by Laura Martin
He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I was kind of surprised by that too.”
“I know stealing supplies is illegal, but it still seems extreme. Don’t you think?” I swallowed hard, remembering the marine who had made it back to the compound hatch, but not in one piece. I hoped he’d survived.
“Maybe,” Shawn said. “But you know the marines will do everything and anything to ensure the continuation of the human race. Maybe they thought we stole something more than a few supplies?”
“Maybe,” I said, fingering the compass that sat around my neck. Something about the whole situation was bothering me, but I forced myself to focus on the lush forest around me instead. In this world, the marines were the least of our worries. I looked around at the dappled green light that filtered down through the thick canopy of leaves. It seemed so peaceful, but I knew that it hid deadly predators. We needed to be on high alert if we had any hope of surviving. Still, when Shawn was preoccupied with his pack, I ran my hand down the bark of the nearest tree trunk, soaking in its rough texture. I needed to reassure myself that this was really happening. I was a little worried that I was going to wake up and find myself back in my room in the Guardian Wing. Everything had happened so fast that I hadn’t really processed what it would mean to come topside. And now that I was actually here, it seemed unbelievable. I glanced up from my musings to find Shawn giving me a strange look, and I immediately stopped petting the tree. My face flushed red, and without another word, I glanced at my compass and headed north.
It turned out that we weren’t very good at hiking. After spending all twelve years of our lives walking on smooth tunnel floors, we found ourselves on uneven earth for the first time. Rocks, tree branches, and animal holes seemed to come out of nowhere. We both fell. A lot. To make matters worse, our thin compound shoes didn’t do much to protect our feet, so that we might as well have been walking barefoot. Blisters were growing on top of blisters, and I was pretty sure there was at least one hole in my right shoe. I chose not to look. There was nothing I could do about it. My only consolation was that Shawn looked just as bad as I did. Maybe worse.
I tried to stay alert to noises, but there were just too many sounds swirling around us to concentrate. Our feet crunched over the forest floor, and although at first I enjoyed the chirping birds and buzzing insects, before long it was nothing but deafening background noise. Dinosaurs were everywhere, but luckily since the trees we walked through grew practically on top of one another, they were all smaller species. I recognized a lot of them, noting in my head which ones were plant eaters and which weren’t. Shawn kept his stun gun out, but the dinosaurs only stared at us curiously, scurried away, or ignored us entirely. They’d probably never seen a human before, and since we were too big to eat, we were ignored. It was going to be a different story as soon as the trees started thinning out.
The forest was also a refuge for a lot of the animals that had managed to survive the dinosaur takeover. I smiled at a family of chipmunks that watched us with interest. They were so much cuter than I’d ever imagined. When I’d read about them in class, I’d pictured smaller versions of the rodents that sometimes got into the compound supplies. But these were nothing like the scrawny rats and mice that lurked under supply crates and hissed when cornered. These were little balls of furry energy with their black button eyes and twitching whiskers. I wondered what other animals my science class had failed to do justice to. The thought worried me. To my surprise, the chipmunks didn’t run at the sight of us. They’d forgotten that humans were predators. We probably looked like kittens compared with the giant scaly guys stomping around these days. I thought about the pictures I’d seen of deer. Those gentle souls had gone extinct shortly after humans went underground.
Three hours later, the sun was high overhead, and we were still alive. I was kind of shocked. We’d lived our whole lives underground, convinced that the topside world was an instant death sentence, but we hadn’t died yet. We were walking in silence, aware that noise could alert predators, when Shawn’s voice made me jump.
“Remind me again why you thought topside was better than the compound?” he asked, slapping at one of the mosquitoes that had plagued us for the last hour or so.
“It’s beautiful,” I said defensively. “You just aren’t used to it.”
“You aren’t either. Your face is bright red. I think it’s sunburn.” He pressed a finger experimentally against my nose, and I flinched. “I always thought that was just a myth.”
“I never thought about sunburn,” I admitted.
“How dare you not think of everything,” Shawn said. And even though I knew he was joking, I suddenly and stupidly felt like crying. Shawn noticed and threw a companionable arm across my shoulders and squeezed. “It’s a little different than the compound, isn’t it?”
“That’s the understatement of the century,” I agreed.
“Would it have made you feel better if I’d said I told you so?”
“No,” I said, jabbing him in the ribs with my elbow.
He grinned. “Let’s take a break and eat something before we pass out.”
I nodded gratefully, and we plopped down next to a large tree.
“I didn’t grab enough for two people,” I apologized as I dug through my bag. “So we’ll have to make do and keep our eyes peeled for anything edible.”
“It doesn’t look like you brought enough for one.” Shawn eyeballed my meager stash of stolen supplies. “Here.” He offered me a muffin from his own bag. My stomach snarled greedily as I took it. I pulled off a piece and popped it in my mouth. It was gritty and bland, but it tasted divine. Shawn pulled out a muffin for himself and dug in. Apparently, he’d managed to get more food than I had. Suddenly he sprang to his feet and pulled his gun as he focused on something behind me. I whirled to see a pair of black eyes peering at us from under the gloom of a pine bough.
“Can’t be that big,” he breathed. “It would never be able to come in this far.” The eyes blinked, and then slowly a tiny dinosaur emerged into a slant of sunlight. It stood just under two feet tall and perched on its well-muscled back legs. It had a head like a triceratops, but its two front legs were short and carried in front of it like a T. rex. It cocked its head to the side and sat back on its haunches.
“What’s wrong with it?” Shawn asked. “All the other dinosaurs this size avoided us.”
“Maybe it’s just friendly?” I shrugged as I crouched down to get a better look at the tiny creature. “I think it’s a microceratus. I read about them. They are supposed to be really smart.” I had a picture of one somewhere in my journal. I’d gotten the front claws wrong, though, given it too many toes. I made a mental note to fix it later.
“Could you explain to me why dinosaurs all have such complicated names? I mean seriously, who decided that every one of them needed a name with ten syllables?”
I snorted. “You’re just bugged because you failed all those spelling tests when we were in third grade.”
“It’s hard to believe that people used to keep these things as pets.” Shawn had lowered his gun, but he kept a wary eye on the creature. “Ugly little suckers, aren’t they?”
“I don’t know. I think it’s kinda cute in an awful, I’m the reason you almost went extinct kind of way.”
Shawn snorted. “You would.”
“Do you think it bites?” I cautiously extended a piece of muffin toward the creature.
“Probably.” He settled back down against the tree. “If you feel sentimental about keeping all your fingers, I wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh, you worry too much,” I muttered. However, deciding that it wasn’t worth the risk, I tossed the piece of muffin so that it landed a few feet in front of the creature. I jumped as it darted forward to take the muffin and then scurried back to its hiding place under the trees. Pulling my journal out of my pack, I made a note about the quickness and began reworking the claws with my pencil.
“Don’t feed it anymore,” Shawn cautio
ned as our tiny green friend came creeping back out from under the pine, its nose twitching as it eyed my muffin hungrily. “It isn’t Shamus hiding in the storage closet waiting for you to save him. That’s a dangerous animal, Sky. And I didn’t pack enough supplies to feed the entire dinosaur population.”
“Right.” I flipped it the last bite of my muffin, which it caught dexterously between its two tiny front feet and carted away. “Just enough to give Herman a nice snack.” After years of being hungry, I got a weird joy out of feeding things. I’d never told Shawn about the mouse I used to feed in the Guardian Wing. I’d named him Herman too. I named most things Herman. He’d been killed in a trap, and I’d cried for days.
“Herman?” He rolled his eyes in exaggerated exasperation. “You’re impossible.” He stood up and brushed himself off. A quick glance at my compass to orient myself, and I led the way into the woods. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Herman was still following us, and smiled. I now had two friends along on this journey.
We made our way to the edge of the pine trees and peered out at a vast meadow. Knee-high grass, shrubs, and tiny purple flowers covered miles of flat ground that spread out in all directions. In the distance I could just make out a faint tree line, but to the left and right the meadow seemed to go on forever. It wasn’t empty either. A small herd of what I thought were triceratops grazed about a half mile to our right, and tiny dots of green and red to our left had to be dinosaurs, but they were too far away to make out what kind. I looked up, and for the first time in my life, I saw more than just a small patch of sky. Fluffy white clouds piled on top of one another as they shuffled across a blue sky so vibrant it made my eyes hurt. I felt small as I took in all that space. I could have stared at it all day, but the snort of a triceratops snapped me back to the task at hand.
These open areas were the main thoroughfares for the larger dinosaurs, and they were dangerous. Really dangerous. It was obvious that this particular meadow used to be a farm field of some sort, based on the rotting bits of wire fencing still visible here and there, but then again, most of Indiana had been farmland if the history books were correct. Once humans were out of the picture, though, nature had reclaimed what was rightfully hers.
I pulled out my dad’s map and consulted it again. Unfortunately, it didn’t have much detail on it, but that hadn’t stopped me from checking it frequently as we hiked. Lake Michigan lay above us to the north, and my dad’s hand-drawn path was fairly easy to follow. I wished it showed things like this meadow, so we could have avoided it. But now that we were here I was too impatient to waste hours going around it when we could cut across it in minutes. Shawn wanted to camp in the trees for the night, but even though I was more tired than I’d ever been in my life, I wanted to keep going. The marines chasing us topside had spooked me more than I was willing to admit. The more distance between North Compound and myself, the better.
“Remember,” Shawn breathed in my ear. “They can hear and see about a billion times better than us.”
“Duh,” I snapped as a coil of nerves twisted in my stomach.
“Sorry. This just freaks me out. I’ve heard my whole life that these things can outrun us, outthink us, and swallow us whole, and we’re about to invite ourselves to dinner.”
“What about Herman?” I glanced around for the little dinosaur. He’d followed us for the last few hours, no doubt wondering if we were going to provide him with any more muffins, but I didn’t see him anywhere now.
“Typical Sky. Incredibly dangerous situation, and she’s worried about her new pet. Perfect.” Shawn rolled his eyes. I scanned the large meadow in front of us. It was a lot like scanning from a holoscreen, except this time we weren’t safely underground.
“Don’t stop running until we reach the trees on the far side,” I said through gritted teeth, feeling ill. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Shawn replied. I leaped out of the cover of the trees. Shawn was right behind me as we sprinted headlong across the meadow. My eyes were focused on the distant trees, and I commanded my body to move faster. It responded. I felt alive, free.
My feeling of freedom faded as my muscles started to tire. I’d run on the compound’s treadmills for years and never had a problem logging mile after mile. This was different, like sprinting through water or wet concrete. Each step felt weighted and heavy, and my feet slipped and slid over the uneven surface. Despite the discomfort, I pumped my arms and forced myself onward for another minute, then two, then three. I felt a spark of worry. The trees didn’t appear much closer. No sooner had this thought flashed through my mind than I heard one of the triceratops give a warning bugle and the ground shuddered beneath my feet. I darted my eyes to the left just as a gigantic scaled head emerged at the far end of the meadow, followed by a massive lumbering body. My breath caught in my throat as I took in the sheer size of the thing. It was enormous. Bigger than any dinosaur I’d encountered near the compound and the last dinosaur I’d wanted to meet. It was a Tyrannosaurus rex.
I reacted on instinct, grabbing Shawn and bringing us both to the ground with a sickening thump. All of the air gushed out of my lungs, but I managed to clap my hand over Shawn’s mouth before he could make a sound.
Shawn was about to rip my hand off when the ground beneath us shook again, and his eyes went wide. Now he understood. Together we peeked our heads up through the grass. The T. rex swung its massive head back and forth, scanning the newly deserted meadow. No doubt wondering where his dinner had gone. I prayed that the camouflage body armor worked as well as the marines claimed it did.
The T. rex took a teeth-rattling step in our direction, its nose flaring. The rancid smell of decay and death floated across the field, and every muscle, nerve, and instinct wanted me to run, to hide, to save myself. But I fought it. There was a small chance it wouldn’t spot us, but there was no chance of outrunning it. Just then I heard a rustling sound behind me and my blood turned to ice. The sound got closer, and I felt Shawn reach for the stun gun.
“Don’t move,” I breathed. A compound-issued stun gun didn’t have a hope of dropping a T. rex. The rustling grew louder and closer to where we crouched, and the T. rex swung its head around to focus on our position. I tensed to run, but before I could command my muscles to react, Herman burst out of the tall grasses to my left, chattering angrily and scampering past our heads. Shawn tensed to run as the T. rex pounded toward us, but I grabbed his arm.
“Sky, it sees us!”
“Stay.” I tightened my grip. The T. rex’s gigantic legs ate up the distance faster than I would have thought possible. The new possibility of it crushing us crossed my mind right before it paused. Its head swung from side to side, scanning. I held my breath, not daring to make even that small sound. The moment seemed to hang in the air, frozen, time stretching endlessly. Suddenly, with an angry chirp, Herman sprang from the grass ahead of us and darted underneath the surprised T. rex’s feet and back toward the trees. With a roar, the T. rex whirled, its massive tail swinging only inches above our heads.
It thundered across the field, making it to the trees seconds after Herman. The little creature stopped inside the safety of the pines, clucking and squeaking angrily. If dinosaurs could insult each other, Herman was calling the T. rex all sorts of horrible things. Enraged, the T. rex began grasping trees with its massive jaws and ripping them from the ground, their roots flinging dirt in an explosion of breaking limbs.
“Now,” I breathed, grabbing Shawn’s hand and yanking him to his feet. We ran. I didn’t look back to see if the T. rex had noticed us, but when the sound of trees being ripped from the ground stopped moments later, I knew we’d been spotted.
The trees were getting closer by the second, but so was the T. rex. Its hot breath blew my hair forward, and I gagged on the smell. Panic clawed at me. Our head start wouldn’t be enough. We were ten feet away.
Five feet.
Two.
I dug deeper for one last burst of speed, and as we dove headlong i
nto the dark safety of the trees, I heard the angry snap of the T. rex’s jaws closing on empty air.
I was aware of Shawn’s body falling next to mine as we tumbled across the pine-covered forest floor, but my eyes were filled with nothing but the revolving image of trees and sky. When I finally came to a stop, I flopped down in the dirt, sucking air into my greedy lungs. After a few moments, I propped myself up on an elbow and looked back toward the clearing. The T. rex was furious. It ripped at the trees with its teeth, shredding the branches into small chips of mulch, which floated down around me.
“Can you believe how fast it made it back across that field?” Shawn huffed, sitting up beside me and running a trembling hand over his eyes. “I was about to tell you off for tripping me. I was so focused on running that I never even saw that thing.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, echoing his words from earlier.
“Yeah, thanks. I really appreciate not being dead right now.”
“How about that smell? Something curled up and died in its mouth. Like, last month. I had no idea smells like that even existed.” I watched as the T. rex pawed angrily at the ground, sending chunks of dirt the size of refrigerators spewing out behind it.
“Really?” Shawn flashed a lopsided grin at me. “I thought it smelled a lot like the boys’ locker room back at the compound.”
I giggled as the relief of being alive washed over me. Shawn gave me a funny look.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s just that you seem different up here. You never really giggled in the compound.”
I shrugged, feeling awkward. “I’m glad Herman got away,” I said, changing the subject as I began picking sticks and leaves out of my hair.
“Yeah, I was real worried about the dumb lizard that almost got us killed.” He rolled his eyes, and I elbowed him in the ribs.
My compass still hung around my neck, and a quick glance revealed that it had survived my tumble. The T. rex moved away from us and began hunting around the edge of the trees, probably hoping for another chance at Herman. Shawn was preoccupied with reorganizing the contents of his pack, so I walked back toward the meadow to get a better view. The thing really was massive.