by Laura Martin
“No, he doesn’t,” I said. “Neither of us knows how. But I bet you have no idea how to fix a grow light or make a flashlight completely from scraps.”
Todd rolled his eyes and flapped an impatient hand at Shawn. “Just grab some dry sticks, and I’ll show you how to start a fire. I’m too hungry to let you screw up dinner.”
“Fine,” Shawn said grudgingly. Soon we had a roaring fire, and I sat beside it and updated my journal while Todd prepped the raptor for roasting. It turned out that that was what he had meant by dressing it. His practiced fingers ripped handfuls of feathers out, revealing the pimply pink skin underneath. I went to run my hand through my hair, but my fingers got stuck in the tangled, sweaty mass. The smell of dirt and sweat wafting off my clothing hit me, and I cringed. I was disgusting.
“I’m going to walk down the creek a little ways,” I said, jumping to my feet and brushing at the smudges of dirt that stained my pants and tunic. “I want to clean up a bit.”
“Take your bow,” Todd cautioned without looking up. Shawn stopped collecting firewood to give me a questioning look. “We don’t want a repeat of the last time you wandered off on your own.”
“Be nice to Todd,” I mouthed at Shawn. He stuck his tongue out at me and went to gather more sticks for the fire. I wasn’t going far. I’d learned my lesson earlier and had no desire to repeat the near-death experience. Grabbing my bow, quiver of arrows, and the rough brown soap I’d gotten from Adler’s, I turned and followed the stream into the woods. A few yards in, I pulled off my boots and set them down beside a tree before I stepped into the water. It felt amazing on my raw and blistered feet. I walked down the shallow creek bed, relishing the cool stones beneath my toes.
Coming around a corner of the stream, I found a small pond, its surface so smooth that the sunset reflected perfectly off it. Glancing back, I could just make out Todd and Shawn through the trees. Reassured, I rolled up my sleeves and splashed some of the water over my arms and face. It ran down my palms in dirty rivulets, and suddenly, it wasn’t enough. I was filthy, the sweat and dirt a second scaly skin that I wanted to rip off.
Not giving myself the opportunity to change my mind, I set my bow on the bank of the stream and lowered myself down into the pond’s cool depths. The water came up only to my chest and, fully clothed, I submerged myself, scrubbing at my arms and face with the gritty soap. It felt wonderful.
A far-off rumble startled me, and I yelped, yanking my knife out of its sheath. I cursed the stupidity of leaving my bow onshore. Over the tops of the trees, I could see three large heads on top of thickly muscled necks making their leisurely way toward me. My insides relaxed fractionally; they weren’t carnivores. Deciding not to risk the run to shore, I sank down into the water, hoping that it would hide me. The dinosaurs emerged moments later, their massive shoulders turning the branches and foliage into green confetti. I slid backward in the water as they lowered their massive heads to the pond’s surface and drank. Their eyes were a soft brown, and they blinked at me, probably wondering what kind of strange fish I might be.
They were beautiful. These were probably brachiosaur, based off the long curved neck, but my research hadn’t done them justice. Their skin was slick and had an iridescent quality that flickered and changed as they moved, making them blend with the shadows of the forest. The largest one blew out hard through its nose, sending water showering down around my head. They made low guttural sounds that echoed across the water, and I realized they were talking to one another.
A tree branch snapped behind me, and I turned to see Shawn and Todd standing on the shore behind me, their bows in hand. I shot them a look that I hoped said don’t move, stupid. We sat like that, frozen as the gentle giants continued to drink. I realized for the first time just how cold the water actually was and started to shiver. When they finally raised their giant heads and moved off in the direction they’d come from, I exhaled in relief.
“You just gave me a heart attack! Are you nuts?” Shawn hissed.
“No,” I snapped back. “I was filthy.”
“Heart attack,” Todd said. “That’s the second time you two have said that. Is that really a thing? What exactly is attacking your heart?”
“I’ll explain in a second,” I said through chattering teeth. “I want to get out of here first.”
“You’re going to get sick,” Todd said. “There’s a reason why people don’t bathe in ponds in September.”
The sky was getting dark, and my bright idea to take a bath now seemed incredibly stupid. I sloshed up out of the water and stood in front of the boys, shivering.
“Wait here,” Todd said, sounding irritated, and he crashed back through the trees. He returned a moment later with a blanket and thrust it at me. “Go behind those trees and get out of those. We can dry them on the fire.”
Doing as I was told, I wrapped the huge blanket around myself before following the boys back to our camp. I sank down, letting the warmth of the crackling campfire work its way into my bones. Todd turned the spit that was roasting the raptor, and I felt a pang of guilt that it had to die. Like the brachiosaur, it had been beautiful in its own way. Shawn was still scowling at me. Finally, I gave up pretending I didn’t notice and turned to face him.
“Don’t give me that look, Shawn Reilly. I haven’t felt clean since I left the compound.”
“You’ll be nice and clean when you catch pneumonia,” Shawn griped. “If you die from this stupid stunt, I’m going to be furious.”
I grinned. “Thanks for caring.” Shawn pulled a face at me and bit off a piece of the raptor leg Todd offered him.
“Your clothes should by dry soon,” Todd said. “You’ll want them for climbing.”
“Climbing?”
“Tree pods?” Todd prompted impatiently. “The only way to sleep out here without getting eaten. Remember?”
“How soon do we need to get into them?” I asked. As if on cue, the scream of an animal came from the woods to our left. I stiffened, but the cry was miles away.
“Soon,” Todd answered, ripping into his second piece of meat, the grease running down his chin. I had just enough time to sketch a picture of the brachiosaur from the pond before we were kicking dirt over our fire. I hurried behind some bushes and scrambled back into my fire-warmed clothes. They were still stained, but they smelled like the campfire instead of sweat, which was a definite improvement.
Todd showed us how to unroll the dark brown canvases we’d been carrying. The edges were threaded with a sturdy rope. We were to tie the rope to tree branches once we were high enough, and somehow sleep in the contraptions. I welcomed the distraction of untangling knots and coils of rope. My nerves were on edge as the darkness of the forest pressed in around us, and the growls and snarls from the woods grew more frequent.
Finally satisfied that we were ready, Todd began expertly climbing up the gigantic maple tree we’d had our campfire under, the remains of the raptor safely tucked away in his pack. I followed, carefully placing my hands and feet exactly where Todd placed his. Soon we were fifty feet up. Todd motioned for us to keep quiet and silently demonstrated how the loops and hooks of the tree pod worked to attach it to the tree.
Soon he had a sort of closed hammock. He expertly wriggled into his, sending the pod swaying gently back and forth, suspended above nothingness. He did not reemerge. Clearly this was our cue to hang our own. I cautiously crept to the opposite side of the tree and began to clumsily hang my own pod. Each branch I tied it to got a thorough yank to make sure it would hold my weight. The thought of falling fifty feet in my sleep was not an appealing one. When I was finished, I squirmed ungracefully into my pod. The fabric closed tight above my head as my weight pulled its edges together. I squeezed my eyes shut as it swayed back and forth over empty air. The space was close and the musty smell of old fabric was overwhelming. But as my breathing relaxed, I realized that the pod was warming up, my breath creating a pocket of heat. Using my pack as a pillow, I rolled onto my side, sen
ding the whole pod swinging again. This would take some getting used to.
I listened to Shawn hanging his pod somewhere to my left and slightly below my own. I had to smile as he muttered and fussed at the stubborn fabric. Taking pity on my best friend, I climbed out and crept through the dark tree to help.
“I don’t need help,” he said as I took a stubborn knot of canvas out of his hands. “I can figure it out.”
I pulled gently at the snarl. “I know you could.”
Shawn frowned, and I could tell by his posture that he was upset, even though he was nothing more than a dark outline now against the ever-darkening sky.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Shawn, spill it.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute, and I didn’t pressure him. We were almost done hanging his tree pod when he broke the silence, his voice barely audible above the night noises of the forest. “I just hate it up here.”
“In the tree?”
“No, topside,” Shawn said. “I feel useless. Everything I thought I knew is turned all upside down and inside out. I had this grand idea that I would come along on your big dumb adventure to keep you safe and to talk some sense into you. But so far all I’ve witnessed is you almost getting eaten by multiple dinosaurs while I bumble around like an idiot. I hate it. I’m starting to wonder if you were right, if it would have been better for me to just stay underground.”
I took his chin in my hand, forcing him to look up. “You aren’t useless,” I said. “At least no more useless than I’ve been. And I was wrong before.”
“Sky Mundy wrong? Never.” He smirked, and I smiled back, relieved. I wasn’t sure how to handle a serious Shawn.
“You might want to document this, because it’s never going to happen again. But I was wrong. I’m glad you came with. I couldn’t have made it this far without you.”
“Could too,” he grumbled. “But I appreciate you lying to make me feel better. I just wish . . . I don’t know. I wish I knew what Todd knew.”
“You know what Shawn knows,” I said. “And we can learn what Todd knows.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. I also say we need to go to bed. All that fault admitting wore me out.”
“Really? I would have thought it was all that horrible hiking we did today, or the multiple near-death experiences, or the humidity, or . . .”
I laughed and held up a hand to cut him off.
“I get it. Topside is a bit more than we bargained for. We’ll get used to it, though. I promise.” He still looked unconvinced, and I had a feeling there was something else bothering him. I didn’t push him, though. I knew my best friend well enough to know that he would tell me when he was ready. Shawn crawled into his newly hung pod, and I heard him mutter something incoherent as it swung through the air. I smiled.
“Good night, Shawn.”
“Night” came the muffled reply.
I crept back into my own pod and pulled off my boots. If it wasn’t for Shawn selling his mom’s music box, I might still be walking around in those useless compound slippers. I made a mental note to point that out to him in the morning. I’d never properly thanked him for sacrificing it. If the situation were reversed, would I have been able to hand over my dad’s compass for a pair of boots? Shawn Reilly might be a better person than me, I decided. Not that I’d ever tell him that. I’d never hear the end of it. Smiling, I settled down in my pod again, letting the sounds of the night swirl around me as I fell asleep.
I awoke to a shaking world as my pod swung back and forth alarmingly. I shrieked as I tumbled inside it, my bow, pack, and boots clattering around me. It took a while, but I finally managed to crawl to the end of the pod and hurl myself out and onto the shaking branch. The tree that had felt solid enough last night was trembling so hard my teeth clanged together. To my left, Todd was emerging from his own pod.
He blinked at me uncomprehendingly before glancing down. A look of pure terror crossed his face, and he dove headlong back into his pod. I followed his gaze and froze. Stomping around underneath the tree, its three-foot-long crocodile-like snout raised to sniff the air, was the scariest dinosaur I’d ever seen. Bigger even than the T. rex that Shawn and I had encountered on our first day out of the compound. The dinosaur turned its massive head to snuffle and snort at the remains of our campfire before rearing back, revealing two powerful hind legs and small front legs, each with long hooked claws.
“What is that thing?” Shawn asked, climbing up to stand beside me.
“It’s a Croc Killer,” Todd said, emerging from his pod with his bow across his back. “I thought they only hunted in water.”
“A Croc Killer?” I repeated, confused. I stared back down at the dinosaur as it fanned out a massive fin that spanned the length of its back. Now that Todd had mentioned it, I did remember learning about a dinosaur that swam in the rivers. I couldn’t remember its name. Todd’s name for it was fitting, as it did resemble pictures I’d seen of crocodiles, except it was standing on two legs, and its head alone was the length of a crocodile.
The Croc Killer propped its two front claws on the tree and turned its yellow eyes on us. It let out a screeching roar that had red-hot fear racing down my spine. A gush of hot, rancid air blew my hair back, and I gagged. The creature’s head was only about five feet below where Shawn’s pod had been hanging. A few more feet and it could have plucked him out of the tree and swallowed him in his sleep.
“We have to get higher!” Shawn yelled.
“Ya think?” Todd shouted back sarcastically. He rolled his eyes in exasperation as he grabbed the branch above his head and pulled himself up. I was about to follow him when I realized that my journal was still in my pod, which was swinging alarmingly through the air, my backpack and bow rattling around inside. I hurtled myself back down the branch and dove into the pod when it swung my way. Everything in my backpack had fallen out, and I stuffed handfuls of clothing, food, and my journal back inside. Shawn shouted at me, but I ignored him. There was no way I was losing my journal.
With my bow and pack over my shoulder, I crawled back down the trembling branch and followed Shawn and Todd higher. My feet fought to gain purchase as the Croc Killer switched from using its talons to rip chunks out of the base of our tree to banging on it, causing it to rock violently. Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall, I prayed silently, wishing we had picked a bigger tree. When Todd finally stopped on the last solid-looking branch, I knew we were in trouble. The tree was leaning way too far to the left. The dinosaur let out its screeching roar again, and I cringed.
“It’s almost like it knows!” Shawn called, his voice practically drowned out by the enraged growling below us.
“Knows what?” I asked.
“How to bring the tree down,” he yelled back, directly into my ear. We grabbed on to our branch a bit tighter as the dinosaur rammed the tree, causing it to shift a few more feet to the left.
“It does,” Todd said grimly. “They’re smart. Too smart.”
“It’s a spinosaurus!” I said triumphantly, having just remembered the name.
“Great,” Shawn said. “Know how to kill it?”
“No.” I frowned. “There wasn’t a lot of research on them. Some of the only fossils were lost in World War One. To be honest, I didn’t think anyone had succeeded in bringing one back.”
“Somebody managed it,” Shawn said through gritted teeth as he gripped the branch above him with white-knuckled hands.
“We have to shoot the exact center of its eyes. Everywhere else is impenetrable,” Todd said, handing his pack to Shawn, who slung it over his own shoulder. Todd strung his bow and took aim at the bellowing spinosaurus. Reflexively, I shot a hand out to clutch the back of his pants, terrified that one hard hit would send him careening to his death. Something looped around my middle, and I looked down to see Shawn expertly knotting a rope. He let out a few feet and tied it around Todd’s waist, and then his own, before secu
ring it to the tree. Todd waited until the spinosaurus looked back up at us to release his arrow. It was a close-range shot, but the creature’s narrow eyes were set far back under its ridged brow bone. Todd’s arrow hit right below its right eye and ricocheted off with a depressing ping.
Todd pulled out more arrows, but his next few shots clanged off the spinosaurus’s scaly skin as ineffectively as the first. “A little help here!” Todd shouted as our tree lurched again.
With trembling hands, I reached back and clumsily untangled my own bow from the straps of my backpack. Shawn’s rope tightened around my waist as I aimed my first shot. It went wide, not even hitting the spinosaurus. I grabbed my next arrow and tried to steady myself, but my second shot went even wider than the first. It was hopeless. The monster was moving and thrashing constantly, the tree was trembling and swaying, and I’d only ever hit a nonmoving target.
Suddenly, we tilted hard to the left, and a sickening crack ripped through the air. The branch dropped out from under us, and we fell. Branches whipped by me, and I screamed, grabbing at them blindly. A second later, our tree’s downward progress was brought to a crunching halt when it collided with something. I tumbled down a few more feet before Shawn’s rope caught me around the middle, stopping my fall. I flailed in the air a moment before catching ahold of a branch. Todd and Shawn perched above me, clinging desperately to their own branches.
Our tree had cracked off at the base, and the only thing that prevented it from crashing straight to the forest floor was the tree to our left that had mercifully caught ours between two large branches. My relief was short-lived when I saw Todd’s shattered bow at the feet of the spinosaurus, which was now only three feet below me. Its hot breath tugged at my clothes as it snorted. The tree gave a sickening crunch and shifted another foot toward the ground.
“Sky, shoot!” Todd yelled. As though I were moving through water and not air, I pulled my bow into position. My fingers touched the arrows, but I couldn’t seem to get them to work well enough to grab one. The tree cracked beneath me and dropped another foot. At this close a range, the creature’s eyes were the size of setting suns as they stared up at me. A thin, translucent lid slid over the top of them, and the dinosaur’s skin shimmered wetly in the dawn light.