The Deadly Past (8 page)

Adam looked up at Traelle and the alien smiled at him with such warmth that Adam found it
impossible to believe their visitor could ever intentionally harm anyone. Traelle patted his arm.

“Adam,” he said.

Adam patted his arm back. “Friend,” he said.

Traelle nodded. “Friend.”

“Looks like they're getting along nicely,” Watch said. “Traelle may as well turn the device back on. If it blows us up or saves us—at least we'll have a resolution to the day's crisis.”

“Wait,” Bryce said. “If he does arm the device, show him with your watch that we want at least two hours to get clear of this place.”

“Good idea,” Adam said. “But maybe Watch should show him.”

“I am a time specialist,” Watch agreed. With a series of gestures, Watch tried to explain to Traelle that they didn't want the bomb to go off in their faces. Traelle quickly nodded. It seemed he had already thought of the problem.

Traelle set to work on the control board. Soon it was up and humming. A faint vibration began to fill the underground chamber. Traelle pointed to a series of fluctuating symbols, which flashed against a gray screen in a rainbow of colors. The symbols looked as if they could be numbers. Then
Traelle gestured to one of Watch's four watches. His meaning was clear.

The countdown was on.

“Thanks,” Adam said, offering Traelle his hand. The alien clasped Adam's hand with both of his hands and once more Adam felt a wave of warmth sweep over him. He realized what it reminded him of—Ms. Ann Templeton's touch, when she had healed him.

As Traelle let go he gestured to the other aliens—the good ones and the bad ones—lying on the floor. To their immense surprise he turned his thumb up. Once again his meaning was clear. He would take care of the fallen, even when it came to the enemy.

It was time for them to return to their own time and space. They walked out of the chamber through the largest cave and soon reached the flying saucer. Actually, there were two flying saucers now. The bad guys had, of course, landed while they were inside.

Naturally they started to argue about how they should go home. Sally and Bryce wanted to go through the Secret Path. They said that was the quickest and safest way back. But Watch was
adamant that he had to return the truck to the place he had found it.

“But I don't care if the rest of you take the Secret Path,” Watch said. “I can return the truck myself.”

“And along the way you might get attacked by who knows how many dinosaurs,” Cindy said. “You can't go alone. I'm going with you.”

“Like you're a fine one to have along during a dinosaur attack,” Sally muttered.

“If Watch feels he has to return the truck,” Adam said, “then I'm going with him.”

“This is ridiculous,” Sally complained. “Cindy has already said what is wrong with this idea. We spent half the morning fighting off just one pterodactyl. For all we know a whole flock of them could swoop down on us before we get back over the mountains. I say we take the Secret Path and call it a day.”

“But not to return the truck is stealing,” Watch said.

“You just saved the world!” Sally exclaimed. “The owner of the truck should want to give you the truck as a gift.”

Watch remained stubborn. “I took it and I have to return it. But why don't you and Bryce just take
the Secret Path home? None of us will hold it against you.”

“Yeah,” Cindy said playfully. “You cowards.”

“I've never been called a coward before,” Bryce muttered.

Sally glanced at him. “What do you want to do? I know these guys. They'll harass me for the rest of my life if I show any sign of weakness.”

Bryce shrugged. “Then if we're going to get killed, let's get killed together.”

Watch patted him on the back. “Maybe you can be one of us, Bryce. Sally is already insulting you and you're developing a fatalistic attitude.”

T
hey had been searching for more than an hour, and it looked as if they had made the wrong choice. They couldn't find the truck, or rather, Watch couldn't find it since he was the only one who knew where he had parked it. But he wasn't entirely to blame. The truck was blue, as were millions of primordial leaves. The truck was just another big flower in an endless sea of dinosaur forest.

“Maybe we should go back,” Sally said. “Take
the Secret Path. We don't know how long we have.”

“I know,” Watch said, wiping the sweat from his brow. The forest was hot and humid, and they were all drenched in perspiration and painfully thirsty. “I understood Traelle's sign language. We have twenty minutes left.”

The group howled in amazement.

“Why didn't you tell us?” Adam asked.

“I didn't want to worry you,” Watch said.

“Worry us?” Sally screamed. “You're going to kill us! We have to go back to the volcano now.”

Adam glanced at the distant volcanic cone. “I don't think we can get there in twenty minutes.”

Sally began to pace. “Oh, that's great. That's just swell. Here we had a secret doorway only seconds away that led to freedom and pleasure and we chose to take a path home that leads through danger just to save a stupid blue truck.”

“I kind of like that truck,” Watch said.

“Fine!” Sally shouted. “I hope Saint Peter gives you one to play with in heaven!”

“Stop yelling,” Adam said. “We have to figure a way out of this.”

“I like to yell when I'm scared!” Sally yelled. “It calms me down!”

“The only way out of this predicament is to find the truck in the next few minutes,” Bryce said quietly. “Watch, which direction did you hike right after you parked?”

Watch pointed. “Toward that peak. Isn't that the one you were on, Cindy?”

Cindy shook her head. “No. It was that one over there. Don't you remember?”

Sally continued to fret. “We have the blind leading the blind.”

Watch paused and wiped off his glasses. A moment later he settled them back on his nose and nodded in surprise.

“You're right, Cindy,” Watch said. “My sense of direction got turned around. My lenses keep steaming up in this place.”

“So does this mean you know where the truck is now?” Adam asked, praying that his friend said yes. Thankfully Watch nodded and pointed to their left.

“It should be just over there,” he said.

They found the truck five minutes later.

Fifteen minutes to detonation.

There were five of them now, rather than the usual four. They couldn't all sit in the front. Actually, the truck had bucket seats. Only two
could be comfortable up front. Cindy joined Watch in the driver's compartment while Sally, Adam, and Bryce bounced in the back. The road home was rough because, well, actually there was no road. They were all amazed that Watch had managed to push the truck as far back into the primeval forest as he had.

Time flew by. It always did when one was in a hurry.

Seven minutes to detonation. Still no sign of Spooksville.

“Are you sure you're heading the right way?” Adam called to Watch.

“Not absolutely positive,” Watch replied.

“We're running out of time,” Sally said for the tenth time.

“We're running out of gas as well,” Watch said.

Sally screamed at the sky. “I hate this!”

But maybe Sally shouldn't have screamed so loud. She might have called attention to themselves. From out of the low hanging clouds a screeching pterodactyl suddenly appeared. And it was probably
their
pterodactyl because Watch noticed it had a bruise on its head from the boulder he had dropped on it. He said as much to the others.

“You knocked it out?” Sally asked in amazement. “You had it helpless? Why didn't you just kill it?”

“It's a mother pterodactyl,” Watch called out the truck window. “It has babies to feed.”

“It has babies it wants to feed us to!” Sally shouted. “Adam! Do you still have that laser pistol?”

Adam pulled out the weapon. “I do.”

Sally tried to grab it from him. When she failed she fidgeted anxiously as she stared up at the sky. The pterodactyl had gone into another one of its famous dives and there was no mistaking its target.

“Shoot it then!” Sally yelled. “And don't give me any idiotic lines about not wanting to harm it. Believe me—it wants to harm us.”

Adam hesitated. “How many babies does it have?” he asked Cindy.

“There were four eggs in its nest,” Cindy replied, her head stuck out the window. She was also staring up at the pterodactyl with fear in her eyes. “One of them hatched just as I was leaving. It scratched my leg.”

Five minutes to detonation.

Watch spoke up. “I think I see signs of Spooksville!”

It was true, the scenery up ahead was beginning to look less weird.

But the pterodactyl didn't care. It was coming fast.

“If you keep the laser on Stun,” Bryce suggested to Adam, “a few shots might discourage it from attacking.”

“No!” Sally cried. “Put the laser on full power! Blow the monster out the sky! It tried to kill us this morning! We don't owe it any tenderness!”

Adam came to a decision. Raising the laser, he took aim along the barrel.

“I'll try to stun it,” he muttered.

“That won't even slow it down,” Sally muttered.

Adam fired. He was turning into a good shot.

A direct hit to the pterodactyl's face.

Unfortunately Sally was right.

The creature screeched louder, and kept coming.

“You tried to be a Good Samaritan,” Sally pleaded with Adam. “But this flying lizard is not a moral creature. It's not going to reward you for
your altruistic laser pistol settings. Use full power, Adam, please?”

Three minutes to detonation.

Ten seconds to pterodactyl dinner.

Adam swallowed thickly. He shouted to Watch.

“Will full power kill it?” he asked.

“It will probably roast its guts,” Watch shouted back.

“How about the middle setting?” Bryce asked, beginning to squirm where he sat. The pterodactyl filled the sky now, its screeching ringing in then-ears. “You can hurt it without killing it, Adam.”

“Yeah!” Sally agreed. From the look on her face she appeared on the verge of jumping from the truck. “Hurt it! Don't kill it if you can't. Just make it go away!”

“OK,” Adam said reluctantly.

He readjusted the pistol setting and took aim.

He fired. A thick bolt of red energy flashed toward the giant lizard.

Another bulls-eye. The pterodactyl screamed and veered to one side.

Two minutes to detonation.

But the pterodactyl was only hurt. It wasn't finished with them.

Once more it started after them. But this time it was coming in low.

Bryce said it for all of them.

“You might have to kill it if we're to survive,” he said.

“Haven't I been saying that all along?” Sally gasped.

There were normal trees just up ahead.

One minute to detonation.

Adam adjusted the laser to full power.

The pterodactyl was only a hundred yards behind them, already flexing its claws. But Watch had managed to pick up speed. As they neared the edge of the time warp, the ground had begun to smooth out. The pterodactyl was coming fast but it was having to strain to catch them. Its huge wings pounded the air as it flapped furiously. Yet it seemed it would catch them. It cut the distance between them in half, to fifty yards, then to twenty. They could smell it now, even see into its huge red and black eyes, and see the hunger in its slobbering mouth.

Thirty seconds to detonation.

Thirteen seconds to pterodactyl attack.

Three hundred yards to normal scenery.

Adam raised the laser for a third time and took aim.

Watch floored the truck accelerator.

“Shoot it!” Sally cried.

Adam fired. The red energy spewed forth.

But at that exact moment they hit a bump and he missed.

Fifteen seconds to detonation.

The monster opened its beak wide.

Two seconds to pterodactyl dessert.

One hundred yards to Spooksville's city limit.

For the fourth time Adam began to squeeze the laser trigger.

But suddenly the pterodactyl began to gag.

Adam had to blink several times to understand the reason.

Sally had removed her shoe and thrown it into the monster's mouth.

The pterodactyl veered away.

Coughing like a parrot with a peanut stuck in its throat.

Sally shrugged as Adam and Bryce stared at her in amazement.

“It worked for Watch this morning,” she said casually. “Besides, somebody had to save us. I'm
not kidding, I'm never going into battle again with a bunch of pacifists like you guys.”

They crossed over into normal Spooksville.

There was a blinding flash of light behind them.

And the primeval forest vanished.

T
hey parked the truck where they had found it and left a note on the dashboard saying that they would be happy to pay for the window they had broken, and for the gasoline they had consumed. Indeed, they had had to roll to the desired spot on the deserted road. They had run out of gas not long after cresting the mountains directly behind Spooksville.

As they walked into town they immediately understood that the dinosaur attack had not
happened for their neighbors, not in this new reality. Nothing was out of place, nobody was crying. Adam had been right. Because they had helped fix the problem in the past, it had ceased to exist in the present. No one had died, they realized, and that was the most important thing.

But as they hiked past the witch's castle they found Ms. Ann Templeton out front. She was watering the alligators and crocodiles in her moat. She waved to them as they walked by and called them over. They noticed she had a bunch of tiny toys in her hands. She laughed when she saw their puzzled expressions and held the toys up for them to see.