Dinosaur: 65 Million: Book 2 Change Them, Survive Them

by catt dahman

  This one looked exactly like the ones scientists reconstructed for museums and that artists drew for books, only it was smaller in scale.

  “Maybe so, Pak, but look at their teeth; those are some big teeth, and they don’t fit those things at all,” Ann whispered. “Plant eaters didn’t have huge teeth.”

  Pak groaned, “Stripy tails.” He saw them in a group, “Chicken lizards with red feathers. They look more like scavengers and even sound like hyenas.”

  “I don’t think they roared. It was something bigger and scarier,” Fran said.

  Katie looked over, “They had Haylee, but she was already gone, so they are carrion eaters, scavengers. Little bastards.”

  “There are many of that kind,” Corrine said, “many more little ones, and look at the herd of Volkswagon-saurs.” She meant the slightly smaller triceratops-type dinosaurs with their slashing pointed teeth.

  “Paleontology just ended. They are out of work. Boom. I am so going to invent Retro-Zoology,” Katie said. “Forget digging fossils when we can study the real thing.”

  Tate laughed, “Study? We need to pool our money, buy this land, and have tours, have universities pay to study here, and make a theme park: we can be billionaires.”

  Katie laughed, “Wonder if this SSDD group will sell? If they know, then they will ask a fortune for the land. Theme park…we’ll own real dinosaurs….”

  “Well, once we figure out who and why someone is determined to keep us in here and we get out, and after we get our friends out, and after we deal with the fact two of our friends are dead, and after we quit being attacked. Sure, Tate. No problem. Katie, ummm….” Theo frowned.

  “I just meant….” Tate sat up angrily.

  “I know what you meant, but you’re forgetting the obvious,” Pak said. “We have no business here. We’re out of our elements. It’s dangerous, and someone wants this to stay a secret. If you had dinosaurs, wouldn’t you keep them secret? Do you think they accidentally got here?”

  “Maybe. I mean they survived the meteor down here. Why not?” Tate asked. “It could happen. And now we have found them.”

  “Shut up, both of you. Honestly, can’t you just take five minutes and appreciate that no one has ever seen this before and that maybe no one ever will again?” Katie waved them to be quiet. Despite everything, watching the animals was surrealistic. They saw a smaller dinosaur taken down by larger meat-eaters, but he gave a good account of himself, wounding his predators and fighting back.

  “If the plant eaters also have those big teeth, then doesn’t that disrupt the predator-prey relationship? This is flawed in a huge way, I think. I’m no zoologist, but still….” Fran said.

  Rick nodded even if no one watched and agreed, “It is flawed. That isn’t right, is it? It’s not natural. It seems the mysteries continue to build.”

  “When you are finished watching the animals, we are here to look for Ed,” Shimei called. He was frustrated since no one had followed any logical lead and they already had three people who had been attacked. Having some lie on their stomachs watching the cavern below while others searched around the upper area was dangerous as the watchers easily could be attacked from behind.

  Everyone groaned and left the viewing area to examine the cavern. Although they searched everywhere, there was no sign of Ed. They looked into holes, unsure if anything were down there, behind rocks, and up on ledges. There was no blood to use as a clue, and that was both good and bad.

  Half the group looked up as Daisy came flying back up the tunnel, running uphill and screaming, with Pak close behind. The tableau made no sense since they were running full speed and shouting things that made no sense as shouts echoed, and then they seemed to fly into space towards the group. Their eyes were wide with terror.

  A yellowish green dryptosaur, excitedly waving long forelimbs, roared as he hopped onto the small of Daisy’s back. Two of his pack-mates sank razor-sharp teeth into Pak’s legs and ripped flesh away with a sound similar to duct tape being pulled off a roll. With their long needle-like teeth gleaming red and dripping with fluids, they seemed to be smiling as they looked over their prey.

  The two, Daisy and Pak, were on the ground, being clawed and bitten ravenously right before their teammates. Both screamed as their hands pounded the rock floor and they fought to turn over and get away.

  Tony shoved Audrina behind him as he and Theo faced the creatures, yelling and waving sticks, “Luke?”

  Audrina didn’t miss that Tony put himself in front of her to protect her from the creatures, and while she appreciated his gallant action, she was too terrified to thank him right then; her friends were being eaten alive, and the creatures would come for them next.

  “Right here. Flank them,” Luke said.

  Pak screamed as one of the dryptosaurs pulled the flesh from his calf and clawed muscle from his back, leaving raw, open gashes. Pak kicked with his other leg and got in several solid blows, but the second dryptosaur caught his arm and clamped down with almost the bite force of an alligator, then twisted, shook, and ripped Pak’s arm from the shoulder socket. Pak screamed.

  Daisy rolled over and got to her back, but one of the dryptosaurs lunged at her, opening her stomach with his sharp teeth; blood soaked the floor of the cave. That was what the creature wanted: her soft belly. Everyone either stood back, screaming or like Tony, Luke, and Theo, fought the creatures that swarmed from the darkness of the cave. Tony knocked one to the side, and Corrine and Katie began to beat it to death; they shrieked, full of revulsion and terror while it squealed. If it were allowed back to its feet, it would rip them apart for food.

  Corrine was splattered with blood, and her hands were drenched, but she didn’t stop her assault. She and Katie heard bones snap and wet slaps but worked until the monster stopped moving.

  Loathing drove the women.

  Shimei scored a direct hit to one dryptosaur’s head and pounded it until it stopped moving, dodging the long fore limbs and razor-tipped claws the entire time. He yelled with victory when the skull bones crushed; he felt he had hit a home run in baseball. When he worked his way over to Daisy, the monsters backed away, but she was dead, ripped open as if she had an X incision for an autopsy gone-wrong. It made him sick but also furious enough to chase the other creatures and beat them.

  Further along, several dryptosaurs ran away, unsure they could win a battle against the new prey, but they left a partially consumed body barely recognizable as Quinn. They had attacked him first, causing Daisy and Pak to run.

  Theo and Tony beat a final dryptosaur with their sticks, pounding its body and head in tandem until it hobbled away, bleeding badly and probably sporting a broken forelimb and leg. They caught it desperately digging and clawing at a hole in the rocks. From the hole, where the creature had been scratching, emerged Fran, battered, cut, and holding her arm protectively.

  “It was after me,” she cried.

  Collapsing in Theo’s arms, Fran wept, terrified and shaking violently. He helped her walk back to the rest. Steeling his mind, Shimei crouched to check on Daisy, just in case she was alive, but she had no pulse, and that both relieved and depressed him. The dryptosaur used a strong, razor-like dewclaw on his back leg to cut her open from one side of throat to her lower belly and then again so the lines crossed.

  She was dead from massive bleeding and shock but would have died anyway, for her belly leaked greyish intestines and globs of fat; she couldn’t have survived that type injury. Shimei pressed Daisy’s eyes closed and pulled her shirt over the wound as best he could.

  Theo made a whistle noise. He set Pak’s hand down as Shimei walked over to him, “He’s gone. I don’t know how he was still breathing, for his lungs were filled with blood. His back…they cut him open to the spine and ripped out both kidneys and ate them….” Theo wiped his mouth, sick.

  “Oh, shit. No way.”

  “Yeah. He was barely alive and was able to squeeze my hand: he knew he was going.”

  Shimei nodded,
“He knew he wasn’t alone. Good deal, Theo. You did the right thing.”

  Theo rubbed his bloody hand against his pants.

  “Are they okay?” Ann called.

  Theo looked at Shimei and Tony and shook his head, “Ummm, Ann, no, they aren’t okay.” They walked back and explained to the rest that their friends were gone. Rick stared into the darkness, not speaking, but sighing a lot. Theo forced himself not to tell Rick Parker what a disappointment he was as a leader; it wouldn’t help the situation right now, but later, Theo would have plenty to say.

  Emma managed to clean Fran’s cuts and scrapes, but some of the gashes really needed stitches, and Emma managed a few before Fran begged her to stop. Emma taped and glued what she could and splinted Fran’s broken arm and bound it against her chest.

  Theo told them they had found Quinn; he was dead.

  Anne and Tate sat against a far wall where they had crouched during the attack. Anne sobbed, “Can we go now? Please?”

  Rick shook his head, “We need to find a way out, Anne. Hang in there for me, okay? We can do it.” He said the words, but he didn’t look convinced. “What are we going to do?” he asked as he looked at Theo.

  Theo bit back more anger, “We can’t stay right here. We’re open for attacks. If we go that way, well those things went that way, so we don’t want to,” Theo said.

  “We can go left or right or back up, but those things are back there, too. I say left,” Audrina said.

  “Why left?”

  She shrugged at Tony, “No idea, but we have to go somewhere, and it looks flatter at least at the entrance.” She walked over to the opening, which was two feet over her head and about five feet wide. “It doesn’t smell bad.”

  Rick shook his head, “We decide according to smell? This is bad. Maybe we should have waited.”

  “Waited? Those other things ate Wyatt. No place is safe. We just need to get out,” Tony said. “If you can’t lead, at least stop saying ignorant things,” he said what many of them felt.

  Shimei agreed, “Baby Girl has a point. We need to use our brains. They’re just animals, right? So we can be smarter. If it isn’t stinky, then it may be safer.”

  Theo and Tony held their weapons high and began walking. The floor was more level, but then it began to slope downwards. They didn’t know if down led to the outside, but it could since they were within the mountain; ground level was somewhere. They watched for daylight to creep inside.

  “Look,” Corrine dug at a rock, but it was tightly wedged against another, and the tiny amount of sunlight that showed didn’t even allow her a good view of the outside. Knowing the way out was right there frustrated everyone. Using sticks, she was able to make the dot of light open to about the size of her palm, but it was three feet away with boulders blocking the area. “We can roll them away?”

  Shimei looked, “No. They’re part of the wall. Look.”

  “But it’s right there. There is the outside,” Corrine complained.

  “Yes, it’s about three feet of rock between us and the outside, but that could be a billion miles since we can’t get through solid rock. Everyone look carefully for a spot that isn’t rock but that’s dirt, and we will see if we can find a small crevasse to slip through,” Tony said.

  Everyone dug with sticks and poked. Only one other spot of sunlight, the size of a quarter, was revealed. In frustration, one and then more tossed their little sticks and shuffled away in disgust. Being so close was like being teased. Ann sat, covered her face, and cried.

  In one area, a circle and overhang of rocks made a cave within the cave and looked like a spot to camp for the evening since they could protect the entrance and feel safer than if they camped in the open. Everyone was physically and emotionally exhausted, and while not being able to get out was a bad thing, knowing their team mates lay dead all over the cave was disturbing.

  While some stood guard, others made a hot meal with pasta, tuna, and cheese and a dessert of re-hydrated fruit pudding. Audrina watched the others eat robotically, shoving the food into their bodies without really tasting anything anyway. Food was not pleasurable but simply fuel to keep them going. Water wasn’t a critical issue yet, but it would be in a day or two if they found no water in the cave.

  “Maybe we should have gone the other direction,” Audrina said.

  “It’s like flipping a coin. Who knows? Wanna split up like in some stupid movie?” Theo laughed.

  Fran cradled her arm and moaned, “I want out. I have fantasies of a clean hospital and pain meds…a soft bed….” she stopped talking and cried softly.

  During the meal, they wondered what they had found.

  Most of the cave made no sense. Why was there a plane? Why were there extinct creatures? Why did someone want them to stay down inside the cave?

  They didn’t know any of these answers but knew they had lost friends, that the rest were either physically injured or traumatized, and whatever this was about, it was deadly and everything was connected.

  The answer to some of these questions might save their lives.

  Chapter Five: On the Run

  “I don’t know when it’s really night and when it’s day,” Shimei complained. They packed up to walk again and hopefully to find a way out of the caves.

  Katie dropped to her stomach again to look over a ledge, “Look at this. There is an entire world down here. See those? They’re small, but they are triceratops. They were huge sixty-five million years ago. And look over there at that pack. They look like small triceratops.”

  Some of the others crept to the edge to look. A clearing was directly below, but close to the clearing was a forest area, thick with small trees, covered by ferns and grasses, and broken in half by a small stream. It was more like watching a movie than seeing it as real. The trio of triceratops, light blue to deep purple, grazed on the grasses near the stream.

  “It goes on forever. Okay, not forever, but it is enormous. How can there be an entire world under the caves? In the caves, I mean. I am seeing it and thinking it isn’t real. This is some illusion,” Emma said.

  “It can’t be an illusion if all of us are seeing it, right? I keep thinking I’m

  crazy, but I see it, too,” Luke said. “Look at those watching the herd.”

  “Tyrannosaurs. Oh my, that’s impossible. Look at them,” Audrina could hardly speak.

  “How would grass grow without sunlight?” Shimei asked.

  “We’re looking at animals that died sixty-five million years ago, and you’re asking how grass can grow?” Audrina chuckled.

  They were juveniles led by a heavy, well-muscled T-Rex that was reddish purple while the others were redder and a little smaller. Although they were many years old, they were young in terms of dinosaurs as they aged very slowly. For now, they watched the herd of small triceratops, hungry, but wary of the horns.

  Audrina pointed to another herd of hadrosaurs that were small, had crests on their heads, and were covered in feathers in all colors: yellow, ruby red, flame, violet, deep blue, and bright emerald. Some hooted and then moved away from the water and into the trees.

  Dragging themselves away from the scene, the hikers began walking down the path again, looking for daylight, thinking they weren’t any lower than before when they saw light, but possibly farther away from the wall of the cave.

  “Let’s go faster,” Theo said, leading them deeper down the incline.

  The carnotaurus came from the right, four of them, all ten feet tall and thirty feet long from their heads to the tips of their tails. Big knobs lined their spine, and over each eye was a thick, substantial horn. While many dinosaurs that ran on muscular back legs had forelimbs, the carnotaurus didn’t have any front legs; like a chicken, they used their back legs only.

  They were the fastest dinosaurs of all with a medium bite force and tended to snap and bite with jaws full of little sharp teeth. The first one ran over Fran, knocking her onto her broken arm; she screamed as the creature began to rip and tear at
her scalp and head, using his back legs to hold her in place with his weight. He weighed over a ton and crushed her ribs and chest. Unable to breathe, Fran died quickly of blood loss and suffocation.

  Swinging their sticks, Theo, Tony, and Shimei tried to hold off the creatures, but it was impossible since the three attacked, roaring, swinging their huge heads, and biting. They were huge animals, almost too large to fit into the small area of the cave. If the humans had run into a smaller tunnel, they would have been safe, but they couldn’t get a clear path.

  Katie stared blankly but not in pain, yet because her nerves went into shock, she watched one of the animals snap off her lower arm and swallow it. It was so fast and so clean of a bite, that Katie was simply stunned at first. Her blood spurted in time to her heartbeat, dark red and thicker than water. It splashed the others around her and covered the dinosaur with scarlet gore. It licked its face.

  “Shi…Tony….” Katie muttered, watching the stump shoot blood with her elevated heart rate. The men were busy fighting one of the animals, and she slid to her knees, weak, and tired. As the creature leaned forward, it sank its teeth into Katie’s stomach, pulling and yanking; she dimly watched greyish-pink intestines slip and slid from her belly, feeling a faint pulling sensation. A burning began deep inside her stomach close to her spine, and it grew rapidly into an over whelming burning ache. This was such a wrong way to die.

  The third carnotaurus grabbed the snaky-looking intestine and pulled. When the other one opened its massive jaws and bit away her face, she raised her unwounded arm almost casually in a kind of embrace as she slowly died, wondering faintly how there could be dinosaurs deep in the caves and why she was there with them.

  The creatures carried Katie and Fran away, and the other two backed off, each carrying half of a third body. They seemed content with their halves and vanished into the darkness of the right-hand tunnel. They were ferocious hunters but didn’t have a need to fight those who hit back when they already had food.