He clambered back up to his root nest and stood to crane his neck and look out at what was ahead — there were no more spits or white-water areas that might have indicated a reef, bank, or even shallow water.
His only problem was the coast seemed to be receding, and he was heading straight. Slowly but surely, he had gone from being 50 feet from the shoreline to now about 150, and the water here was impenetrably dark.
For now, I’m okay, he thought as the tide was still on run-out and was taking him with it along the coast. He was moving fast and guessed he must have crossed many dozens of miles. Trying to trek through the jungle would have taken him days to do what he’d done in a matter of hours.
There came a wet hissing sound like a soda bottle being opened and Andy looked down at the water to see the mosasaur surface. It exhaled through its snout, blowing water and air upward, and then sucked in another huge breath. Its nasal flaps closed over the snout holes and back down it went. But not before it turned one enormous and very human-like eye on him for a second or two just to make sure he was still there.
Mosasaurs were marine reptiles, but they breathed air just like sea turtles. Over the millions of years they existed, they had evolved enormous, long lungs and could stay down for an hour. It meant they were excellent ambush predators, waiting down deep and then coming up fast to catch something unaware on the surface.
Andy exhaled and looked back down southward. How long would it track him? Possibly in the next few hours, they’d reach the tide’s peak low point, and then there’d be a period of calm before the tide started to run back in. At that point, he was planning to leave his makeshift cruise liner. The danger was he now found himself a good 200 feet from the shore.
He looked down and saw the shadow pass underneath his tree trunk again.
Well, that’s just great, he whispered. I only just made 50 feet, how am I ever going to make 200? He looked back over his shoulder; did it now mean he was stuck and going to have to ride the tree back up the coast again? Would the massive sequoia finally beach itself, or would it eventually be washed out to sea where he’d slowly starve or die of dehydration?
“Gluck.” The small flying reptile found a few extra shreds of drying crab in amongst the bark and pecked them up and ate them. Andy smiled down at it.
“Don’t worry, little guy, I’m never going to eat you.”
It hopped up on his leg and sat down. The tiny pterosaurs weighed next to nothing; a combination of having a small frame and hollow bones just like a bird.
“Besides, there’s no meat on you.” Andy stroked its head. It was a warm, leathery feeling, with a few bristles on its hide, perhaps early forms of feathers. It was like touching a warm, plucked chicken.
“I wish you could fly… for your sake.” He leaned back into his tree root chair. But I’m glad you can’t, he thought. Because if Gluck was ever able to fly away, I’d be left alone.
Andy started to hum a tune, and then broke into a song. It made him feel good, but homesick. The weird thing was, he needed to hear a voice, any voice, even his own. Deep down, he knew Gluck talking to him was really his mind so craving interaction, it had created one for him.
We humans are weird, he thought. We all want to be left alone, until we really are. Then we all want to be with someone.
He sat in the Cretaceous sunshine and let his mind wander as he sailed ever onward. What would he do when, if, he saw Helen again? His eyes watered.
“I miss you, sis.”
He sniffed, still trying to decide his future. There was a place up in North America were there was an explosion of evolution around the time of the Late Cretaceous Period, right about now, that led to all manner of new forms.
Why did new species come out of there? What was so special about that place? He desperately wanted to see it, and maybe he could talk Helen into staying and coming and seeing it with him. He bet she’d like it.
Andy immediately brightened. Hey, maybe that was why she was coming. She missed him, and she wanted to do what he did — explore. He grinned. This might turn out to be a really cool idea after all.
Andy looked down and saw the long, shiny, but clearly reptilian body come to the surface, roll, stare, and then sink back down. He suddenly knew what it reminded him of — a massive Komodo dragon lizard, with a smooth body, and flippers where its legs should be.
“I wish you’d just fuck off.” He sat back and tried to ignore his nemesis. It was still hours until the tide turned. I still got time. He hoped.
Andy had been right about the different hues of seawater representing different currents. The massive continents of Appalachia and Laramidia were in the middle of a massive ocean-wide northern hemisphere current that came up along its external coasts, and was drawn in the northern opening to then return to the southern hemisphere via the inland sea, exiting down where Florida would be one day.
While the tides moved in and out along the coastal areas, the current further out was a constant southward drift. And that was where the mosasaur had bumped his tree trunk.
Andy didn’t yet know it, but for him, there would be no tide change. His trip was one-way and would take him all the way out into the depths of the prehistoric ocean.
Another hour sailed by, and Andy’s tree trunk ride was veering even further away from the coastline. He was hungry but didn’t want to eat his last crab just yet.
From time to time, he had been lowering his bag into the water to keep the crustacean fresh. And so far, every time he’d done it, there had been nothing down there but deep blue ocean.
He dared to hope that the water hunter had finally given up. He eased back in amongst his nest of wild roots. Without the constant presence of the mosasaur, he thankfully only had one problem to worry about now — getting to dry land.
Gluck busied himself further down the log, finding something interesting in among the rotting scales of bark. It cheered him a little to think that at least he seemed to be finding something to eat.
He turned to watch the land pass by. He was now a good 500 feet from the shoreline now, and he bet he had traveled hundreds of miles. As there was no coastline on the other side, he couldn’t be sure if he was now heading out into the open ocean or was still traveling down along the edge of Appalachia. But the key thing was, he was still heading down the coast.
He sat forward. Why? Why was he still heading down the coast? Then it hit him — the tide never changed. He got to his knees, making the small pterosaur raise its head in alarm.
“Hey, we should have been going the other way by now. Or at least becalmed as we hit mid-tide.”
He put a hand over his eyes and squinted in at the shoreline. There they were, those stripes of different colored water, the lanes, and as he watched, they passed by mounds of floating debris, fast. No, that wasn’t right. They were going one way, and the debris in closer was going the other.
“Oh, shit no, we must be in some sort of sea current.”
Andy continued to watch for a while, and then he guessed it didn’t matter. The basic fact was, they were still going the way he wanted, but his priority was he needed to be closer to the shore or he would eventually starve, or in the next storm be tipped into the water where there was death in a hundred massive forms lurking below.
Andy squinted at his tree trunk. He needed something — maybe a makeshift paddle, or rudder, so he could at least steer his log, even if it was just a little. He carefully got to his feet, making sure to hold onto a lengthy root. Further down the tree were long branches, some still with the remnants of dried leaves. Perhaps if he could break one off, he could use it.