The Deadly Past (3 page)

Adam screamed at her. “It's not hopeless! You just don't want to try to save her because you don't like her!”

Sally had tears on her face. “I would do anything to save her, if I thought there was one chance in a million. But there is no chance, Adam.”

Adam paused and lowered his head. “I didn't mean that. I know she was your friend, too. I'm sorry I yelled at you.”

Sally squeezed his arm. “That's all right. We all know how much you liked Cindy.”

Watch cleared his throat. “Let's not bury her just yet. I've been thinking some more, and there
is a chance she's alive, and may be alive for a while longer, long enough to be rescued maybe.”

Adam raised his eyes. “What do you mean? That pterodactyl looked starving.”

Watch stared at the mountain peaks where Cindy had disappeared. “We assume the pterodactyl was hunting for itself, that it was hungry. But none of us knows what a hungry pterodactyl looks like. What if the creature was actually hunting for its babies?”

“You think that was a mama pterodactyl?” Sally asked.

“There's a good chance it was,” Watch said. “And if it brought Cindy back to its nest to feed its young, it might not kill her right away. Most reptiles like to eat living things.”

“But the children will be waiting hungrily,” Sally said in a shaky voice.

“Not necessarily,” Watch said. “The mother obviously hunts in the daytime, and maybe even at night. But I read an article once that postulated that most baby dinosaurs slept away the majority of the day. And it's an especially hot day today. They might all be asleep when the pterodactyl returns to its nest with Cindy.”

Adam's face suddenly regained life. “Then we have to go after them now!”

Watch stopped him. “We can't go after Cindy or the pterodactyl on foot, at least not for the first part of the trip. Those mountaintops are miles away. We need to get a car or, better yet, a four-wheel-drive truck. There's a road up into those mountains that I know.” He paused. “We'll head toward town, find some transportation, and I'll go after her.”

“Why you?” Adam asked.

Watch listed the reasons. “Because I know how to drive. Because I know those mountains. Because you're injured. Because you're both forgetting something important—where there is one dinosaur, there can be two dinosaurs. You two have to get back to town and warn everyone what's happening.”

“It's true that Adam is injured and should stay behind,” Sally said. “But I should go with you, Watch.”

Watch shook his head. “It's too dangerous. Why risk both of us? Two of us won't improve Cindy's chances of survival. Also, you two will work better if you're together. And I think better alone.”

“What are we working on?” Adam asked, feeling weak from the loss of blood and the grief. He still could not believe Cindy was gone. He kept expecting to look over and see her smiling face. The sound of her screams as the creature dragged her away haunted him.

“Isn't it obvious?” Watch said. “We have to figure out what dinosaurs are doing in our time, in our city. Then we have to discover a way to get rid of them.”

“Do you have any theories?” Sally asked.

Watch nodded. “I have a basic theory. Somehow our time must have merged with an ancient time. There haven't been pterodactyls on earth in seventy million years. But what caused this merger I have no idea.”

“Do you think the two times are just merging here, or all over the world?” Adam asked.

“I hope just here,” Watch said. “If our time and the time of the dinosaurs have merged everywhere, we're in real trouble. But I don't think that's the case. We have seen only one pterodactyl, not dozens. The doorway between the two times is probably localized.”

“But what could open such a doorway?” Sally asked.

“I have no idea,” Watch answered simply.

“Even if the gap between the times is localized, it must be big,” Adam said, “for these creatures to get through it. What if it's several miles across?”

“It's all relative,” Watch said. “If we can figure out how to close it, we can close it. Otherwise it doesn't matter how big or small it is. Also, my theory might be way off. Maybe the pterodactyl came from some strange place, not some other time.”

They started back to town. Adam soon began to feel so weak he needed to lean on Watch for support. Sally tore up what was left of Adam's shirt and made it into a bandage of sorts. Finally Adam's bleeding stopped but he continued to feel drained.

Sally wept quietly as they walked. They hoped to rescue Cindy. They would do everything they could to save her. But they weren't fooling themselves. The pterodactyl had been a fierce enemy. Cindy was probably dead already.

When they were about a quarter of a mile outside of town, they came across a parked truck. It was an odd place to find a truck. But it met Watch's highest criteria. It was a four-wheel-drive vehicle with a powerful engine and huge wheels.
The body of the blue truck was jacked up so high they could almost walk under it. The only problem was that it was locked, and there were no keys.

“I know how to hot-wire a truck,” Watch said, picking up a rock.

“That's stealing,” Sally said. Then she added, “But who cares at a time like this?”

Adam nodded. “Break the window and get going, Watch. Sally and I can make it back to town.”

Watch smashed the window with the rock. The sound made them all jump. “Maybe I should drive you back,” Watch said as he reached inside and unlocked the door. “It'll take only a few minutes.”

“No,” Adam said. “A few minutes might be the difference between life and death for Cindy.” He momentarily leaned on the truck for support. “You'll need a miracle to find the pterodactyl's nest.”

Watch brushed the glass off the front seat and climbed inside. “Not necessarily. I should be able to hear its screeching miles away.”

“But I bet the nest will be up high,” Sally said. “You're going to have to do some hiking. And then the pterodactyl will probably attack you once you're out of the truck.”

Watch smashed the ignition with his stone and pulled out the exposed wires. “Before it gets to me, you can be sure I'll have a big stick,” Watch said. After touching the ends of a black and red wire together, Watch heard the engine turn over and start. It roared to life as Watch pressed the gas. He added, “I think this truck will take me pretty close to where I need to go.”

Sally reached up and hugged Watch. “Don't take any unnecessary risks. Always try to know where you can take shelter. And keep your eyes and ears open at all times.”

Watch nodded. “I'll be careful.”

Adam squeezed Watch's arm. “Good luck. If you're able to save her, you'll be the biggest hero in the world. At least you'll be our hero.”

Watch also squeezed Adam's hand and looked him straight in the eye. “I don't think she's dead,” he said seriously. “If she was, we would feel it, you know? I don't feel it.”

Adam nodded sadly. “Let's hope for the best.”

Watch shut the door and gunned the engine, and soon the truck was just a cloud of settling dust on the narrow road that led up into the mountains. Adam and Sally watched it disappear with heavy hearts.

“Should we have let him go?” she asked.

Adam sighed. “Did we have a choice?”

“I hope the pterodactyl doesn't get him, too.”

“I hope it doesn't get all of us,” Adam said.

With that they turned once again toward town.

They had been walking less than two minutes when they realized they weren't alone. They had another visitor. Its head poked up over the surrounding trees. This one was bigger than the pterodactyl—unquestionably a real dinosaur.

And there was a kid riding on its back.

W
hen Cindy first woke up she felt and knew nothing except a pounding in her head. The stabs of pain came in rhythm, as if her blood were performing an insane dance on top of her delicate nerve endings. She moaned and the sound seemed to come from far away.

It was only slowly that she became aware of her surroundings and remembered what had happened to her on the bluff. Although her friends had heard her scream all the way back into the
mountains, Cindy had really been unconscious during the deadly flight. Her mouth had been screaming, not her mind. She had either gone into shock or been knocked out almost as soon as the pterodactyl grabbed her.

But the horror of that attack came back to her now and she sat up quickly and opened her eyes, stunned by what she saw.

She was in a nest so huge it could have housed a thousand normal birds. It was pieced together out of branches, mud, even a couple whole logs. It stunk of decomposing vegetation, and she had to hold her nose to keep from being sick. The nest had been built into a rocky crevasse near the top of a peak that didn't look even vaguely familiar. Peering over the edge, Cindy didn't even recognize the
type
of trees and bushes that lay far below. Even the sky was a strange color, purple streaked with heavy gray, that glittered with distant lightning.

Then there were the eggs. They lay off to her right, four of them, leaning against one another for support. Each was almost as big as Cindy and sickly yellow in color. As she stared at them the egg closest to her began to crack on the top.

“That's just great,” Cindy said. “Now I'm going to be baby food.”

Fortunately the mother pterodactyl was nowhere to be seen, and Cindy believed she could handle a single baby dinosaur. But she worried that all four might hatch at once, and she shuddered to think of the babies surrounding her and pecking at her flesh. Also, the mother could return at any moment and seriously wound her so that she couldn't put up a fight. Cindy realized that her blacking out was probably the only thing that had saved her. The mother pterodactyl had probably thought that she would be an easy meal for her children.

The top of the egg broke open and a single tiny claw emerged.

The creature inside screeched thinly.

Cindy knew she had to get out of the nest.

But the mother pterodactyl had built wisely, so close to the edge of the rocky peak that only the most agile enemies could prey on the eggs. Standing up, Cindy decided that her only chance was to climb up to the top of the peak, and hope there was a way down the other side. On this side there was nothing but sheer cliff below her.

Cindy was gripping the side of the nest when the first baby pterodactyl spilled out of its crumbling egg. The creature had simple needs. It was alive and now it wanted to eat. The first thing it did was stagger free of the ghostly fluid that covered its pale brown body. Then it screeched at Cindy.

“Food!”
it seemed to say. Cindy tried to pull herself out of the nest but was forced to stop to defend herself. The pterodactyl wanted a bite of her leg. Cindy watched in horror as it scampered toward her.

“Leave me alone!” Cindy cried, kicking at it, which gave it reason to pause but not go away. Cindy tried not to think about what would have happened if she hadn't regained consciousness a few minutes earlier. The baby pterodactyl would have just walked over and begun to feed on her. Like Sally said, it probably would have fed on her brain first.

Yuck!

Cindy kicked at it again and the nasty little baby had the nerve to scratch her right leg with one of its claws. Cindy couldn't believe how painful the cut was, and wondered if baby pterodactyls had poison on the tips of their claws. But
the weird thing was she didn't really want to hurt the creature, even though it was trying to eat her. She understood that attacking any living thing was its nature, that it was just hungry. At the same time she wasn't feeling warm enough toward the creature to take it home and build it a playhouse.

But where was home?

These couldn't be the mountains that surrounded Spooksville.

The shape of them, the plants that grew on them—everything looked primeval. It was as if the mother pterodactyl had not merely carried her away, but carried her into the past—far into the past.

Of course it was the present moment she was worried about.

The baby pterodactyl tried to scratch her again and Cindy was forced to kick it. She caught it with a clean shot and the little monster howled and backed off.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” Cindy said. “Don't go trying to eat things that are bigger than you.”

Cindy managed to pull herself out of the nest and onto a narrow ledge that ran along the
mountain peak. But the drop below her was at least two thousand feet. Her head spun. Desperately she clutched the surrounding stone. She had always been afraid of heights. Even riding up in an elevator in a tall building could make her dizzy. Trying not to look down, she slowly made her way toward a sharp break in the wall of the cliff that offered her handholds to pull herself up to the top of the peak. Behind her, the baby pterodactyl continued to screech. Cindy hoped it wasn't calling for mom to come home quick.

But that was probably exactly what it was doing.

Cindy carefully began to pull herself up, making sure with each step that her weight was fully supported. She wasn't far from the top of the mountain, maybe only two hundred feet. But that two hundred feet took her ages to cover. Glancing down set her head spinning, yet the temptation to do so refused to leave her. For the time being, she was her own worst enemy. She kept telling herself to stay cool, that she was lucky to be alive.

After what seemed an hour of climbing she pulled herself up on top of the peak. For a moment the view stole her breath away. In every direction was the most exotic scenery she had ever seen.
Massive waterfalls plunging thousands of feet into churning pools. Purple colored trees, larger than redwoods, that seemed to be straining to touch the sky with fat branches covered in blue leaves.