Dinosaur Thunder (22 page)

“Do! Me!” Jeanette said sharply, the two velociraptors separating, stalking the creature.

The creature stopped, and moved slowly back to its companions. The velociraptors tracked him every step of the way, bodies low, eyes fixed on their target.

“Good Do!” Jeanette said. “Good Me.”

The creatures exchanged more unintelligible speech, and then slowly backed up, eyes on the velociraptors. Sally barked for good measure, although her tail was wagging.

“Good chicks,” Jeanette said.

“Good chicks,” Elizabeth echoed. “Very good chicks.”

26

Preacher Man

Civilization is social order promoting cultural creation. Four elements constitute it: economic provision, political organization, moral traditions and the pursuit of knowledge and the arts. It begins where chaos and insecurity end. For when fear is overcome, curiosity and constructiveness are free, and man passes by natural impulse towards the understanding and embellishment of life.

—Will Durant

Sixty-five Million Years Ago
Unknown Place

The signs of ruined civilization were everywhere now. Crushed rusted cars poking from green clumps, the broken stump of a light pole, chunks of concrete and asphalt, broken glass, and neatly spaced mounds of rubble that had once been city blocks. Mother Nature had won this round, what had been a thriving city now unrecognizable.

“The church isn’t too far,” Jacob said. “Reverend’s father was the pastor. The way Reverend tells the story, he was a teenager when God punished the world. When the reverend and a couple of his friends found out that Portland was taken away, they went looking for it because that’s where their homes were. They didn’t know the land was full of dinosaurs when they started, and they almost got themselves eaten. But they persisted and finally Reverend found Portland. He said right after God’s punishment of the world, Portland was like a shimmering mirage. Reverend said that the city kind of came and went like it was here but then wasn’t really here.”

Nick thought about the moon dinosaur, trapped in some kind of inter-time. Portland might have experienced a transient version of what happened on the moon.

“Reverend left his friends to try and get to his home in Portland. Reverend says Portland was like a vision from God and he followed it. Even though the city was under God’s punishment, God was calling to Reverend to go with the sinners, and preach repentance. When Reverend found his way to his vision, he could see people in the city begging for his help, but no matter what he did, he could not get inside. Then he learned the lesson God was teaching him. It was not by the reverend’s power that he would get into the city, it was only through God that he could enter. Once Reverend realized that, and prayed to God to forgive him for his self-centeredness, there was a bright flash and he was in Portland.”

Nick knew the “flash” was likely the detonation of dozens of nuclear warheads ordered by President McIntyre. Acting with incomplete understanding, President McIntyre rashly ordered a nuclear strike on the Portland Time Quilt, believing it would reverse the quilting and bring back the missing cities, including a portion of Atlanta, where the First Lady had disappeared. Instead, the nuclear detonations froze the displaced time segments in place. The First Lady and millions of people around the world were never recovered. What Nick did not know until now was that Portland had survived that blast. There had been no fusion explosions in modern Oregon where Portland had been, and Portland made it into the past untouched, so the detonations either took place in another time line, or in inter-time, or quasi-time as some of the scientists on the PresNet called it.

“The reverend found his father, but his father was killed a short time later in a food riot. The church was running a feeding program, and a mob ransacked it. It got real bad for a while. It seems people get uncivilized real fast when times get tough. I was single back then and tried to get to my mom and dad, but they lived in Salem and there wasn’t any Salem any longer, just a dinosaur-infested forest. They turned the Rose Garden—Portland’s basketball arena—into a public shelter, and I lived there for a while but there were too many people and not enough food. I finally holed up with some friends in a basement on the north end of the city. I did some things to survive I’m not too proud of, but I never killed anyone. Things got bad, really bad.”

Nick let Jacob collect his thoughts. Everyone was walking close to Jacob, listening. Even Torino seemed interested, keeping close. Only Crazy Kramer was in a world of his own, walking out front, mumbling, slashing randomly with his machete.

“When we first jumped here, a lot of the buildings collapsed and many of the ones still standing just weren’t safe to live in. Electricity and water were gone. No phones, light, television, cell phones, or Internet. There was no way to find out what had happened to the rest of the world. Only Reverend claimed to know the truth, and as he told it, Portland was selected for God’s punishment.

“There was mass hysteria and a lot of suicides. It was so bad for a while that you couldn’t walk close to a tall building because someone might land on you. Eventually people banded together in groups to help each other survive. That helped some, but then groups started fighting other groups. I once saw a fight over canned food found in a basement. Fifty men and women went at it with bats, pipes and knives. It was the most horrible thing I’d seen. I’ve seen worse since. One side finally won, and they chased down the losers and beat them to death. That wasn’t the only time that happened, either.”

Jacob stopped, looking around, trying to make sense out of the fern-covered rubble.

“Crazy, that way!” he shouted, pointing.

Crazy Kramer had ranged ahead, and now came back a hundred yards, leading between a thick stand of modern-looking firs and a giant pile of bricks with a cycad growing out of the middle.

“There were five of us living together then in the basement of an old house. We kept the location secret and went out only at night, foraging through the houses in the neighborhood, looking for food. Even five years after it happened, you could still find canned and dried food if you looked hard enough. After eight years, if you could find it, it wasn’t any good.

“We were eating dogs, cats, rabbits, and rats when I first heard the reverend walking through the streets preaching. He told us that what happened was God’s punishment. It was the Tower of Babel all over again. My friends and I pretty much ignored him until the big fire burned us out. We waded into the river and survived by floating in the shallows. The heat was so bad, I had to keep dunking my head to keep from frying my brains. Even then I still got first-degree burns on my face. The fire jumped the river and pretty much destroyed anything you could live in except the reverend’s father’s church. That was another sign to the reverend. By then, the only place you could get food was from one of the big organized groups, and one religious nut or another ran all of them.”

Jacob paused, looking at the newcomers.

“I’m not offending anyone, am I?” Jacob asked, clearly worried.

“We’re not offended,” Nick assured him.

Relieved, Jacob continued his history. “The world was so topsy-turvy that it made even the craziest religion seem rational. Since I had heard the reverend preaching from our basement, I picked the devil I knew and joined up. I met my wife there, and the reverend let us marry. If it wasn’t for Leah and the girls, I’d find another basement and go it alone.”

“Take cover,” Crazy Kramer said in what passed for a hushed tone.

Everyone hid, Conyers leading Torino behind a lush mound, helping Gah off the horse. Nick peeked out to see two figures hurrying toward them, down the same path they had been walking. The man and a woman moved confidently but quickly.

“Betty! Lincoln!” Jacob called, stepping out and waving at them.

Startled, the two stopped, stared, and then ran to Jacob, taking turns hugging him.

Talking all at once, they greeted one another, praised God for their deliverance, and then started hugging and praising all over again when Crazy Kramer wandered up. The happy reunion ended abruptly when Nick and the others stepped out of hiding and Lincoln and Betty saw strangers for the first time in eight years.

“Betty and Lincoln Brown, meet Dr. Nick Paulson,” Jacob said.

“Oh, praise God,” Betty said, coming straight for Nick, arms wide. Then Conyers led Torino out of hiding, and Betty changed directions, forgetting about Nick’s hug, and walked straight to the horse, wrapping her arms around Torino’s neck.

“It’s a roan,” Betty said. “A Thoroughbred?”

“Yes. He had a short career on the track.”

“God bless you,” Betty said, still hugging Torino.

Lincoln finally pried her off Torino, and there were introductions all around. Frustrated, Carson took the lead, naming everyone in the group to speed things up.

“You’re police?” Lincoln said, looking at Conyers and Wynooski, then closely at the front of Carson’s shirt.

“She’s the police, I’m the ranger, and he’s a pretender,” Wynooski said.

“I see,” Lincoln said, not really understanding.

“We need to keep moving,” Carson said.

“We’re almost there,” Lincoln said. “It’s not far now.”

“Have you seen any others?” Jacob asked. “Leah and my girls?”

They had not, but then they explained that they had hidden for a long time under a log, Inhumans running past their hiding spot twice. Then Betty and Lincoln had Nick explain where they had come from, excited that the world they had left behind was still somewhere.

“Maybe God’s banishment is coming to an end,” Lincoln said.

“The reverend was right,” Betty said. “He told us if we remained faithful and obedient, that God would redeem us.”

Nick saw Jacob turn his head and roll his eyes.

“My sister and mother lived in Missoula,” Betty said. “Are they still there?”

“Missoula was untouched,” Nick assured her.

“What about Seattle?” Lincoln asked. “I have cousins there, but the rest of my family was in Portland.”

“The Time Quilt triggered a tidal wave and there was some damage along the waterfront areas, but if they lived in the hills, or inland, they should be okay.”

“One lived near Green Lake,” Lincoln said.

“That area did fine,” Nick said. “You do understand that it has been eighteen years since the Time Quilt? People move, they get sick, some of them may have died.”

Nick’s caution had no impact, and Betty and Lincoln peppered them with questions about other cities and other countries, and then finally asked the question Nick was waiting for.

“Can we get back the way you came?”

“Sure we can,” Carson cut in. “But the horse can’t. I vote we go anyway and leave Trigger here.”

“We can’t leave the horse,” Betty said, horrified by Carson’s suggestion.

“Then stay with the damn horse,” Carson said, “but the rest of us are getting out.”

“Don’t curse, young man,” Betty said. “The reverend teaches us that Jesus Christ and an unbridled tongue cannot live in fellowship.”

Carson slapped his hand to his forehead, drawing it down his face, stretching his skin. “Now I know how Alice felt,” Carson said. “Well, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, can we just keep moving?”

“Let’s go,” Nick said, trying to keep the peace. Nick fixed Carson with a stare and shook his head, silently scolding him.

“What?” Carson said, helping Gah back up on Torino.

“Asshole,” Conyers whispered to Carson, making sure Gah was secure.

“What?” Carson said again. “You care what these Jim Jones Kool-Aid drinkers think?”

Not waiting for an answer, Carson double-timed it to catch up with Crazy Kramer, borrowing the machete, hacking violently for a few minutes, and then handing it back.

They picked their way through overgrown ruins, to what had once been a freeway. Large sections of cracked but unbroken concrete remained, and lane markings were still visible in some sections. A rusted steel guardrail still ran down the center; a streetlight bent in half kissed the ground. Most of the other streetlights were merely stumps, or completely gone. A short distance to their right was an overpass, the center collapsed, leaving a gaping hole. Straight ahead were hills, thick with cycads. Sprinkled in between were black trunks, the remains of what had been the original vegetation. In one place, Nick could see a section of brick wall, split by a rotting snag. On top of a nearby hill was a cell phone tower, vines covering the lower third.

“This way,” Jacob said, Crazy Kramer and Carson already leading.

Turning left, they followed the road, keeping the hills to their right. Littered with debris, the flat road was nevertheless easier to negotiate than the forest, or the ruins of the city. As they came around the curve, Crazy Kramer gave a whoop.

“It’s still there,” Jacob said.

“Praise God,” Betty and Lincoln said.

Soon Nick could see a church sitting on a hill, the only intact building he had seen. A cross stood on the steeple that was the apex of the wedge-shaped building. Stained glass panels were set high in the walls, generous amounts of clear glass ran along the near side.

“I see someone,” Betty said.

Nick saw a figure waving from the corner of the building. Soon others appeared, waving, one looking through binoculars and then passing them around so that others could see.

“Hurry,” Jacob said, picking up the pace and passing Carson and Crazy Kramer.

“Finally, someone’s getting religion on this hurry thing,” Carson said.

An old landslide blocked the road to the church in one place, the group detouring to a path cut through downed and burned firs. The last stretch up the hill was through a burned neighborhood, the houses barely recognizable through the ferns and cycads that grew from their ashes. A steel fence blocked the entrance to the church, where dozens of people peeked through gaps in the steel, excited, smiling, shouting greetings.

Only when they were almost to the gate did it swing open, four men pushing it open, letting the small group in, and then pulling it closed, locking the gate with three large steel bolts. Inside, four more men stood with rifles ready, not smiling. Nick ignored them for now, letting Jacob, Betty, Lincoln, and Crazy Kramer enjoy their homecoming. Almost immediately, the attention turned to Torino, the crowd surrounding the nervous horse and the police officer, looking at them as if they were ghosts. Gah slid off, hobbling out of the way.