The Dinosaur Four (31 page)

“I know. It’s dangerous, them going off alone.”

“They’ll be ok. Tim has the shovel.” Other than a few small knives, it was the closest thing they had to a weapon. Al imagined Tim trying to fight off a dinosaur with a short-handled shovel. He fought to keep the smile off of his face.

Just another couple of hours
, he told himself. After that, everyone would forget about trying to get home and they could focus on real survival. Their ridiculous plan would never work. First, they had to get the tyrannosaur to return to the café by banging pots and pans again. Then they had to hope it would stand still on a snare while they shoved a piece of rubble off the far side of the building. The falling weight would pull the loop tight around its leg and maybe even yank the creature off its feet. If they were lucky, Helen explained, its leg might break.

Once the dinosaur was snared, the plan was to lower a
second loop of cable over its head. Then, they would shove another heavy object off the far side of the building to either snap its neck or strangle it. After the creature was dead, they could cut open its belly and retrieve the device. This, Al thought, was the most foolish thing he had ever heard.

With an
y luck, Tim would run into the tyrannosaur on his hunt for bait and Callie would come back alone. He did not want to compete with Tim, neither for leadership nor for the women. He should have killed him in the woods when he had the chance. He vowed not to pass up another opportunity like that.

Once Tim was out of the picture, Al Stevens would be the only human male on the face of the
Earth. It would be him and Lisa and Callie. A beautiful brunette and a stunning redhead. And old Helen to teach them about hunting and fishing, at least for as long as she lasted.

Tim
and Callie jogged through the trees, back toward the cliff and the dead Triceratops. The light in the forest had grown dim, but it was still easy enough to see.

“So much for us not splitting up,” she said.

Tim nodded. “Yeah, I know. But we don’t have much time.”

Buddy passed them, chasing after a foot-long dragonfly.

At first, Tim had considered sending the dog back to the café, but then he decided that having him along might be a good idea. Buddy’s senses of hearing and smell might give them an early warning if anything dangerous showed up. Just as before, the dog came and went as he pleased.

“What do you think about what Al said?” Callie asked. “About not being able to save Hank?”

“I don’t know. Nobody’s ever done this before.”

“I’ve been going over it in my mind. I think there might be some truth to it.”

“Don’t listen to Al. He’s an asshole.”

Callie laughed. “You were ready to hit him back there, weren’t you?”

“I was ready to knock him into the river.” He laughed with her, but then grew serious. “I feel bad about it. Beth said that the second biggest threat in a horror movie was
the other guy
. I don’t want to be that person.”

Small gliding reptiles leapt from branch to branch in front of them, floating on membranes of skin between their legs. One snatched Buddy’s dragonfly out of the air.
Buddy chased the creature to a tree and pawed furiously at the bark below it. Another glider swooped by, seeming to taunt him.

“
I don’t think you are that person,” Callie said. “I think Al is dangerous. I don’t think he wants us to get back.”

Tim looked at her sideways but kept
jogging. “That’s crazy. Why would anyone want to stay here?”

“Did you see the look on his face when I made that comment
about an orgy?”

“You embarrassed him.”

“Tim, he has been ogling all of us ever since we got here. Especially Lisa.”

Tim agreed that Al was
strange, but the idea that anyone would want to stay here was ridiculous. Callie had lost her fiancé. She wasn’t thinking straight. “This is a crazy-ass situation. I don’t think any of us are really at our best.”

Callie stopped, breathing hard. She
put her hands on her hips. “What do you do for a living again?”

“I’m a carpenter. I build the wood framing
for new houses mostly.”

“Well, my job is to observe people. And I’m telling you, there’s something not right about that guy.”
She started running again.

Ahead, the forest brightened slightly as they approached the clearing. Buddy stood perfectly still
next to the last few trees, staring forward with one paw lifted. Tim slowed to a stop and held the shovel before him in two hands. Buddy growled quietly, a low rumble from deep in his chest. Tim was panting too hard to hear anything up ahead.

“What is it?” whispered Callie. They saw movement
in the clearing, low to the ground.

“It isn’t the T-rex.
Whatever it is, it looks small. Let’s find out.”

He stepped forward tentatively, trying to get close enough to see. Buddy launched himself through the trees,
his legs splayed wide with each bound. When he reached the clearing, he began to bark wildly.

“Buddy!” Tim dashed after him.
Callie ran close behind, also calling his name.

In the clearing, Buddy threw himself into a pack of seven bird-like
Deinonychus, which scattered from the remains of the Triceratops.

The
Deinonychus were less than three feet long from head to tail, but their emerald plumage made them seem larger. Long wispy feathers sprouted from their heads and ran in a row down their backs.

The two-legged dinosaurs
fled in all directions, screeching and hissing. Their mouths were filled with more than sixty sharp points, lined up like the teeth on a saw.

“They look like birds
,” Callie observed.

“Yeah, birds with arms
and hands instead of wings,” Tim said. “They’re acting more like a pack of dogs, though. Coyotes maybe.”

Buddy
ran to the right, chasing the three closest Deinonychus toward the cliff. Two leapt up the rock wall, but the third fell short and slid back down. Buddy pounced, grasping the creature by its neck. The dog shook his head vigorously back and forth.

The
screeching Deinonychus swung its foot, hooking Buddy’s shoulder with a large, terrible claw, but then fell limp as its neck snapped. Buddy dropped the animal and turned back toward the Triceratops, oblivious to his wound.

The four remaining
Deinonychus stood silently in the trees just beyond the remains of the horned animal. Tim and Callie approached the carcass.

“Buddy, come,” Tim commanded. The dog moved close.

Callie gave a dry, retching cough as she approached the gutted body of the Triceratops.

Tim
circled the carcass, searching for a section of flesh he could slice off with the shovel blade. He raised the shovel and struck the dinosaur near the middle of its remaining leg. The steel blade bounced off the thick hide.

“Shit. This isn’t working.” He pulled out a small hunting knife. “This is going to take forever.”

Buddy growled a low warning.

“They’re coming back,” Callie
said.

Two of the larger
Deinonychus, showing flecks of gold in their feathers, stepped into the clearing and hissed.

Tim lifted the shovel in one hand and shouted, “
YAAAAH!
” as he took an exaggerated step toward the nearest dinosaur. The two-foot tall Deinonychus turned, ran into the woods, but looped back, this time coming farther into the clearing.

Callie
suddenly squealed and jumped back. A baseball-sized tick clung to her running shoe with its long, crab-like legs. She screamed again and kicked, sending the tick flying.

Several other ticks, swollen with blood, moved across the weedy ground in search of their next host.

A rustling sound came from behind. The two Deinonychus that had fled up the cliff had returned. They watched from a distance.

“
Look at them. They’ve got us surrounded,” Tim said. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Tim, there are
lots
of these ticks.”

“I’m a little more worried about th
e bird dinosaurs,” Tim said. “The ticks won’t hurt us.” To prove his point, he stepped forward and stomped on the closest one. It exploded with a satisfying burst, like an overripe tomato, but the fluid that splattered outwards was almost black.

“Yeah, I know,” Callie said. “But these ticks are full of
Triceratops blood. We can use them to attract the T-rex.” She found another tick slowly marching from the carcass. Mustering every last bit of emotional fortitude, Callie reached down and used two hands to pick up the tick, grabbing it by the back of its bloated abdomen. Its black legs wiggled and clicked in the air, reaching for her. “Hold open your bag.”

Tim planted the shovel in the soil and spread open one of the heavy
duty trash bags Lisa had given them. The nearest Deinonychus took a few steps closer, but Buddy ran at it, barking. The dinosaur retreated to the trees.

“Behind us,” noted Callie. The two dinosaurs from the cliff came closer. At the same time, one of the others jumped up onto the remains of the
Triceratops and held its feathery arms wide, as if offering a hug.

“Ok
ay, the ticks will have to do,” Tim said. He had been hoping to have Triceratops meat they could try to cook in case the plan failed, but he didn’t mention that to Callie.

He feinted to
ward the dinosaurs behind them. They retreated halfway back to the cliff.

Callie picked up three more ticks and stuffed them into the bag. Now that
it was partially filled, Tim propped it upright on the ground and began to help her. Together they quickly filled the first bag. Tim tied off the opening when he thought it was too heavy to risk adding any more.

“They’re getting closer,” Callie warned.

Three Deinonychus surrounded Buddy, holding their arms wide. Sharp talons flexed on their hands. The hair along Buddy’s back stood straight up and his tail was tucked between his legs. He growled, but a whining whimper crept into the sound.

Tim pulled the shovel out of the ground and jabbed it at the dinosaurs.

This time they did not retreat. They hissed at him and turned back to the dog.

Buddy’s lips were pulled
away from his muzzle and he snapped his head left and right toward each of the three dinosaurs around him. The one in the center extended its arms straight out to both sides and shook them. The feathers hanging from its arms danced like a waterfall. Tim realized the center animal was distracting Buddy so that its companions could attack from the sides.

The
Deinonychus flanking Buddy on the left crouched, bending its legs for the killing leap.

Callie pulled a plastic garbage bag from her
belt and snapped it open in the wind. It crackled as it filled with air, forming a shiny black balloon. The Deinonychus screamed, fell backwards, and retreated into the woods.

Callie
chuckled. She pulled another empty bag from her belt and handed it to Tim. “Try this.” Together, they opened the bags wide and flapped them in the air. The five remaining Deinonychus scattered. Even Buddy sidestepped away from the snapping plastic, his tail still tucked. Tim and Callie laughed.

They filled two more bags with ticks, aware that the pack continued to watch them from the shadows. They pulled
the last few parasites from the folds of skin behind the Triceratops’ remaining knee. Tim also collected the Deinonychus that Buddy had killed at the base of the cliff. It weighed surprisingly little.

“Let’s get back, shall we?” Callie said, shouldering a full bag.
She did her best to ignore the constant wiggling motion of the ticks inside. “C’mon, Buddy!”

The dog bristled as the
Deinonychus pack moved in to reclaim the carcass. Buddy gave three sharp barks and then turned to follow Tim and Callie back toward the river.

The trip back to the café went quickly. Tim
set a steady pace. The sky had turned a bruise-colored purple and the woods were now darker than when they first fled from the tyrannosaur that morning. Callie wasn’t exactly sure how long they had left, but figured it was around an hour. Their chances of getting home were thin.
Don’t give up
, she told herself. If they didn’t try, their chances dropped to nothing.

She believed her chances of seeing
Hank again were even slimmer.
Al may be right,
she thought. The realization hurt, but she couldn’t hide from it any longer. If she made it to the present and used the fail-safe to jump back and forth, Hank still wouldn’t be with her. She would see him briefly in the café and then return to her own timeline without him.

And you’re a goddamn expert on time travel now?
Head Hank did not seem happy about this line of thought. “Head Hank” struck her as a hell of a name for someone who had been decapitated.