No Time For Dinosaurs

by John Benjamin Sciarra

  “Is that where you met…Moses? In the CIA?”

  “Yeah. I’m afraid so. In the interests of national security… Boy I sound like a broken record when I say that… I had to keep a low profile. And so the things I did may have appeared frivolous to someone like your dad who is so meticulous in his work. Everything has to be precise in your father’s universe. Which is why it is truly amazing that he created this device to begin with.

  “In his world, it’s all about mathematics.”

  “Ugh! I must not have inherited that particular gene!”

  “Maybe not in the same way as your father, but you have a sense of what the math is supposed to accomplish: bring order to chaos. You see, the universe is so very meticulously sculpted. We had a saying when I used to fly the old F-106 years ago—“

  “Wait a minute! You…flew fighter jets?”

  “You mean you mother never told you that? Oh yeah, now I remember why. Must have been the UFO I reported.”

  Kyle looked at his grandfather as if he had three heads.

  “I thought you might feel that way. Just because someone calls something a UFO doesn’t mean flying saucer, Kyle. It’s just the same when you tried to tell people about the dinosaurs. If they don’t have all the facts, well, they think you’re an old coot…like me. Or a young coot, like you!”

  “So, if it wasn’t a flying saucer, what was it?”

  “Heh…that’s the point! It was unidentified and it was flying! How should I know what it was? Since I couldn’t say for sure what the object was, it was classified as a UFO.”

  “Unidentified Flying Object. Guess I never thought about it like that, Gramps.”

  “Anyway, what was I saying… Oh, yeah. The saying. Used to say about the F-106, which at the time was the fastest fighter, we had, ‘Measure it with a micrometer, cut it with an axe.’ You’re like the F-106 and your father the micrometer. Imagine something as big as a jet flying at two to three times the speed of sound carrying a radar system so sensitive that it could pick up an object miles away and shoot it down. The jet’s computer measured it with a micrometer, so to speak, and the missile was the equivalent of an axe.

  “The system in that craft was so advanced, I didn’t even have to fly the plane; it flew itself. Or, rather the computer flew it, shot down the bogie, flew the jet back to the base and landed it. Of course, I always gave the computer a break and flew the jet myself once in a while.

  “It was the same with the creature I saw in the Himalayas. It was likely a large non-human primate that no one has identified before. But, because of the hard headedness of my superiors, a golden opportunity was missed and I got blackballed by the CIA. Just like the UFO misunderstanding. Soooo, I went back to the Himalayas on my own.”

  “To find Big Foot?”

  “To find the gorilla-like animal I saw, yes. Actually, in the Himalayas they call them Yeti. Without anyone else to slow me down, I tracked the animal to its lair. I actually found three of them. A male and female, and one young animal. The small one became kind of attached to me in the few days I spent camped outside their cave. It’s no wonder no one could find them. They are a hard animal to track, blend remarkably well with their environment and don’t show up on heat sensors because of the thick coat.

  “Anyway, the second night it snowed hard and the wind raged. Full-blown blizzard. I was having trouble keeping my tent over my head when the female came over and started yanking on my foot. I wasn’t sure what she wanted. I mean…what if the male became jealous?”

  “That’s pretty funny, Gramps. What did she want you to do?”

  “Come into the cave with them. So…I did. And let me tell you…when others reported that these animals smelled, believe it! Whew! I almost went back to my tent!”

  “So…what do you think the animals were?”

  “Probably Gigantopithecus. Or at least a closely related relative. Now, I can’t vouch for all of the other sightings, and there are a lot of them, but I only know what I saw. The animals I spent some time with were docile and intelligent. Similar, I’d say to a chimpanzee. Contrary to some reports and so called photos and videos, these animals preferred to walk mostly on their knuckles and feet, just like a mountain gorilla. However, they could stand almost erect and walk some distance that way when they wanted.”

  “Why didn’t you take a video so you could prove you saw them?”

  “What? And be a laughing stock to the whole world? Heck no! The way I see it, this is my little secret. I know what I saw and I have no need to prove it to anybody else. That makes the experience special. And I do have video. I vowed never to show it to anyone else; I may make an exception in your case. If…we ever get back.”

  “We’ll get back. But we’re going to have to go pretty soon.”

  “Before we go, there is one thing I’d like to do.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Can you take me to see the Nessie-like animals?”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Kyle and Caleb headed off to the pond where Kyle first found the large creatures related to the Lock Ness Monster. On the way, they saw large numbers of dinosaurs everywhere they looked. Most of the dinosaurs ignored the explorers from the future. They came across the bonehead dinosaurs, Pachycephalosaurus, and stopped to watch the odd behavior as groups of them ran at one another with bone-crushing sounds. Yet the animals appeared unfazed by the activity, in fact, seemed to revel in it. Kyle explained that the thick bone in the head protected the pugilistic dinosaurs. When one of the smaller animals looked over at them, they decided they didn’t want to get into a head-butting contest with a ramming machine and left them to butt heads over mating rights.

  They heard noises beyond the embankment obscured by heavy vegetation they couldn’t identify. SWISH, WOOP, THUNK! SWISH, WOOP, THUNK!

  Caleb looked at his grandson and shrugged his shoulders. “What on earth is that?”

  “I have absolutely no idea, Gramps. Let’s go see.”

  Cautiously, they snuck through the underbrush, parted the branches and looked. The sound repeated, SWISH, WOOP, THUNK! A large tree fell, then another followed by that same strange sound. Whatever it was, there were several of them.

  “Let’s get up on this tree and see if we can get a better look. Can you shimmy?”

  “Shimmy? Huh! In my day I could do the monkey and the frugaloo.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A dance. Before your time.”

  “Oh…well I meant can you shimmy up the tree?”

  “I knew what you meant. Right behind you.”

  The two of them climbed the tree for a better look. What they saw was, “UNBELIEVABLE!”

  “I agree Gramps. What are they?”

  They stared in awe at three gigantic, bird-like dinosaurs over four stories long, with a beak-like face, large round eyes and, most interesting of all, three claws on each arm/wing over three feet long.

  “I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that thing, whatever it is,” said Kyle.

  “Look at what they’re doing. They’re picking up coconut like fruit that was growing on the tops of the trees. What a fascinating adaptation!”

  “Those things are huge! I don’t think I ever saw anything like them in any museum or book. They must be very rare.”

  “Well, let’s get a move on. We’ve got a ways to go.”

  Caleb pointed out the unusual coloration of the plants. Darker than he would have expected, Caleb speculated the soil rich in dinosaur feces probably accounted for the proliferation of chlorophyll, which may have made life sustainable in the harsh environment.

  They saw a flock of what appeared to be real birds flitting from one tree branch to another and appeared to be eating the insects. They were about the size of a small hawk and more colorful than most of the other animals they saw.

  “Look Gramps! There are two of them in the tree in a nest between the branches. The brownish one without the crest must be the female. I always tell Teresa the males are j
ust naturally beautiful, which is why women have to wear so much makeup.”

  “I’m sure your sister appreciated that. It does seem to be true though, doesn’t it? Look at the peacock. The male has all the feathers. And the king of the jungle, the male lion.”

  “They’re regurgitating food for the babies! Look!”

  “Yeah. But look up there to the west.” Caleb pointed to three small pterosaurs circling overhead. “Those are young pterosaurs and it looks like they have their eyes on the babies.”

  “I remember what those birds are. I saw them on the Disney Channel in a show about dinosaurs. They’re called Oviraptors.”

  “Well…not for long, if those pterosaurs get to them.”

  Kyle looked around until he found a small stone.

  “That’ll never stop them, Kyle. Besides, that’s a long distance to throw.”

  “Oh yeah? Watch me.”

  One of the pterosaurs suddenly plunged towards the nest. Kyle wound up and threw with all his might just as the Pterosaur dove toward the nest. The rock connected with the pterosaur’s mouth and it crashed into a nearby branch.

  The male and the female oviraptors jumped on the opportunity and began to peck the pterosaur to pieces. The other two pterosaurs broke off their attack and headed off for more docile prey.

  “That’s quite an arm you got there, my boy! I wouldn’t have given you odds on that bet in a million years!”

  “More like sixty-five million I think.” They both laughed.

  “I know I’m not big enough for the football team, but I bet I have a stronger arm than the high school’s quarterback.”

  “I’ll take that bet. Do you realize you just used some very sophisticated math?”

  “What, throwing a rock at a bird? How in the world is that mathematics?”

  “Think about it. You had to calculate the distance, account for the speed of the bird, make sure of the correct angle and speed of the rock—accounting for the weight of the rock—and all of that coordinated by the movement of your arm—“

  “Okay! You’re giving me a headache. I didn’t calculate anything, Grandpa. I just wound up and threw it.”

  “That just means you intuitively calculated all of that in just a few seconds. The birds can be happy now. At least until the comet hits.”

  “Yeah. Such a shame. I’m glad we got to see some of these rare creatures in the flesh.”

  “Yeah. Me, too. I wouldn’t change this for the world!”

  The pair continued on their trek for some time. Finally, after exploring the land as they went taking note of all the different kinds of dinosaurs that no one but them had ever seen, alive or fossilized, they came across the pond.

  “Here’s where I first ran into the animals, Grandpa. And I mean literally. Several velociraptors decided to make a meal of me and I had to jump in. Good thing I knew how to swim! Funny thing was, I almost hesitated since I knew something was in here and chances were it would have eaten me, too.”

  “It is a good thing. No telling what effect that would have had on the future, if any. No one really understands how the universe works. String theory is just that: a theory. That means no one can prove it exists. Chances are there is some validity to it. It’s like this…” Caleb picked up a small stone, threw it into the placid surface of the pond, and watched as concentric waves spread out in all directions.

  “Now picture that, but in all directions, three hundred and sixty degrees. Let’s say that you explode a small bomb, like a cherry bomb. That sound ripples outward. How far will that effect go? Not too far, because the wave eventually fades. However, it changes everything nearby. Essentially, it expands and affects other objects. This all occurs in the stream of time. So, it is then recorded, so to speak, as if on a CD—a giant CD we call the universe. Some call it ‘the butterfly effect.’ The idea that a butterfly flaps its wings in one place and somewhere on the opposite end of the globe you get a hurricane…or something like that.”

  “Wow! Now it’s all starting to make sense. So the Kyle I met in the past was nothing more than an echo?”

  “Sort of. I don’t understand how you could react with yourself in some past that never happened. And then, have that change manifest itself in the future. That’s why we don’t really understand how the universe works. And…why it is so dangerous to interact with the past since we can never be sure how it will affect the future.”

  “That’s why the time capsule is such a dangerous device. Isn’t it, Gramps?”

  “That is true. When we get back, we should figure out how to destroy your father’s invention without him knowing.”

  Kyle bent down close to the water and, just like before, he saw his reflection and then two yellow eyes staring back up at him. With full confidence it was Nessie, Kyle waved to the staring eyes. In a split second, something came out of the water at him with a huge mouth full of long, conical, razor-sharp teeth.

  ***

  Kyle jerked back so hard he fell flat on his back. An enormous crocodilian head with a thick neck and evil-filled yellow eyes reared up as if ready to strike. Kyle rolled over as the head came straight down, mouth opened and eyes closed ready to strike. The creature had scales covering the upper part if its body, but then the neck and underbelly were almost smooth. The mouth missed Kyle by a fraction of an inch.

  He didn’t wait around for a better look, but immediately sprung to his feet and ran past his grandfather screaming, “Run, Gramps! Run!”

  Caleb slipped and couldn’t get back up. His foot caught under a fallen tree. Kyle stopped and watched in horror as the creature raised its long, thick, neck back up out of the water. It turned its head slowly, opened its mouth dripping with water, and zeroed in on his grandfather. Kyle was literally frozen with fear. He couldn’t open his mouth to speak.

  To both their surprise and horror, the creature, which resembled a crocodile, came up out of the water with a body more reminiscent of the spinosuarids.

  The dinosaur came out of the water completely and raised its head up to a full height well over a five-story building.

  Suddenly, Caleb pulled his foot out, jumped up and ran straight at the creature. Kyle cringed. His grandfather didn’t have a chance against this animal. The blood in his veins felt as if they had frozen in his arms and legs.

  To Kyle’s shock, the creature became confused. Perhaps this animal’s prey always ran in the opposite direction. It was what Kyle would have done in the same situation. Caleb shoved the creature in the leg as if he were tackling the biggest NFL lineman in the world. As he pushed, the animal’s leg gave out and it lost its balance. Caleb scooted out from under the creature and ran back towards Kyle as the monster slipped and fell on its face.

  Caleb yelled, “Okay, now run like the wind, Kyle. Let’s get out of here!”

  Both of them ran as fast as their legs could move. They heard the creature roar behind them. Apparently, it didn’t take kindly to being knocked over by another animal and it wasn’t about to give up. Now that it righted itself, it gave chase.

  They ran up the hill towards the distortion field, hoping they were going to pull off yet another minor miracle, when they came face to face with an enormous raptor. At least that’s what Kyle thought it was. It had the same build, but the claws were three times the size of the raptors he had seen previously.

  The two of them stopped and looked at one another.

  “Do you have any ideas?” asked Caleb.

  “Just one. DUCK!”

  Both of them hit the ground as the marine dinosaur ran right over them nearly stepping on Caleb’s legs. It ran smack into the large raptor and the two of them went at each other slashing and biting, screeching and roaring.

  The fracas moved back in their direction. Caleb and Kyle needed no communication or voicing to tell them they were in the way. Both of them jumped back up and ran.

  They watched the fight in utter fascination. The marine dinosaur seemed to be getting the better of the raptor, when, out of nowhere, a
giant pterosaur swooped down and grabbed at the raptor. The two animals began tearing the raptor to shreds. Blood squirted in every direction until the raptor fell to the ground, its head nearly ripped from its body.

  Instead of ending the mêlée, the marine dinosaur turned on the pterosaur and bit down on its neck breaking it. The sound of a cracking spine was loud enough for them to hear. The pterosaur went down in a heap.

  Satisfied, the marine creature grabbed the pterosaur by a wing and dragged it off towards the pond as if it were made of feathers.

  Kyle and Caleb plopped down exhausted.

  “I can’t remember when I’ve had so much fun!” exclaimed Caleb.

  “What? Are you crazy, Grandpa? We…w…were almost killed! And what the heck was that move on the croc-o-nator? I’ve never seen anything or anyone so crazy in my life!”

  “Oh? Perhaps you should try looking in the mirror.” Caleb smiled at his grandson.

  Kyle broke out laughing. “Okay, I guess you got me there. But….how did you know to do that? I wouldn’t have thought to do that.”

  “I saw that the right leg was precariously placed on a slippery area of mud. I mean, I didn’t know it would work, but it seemed to me to be preferable to go out fighting than wait for the thing to bite my head off. You saw what that thing could do. That was amazing! I would have thought it a fish-eating dinosaur to look at it. But I guess it’s a lot like the crocodile in the future. They’ll eat anything that’s breathing…or at least it was breathing.”

  “I thought for sure that thing was going to snap off your head!”

  “Well, most animals will back off when challenged. Especially if it’s a human challenging them. Don’t ask me why; cause I have no idea. So, I guess that solves the problem for the future. Whatever we changed this time, has given your Nessie some teeth. Let’s see anyone in the future mess with this animal now! Ha ha.”

  “I was just thinking…what if I had jumped in with that creature instead of the Nessie I knew? It would have snapped me in half.”