The Dinosaur Four (11 page)

“Let’s try a battering ram,” Tim suggested. They brought the tree back up and positioned it straight out, this time against the high part of the boulder.
William counted again and they all heaved forward.

The rock shifted slightly
on their third stroke. On the fourth heave, the tree trunk bowed out to the side, pushing Al close to the edge. The tyrannosaur snapped in his direction. He screamed, exciting it even more. The inside of its mouth was an ugly blank white.

“Pull!” Al
shouted, still holding onto the tree. The others yanked the tree back, tugging Al away from the edge.

“This tree is worthless,”
he spat. “It’s going to get us killed.” He shoved it over the cliff. The dinosaur bent and sniffed it in the clearing below.

“It moved,”
Tim said. “That rock moved a little. We can still kill this bastard. There’s got to be a way.”

“There’s a way,” Hank said. “If one of us got down in that crevice, there should be enough leverage to push it loose.”

William looked over the edge and then at Hank. “Are you volunteering?”

Callie took him by the arm. “Hank, no.”

“Don’t worry, babe. I would, but my rotator cuff isn’t up to it. But Tim could manage. He climbs around on half-finished rooftops all day, right?”

Tim chewed absently on his lip and nodded slowly. He looked to William. “What do you think?”

William looked over the edge. The thought of climbing down the cliff wall made his stomach tumble. But the tyrannosaur’s mouth clearly could not fit in the crevice. Tim would be safe as long as he stayed in the gap. William wanted the creature to die. It had killed Beth and there was no way to know how long it would stick around. He looked up at Tim. “Can you do it?”

Tim nodded.

“I think it’s worth a shot.”

Tim
turned and sat down on the edge of the cliff with his feet dangling into the crevice. Twisting around, he anchored his hands in a crack and reached below with one leg.

Morgan squirmed away.
“Whoa, dude. That’s insane.”

The dinosaur scrambled forward and mouthed the crevice with renewed interest, but its oversized jaws could not fit in
to the gap.

Tim stretched with his other leg, touching the boulder behind him. The distance was too far to get any real leverage. “I’ve got to get lower.” Tim walked himself down into the crevice with his hands on the cliff and his feet on the jutting rock behind him. As
the gap narrowed, the going seemed to become easier.

“Tim, you don’t have to do this,” Lisa called. “We can figure out something else.”

“He’s already down there,” Hank said. “Let him try.”

“
Yeah, but how is he going to get back up?”

William
felt his stomach tumble again. Lisa was right. If Tim did somehow knock the rock free, he wouldn’t be able to use it to climb back up. He would need to scale the cliff in front of him. William leaned forward to look over the edge.

Tim
dug his fingers into a crack on the wall. He braced his elbows against the cliff and walked his legs up on the rock behind him. Tim’s arms trembled as he held himself horizontal and pushed the rock with his feet.

“It’s moving!” Callie shouted.

The rock
shifted and widened the gap. The tyrannosaur noticed this and nosed forward. The crevice was still too small for its oversized jaws, but not by much. Spittle from the tyrannosaur’s breath landed on Tim as the dinosaur snapped at him.

Tim let his legs drop from the rock behind him. His knees slammed against the wall below and he grunted.

“That’s enough,” William said. He realized that if the rock broke away and
didn’t
land on the tyrannosaur, Tim would be exposed on the cliff at exactly the height of its jaws. “Get out of there, Tim. This isn’t working.”

“
What’s that noise?” Callie said. A high-pitched shriek came from the woods across the clearing.

Down below, Tim let go with one hand and
flexed his fingers, stretching them. William’s heart pounded in his chest. He couldn’t tell if Tim’s feet were on some sort of ledge below, or if he was supporting his entire weight with his other hand.

T
he tyrannosaur grew still and quiet.

“
I need some help here, guys,” Tim called up.

T
he yelping sound repeated over and over as it grew closer.

A small dog burst into the clearing below. It
stopped right behind the tyrannosaur and yelped louder, then turned and ran in the direction of the river. Its short, scruffy tail curled pathetically under its belly. The remains of a leash bounced along on the ground behind it.

“Oh my G
od!” Lisa gasped. “Is that a dog?”

“What
’s happening?” Tim called out, “William, I need a hand.”

The dog’s pursuer emerged from the forest
.
Triceratops horridus.

Morgan’s face froze in an enormous grin. “Fuckin’ A!”

The animal was huge, nearly as tall as the tyrannosaur, and three tons heavier. It knocked over a thirty-foot tree as it shouldered into the clearing and then came to a stop facing the tyrannosaur.

The two dinosaurs focused on one another
, both motionless. After more than a hundred thousand years of coexistence, tyrannosaurs had developed an instinctive fear of the horned dinosaurs. Triceratops traveled in large groups and worked together to run down predators that ventured too close. They did more than just chase away intruders. They pursued them in groups of five or six, sometimes for hours, until they exhausted their enemy. They attacked as a team, surrounding the predator and striking from all sides. They did not stop until the intruder was gored to death by dozens of strikes with their horns.

The
Triceratops in the clearing stood alone, however. It had wandered away from its herd. The tyrannosaur sensed a rare opportunity. With its eyes locked on the horned animal’s face, it stepped slowly away from the cliff wall.

The
Triceratops charged. Its massive head lolled from side to side as it ran. The tips of its meter-long horns swished audibly through the air.

The tyrannosaur opened its mouth and let out an earth-shaking
bellow.

Tim heard and felt the roar
, but could not see anything other than the cliff wall. It was the first time the tyrannosaur had made more than a few gasps or grunts. The angry sound pounded Tim’s chest. Pebbles rolled down the cliff wall into his hair. He shouted up at the sky, “Can you guys lower a branch or something?”

He heard no reply.

Tim looked down and saw a wider ledge to his right. He had to lower himself further to stand on it, but at least he was able to take some of the weight off of his hands. It also brought him closer to the opening between the rock and the wall. He looked out over his right shoulder.

In the clearing below, t
he Triceratops barreled forward like a locomotive. The tyrannosaur lifted its foot high in the air and brought it down just before the Triceratops made contact. The foot landed on the giant frill that grew back and away from the horned animal’s face. Three massive claws clenched through leathery skin below one of the long horns, piercing bone. The tyrannosaur kicked downward at the same moment, rotating the charging animal’s head and slamming it to the ground. A victim of its own momentum, the Triceratops slid forward on its front shoulder. The tyrannosaur sidestepped, lowered its head, and sunk nine-inch teeth into the Triceratops’ hip.

Rubble and dust rolled down the cliff
into Tim’s face as the twenty-thousand pound Triceratops came to a stop below. The boulder behind him shifted away several more inches, widening the gap. He looked up again. “
Hello? Is anyone there?
”

The tyrannosaur leaned forward over its enemy, raising its tail high in the air. Its jaws
were splayed so wide around the Triceratops’ flank that it could not close its mouth.

Lying on its side, the
Triceratops dug its legs into the ground and pivoted toward its attacker. Once it gained traction with its feet, it snapped its head upward and one of the three-foot spikes lacerated the side of the tyrannosaur’s belly.

Yes. Please. Kill it
, Tim thought.

The
tyrannosaur released its grip, roared, and backed away a few steps.

The four-legged battering ram bounded onto its feet and pressed the attack. It charged ruthlessly, aiming its horns for the tyrannosaur’s gut. This time the charge connected. The short, wide horn on its nose plunged deep.

The Triceratops pushed forward, backing the tyrannosaur into the cliff. Tim gripped the handhold tightly in front of him and closed his eyes as the tyrannosaur slammed against the crevice. The predator’s neck blocked out the light and the boulder shifted inward now, leaving Tim with only a few inches of clearance. As he shifted his grip, he felt the rock scrape his back.

This is it
, Tim thought. The group up top had probably used the distraction to flee back to the river or maybe to Al’s mythical cave. Whatever happened next was out of his control. Remembering how Morgan had touched the hadrosaur skin in the café, Tim let go with one hand and reached out to touch the tyrannosaur’s hide. The downy layer felt as soft as goose feathers, but underneath it was like living rock. Hard, rough, and flexing.

The tyrannosaur
lifted its knee, dislodging the horn from its gut and knocking away the Triceratops’ face. As it stepped clear from the wall, the giant boulder broke free. It tumbled back and off to Tim’s left, away from the two dinosaurs battling on the right. Tim felt a shake when the rock hit the ground below. He was now completely exposed on the side of the cliff.

Oh shit, oh shit.
He inhaled and discovered that he was about to scream without even meaning to. He stopped himself, realizing that it might draw their attention.

Tim
watched the Triceratops dig in with its hind legs and snort. It pawed the ground with one of its front feet. Tim looked for a crevice or handhold he could use to pull himself up. As long as the tyrannosaur stayed focused on the battle, it might not notice him. The rock wall at the local gym had little plastic knobs every ten inches.
Where the hell are the goddamn plastic knobs?
Above him, the wall was smooth and flat. Without the boulder behind him for leverage, there was no way to climb up.

The
Triceratops stopped snorting and lunged, head lowered and horns horizontal.

With
the boulder gone, Tim realized that the trajectory of the next charge would drive the tyrannosaur right into him. If he wasn’t crushed, he would be knocked from the wall. He looked down. He considered dropping twenty feet onto the jagged rocks below, but could not make himself let go.

The tyrannosaur
did not allow the Triceratops to drive it backwards. The predator repeated its earlier move, lifting a leg and kicking downward on the charging animal’s face. This time it caught the horned beast on the snout. It kicked hard, turning the Triceratops’ head away from its body. The tyrannosaur swooped down and buried its teeth behind the creature’s large frill. Tim heard a series of pops as ten thousand pounds of jaw pressure separated the Triceratops’ neck vertebrae. The animal screamed, emitting a series of high-pitched screeches. The tyrannosaur squeezed harder and the screaming stopped.

A branch from above hit Tim’s hand, almost knocking h
im off the cliff. “Oh, fuck yes.” He grabbed it. “Pull me up, now!”

As
the others hoisted Tim up the rock wall, the tyrannosaur turned. The beast clearly saw him, but did not care. It leaned forward and opened the Triceratops’ gut. Mounds of intestines filled with fermenting plant matter spilled out. The predator sunk its head into the chest cavity and fed.

“Get me
the fuck away from here,” Tim said through hitching breaths as he came over the top of the cliff.

Callie held Hank’s hand as t
hey walked through the woods. The ground sloped gently upwards. No one had said anything since they had pulled Tim over the wall and quietly disappeared into the trees above the cliff. Hank led the group, and he seemed to be steering them slowly to the right, back toward the river. Callie wondered if the café was still there.

“Guys, look over that way,” Al said. Everyone stopped. He pointed at a cluster of mossy stones
among the trees off to the left. “I think we should head in that direction.” In the distance, larger formations of rock loomed in the shadows.

Hank took one look and said, “Nope.” He started walking again.

Callie stayed right beside him. It made sense to get back to the café and she wasn’t about to leave Hank.

Al
called after them, “This is the perfect time to search for shelter. That tyrannosaur has all the food it needs.”