kang for the cover art.

  Finally, I want to thank you the reader, for coming along on this ride. I hope you had as much fun as I did. If so, please take a moment to post a review and tell a friend.

  Geoff Jones

  Broomfield, Colorado

  May 2014

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Geoff Jones lives in Colorado with his wife and two daughters. THE DINOSAUR FOUR is his first novel.