Kris looked at the array of weapons along the line. Pistols and shotguns, for the most part, the heavy weapons in transit. Some of the officers were wearing bulletproof vests as if the T. rex would return fire. Kris doubted the body armor would stop teeth and claws.
“He’s after the others!” an officer called.
The T. rex had spotted the others hiding behind the car, and now flushed them, two men and a woman running back toward the theater. Hesitating just a second as it tracked multiple targets, the T. rex moved, snapping up the young woman, who was chomped in half, and then swallowed one half at a time. Then the T. rex was after the other two.
Kris jumped up on Torino, jerked his head around and worked between the police car barricade, and then kicked the horse into a gallop. Pulling her pistol, she fired into the air, violating department policy. The crack of the pistol brought the T. rex’s head around, arresting his charge, allowing the two men he was chasing to make the safety of the police line at the other end of the block. Seeing Torino, the T. rex smacked its jaws and charged. With only half a plan in mind, Kris continued straight for the T. rex, the gap closing rapidly. Torino tensed, seeing the monster coming. The T. rex was fast, and Kris calculated it would be close. With a jerk of the reins, Kris turned Torino down the alley where the Stripys cowered. Hugging a wall, she drove Torino forward, the Stripys clearing a path. Then she fired three quick rounds. The Stripys panicked, stampeding. The small herd reached the open end of the alley, just as the T. rex arrived, crashing into the predator and knocking it from its feet. Squeals from the terrified Stripys mixed with the surprised bellow of the T. rex. Kris followed the Stripys out, mixing with the fleeing herd.
Coming out of the alley, Kris followed the Stripeys down the street toward the theater. The T. rex was up, giving chase, and it took no urging to keep Torino in a run. Instead, Kris reined him in to keep him from getting ahead of the herd. The Stripys butted and banged into one another, but feared the horse, giving Torino room.
Kris urged Torino into the middle of the fleeing herd, as the Stripy leader turned in toward the theater, running back toward wherever they had come from. Kris stayed with the herd, determined to keep a few Stripys between Torino and the T. rex. Glancing back, Kris saw the T. rex make the turn, losing ground, and then picking up speed and closing fast.
Ahead Kris saw that the glass front of the theater had been shattered, and the Stripys were running though the opening. Afraid of getting trapped inside the theater on a horse, with nowhere to maneuver, Kris started to pull up, but if she did, there would be nothing between her and the T. rex. Guessing her chances were better in the theater, Kris stayed with the herd, concocting a vague plan to separate from the herd somewhere inside.
Mounted on Torino, Kris followed the herd inside into dim light, down a wide hallway, and then through a demolished wall, and then blackness. Disoriented, she hung on, letting Torino’s instincts guide the horse. Vaguely aware of the Stripys still around them, Kris feared collision and a fall where she would be trampled, or eaten by the T. rex. Then it was bright daylight, and Kris found herself in a meadow, the Stripys running as a pack. With a touch of the reins, Kris separated from the herd, kicked Torino hard, and leaned over his neck. Torino flew like the racehorse he used to be, putting distance between him and the Stripy pack. A pitiful scream told Kris the T. rex had another kill, but she did not slow until she reached a clump of trees. Looking back, she saw the distant T. rex was busy ripping a Stripy to shreds, the rest of the Stripy herd gone. Behind the lunching T. rex, the terrain rose, a steeply sloping hill that cut off the view in that direction. The only variation was a V-shaped cleft in the hill.
“We must have come out of that opening,” Kris said to Torino.
The cleft was wide at its mouth but narrowed quickly and ended with a deep shadow. Looking at the position of the sun, and then at the valley shadow, Kris realized it wasn’t possible for a shadow to fall in that spot. With the sun high, that cleft in the hill should have been lit, end to end. Kris was disoriented. It had been evening, but now it was midday. The city was gone, the landscape unfamiliar. Most of the valley she had ridden Torino through was filled with ferns, thick succulent plants, and horsetails. Stumpy palm trees sprinkled the tree line, larger palms behind that. There were no buildings visible in any direction. Sensing her discomfort, Torino shuddered and pranced a few steps, still blowing hard from the run.
“Where are we?” Kris asked.
In answer, the T. rex bellowed from down the valley. Approaching the kill was another T. rex, this one larger than the one that killed Tess. The two supercarnivores faced off over the Stripy carcass.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Kris said, directing Torino away from the fighting behemoths.
She rode Torino through terrain that alternated between thick stands of the strange palms and meadows. Occasionally, she would hear something moving through the forest, and would kick Torino into a run. Finally, she broke out into a large meadow with a large mound near the far end.
“Let’s get up there and get a look around,” she said.
As Kris Conyers and Torino trotted toward the hill, Inhuman eyes watched from hiding.
18
The Lost
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Unknown Time
Unknown Place
Only one of the strangers looked civilized, with a clean-shaved face but ragged clothes. He carried a rifle casually in one hand. The other man was bigger, and wild looking with a bushy beard and head hair that blended together seamlessly. A strip of cloth was tied around his head, and his clothes were bloody rags. The big man’s eyes were wide, his mouth hanging open, his pink tongue running across his lower lip. He carried a machete that he slapped rhythmically against his thigh. Dried blood marked where the man had repeatedly wiped the machete on his leg.
“You’re the people who saved us?” Nick asked, directing the question at the clean-shaven man.
“For now,” the clean-shaven man replied.
“Yeah, for now!” the wild man said, shaking the machete.
“I’m Nick Paulson,” Nick said, offering his hand.
“Jacob,” the clean-shaven man said. “And this is Cra— Mike Kramer.”
“Crazy Kramer,” the wild man said, shaking his machete again.
“He won’t hurt anyone,” Jacob said.
“Like hell I won’t,” Crazy said.
“Crazy, knock if off!” Jacob said. “He’s okay, really.”
Nick introduced the others. Carson nodded a hello but then drifted farther from the one called Crazy Kramer, eyes on the machete.
“Where did you come from?” Jacob asked, his face taut, as if he was afraid of the answer.
“From Florida,” Nick said.
Jacob’s eyes grew wide, his face threatening to break into a smile. “Is it like this?” Jacob asked.
“It’s subtropical, if that’s what you mean,” Wynooski said.
“That’s not what he’s asking,” Nick said. “It’s like it was before you came here.”
Now Jacob smiled, then leaned his head back and whooped.
“Yeah!” Crazy Kramer said, shaking his machete above his head. “Bring it on.”
“The world is there, Crazy,” Jacob said, grabbing Crazy by the shoulders. “Don’t you remember what it was like? No, you were too young. But we can go home. You will love it there.”
“Bring it on!” Crazy Kramer said.
Then Jacob turned back toward the others, and Carson stepped forward and simultaneously they both asked, “How do we get there?”
“How did you get here?” Jacob asked.
“Crawled through a damn hole,” Carson said. “What about you?”
“There was a flash, then everything shook, and then we were here, city and all,” Jacob said. “For a long time, we never knew whether the rest of the world went somewhere else or whethe
r we were the ones who went somewhere. We finally figured it out from the stars. They’re all different.”
“You went some-when,” Nick said. “Big chunks of the planet’s surface were displaced into the past. Based on the Dinosauria that came to our present, we theorized that most of the time displacement moved pieces of our present into the Cretaceous past. Although, we’ve had some bits and pieces of other time periods showing up in the present. Actually, some from the quite recent past.”
“We have?” Carson asked, surprised. “How recent?”
“He’s talking about that herd of indricotheres that came down out of Canada,” Wynooski said.
“I can’t talk about it,” Nick said.
“You have dinosaurs there? Is it like this?” Jacob asked.
“Indricotheres are not dinosaurs, they are mammals,” Wynooski said.
“All of the dinosaurs and formerly extinct mammals are on preserves,” Nick said, restoring Jacob’s hope. “Dinosaurs are controlled and managed.”
Jacob looked at Wynooski’s uniform and patch and the logo on Carson’s shirt. “You manage dinosaurs?” Jacob asked, incredulous.
“I manage them,” Wynooski said. “He’s a pretender.”
“I clean up their messes,” Carson said, jerking his head toward Wynooski.
“I direct the Office of Security Science,” Nick Paulson said, stepping in to stop the squabbling. “This is Dr. Gah. He’s a paleobiologist.”
The old man stayed on the ground, rubbing his ankle, but waved.
“Are there others here?” Nick asked.
“Yes, I think so. We lived in a Community but we were attacked last night. We’re on our way to find the others.”
“Attacked?” Carson asked, glancing about nervously. “By like a T. rex or something?”
“A whole mob of stinking rexes,” Crazy Kramer said. “Took our kill, and all I got was a taste.” Kramer sucked on his finger.
“That was earlier, Crazy,” Jacob said. “Last night, the Inhumans attacked our Community. They drove us out of our homes and burned everything. In the fight, I got separated from my wife and daughters. They’re out here somewhere, if they’re still alive. I’m trying to find them.”
Nick could see the pain in Jacob’s eyes. “Inhumans?” Nick asked. “You mean dinosaurs?”
“No. The Inhumans are … are people, but not like us.”
“They’re animals,” Crazy said. “And they bleed real good.” Crazy held out his machete, twisting it back and forth, showing the dried blood.
“What do you mean, not like us?” Gah asked, trying to get to his feet.
Carson helped Gah up, supporting him with an arm around his shoulders. “Let’s talk about this at home,” Carson said. “Which way is that damn tunnel?”
“Can we go home, really?” Jacob asked.
“Sure, of course,” Carson said, looking at Paulson. “We did the Alice in Wonderland thing to get here. We just go back through the rabbit hole to get home.”
“It’s possible,” Nick said, but held back what he was thinking.
To Carson, returning home was as simple as crawling through the hole they had come through. But Nick remembered that only some people who crawled into the Alice hole actually passed through. Getting back the way they had come was not necessarily a sure thing for Carson, Nick, and Norman, and it was even less certain for Jacob and his people.
“I say we go back to the hole, crawl through, and then figure out the best way to find your family,” Carson said.
“I can’t leave without my family,” Jacob said. “There are probably others too. We’re all supposed to meet at the rendezvous point. That’s where we’re headed.”
“Okay, we crawl back through the hole, and then you guys come back with an army of armed marines and rescue Jacob’s family. Doesn’t that make more sense than us wandering around with just one rifle between us?”
“The rifle’s empty,” Jacob said. “I used the last bullet on that tyrannosaur.”
“Empty?” Carson said, his voice loud. “Then let’s crawl through the hole and get some more ammo. I’ve got everything we need in my van back at the Super Eight.”
“You still have Super Eights?” Jacob asked nostalgically.
“Super Eight?” Crazy said, suddenly interested. “Super duper!”
“It’s a motel,” Carson said. “Soft beds, warm showers—you could use one. Help me get back to that hole, and I’ll take you there.”
“We stick together,” Nick said, taking charge. “First let’s find the rendezvous point and see if Jacob’s family is there. Then we’ll figure out how to get out of here. Carmen, do you think you can find that tunnel we came through again?”
“Of course,” Wynooski said. Wynooski’s confidence meant nothing, since she was confident about everything. Still, she was a ranger, and she had been promoted for some sort of competence.
“Thank you, thank you,” Jacob repeated. “My children were born here. They don’t know what the real world is like.”
With Crazy in the lead, hacking at anything in reach with his machete, they followed the pair, passing through thinning ranks of cycads that were twenty and thirty feet tall.
“We’re going the wrong way,” Carson grumbled as they walked.
The sun was past the zenith and the day warm but not unbearable. Jacob and Crazy’s clothes were ragged, Crazy’s pants cut off at the knees, and Jacob wearing his long. Crazy wore crude leather sandals and Jacob tattered running shoes that looked like they would fall apart at any moment. Crazy was cocoa colored, although not African-American, just deeply tanned. Jacob’s face was nearly as dark, but glimpses through rips in his clothes showed much lighter skin. Both men had old scars and fresh cuts and bruises. Both looked like they worked and lived a hard outdoor life.
Nick the scientist was fascinated by the world he was walking through. Bits and pieces of it had turned up in his present, but this was more than just a sample; this was a functioning ecosystem. Much of the flora and fauna displaced to the modern age had died, simply because of being displaced into incompatible latitudes. What could be saved was on preserves, most of these in southern climates, although cooler regions like the U.S. Pacific Northwest supported a preserve. Here, in the Cretaceous past, Nick could experience a fully functioning ecosystem and see species that did not make it to the present.
Nick was also a realist and understood the danger. There was no guarantee they could return to the present, and the present held everything he was familiar with and everything he loved. Elizabeth was there. He had almost lost Elizabeth before, and that taught him how much he loved her. He only hoped he could get back before she knew he was gone.
They walked for hours, Gah limiting their pace because of his twisted ankle. Carson was impatient, but attentive too, stopping at one point and retrieving a broken limb, then directing Crazy to use the machete to shave it into a walking stick. Gah made better time after that, Carson’s impatience diminishing proportionally. They stopped briefly for rests, all of them hungry but no one with food. Eventually they came to a stream, stopping for water.
“Who knows what nasty little buggies are swimming in this,” Carson said between drinks.
“Obviously it’s fine,” Wynooski said, indicating Jacob and Crazy. “They drink it and they’re alive.”
“Yeah, we can drink it,” Jacob said. “But there used to be a lot more of us.”
Carson spit out his last mouthful.
The sun was getting low when they broke into a long open valley.
“We need to get to the other side,” Jacob said. “It’s dangerous to be in the open, but it would take us another day to work our way around.”
“Nothing but a machete and a rifle-shaped club for weapons,” Carson said. “I vote for the long way.”
“We would have to spend an extra night in the forest,” Jacob said.
“I vote we cross,” Carson said.
The others agreed with Carson’s second vote, and t
hey left the tree line, heading into the low growth of the valley. Picking the shortest path across, they walked quickly, eyes busy, everyone alert. Crazy took the lead again, and Jacob took the rear, carrying his empty rifle like it was loaded. Everyone kept their eyes on the setting sun, calculating their chances of reaching the far side before dark. The sun was low when they approached a large mound in the valley.
“What’s that?” Crazy said, pointing with his machete.
Nick looked to see something climbing the mound. Then it reached the top, the sun creating a silhouetted figure. It was a person on a horse.
“A Cretaceous horse?” Gah said, shielding his eyes.
“It’s a cowboy,” Carson said.
“What’s a cowboy?” Crazy asked.
19
Gathering Storm
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan “press on” has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
—Calvin Coolidge
Present Time
Orlando, Florida
John Roberts stepped through shattered glass that once was the front wall of the theater. Based on reports, the dinosaur herd, the T. rex, and the police officer had stampeded through the front glass, down a hall, and through the back wall into the green room, and then disappeared. The green room was just a small back room with high windows, looking out through security wire. That room was filled with wreckage, but no dinosaurs, no police officer, and no horse. What interested John was the back wall of the room. Most of it was plastered with concert posters, as were the other intact walls in the room. The top layer of posters was for groups called Twisted Gerbil and Poppa’s Kum. The lead singer in Twisted Gerbil was shown biting the head off a gerbil, blood running down his chin. Three men and two women dressed in S & M leather and chains played penis-shaped guitars in the Poppa’s Kum posters. Posters were layered over posters, a decade’s history of performances. However, there was something different about the back wall.
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