“Here goes nothing!” he shouted.
Owen was smiling as he leaned out of the cab, the rifle ready for firing. “It’s been nice knowing you, world,” he said.
Chuck kept his foot pressed tight on the accelerator. Like long-lost relatives rushing to greet each other, the truck and the herd hurried across the ground. Owen’s rifle spoke once, twice. There was a short pause and then the rifle bellowed into voice again. Chuck turned the wheel sharply, driving for the edges of the herd, picking one brontosaur and aiming the front of the truck right at its middle. Owen was out of the cab now, one foot braced on the fender, his arm looped through the open window of the door. He kept firing, the ejected shells streaming over his shoulder like a brass pennant.
“They’re turning!” Chuck shouted.
“Force them over,” Owen replied. “Crowd them.”
Chuck turned the wheel again, and the herd began to swerve toward the right, fleeing from the pugnacious brown thing that kept barking at them. They stumbled over each other, their huge hulks crowded together as they made a complete turn and started running away from the wall of rocks.
Owen kept the rifle going. He didn’t bother aiming now. Chuck knew he didn’t really hope to do any damage with the gun. Instead, he was using sound as a weapon — and an effective one, it seemed to Chuck. The brontosaurs were now in a frenzied flight. They seemed to have forgotten just why they left the sanctity of the lake. Their only concern was to escape the sounds that came from everywhere around them, sharp staccato bursts that whistled past their bobbing heads.
Chuck’s hands were sweating on the wheel and he could feel perspiration soaking his shirt, trickling down his face. His heart was thumping against his ribs, threatening to drown out the thunder of the dinosaurs as they fled before the truck. His foot was clamped on the accelerator, almost as if it were an extension of the truck. He wasn’t aware that he had clenched his lower lip between his teeth until he tasted the salty flow of blood in his mouth.
“That’s it,” Owen shouted above the din. “We’ve got them running now, boy.”
“I think we can turn back...” Chuck started.
The scream knifed the sky, terror and helplessness sending it into the upper register.
“What the...”
Chuck stared through the windshield, his eyes scanning the ground ahead. The dust rose in billowing clouds as the brontosaurs trod the earth in headlong flight.
The scream came again, a piercing, peace-shattering scream that sliced its way up Chuck’s spine.
“Owen, what...”
Owen’s eyes opened wide. “Good gravy! Masterson!”
Chuck saw it then. Masterson was sitting at the wheel of the jeep, anxiously looking over his shoulder at the advancing herd. His eyes were wide. Stark terror was etched on his face. The jeep, sunk to the hub caps in mud, was directly in the new path of the herd.
The dinosaurs were still a good two hundred yards away, but at the speed they were traveling, Masterson was as good as dead unless something was done quickly.
Chuck didn’t stop to think. By all rights, Masterson was to blame for everything that had happened. If he hadn’t shot at the pterosaur, he wouldn’t have attracted the brontosaurs. They would not have had an angry herd of moving mountains to contend with, and he wouldn’t be sitting in a useless jeep now watching death bear down on him with amazing rapidity. It would be a sort of ironic justice if Masterson...
No!
Chuck turned the wheel of the truck, leaving the herd and cutting across the terrain in a sharp diagonal line that sliced the path of the dinosaurs’ advance. Retribution might have been good in Masterson’s case, Chuck reasoned. But there was something that flickered beneath the dictates of reason — something basic. Masterson was a man. No matter what he’d done, he was a man — and he was at the mercy of beasts, waiting for his death. Something seemed to call out across the lush stretch of ground, something as primitive as the beasts themselves. And without hesitation, Chuck answered the call. Here in the beginnings of time, millions upon millions of years before Man evolved on earth, Chuck sensed the bond that would eventually set Man high above the beasts. He knew what he must do and he did it without further thought, driving the truck at breakneck speed to reach Masterson before the dinosaurs did.
When he reached the jeep, he stopped just short of the deep mud. Masterson was staring at the animals, his face a chalky white. They were no more than a hundred yards away now, their speed never lessening, their hoofs setting up an unholy din.
“Come on, Masterson,” Chuck shouted. “Hop in.”
Masterson didn’t move. He kept sitting in the jeep, his hands frozen to the wheel, his head turned over his shoulder to watch the approaching brontosaurs.
“Masterson!” Owen shouted. “For crying out loud, hurry up.”
Masterson swallowed, but otherwise he didn’t move.
“Masterson!” This time Chuck’s voice was edged with panic. The dinosaurs were getting closer every second. Unless they...
“Ill get him,” Owen said suddenly. He put the rifle down and leaped from the truck, sinking to his knees in mud as he approached the jeep. Masterson sat in a frightened stupor, sweat standing out on his forehead, his knuckles white against the steering wheel.
“Snap out of it!” Owen shouted.
The sound of the brontosaurs was loud now. It filled the air and left room for nothing else. There was only the thunderous noise, echoing and re-echoing, hammering on the eardrums.
Owen lashed out with the open palm of his hand. The sound of the slap was lost beneath the greater roar of the animals, but Chuck saw Masterson’s head snap back with the blow.
“Come on!” Owen shouted. “Come on. Masterson, for the love of...”
Chuck was frightened now. Fear leaped inside him like a cold, slimy thing. It clutched at his heart, set the muscles of his back twitching, tore at his mind with unnerving fingers.
“Owen... Owen—”
He didn’t know what he wanted to say. His cry came out of his mouth like a hoarse plea, drowned in the noise around them.
“Owen—”
He saw his brother reach for Masterson’s hands. Slowly, methodically, Owen began prying Masterson’s fingers loose from the wheel. Chuck watched, counting the fingers, listening to the thunder swell, feeling the truck vibrate beneath him as the animals came closer, closer.
Two... three... five. One hand was loose.
“Come on, Masterson,” Owen bellowed. He was breathing hard, the sweat staining the back of his shirt in two great, round semicircles. “Come on, you dirty...”
The engine of the truck stalled.
Panic gripped Chuck as he stepped on the starter. It was all a bad dream now, the worst dream he’d ever had. Everything seemed to blend together into a horrible nightmare of sound and vague impressions. It was like a madman leading a symphony orchestra in his own composition.
Beneath everything was the steady, incessant rumble of the approaching reptiles. In counterpoint to that was the whine of the starter as Chuck pressed on it. And over that was a dim view of Owen prying the remaining fingers loose, one at a time.
Six... seven... eight...
Chuck kept his foot pressed on the starter. He could barely hear the whine. He didn’t know the motor had caught until he heard the sullen protest of the starter’s teeth. He shifted his foot to the accelerator, idly wondering what had caused the truck to stall.
“I’ve got him!” Owen shouted.
Chuck glanced over his shoulder at the herd and then his eyes flicked to his brother. Owen was bodily dragging Masterson from the jeep. Masterson was limp, a quivering, frightened hulk of a man. His eyes were blank with fear, and his mouth had come unhinged.