Return to Underland

by Alan Nayes

  “Anything?” Reglan put her hand on Spinner’s shoulder.

  He shook his head. But just as he lowered the flashlight, he suddenly felt Reglan’s grip tighten. Then Otter whined as a huge shadow loomed over them.

  They were no longer alone!

  CHAPTER 7

  * * *

  “Smilodon fatalis,” Spinner barely squeaked the name out.

  Reglan could hardly hear Spinner over her own pounding heart.

  Blocking the middle of the path, just beyond the ferns and calamites, crouched a full-grown cat—a very large full-grown cat! And not just any cat.

  Spinner dared not move. “Smilodon fatalis was a saber-toothed cat,” he whispered to Reglan.

  “You mean is,” Reglan whispered back. “Maybe he’s not hungry.”

  “These guys were always hungry.” Spinner’s voice quavered. “That could be part of the reason they’re extinct: they ate all their food.”

  Reglan watched the big cat shake some saliva from its whiskers. “I don’t think this one’s extinct.”

  “Just back up. Real slow,” Spinner said.

  Reglan took a step back. Her knees shook. She stared over her shoulder. “Spinner!”

  “I said just keep backing up, real—”

  “Spinner,” Reglan warned, holding her hand out to stop him.

  Spinner paused. He didn’t like her tone of voice. Not one bit. Slowly, he turned, suddenly comprehending Reglan’s warning.

  Behind them about five yards, blocking the way they’d just come, stood three of the strangest creatures Spinner had ever seen. The first two had large heads, extremely muscular jaws, unnaturally big teeth, and oval reptilian eyes with dark, slitted pupils. Each walked upright on two sturdy legs and resembled a short alligator, with a double row of scaly spines that ran from the neck all the way down to the tip of its thick tail.

  Spinner held his breath, his jaw slack. This is so incredible. There they stood, before his very eyes—dinosaurs! Each was around thirty-six inches tall, although one was slightly larger. Both were a dark, mottled green.

  Behind the first two, the third creature resembled something between an armadillo and a turtle. It was about as big as a large rectangular suitcase and protected by a shell of brown-grey leather plates. Tiny shafts of hair grew between the many fine scales that covered its muscular tail. Spinner easily recognized it from his book as a member of the glyptodont family of prehistoric mammals.

  “Look!” Reglan pointed. “It’s Archy.”

  Archaeopteryx sat perched on top of a small stalagmite just beyond the pool.

  The two small dinosaurs stepped closer, studying the children. The larger one sniffed at Spinner’s flashlight. Otter started to growl but stopped when Spinner nudged him with his knee.

  Reglan’s eyes looked like saucers. “I feel faint.”

  “Stand perfectly still.” Spinner felt his own knees shaking.

  Behind them, the saber-toothed cat growled.

  Reglan gripped Spinner’s hand. No one moved, not even the creatures of the cave. After a few seconds that seemed like minutes, the two dinosaurs turned and began walking away. When they reached the glyptodont, the smaller dinosaur slapped its tail on the cave floor with a sharp crack.

  Spinner felt a push in the back. He turned. “Hey, what—?” His words skidded to a stop. The big cat nudged him again with his head and Spinner fell against Reglan, unable to take his eyes off the feline’s long bleach-white canines.

  “Maybe we’re supposed to follow them,” Reglan said.

  “I don’t think arguing is an option.” Still holding Reglan’s hand, as much for his sake as hers, Spinner started forward.

  Without a sound, the dinosaurs led the children and Otter down a great number of winding paths, some up, some down, some hidden by plants and rocks.

  “We’ll never find our way out,” Reglan moaned. They rounded a bend and stepped into a clearing surrounded by limestone columns and groves of calamites, club mosses, cycad trees, and cave pools.

  There, the children and Otter were herded into the center of the clearing, toward a large flat stalagmite. All around them, Spinner could see movement in the shadows. Soon, the shadows were transformed into creatures. They appeared from every nook and limestone cranny—from the deepest cave pools to the highest rock ceilings, from tiny creatures that clung to the bottom of the sago palm leaves, to hulking hairy monsters that could devour a bushel of primitive fern leaves in less time than it took Spinner to eat a bowl of breakfast cereal. They included animals that swam in the crystal-clear cave streams and others that glided on membrane-thin wings. From the deepest and darkest depths they gathered and stared, all seemingly curious about the new arrivals.

  Spinner sat cross-legged, gazing out at the many pairs of eyes staring back at him. Some of the animals he recognized, he’d seen them before in museums or books, and he could identify others from his Doomsday Animal Parade.

  Along with the saber-toothed cat, Spinner counted a pair of dire wolves, a mastodon, a great auk, a dodo bird, a moa, two passenger pigeons, and, he was sure, another Archaeopteryx perched on a limb. Besides the devil frog, there were several species of reptiles and amphibians that he knew to be extinct.

  He studied the two small dinosaurs that had led them to this spot. They were standing by a pool and appeared to be having a conference. Spinner knew animals communicated but what he was witnessing now seemed far more than just simple animal communication—the two creatures actually appeared intelligent! In a strange way, this was frightening. Surveying the edge of the limestone clearing, Spinner could make out other small dinosaurs of the same type, some drinking from nearby pools. With a shiver, he wondered where the really big dinosaurs were.

  Looking up, he noticed the two dinosaurs were staring right at him. He tried to look away, but his eyes were held fast, almost mesmerized by their stares.

  Suddenly, he felt woozy. A wave of tiredness washed over him, starting so slowly that Spinner almost didn’t notice. Then he yawned. Was it the stuffiness of the cave air making him so exhausted? Maybe he was in shock at the incredible circumstances. After all, he and Reglan were surrounded by dinosaurs and other extinct animals! At his feet, he heard Otter whine, and then watched as his pet closed its eyes.

  “Otter,” Spinner said, yawning again.

  “Spinner!” Reglan was yawning, too.

  Spinner heard her voice but couldn’t find the strength to answer. He suddenly felt so weak. All the eyes were watching him.

  “Reg…” Spinner never finished.

  Everything went black.

  CHAPTER 8

  * * *

  Otter was the first to wake and immediately wandered down to the pool for a drink.

  Spinner and Reglan awoke at almost the same time.

  “What happened?” Reglan pushed herself up off the cool limestone of the underground clearing and gazed around.

  “This is too bizarre,” Spinner said, checking his watch. It still read 10:16 AM. Spinner shook his wrist. Even the second hand hadn’t changed position. He checked his cell phone—still no signal.

  “Your watch must be broken,” Reglan said.

  “I guess it doesn’t work in Under—” Spinner caught himself. His eyes darted to Reglan.

  She stared back. “Land,” she finished. She looked more puzzled than anything else. “Underland?” she asked herself.

  “What did you say?”

  “Underland. We’re in Underland,” Reglan answered, gazing around. Otter returned from the pool and sat between them.

  “I think you’re right. But how do we know this?” Spinner scratched his head.

  “I don’t know. I just know this place is called Underland.” Reglan took a deep breath. “I wonder where the…?” She stopped, afraid to go on.

  “Saurids are?” This time, Spinner finished.

  “Spinner.” Reglan looked anxious. “Have you ever heard of saurids?”

  “No, not until I…” Spinner paused, s
hivering. “Reglan there’s more—a lot more—I know. And I don’t even know how I know it,” he babbled. “This place is Underland. And those dinosaurs are saurids. They guard Underland. And their names are Ebo and—”

  “Kali,” Reglan interrupted. “And the thing that looks like a giant armadillo…”

  “The glyptodont,” Spinner said.

  “His name is Scroffle.”

  Spinner listened in shock as Reglan repeated what he already knew.

  “And those funny little crystals are called cave pearls. And they’re ancient. Really, really old,” Reglan’s words rushed out. “Spinner, how do I know all this stuff? And there are more things I don’t know. It’s a feeling—a bad feeling. It has something to do with this place. Like we’re not supposed to be here. I’m scared.”

  Spinner slowly stood up, as if he wasn’t sure his legs would support his weight. “This place gives me the creeps, too.” He stared around him. “We must’ve dreamed it.”

  “I didn’t dream.”

  “We must’ve.” But Spinner couldn’t recall dreaming either. Studying their surroundings, though, he was relieved to find the once-crowded clearing abandoned and all the strange and rare creatures, including the saurids, gone. But just on the other side of the pool, some thick-trunked cycads and prehistoric cypress trees still grew. “We gotta get out of here.”

  “Which way?”

  Spinner counted at least five paths exiting the clearing, and each one looked the same. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his compass. The needle was still spinning counter-clockwise. He tried the GPS on his cell phone. Nothing. “You pick the route,” he told Reglan.

  “Why me?”

  “Because I got us into this mess.”

  “Spinner!” Reglan pointed across the pool.

  The two saurids stood beneath a giant cycad tree.

  Spinner gasped and Otter growled as the glyptodont lumbered out of a clump of ferns behind them.

  “And there’s Scroffle!” Reglan said, jumping back.

  The glyptodont stepped forward, followed by the larger saurid known as Ebo. Both peered intently at the two children before returning to the smaller saurid, Kali.

  Reglan clutched Spinner’s arm. “We have to do something now—like leave.”

  “No argument from me. Let me think.”

  “Well, we better think fast; before they try to eat us.”

  “I said I’m thinking,” Spinner whispered so the saurids wouldn’t hear.

  “So am I. Spinner,” she blurted out suddenly, “look at Scroffle.”

  While the children watched, the glyptodont cleared some brush away from one of the narrow paths around the water’s edge.

  Spinner grabbed his pack. “I think we’re supposed to follow him.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “Unless you have any better ideas…”

  “Not at the moment.”

  The children and Otter fell in behind the glyptodont as the saurids led them through a forest of primitive cycads and extinct conifers. Some of the trees were even petrified, Spinner noticed, which meant this underground forest was very, very old; how ancient, he couldn’t guess. The forest was intersected by hundreds of small tunnels and passages, and Spinner couldn’t help but wonder how they’d all been formed. Everywhere, they could spot the cave pearls.

  They’d walked for about twenty minutes, or so Spinner figured, when he checked his watch again. Still 10:16 AM. He shook it once more in frustration.

  All around them echoed the calls and cries of strange animals and when the path turned to the right and sloped down sharply, Kali slowed. At the bottom of the decline, she ducked through a limestone archway. The children followed, leaving the cacophony of Underland noises behind.

  Immediately, they found themselves in a very large room, as big as a gymnasium. Odd markings covered the walls and ceiling and another passageway led out the other side.

  Reglan put out a hand to touch one of the markings, but changed her mind and stopped. “Spinner,” she said softly.

  Spinner and Otter joined her. They gazed at the wall in wonder. The marks were drawings. Not just stick figures, but scenes in great detail, painted in a chalky color.

  Pictures of every kind of animal imaginable could be seen. All of the animals in his book were on the wall, along with many others.

  “There’s Archaeopteryx.” Spinner walked to one end of the wall, pointing out a drawing no more than one or two inches high.

  “Here’s a weird fish,” Reglan said. “And a saurid. And look at the huge dinosaurs.”

  Spinner shook his head in awe. The drawings were so realistic. He recognized Tyrannosaurus Rex and other fearsome monsters, and wondered what it all meant. “I think they go in some sort of order. From oldest at this end to more recent times toward the middle.”

  “It must’ve taken years to do these. There’s thousands.”

  “Tens of thousands. They’re everywhere,” Spinner said, whirling around. The drawings covered the walls, the ceiling, even the floor.

  Kali, Ebo, and Scroffle watched patiently as the children studied the pictures.

  Spinner moved further down the wall, tracing his finger over extinct birds, the great auk and the dodo, just like the ones he’d seen in the underground clearing. Soon, he and Reglan moved on to the extinct mammals section. Giant sloths, mastodons, and dire wolves illustrated the wall. They moved further down, approaching the point where the wall curved sharply.

  Amazed by the drawings, neither Spinner nor Reglan noticed a faint scraping noise on the stone—until they stepped around the bend.

  Instantly they tensed, glued in their tracks.

  Crouched in the dark was a semi-hairy figure working on three drawings. Without a doubt, this creature was the owner of the second set of strange prints they had found on the sand bar, or at least similar to it.

  The figure rose carefully, standing to a height of four feet. Although eight inches shorter than Spinner, he was squat and muscular. His face looked part ape and part human and Spinner realized that he must be a prehistoric man from a group known as “hominids.” Yet by his expression, Spinner guessed he was much younger than he had initially thought, perhaps not much older than him and Reglan. He also had a large, jagged scar on his left shoulder, making Spinner wonder if the cave boy had been clawed or bitten by some animal in the past. The hominid gazed curiously at the children before returning to his work on the wall.

  Spinner and Reglan moved closer for a better look.

  “Spinner!” Reglan gestured to the wall, her eyes wide.

  Spinner could only stare.

  Two of the drawings looked just like them!

  CHAPTER 9

  * * *

  The stout, hairy hominid boy stepped back from the wall and peered at the two children momentarily before shuffling past the saurids toward the passage on the opposite side of the room. Just before exiting, he paused and looked back, holding each child with a long stare. Then he was gone.

  “What was that all about?” Reglan asked.

  “Beats me. Maybe he likes you.”

  “Oh, that’s real funny.” She touched Spinner’s arm. “The others are watching us, too.”

  “I know.” Spinner’s eyes met the saurids’ stares. The glyptodont was chewing on a leafy fern that grew near one wall and didn’t appear the least bit interested.

  The Two-legs are watching us.

  Both children jumped.

  “What did you just say?” Spinner asked.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Reglan answered.

  The Two-legs are talking.

  Spinner stared at Reglan. “Who’s a Two-leg?”

  “Does it look like I’m talking?” Reglan asked.

  Spinner looked puzzled. “But I just heard you call me a Two-leg.”

  “No I said they’re watching—”

  These Two-legs are different.

  The children spun around to face the saurids.

  �
��It was them. I heard ’em.” Reglan indicated to the dinosaurs.

  Spinner shook his head in disbelief. “I heard them, too, but their mouths didn’t move.”

  Scroffle finished chewing. Yes, these Two-legs are different.

  “Spinner, none of their mouths move!”

  “Then how can we understand them?”

  The shorter saurid, Kali, hopped forward. Once you enter Underland, you can never leave.

  “What?” Reglan gasped.

  Spinner reached for his pack, ready to run.

  Ebo slapped his tail on the cave floor with a sharp whack. Four more saurids suddenly appeared at the exit. Each grinned, revealing a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth.

  Spinner stepped in front of Reglan. “What do you mean we can’t leave?”

  Again the saurids blocked the children’s escape.

  It is you who have chosen to live in Underland.

  “We were exploring,” Spinner said, identifying the voice as coming from Kali.

  If the Two-legs did not plan to live here, why did the Two-legs enter the Opening? Scroffle stared at them intensely.

  The Opening is only for those who plan to stay. You are on the wall. Kali hopped forward some more.

  “An opening?” Spinner shook his head.

  Ebo hopped over beside Kali. An Opening is the time that Underland shows itself to the Earth above. There are many Openings, many places, at different times.

  Reglan stared back at Ebo. “Are you saying that yesterday there was no cave here at all? Nothing?”

  Ebo nodded.

  “Not even a tiny burrow?” Spinner asked.

  Scroffle shook his head.

  “You’re wrong,” Spinner blurted out. “There’s a cave here today, there was a cave here yesterday, and I’ll bet there’ll be a cave here tomorrow.”

  The Two-legs don’t believe us? Kali turned to Ebo in surprise.

  Spinner adjusted his glasses. “I don’t know what I believe anymore. What about the drawings?” He jabbed a thumb in the direction of the wall. “What do they mean?”