“Yes. They’re dinosaurs.”
Eddie frowned, stared. “I didn’t know they came so small,” he said finally.
“Dinosaurs were mostly small,” Malcolm said. “People always think they were huge, but the average dinosaur was the size of a sheep, or a small pony.”
Eddie said, “They look like chickens.”
“Yes. Very bird-like.”
“Is there any danger?” Thorne said.
“Not really,” Malcolm said. “They’re small scavengers, like jackals. They feed on dead animals. But I wouldn’t get close. Their bite is mildly poisonous.”
“I’m not getting close,” Eddie said. “They give me the creeps. It’s like they’re not scared.”
Malcolm had noticed that, too. “I imagine it’s because there haven’t been any human beings on this island. These animals don’t have any reason to fear man.”
“Well, let’s give them a reason,” Eddie said. He picked up a rock.
“Hey!” Malcolm said. “Don’t do that! The whole idea is—”
But Eddie had already thrown the rock. It landed near a cluster of compys, and the lizards ducked away. But the others hardly moved. A few of them hopped up and down, showing agitation. But the group stayed where they were. They just chittered, and cocked their heads.
“Weird,” Eddie said. He sniffed the air. “You notice that smell?”
“Yes,” Malcolm said. “They have a distinctive odor.”
“Rotten, is more like it,” Eddie said. “They smell rotten. Like something dead. And you ask me, it’s not natural, animals that don’t show fear like that. What if they have rabies or something?”
“They don’t,” Malcolm said.
“How do you know?”
“Because only mammals carry rabies.” But even as he said it, he wondered if that was right. Warm-blooded animals carried rabies. Were the compys warm-blooded? He wasn’t sure.
There was a rustling sound from above. Malcolm looked up at the canopy of trees overhead. He saw movement in the high foliage, as unseen small animals jumped from branch to branch. He heard squeaks and chirps, distinctly animal sounds.
“Those aren’t birds, up there,” Thorne said. “Monkeys?”
“Maybe,” Malcolm said. “I doubt it.”
Eddie shivered. “I say we get out of here.”
He returned to the stream, and climbed into the Explorer. Malcolm walked cautiously with Thorne back to the trailer entrance. The compys parted around them, but still did not run away. They stood all around their legs, chittering excitedly. Malcolm and Thorne climbed into the trailer and closed the doors, being careful not to shut them on the little creatures.
Thorne sat behind the wheel, and turned on the motor. Ahead, they saw that Eddie was already driving the Explorer through the stream, and heading up the sloping ridge on the far side.
“The, uh, procomso-whatevers,” Eddie said, over the radio. “They’re real, aren’t they?”
“Oh yes,” Malcolm said softly. “They’re real.”
The Road
Thorne was uneasy. He was beginning to understand how Eddie felt. He had built these vehicles, and he had an uncomfortable sense of isolation, of being in this faraway place with untested equipment. The road continued steeply upward through dark jungle for the next fifteen minutes. Inside the trailer, it grew uncomfortably warm. Sitting beside him, Malcolm said, “Air conditioning?”
“I don’t want to drain the battery.”
“Mind if I open the window?”
“If you think it’s all right,” Thorne said.
Malcolm shrugged. “Why not?” He pushed the button, and the power window rolled down. Warm air blew into the car. He glanced back at Thorne. “Nervous, Doc?”
“Sure,” Thorne said. “Damned right I am.” Even with the window open, he felt sweat running down his chest as he drove.
Over the radio, Eddie was saying, “I’m telling you, we should have tested first, Doc. Should have done it by the book. You don’t come to a place with poisonous chickens if you’re not sure your vehicles will hold up.”
“The cars are fine,” Thorne said. “How’s your levels?”
“High normal,” Eddie said. “Just great. Of course, we’ve only gone five miles. It’s nine in the morning, Doc.”
The road swung right, then left, following a series of switchbacks as the terrain became steeper. Hauling the big trailers, Thorne had to concentrate on his driving; it was a relief to focus his attention.
Ahead of them, the Explorer turned left, going higher up the road. “I don’t see any more animals,” Eddie said. He sounded relieved.
Finally the road flattened out as it turned, following the crest of the ridge. According to the GPS display, they were now heading northwest, toward the interior of the island. But the jungle still hemmed them in on all sides; they could not see much beyond the dense walls of foliage.
They came to a Y intersection in the road, and Eddie pulled over to the side. Thorne saw that in the crook of the Y was a faded wooden sign, with arrows pointing in both directions. To the left, the sign said “To Swamp.” To the right was another arrow, and the words, “To Site B.”
Eddie said, “Guys? Which way?”
“Go to Site B,” Malcolm said.
“You got it.” The Explorer started down the right fork. Thorne followed. Off to the right, sulfurous yellow steam issued from the ground, bleaching the nearby foliage white. The smell was strong.
“Volcanic,” Thorne said to Malcolm, “just as you predicted.” Driving past, they glimpsed a bubbling pool in the earth, crusted thick yellow around the edges.
“Yeah,” Eddie said, “but that’s active. In fact, I’d say that—holy shit!” Eddie’s brake lights flashed on, and his car slammed to a stop.
Thorne had to swerve, scraping jungle ferns on the side of the trailer, to miss him. He pulled up alongside the Explorer, and glared at Eddie. “Eddie, for Pete’s sake, will you—”
But Eddie wasn’t listening.
He was staring straight forward, his mouth wide open.
Thorne turned to look.
Directly ahead, the trees along the road had been beaten down, creating a gap in the foliage. They could see all the way from the ridge road across the entire island to the west. But Thorne hardly registered the panoramic view. Because all he saw was a large animal, the size of a hippopotamus, ambling across the road. Except it wasn’t a hippopotamus. This animal was pale brown, its skin covered with large plate-like scales. Around its head, it had a curving bony crest, and rising from this crest were two blunted horns. A third horn protruded above its snout.
Over the radio, he heard Eddie breathing in shallow gasps. “You know what that is?”
“That’s a triceratops,” Malcolm said. “A young one, by the looks of it.”
“Must be,” Eddie said. Ahead of them, a much larger animal now crossed the road. It was easily twice the size of the first, and its horns were long, curving, and sharp. “Because that’s his mom.”
A third triceratops appeared, then a fourth. There was a whole herd of creatures, ambling slowly across the road. They paid no attention to the vehicles as they crossed, passed through the gap, and descended down the
hill, disappearing from view.
Only then were the men able to see through the gap itself. Thorne had a view across a vast marshy plain, with a broad river coursing through the center. On either side of the river, animals grazed. There was a herd of perhaps twenty medium-sized, dark-green dinosaurs to the south, their large heads intermittently poking up above the grass along the river. Nearby, Thorne saw eight duck-billed dinosaurs with large tube-like crests rising above their heads; they drank and lifted their heads, honking mournfully. Directly ahead, he saw a lone stegosaurus, with its curved back and its vertical rows of plates. The triceratops herd moved slowly past the stegosaur, which paid no attention to them. And to the west, rising above a clump of trees, they saw a dozen long, graceful necks of apatosaurs, their bodies hidden by the foliage that they lazily ate. It was a tranquil scene—but it was a scene from another world.
“Doc?” Eddie said. “What is this place?”
Site B
Sitting in the cars, they stared out over the plain. They watched the dinosaurs move slowly through the deep grass. They heard the soft cry of the duckbills. The separate herds moved peacefully beside the river.
Eddie said, “So what are we saying, this is a place that got bypassed by evolution? One of those places where time stands still?”
“Not at all,” Malcolm said. “There’s a perfectly rational explanation for what you are seeing. And we are going to—”
From the dashboard, there was a high-pitched beeping. On the GPS map, a blue grid was overlaid, with a flashing triangular point marked LEVN.
“It’s him!” Eddie said. “We got the son of a bitch!”