Chuck wanted to stuff his fingers into his ears. He wanted to scream. He wanted to die. He kept running and shouting, “Denise, Denise!”
His feet were off the ground more than they were on it. He shivered involuntarily as the reptiles slithered past, their jaws wide, their eyes opened in blind fright, their throats throbbing with inhuman screeches.
“This way, Chuck,” a familiar voice called. He recognized it as Arthur’s and he turned toward it. He caught a glimpse of Arthur, and then a large reptile ran past, its long legs thumping the ground, its forelegs tucked against its chest, looking ridiculously like a rabbit munching a piece of lettuce. The jaws opened and closed spasmodically on nothing but air. But when the creature had passed, Arthur was gone.
Now there were more animals. They seemed to come out of the very bowels of the earth. They covered the land, slithering, flying, running on their hind legs, thundering over the ground on all fours. They came in pairs or alone or in large herds. They swarmed over the ground, being swallowed by the earth, being crushed beneath tons of folding and falling rock. They leaped over trees, butted them aside, snapped viciously at the foliage.
They screamed or they roared or they squeaked or they were silent. But they were all terrified, and the terror gave them speed, but it also made them blind.
“Chuck!” It was Arthur’s voice again. This time Chuck ran toward it instinctively. He felt a large hand close over his own and he was yanked toward a large evergreen as the ground behind him opened with a low grumble.
“Thanks,” he murmured.
“Some fun,” Arthur said. “Nothing like a little rock-slide, I always say.”
“Watch out!” Chuck shouted.
A stegosaur shoved its way through the ferns, uprooted a cycad, thundered past, its hard armor passing within two feet of them. Arthur let out a deep sigh, and Chuck echoed it.
“Where are the rest?” he asked.
“I don’t know. We’ll have to wait until this calms down a little, I guess. Where do you suppose...”
A loud rumble filled the air, and Arthur and Chuck began to run. They had come to recognize the sounds already. They had no sooner cleared the spot they’d been standing on when the ground twisted upward, doubling over itself, leaving a strange, warped hump in the air.
“Look!” Chuck said.
It was Pete. He leaped across a chasm in the earth, dodged the swoop of a frightened pterosaur and ran for them quickly. His clothes were in shreds. He was carrying what looked like a sack of empty clothes in his arms. He came closer. The bundle in his arms took on form, became more than a blurred outline.
“Denise!” Chuck exclaimed. “He’s got Denise!”
Pete staggered forward, running with the animals, side-stepping the falling trees and the hurtling rocks.
“Hey!” he shouted.
“This way, Pete!”
He was with them in another moment. His face was flushed, and his breath was uneven and ragged.
“She was out like a light,” he said. “The first jolt must have knocked her unconscious. I found her right where she’d been sleeping.” He shook his head wearily. “Brother, this is some mess, ain’t it?”
“We’d better get moving,” Chuck said. He looked at Denise’s pale face, the moon lighting it wanly, and a pang of anxiety tugged at his body.
“I think it’s letting up,” Arthur said suddenly.
“Huh? What?”
“Listen,” he whispered.
They fell silent, listening to the earth rumble softly. The only sound was the sound of the reptiles, still rushing forward in frantic flight. The bigger noises were gone, though. The earth was at rest again.
After a little while, even the noises of the reptiles died out. The land was as silent as a city street after a sudden summer storm.
They found Dr. Dumar sitting on a low rock, his head cradled in his hands. Tears had dried on his cheeks, and he was shaking his head from side to side when they came up to him.
“My specimens,” he said. “All gone. And my instruments.”
He kept shaking his head, and Chuck knew that a weaker man would have cracked under the strain of what the doctor had just been through. In a way, he was thankful that Denise had been unconscious throughout the ordeal. He looked at her now, still limp in Pete’s arms. “Doc,” he said, “see if you can revive Denise, won’t you? We want to find the rest of the party.”
Dr. Dumar nodded, sighed, and then got to his feet as Pete lowered the girl to the ground. Chuck smiled as he saw the doctor rubbing the unconscious Denise’s wrists and then started off with Arthur.
“Do you think he’ll be all right?” Arthur asked.
“He’s got something to do now,” Chuck said. “It’ll take his mind off his own troubles.”
They moved forward slowly in the darkness. The moon lighted the new landscape, casting a wan yellowness over the twisted trees and the sharply jutting rocks. Chuck could see plainly now, and his eyes carried shocked impressions of the torn land to his brain. He knew that upheavals such as this one, swift and violent, were common occurrences throughout geologic time. He wondered how Man had survived such earthquakes and then he wondered if any upheavals had taken place after Man evolved on earth. He grinned in the darkness. They had survived, hadn’t they? A short disturbance, true, but a particularly vicious one — and at least five members of the party had come through it all right.
What of the rest?
Dr. Perry, Masterson and Gardel.
He wanted very much to find Dr. Perry. As for Masterson and Gardel, he didn’t much care.
“That’s funny,” he said aloud.
“Huh?” Arthur asked. “What’s funny?”
Chuck faltered. “I... I don’t know.”
Arthur remained silent, his face puzzled.
“I mean,” Chuck said, “I’m not sure why I... why I...”
“Why you what?”
“Why I dislike Masterson and Gardel. I just... just feel that I do. I mean, aside from all their griping and uncooperativeness. Something deeper. A real dislike. And yet, I have no real reason for it. That is...”
“They’re not hard to dislike,” Arthur said solemnly. “And they’ve certainly given you enough reason for it.”
“Yes,” Chuck answered, still struggling with something evasive in his mind.
“Right from the start,” Arthur went on, “when Masterson complained about being given a Junior Guide. And then that stunt with the force field, and that brush with the brontosaurs. You’ve really had your hands full with him, Chuck.”
“Why, yes,” Chuck said slowly, “I am a Junior Guide.”
“Why, sure.”
“A qualified Junior Guide. And on my eighteenth birthday, after I’ve completed ten time slips, I’ll be a... a...” He shook his head.
“What’s the matter, Chuck?”
“Nothing. I just feel as if I’m discovering all this about myself for the first time. As if I’m... I’m being reborn.” He grinned ruefully. “That sounds silly, I know.”
“How many slips have you been on so far?” Arthur asked.
“Why...” Chuck hesitated, concentrating hard. “Five, I think Yes, this is my fifth.” He passed a hand over his forehead. “Funny, I can’t seem to think straight. For a minute there, I almost said this was my first time slip. I almost said that even though I knew it was my fifth.”
“Maybe the earthquake upset you,” Arthur offered.
“Yes, maybe,” Chuck said, nodding. They kept walking, Chuck’s brows still creased in deep concentration. He shook his head again. “I’m sorry, Arthur, but I feel as if I’m forgetting something important. As if a chunk of my mind has been shoved into a dark corner. Do you know what I mean?”