Shiny, colorful, humming animals surrounded the path. They differed in shape, size, and color, although the majority of them were shiny gray or dirty white. He could see through their fronts. Some animals held one human, some held several. He reached out a hand and touched one of them. It felt hot and growled at him. He pulled his hand back quickly.
He turned in a slow circle, amazed by what he saw. The animals had eaten the humans, but the humans were still alive inside them. As he stood staring, one of them blared, and then another. Soon they were all bellowing at him. He dropped to his knees, hands held tightly over his ears, and hoped he wouldn’t die in the stampede.
“Dude, what are you doing?” A hand on his arm pulled him to his feet. It was his good friend, Billy. “You can’t hang around in the middle of the street! The light just changed. Come on!”
His friend tugged him through the herd of shining animals and to the foot path on the other side. As soon as the boys were out of the way, the animals began moving. Several humans waved fists and fingers at him from the bellies of their beasts. One shouted, “Didn’t your parents tell you not to play in traffic?”
Gus shook his arm to free it from Billy’s hand, which was still clamped tightly around it. Billy released his grip and said, “Are you feeling okay, dude? You don’t look so good. I mean, what is that you’re wearing?”
Gus looked at Billy’s clothing. He was dressed like the group of teens. He wore woven blue pants in a shorter length that stopped just above the knee. Strange black shoes that came up to his ankle. A black shirt with symbols stuck to it. Gus touched the shirt with a finger.
“Yeah, awesome, isn’t it? My dad let me have it. It’s one of his old AC/DC tour shirts. It’s a little big. Some work with the weights and it should be cool though.” Billy flexed his biceps and puffed up his chest. “Aren’t you hot?”
“Yes, but I’m dying. And hallucinating. That’s what happens when you freeze to death.”
Billy looked at him strangely. “What the heck? Dude, there’s water pouring down your face. It’s like you’re practically melting in there.”
“They’ll find my body frozen on the plateau. If the monster doesn’t eat it first.”
“Dude, you are totally morbid today. Where’d you get that cool spear? Can I try it?”
Gus handed Billy his weapon before fainting on the sidewalk.
Chapter Six: Together Again
Angus lay beneath the panting animal, the spear knocked from his hand and just out of reach. Drool oozed from the slavering beast’s gaping mouth. The weight of the canine crushed Angus’s chest making it difficult to breathe. Warm air drifted from the giant hound’s long gray muzzle.
Should Angus fight with all his might against the vicious creature? Or should he lie still and play dead? As his feverish mind ran rapidly through scenarios, the dog’s tongue began licking his face up and down.
“Yuck!” gagged Angus as his voice suddenly returned. He shoved the animal off him. The overgrown canine jumped around, wagging its tail enthusiastically. “Get off me, you dumb dog!”
“Hey, who you calling a dog? Have you ever seen a dog this big? Look at me! I’m huge!” announced the gleeful animal. “I’m a dire wolf! Canus dirus. Grrrrr!” The wolf grinned sharp glistening teeth at him.
“Ivy!” shouted Angus and threw his arms around the neck of the mangy beast. He inhaled the wet, musty stench of her thick gray fur. The wolf whined happily.
“I thought I’d never see you again,” said Angus stepping back to better observe her current manifestation. “Wow! You’re not kidding. You are huge!”
The dire wolf was about five feet long and was considerably larger than any gray wolf he’d ever seen at the zoo or that time Mom took him to the wolf sanctuary. Its legs were stocky and sturdy and its teeth were abnormally large.
Ivy wagged her tail and bounced like a puppy, an abnormally overgrown brute of a puppy that could take your arm off with a playful nip. “This is an excellent body,” she answered. “I feel powerful and happy, and like I just want to run and chase things!”
“Gus! Who you talking to over there?” called Ralph.
Angus looked quickly at Ivy. He had a feeling Ralph wouldn’t understand this. “One of the guys,” Angus yelled into the darkness.
“Well, talk later! We need two sets of eyes over here!” complained Ralph.
“Be right there,” Angus shouted back. He whispered to Ivy, “Don’t let any humans see you. They’re heavily armed and I don’t think they’ll appreciate having a dire wolf in their village. How did you get in here anyway?”
“I dug under the fence.”
“I’m on duty until midnight or whatever time it is when the moon is at its highest point. Find me then when I’m by myself. Can you keep out of sight until then?”
“Not a problem,” whispered Ivy slinking away. Within seconds her gray fur blended into the night.
Angus hurried to the village entrance and took his place beside Ralph who was staring anxiously into the black distance.
Angus leaned wearily against the perimeter fence just after midnight. His eyes ached from staring at nothing for hours when he should have been curled up warmly asleep. Ralph had spent the time gasping and pointing at nothing. When he’d tired of that, he’d taken to poking Angus in the ribs and grunting, “Are you still awake? You haven’t fallen asleep, have you?”
Angus wondered whether pairing him with Ralph was Granny’s way of punishing him for being on the forbidden plateau with Bonnie.
Sometime in the late evening, Mom had arrived with a bowl of steaming soup. He had offered to share it with Ralph. Ralph had insisted they take turns eating so they wouldn’t be distracted from the watch. Naturally, Ralph had said, he should eat first since he’d technically been at his post longer while Angus had gone to locate his spear.
By the time Angus got around to trying the soup he was so hungry and tired that he barely noticed the chunks of lard floating on its cold surface. Now he understood why Billy had been so eager to take an extra shift in the sloth pen. As bad as it was to shovel endless amounts of reeking, gigantic poop, working alongside Ralph was a far worse job.
Angus felt a gentle nudge below his shoulder. He spun around and saw two eyes shining in the dark. He instinctively clutched his spear.
“Ivy?” he whispered. She whined at him in greeting. “Wait here a minute. I want to be sure no one is around.”
“We’re fine,” said Ivy. “This nose is incredible. I can smell everything. The nearest guard is clear across the village and one of them has fallen asleep. I can pick up a human’s scent long before they ever see me.”
Angus shuddered. “I’m glad you’re on my side.”
Ivy chuckled deep within her grizzled throat.
“How did you find me?” asked Angus.
“Like I said, I can smell everything. I picked up your odor in the forest at the top of the hill and followed it down. I sensed danger so I waited until dark to creep into the village.” She licked her chops. “There were two other scents with you in the forest. One of them smelled young and tender.”
“Don’t even think about it!” said Angus. “That was my little sister!”
“Sister? You have a sister?”
“I know. I was surprised too. But I didn’t mean how did you find me in the village. How did you find me in this world?”
“I followed your heat signature,” answered the wolf.
“My heat signature?” asked a puzzled Angus.
“Yes! When you jumped worlds you left a trail. I felt warmth and followed it. It led me here,” explained Ivy.
“But how did you jump worlds?”
“You know I can find the human version of myself in each world. I always have a sense in the back of my mind of my alter ego’s location. Kind of like a homing device,” Ivy explained. “My alter ego in the pirate world was on shore not far from the ship. I flew to her, focused all my energy on her, and felt my spirit detach from the seagull bo
dy I had been occupying. Then I felt the heat and followed the trail here.”
“Fascinating,” breathed Angus.
“That was the first time I’ve been able to control my travel,” the wolf said proudly.
“Now, if only I could control my travel with the World Jumper, we could find our way back home,” said Angus.
“Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get the World Jumper and see where it takes us next,” suggested Ivy.
Angus gazed sheepishly at his fur boots. He kicked at the snow. “What is it?” Ivy growled slowly. “What did you do?”
“I kind of … misplaced it,” mumbled Angus.
“You did WHAT?” snarled Ivy.
“Quiet!” hissed Angus. “Do you want to wake up the entire village?”
“You misplaced the World Jumper?” She reared back on her hind legs and sprang on his chest. He was knocked into the perimeter fence.
She opened her gaping maul and Angus wondered how much control his friend Ivy had over this predator’s body. The wolf snapped its jaws shut on the safety goggles and wrested them from Angus’s head. Ivy settled back on her haunches in the snow and spat the goggles from her mouth.
“You’re still in possession of these stupid things but you’ve lost the most important piece of technology! How did you lose the World Jumper? Where did you lose it?”
“If I knew where I lost it, it wouldn’t be lost,” answered Angus angrily. He bent over, retrieved his goggles, and wiped the dog drool from them. “Don’t you think I’m upset about it too? I don’t want to be stranded in this frozen world. It’s a lot colder for me than for you.” He glared at the dire wolf and defiantly put on the goggles.
Ivy growled deeply in her throat. “So now what’s your plan?” She tried to settle her rage.
She had always been prone to vexation and impatience with the mistakes of others, but she was surprised how quickly and strongly this dire wolf body responded to anger. She’d have to get it under control. She knew that the dire wolf had been a formidable predator during the Pleistocene epoch. It had become extinct about ten thousand years ago along with most other North American megafauna, or huge animals. How was it still alive in this world?
“If we’re planning to be in this world for a while, I guess we’d better figure out what this world is,” said Ivy.
“There are ground sloths and dire wolves. The humans wear furs and hunt mammoths,” said Angus.
“So in this world the large scale extinction of the megafauna didn’t happen,” Ivy said.
“What does that mean?” asked Angus.
“Well, you know that scientists disagree about what caused the extinctions. Some think the species of large animals died because of severe climatic changes. They simply starved to death,” said Ivy.
“I thought the impact of an asteroid killed them,” said Angus.
“An asteroid impacting the earth would have caused changes in the climate, like I said,” said Ivy.
Angus rolled his eyes.
“Then there are the theories of disease spreading among the animals,” added Ivy.
“What about over hunting by humans,” said Angus.
“Yeah, that’s one,” said Ivy.
Angus looked at the dire wolf. “Clearly none of those things has happened here. So we’re in a world in which modern humans and ancient animals coexist.” He thought about this for a moment. “Or kill each other.”
“Hunt or be hunted.” The massive wolf curled back its lips and bared its teeth in a grin.
Their conversation was interrupted by a booming horn in the direction of the sloth corral. Angus heard shouts and saw torches appearing at the entrances to huts around the village.
“Ivy, you’d better hide,” began Angus, but the dire wolf had already disappeared.
Chapter Seven: A False Alarm
Angus grabbed his spear and raced toward the village entrance. He passed the Clark hut and saw Bonnie peering out from the doorway. He shouted, “Stay inside!” and rushed toward the sloth corral. Granny stood on an elevated platform, her white hair whipping about her head, barking orders to the women and older children as they appeared with their spears and torches.
Angus spotted Billy at the edge of the crowd and jogged toward him. “What’s going on?”
Billy glanced at him quickly and then turned his head back toward Granny. “The sentries noticed a large hole under the fence. They think the monster dug into the village! Granny is organizing everyone to search the village.”
“Where’s the hole?” asked Angus.
Billy looked at him. “What difference does it make?”
“Do you know where it is or not?”
“No, but I think Ralph is one of the guys who found it. You can ask him. I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it.” Billy rolled his eyes. Angus turned to go. “Wait a second,” called Billy. “I’m coming too.”
It didn’t take long to locate Ralph. He was standing in the center of a group of adoring younger boys. He puffed himself up proudly when he saw Angus and Billy approaching. “So, I guess you heard,” he announced. “I found a monster hole.”
“Yeah, we heard,” muttered Billy. He didn’t like Ralph any more than Angus did.
“I put myself in harm’s way protecting the village,” boasted the stocky boy. “Could have been killed, but I had a job to do! I never miss a day’s sentry duty, no sir.” He looked meaningfully at Billy.
“Whatever, Ralph. Just show us the hole,” said Billy.
Ralph shoved some smaller boys out of his way and strutted to the fence. “Right there!” he pointed.
Angus crouched down to examine the large burrow dug beneath the curved fence. The snow was packed down hard so it was impossible to distinguish footprints. Angus had a sneaking suspicion about who had dug this hole. He slid down beneath the fence and scrambled out the other side.
“What are you doing? It’s not safe out there!” hollered Ralph.
Billy chuckled to himself and climbed into the hole to follow Angus. “If the monster dug this hole and got into the village, it seems to me it’s not safe in there.”
Realization dawned slowly on the faces of the boys standing around Ralph. Some of the boys began crying, some ran to their homes, and a few tried to slip into the hole behind Angus and Billy.
“Great job, Billy,” said Angus. “What’d you do that for?”
Billy laughed and pointed at Ralph. The boastful sentry stood stiffly at the burrow hole looking uneasily to the left and right. “I couldn’t help it. Look at him.”
Angus coaxed the frightened boys back into the village and then turned to look at the pile of snow where an animal had cast the diggings. He peered at the ground looking for impressions in the snow. He wanted to turn on his penlight but didn’t feel like explaining electricity to Billy. He waited until his eyes had adjusted to the gloom. The faint shadows of indentations were just about the size of a large muzzle sniffing along the fence searching for a family member, a loved one, a lost pack mate. This was obviously the hole Ivy had dug when she was looking for him.
“Let’s get back inside,” he called to Billy. “Whatever made that hole, it wasn’t a monster.”
The two boys crawled into the hole backwards, scraping the pile of snow with them as they went. They attempted to patch the hole, but as anyone who’s ever tried to refill a hole knows, there’s always less to go back in than you took out in the first place.
“There is no monster in here,” Angus declared to Ralph. A look of relief passed over the jittery sentry’s face but was quickly replaced with a scowl.
“Of course there is!” He crossed his arms on his broad chest and swaggered. “The hole is right there! You saw it yourself!”
“Oh yes,” agreed Angus. “Some sort of animal was in here. No doubt about that. It might even have been the monster. But the tracks outside the fence go in two directions. Something came in, but something also went back out.”
Ralph gaped at him. Apparently it
had never occurred to him to check for paw prints.
Billy stared at Angus but said to Ralph, “Guess you should have investigated before you sounded the alarm. You’d better tell Granny to call off the search. I wouldn’t want to be you right now. Let’s go warm up, Gus.” He put his arm behind Angus’s back and hustled him away from Ralph.
As soon as they were out of the sentry’s earshot, Billy seized Angus’s arm and whispered, “I was out there with you. I know you’re not telling the truth. Those tracks only went one way—inside! What’s going on?”
“Let’s just say I know what, or rather who, those tracks belong to and I don’t want Granny and Ralph and a bunch of spear-wielding moms to find her,” Angus replied. “She’s not dangerous.”
Billy blinked at him. “Who’s not dangerous?”
“Ivy. Trust me on this, okay?”
Billy regarded him seriously, then quirked a smile. “Of course! Especially if it means I can go back to bed instead of staying up all night in the freezing cold searching for a monster. I’ll see you later.”
Angus waved goodbye to Billy and hurried off home. As he approached the hut, he saw a large gray dire wolf lying in front of the door, head resting between its paws. Ivy lifted her head and sniffed the air. She thumped her tail in greeting.
“Ivy! You should be hiding,” said Angus hurrying to her side.
She stretched her mouth wide in a huge yawn and raised her massive hind quarters in the air while bowing her head and front half forward. She stood and shook herself awake. “What for? Everyone is by the sloth cage. I thought I’d have a quick nap while I waited for you. What was it?”
“They found your hole by the fence. They’re convinced a monster got in.”
The Crystal Lair (Inventor-in-Training) Page 4