Dinosaur Thunder (10 page)

“I’ll cover it,” Paulson said, pushing Carson under the rotors and up the stairs into the helicopter.

Carson found himself buckled into a leather seat, watching Ocala disappear below him, worrying that his future was going bye-bye at the same time.

The marine pilots landed the helicopter on the Mills Ranch in an empty corral. The Millses came out onto their back deck, and then down the stairs. Fanny was in dark blue shorts, a sheer light blue T-shirt over a swimsuit top. Marty wore swim trunks and polo shirt with an alligator logo. Both wore flip-flops.

“Wow, Carson,” Fanny said, hugging Carson in greeting. “You know how to make an entrance.”

Fanny smelled of suntan lotion, but on Fanny it was exotic. Fanny released Carson. Her swimsuit was still damp, and now there were two wet spots on her shirt where her breasts had pressed against Carson.

“Who are your friends?” Marty asked.

“This is Nick Paulson, Ranger Wynooski, Dr. Gah, and a small sample of the U.S. Marine Corps,” Carson said.

Fanny greeted each as warmly as she did Carson the first time they met, leaving Carson a little jealous.

“Nick Paulson?” Fanny said, taking Paulson’s hand a second time and now holding it.

“Yeah, it’s him,” Carson said, stepping between them and breaking Fanny’s grip. “If it’s okay, I’d like to show them where I killed the velociraptors.”

Carson started Fanny and Marty back toward their house.

“We’ll go along,” Marty said. “You might need our help again.”

“We’ve got marines,” Carson said. “Besides, I got the velociraptors already. There’s no danger.”

“We killed one of them,” Fanny said.

“I meant we,” Carson said. “You haven’t seen any more, have you?”

“No,” the Millses said at the same time.

“I’ll just give them a walk-through, and then we’ll be on our way,” Carson said.

“They came in a helicopter!” Marty said. “We should at least give them lunch.”

“We’ll barbecue,” Fanny said.

“I’ll bring them to the house when we’re done,” Carson said. “You light the charcoal.”

“It’s a natural gas barbecue,” Marty said.

“Of course,” Carson said, shooing them toward the house.

Carson resisted patting Fanny on the fanny as she turned to go.

“They’re nice folks, but it’s best if the civilians stay out of the way,” Carson said to Paulson’s team.

“And just what branch of the service do the Dinosaur Wranglers belong to?” Ranger Wynooski asked, tapping the name embroidered into Carson’s shirt.

“This way,” Carson said, ignoring the obnoxious fat ranger.

Carson led them toward the dilapidated barn. Four marines accompanied them, wearing light combat gear and carrying M16s. Paulson, Gah, and Wynooski carried daypacks. Carson stopped by the spot where the Millses killed the second velociraptor.

“I got one of them right here,” Carson said.

Ranger Wynooski knelt, looking in the grass and sending up a cloud of flies with a wave of her hand.

“Quite a bit of blood. What did you shoot it with?”

“Shotgun,” Carson said.

“The carcass looked like you put it through a meat grinder,” Dr. Gah said.

“I shot it twice,” Carson said.

“Right,” Wynooski said. “Capturing it ever cross your mind? That’s what I would have done.”

“Rangers won’t answer calls this far from a preserve,” Carson said. “That’s why they called me.”

“We’d answer for velociraptors,” Wynooski said. “That’s for damn sure. And we wouldn’t have to blow them to bits with shotguns either.”

“I got the other one in here,” Carson said, leading them through the opening in the wall.

Inside, everything was as Carson had left it. The nest was gone, the hay spread around. Two marines accompanied Carson’s group into the barn.

“I shot it on the stairs and it fell down here,” Carson said.

Dr. Gah squatted, studying the dirt where the blood had soaked in. Ants covered the spot.

“Was the velociraptor coming down the stairs?” Paulson asked.

“No, going up,” Carson said.

“Was it in the barn when you came in?” Paulson asked.

“No … actually I’m not sure,” Carson said, thinking back. “When I first came through here, the barn looked empty. I was searching for the velociraptors when I heard the first one. It might have been hiding. Back in there, maybe.”

Carson pointed toward the collapsed end of the barn. The jumble of beams and boards created dark hollows.

Paulson pulled a flashlight from a side pocket of his backpack, peering into the crevices, systematically working along the back wall away from the opening to the far corner.

“I said I got them,” Carson said.

“They were male and female,” Paulson said. “They may have nested.”

Carson said nothing, concentrating on not looking guilty.

“This looks like it goes pretty far back,” Paulson said.

Dr. Gah knelt next to him, and then Wynooski knelt, who was surprisingly flexible for a woman of her size.

“It can’t go too far,” Wynooski said, “the wall ends right there. If it goes more than five feet, you’d be outside again.”

“I don’t see daylight,” Dr. Gah said.

“You come out in a shadow on the other side, that’s why,” Wynooski said.

“You know that, or you think that?” Dr. Gah asked.

“Has to be,” Wynooski said. “What else would explain it? Here, I’ll crawl in and show you.”

“Ma’am, don’t do that,” one of the marines said, stepping forward.

Lieutenant Sam Weller was in charge of the detail, their orders to protect Nick Paulson. Now Weller squatted next to Paulson.

“We’ll confirm it’s secure. Kelton, crawl in there and make sure there’s nothing hiding. Snead, check outside and see where it comes out.”

A marine barely old enough to shave came forward, getting ready to crawl through the opening.

“I can see from here it doesn’t go anywhere,” Kelton said.

Kelton started forward, ducking under a broken beam. Inching forward, rifle in his arms, he did not get far.

“It ends right here,” Kelton said, his voice strangely muffled. “It’s kind of funny. I can’t really touch the end, but I’m stuck.”

To Carson it looked like the marine had room to spare.

“All right, get out of there,” Weller said.

Snead came back from outside, reporting that he could not find an opening. With Kelton back out of the hole, Wynooski stood.

“I could have told you that went nowhere. That’s barely big enough for a velociraptor anyway.”

Wynooski wandered off, looking around the interior and then going up the stairs. A marine followed her. Gah and Paulson continued to stare into the opening. Gah had his own flashlight out now. Carson stayed with Paulson and Gah, preferring anyone’s company to Wynooski’s.

“What do you see?” Paulson asked.

“I can’t see anything past those boards there,” Gah said, using his flashlight like a pointer. “The light just kind of goes nowhere.”

Paulson crawled into the opening, holding his flashlight in one hand. He did an awkward three-point crawl, moving a little at a time. Lieutenant Weller watched without concern.

“It kind of widens out,” Paulson said in a muffled voice. “Is this a sewer pipe?”

Then Paulson disappeared into the dark.

“Where’d you go?” Gah asked, getting down on his knees and leaning in the opening.

Gah crawled into the hole, and soon he was gone too. Surprised, Lieutenant Weller squatted, using his own light to look inside.

“Dr. Paulson? Dr. Gah? Where are you?”

No answer. Carson looked but could not see anyone. Weller got down, crawling into the opening. His polished boots were still sticking out when he stopped. Then he backed out in a hurry.

“Something’s not right. They’re gone. They’re not in there.”

“Who’s not in where?” Wynooski asked, coming back down the stairs.

“Kelton, Sampson, stay here,” Weller ordered the other two marines. “Snead, come with me.”

Weller ran outside to check the perimeter. Wynooski knelt by Carson.

“What happened?” Wynooski asked.

“Dr. Paulson and Dr. Gah crawled in there and now there’s no sign of them.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Wynooski shone her light in the opening. “There must be a side passage.”

Wynooski crawled into the opening. Carson turned away as her large khaki-covered bottom rocked back and forth and then disappeared like the others.

“I knew it,” Wynooski said, her muffled voice coming from the blackness.

“Knew what?” Carson asked, and then repeated it, shouting.

Wynooski was gone. Cursing, Carson crawled into the opening, not afraid of the dark, but of running into Wynooski’s big ass.

“I wouldn’t do that, sir,” Kelton said.

Kelton’s muffled voice sounded like it was coming from a long distance off and strangely low pitched. Carson paused, looked back, seeing Kelton saying something he could not hear. Small and distant, it was as if Carson were looking through the wrong side of a pair of binoculars. Kelton’s lips were silently voicing something. Carson crawled a few more feet, felt the surface change, and then felt his stomach flutter. Carson stopped crawling, but his forward motion continued. Then he was falling.

12

Strange Journey

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said, “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

—Lewis Carroll,
Through the Looking-Glass

Unknown Time
Unknown Place

Carson tumbled down a rocky slope, shoulders, knees, elbows, and hands scraped and bruised as he flailed, trying to break his fall. Ranger Wynooski’s ample bottom finally stopped the tumble.

“Oof,” Wynooski said. “I knew you were going to do that.”

Quickly rolling away, Carson sat up on a spongy surface under a leafy canopy. Low on the horizon, the sun punched through holes in the canopy, the rays warm on Carson’s skin.

“Where the hell are we?” Carson asked, looking around.

The open farmland, paddocks, and house were gone. Instead they stood amongst tall, ugly palms, the ground clear except for patches of ferns, the spongy ground thick with decaying vegetation. The humid air smelled of decay, lacking the manure accent that characterized the Mills Ranch. Paulson and Gah stood a short distance away, by a palm tree in a patch of ferns nearly head high.

“We’re on the Mills Ranch,” Wynooski said with confidence. “Where else could we be?”

“But it was afternoon,” Carson said. “And what’s with all this?”

Carson indicated the leafy vegetation that looked more like the Everglades than a central Florida farm.

“Obviously, the Mills have a garden,” Wynooski said, now sounding a little uncertain.

Ignoring her, Carson moved closer to Paulson and Gah.

“What is this?” Carson asked.

“It’s a cycad,” Paulson said, showing Carson the leaf of the tree they were standing by, misunderstanding Carson’s question.

The leaf looked like a comb, with fine green teeth.

“Not the palm tree!” Carson said. “I’m talking about all of this!”

“It’s not a palm tree,” Dr. Gah said, arching thick black eyebrows.

“It’s a cycad,” Paulson repeated. “See, the fronds grow out of the top, then die off creating a layer, and then more grow out, and layer by layer it forms what looks like a tree.”

“Where are we?” Carson demanded, ignoring the lecture on the characteristics of cycads.

Paulson took Carson by the shoulders, looking him straight in the eye. “Mr. Wills, I am sure you know that the dinosaurs you captured had to come from somewhere. I believe that we have gone to where they come from.”

“He murdered them, he didn’t capture them,” Wynooski said, walking closer so she could butt in.

“What? But they come from thousands of years ago,” Carson stammered.

“Millions, actually,” Dr. Gah said, infuriatingly calm.

“At least sixty-five million years ago,” Paulson said. “Although we can’t be sure from the cycads, since they survived to the modern age.”

“What?” Carson said, using his standard reflexive response.

“The Dinosaur Wrangler isn’t an expert on dinosaurs!” Wynooski said, mocking Carson. “What a surprise.”

“It’s hard to explain,” Paulson said, “but ever since the Time Quilt that brought the dinosaurs to our present, we have been connected to the Cretaceous period. This is probably where your velociraptors came from.”

Carson looked around with new interest. “Velociraptors? Here?” Carson asked, now nervous.

“If this is the Cretaceous period,” Paulson said cautiously, “then yes. We would need to see some local fauna to confirm the era.”

“Screw that!” Carson said, eyes darting to movement when the slight breeze rustled leaves. “How do we get back?”

“The way we came, of course,” Wynooski said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder.

Carson looked back up the hill he had tumbled down. It was loose rock, and steep. Near the top was a dark depression.

“Let’s go,” Carson said, scrambling up the steep hill.

Carson’s efforts sent rocks and dirt tumbling down, the others backing out of the way of the small avalanche, waving away dust. Every time Carson made progress, he would find himself sliding back down. The opening remained maddeningly out of his reach.

“Give me a shove!” Carson yelled, wiping dirty sweat from his eyes.

“You’ll never get there that way,” Wynooski said, hands on her hips. “The way to do this is to find a way up there and then down that path to where we came out.”

Carson backed down the slope, studying the opening toward the top. He hated it, but Wynooski was right. There was a path from the top of the cliff down to the cave.

“Okay, let’s do that!” Carson said, starting left, and then seeing no path, turning right—no path either way. “Which way?” Carson asked.

Now everyone looked right and left.

“Left,” Paulson said finally.

“I was just going to say that,” Wynooski said, taking the lead.