But she knew it wasn’t. It was fine to think that’s the way the world now worked, but what happened if they were caught out when one or more of the lethal changes occurred? When the way the world worked, safely, one day, suddenly became another way the world worked that was deadly?
Emma remembered the scattered shotgun shells in the pantry and her imagination started to fill in the blanks — she saw Frank being far out in his field as the sun was going down. Then the re-evolution wave change washed over them and re-ordered everything, and suddenly the elderly man was a long way from home when the vampire bats attacked.
She saw Allie, hearing Frank’s distressed calls, rushing to the pantry and fumbling for the gun, hurriedly packing in a few shells and dropping the rest. She would have charged out into the field, knowing it was probably suicide to do so but going anyway. She’d have done the same for Ben.
Emma looked again at the mutilated remains. What happened if Ben was successful? Would all of these changes be reversed, or would there be no more changes from then on? She knew that because Andy had been there that he would have already affected the timeline in some way. But if he had lived on for another few years or even decades, then the changes would be continuing and getting more significant.
She knew from personal experience that the passage of time could make tiny things, big things. So a small ripple in a pond that continues to occur will eventually erode the shoreline. Perhaps this is what Ben and his team could stop before it gets real bad.
“Bad?” she scoffed, disheartened. “It’s already real bad.”
Emma looked back at the obliterated bodies. “I’m so sorry, Frank and Allie.” Her brows rose slightly. “Will you come back from the dead if Ben is successful? And if you do, will I, or you, even know that you were dead once?” she wondered.
She looked up at the huge trees. “And are the vampires now things that have gone from our dark fairy tales to reality now destined to stay that way forever?”
She dropped her gun hand and sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. We truly are in a nightmare, she thought.
Emma started to trudge back to the car. She’d call the sheriff’s office, as there was nothing she could do here.
As she walked through the sunlit field, crickets chirruped and cicadas zummed all around her. The sunshine was warm on her shoulders, and for a moment, it felt like it was the same sane world she had always known.
Then the sun went out.
She froze as the tingling washed over her from toes to scalp. Seconds passed and then even more seconds, and she knew why — the more complex and significant the changes, the more nature needed time to reset.
When everything blinked back into focus, it seemed the same, but she knew that was just wishful thinking. Something had changed, something big. She suddenly had a terrible thought.
“Zach,” she gasped, and then started to run.
CHAPTER 46
Ben pulled a boot from the sucking mud with a wet fart-like blurt. Every step here was the same, and the next footstep the ooze separated around it as he sunk again to the ankle, and then held on tight when he pulled it out.
The same noises were coming from behind him, with the occasional curse from Francis, Chess, and Shawna. Drake eased up beside his left shoulder.
“We sound like a herd of elephants.”
“Yep; a herd of elephants with gas.” Ben looked around. “I don’t remember this bog being here. And I’m sure I traveled through this area before.”
“Ten years ago; things change. Maybe last time it was some sort of dry season,” Drake said.
“Yeah maybe. But if I had known, I’d have skirted it. Don’t like swamps.” He looked up at the canopy cover overhead. There was almost no light coming down on them, and at the ground, or rather, water level, there was moss, algae, and slime upon slime. He’d been in jungles that had swamps and bogs as miasmic as this before, and they were places that rotted the flesh inside your boots, had water-borne parasites and diseases, and sucked the energy from your bones as quickly as they did the state of mind. Bottom line: they were shit places to be stuck in.
“We need to be out of here,” Helen whispered.
“No kidding,” Ben replied.
She squelched up to his right shoulder. “I know, I know. But seeing that frog a while back got me thinking about these swamps.”
Ben glanced at her, waiting.
She looked around warily. “The dinosaurs filled every eco-niche on the planet for many tens of millions of years. After them of course came the mammals and birds.” Helen seemed to be gathering her thoughts. “And before them, the very early life on the planet was crustacean and bony fish. But there was another biological group that is overlooked because of the dinosaurs, and they flourished in the primordial swamps — the amphibians.”
Ben grunted. “I’m guessing you’re about to tell me that the hell-frog we encountered isn’t the worst thing that could be in here.”
“Not by a million miles,” she responded.
The bog was becoming deeper by the step. The slime was still on the bottom and algae on the surface, but now it came to just below their knees.
“Okay, give it to me.” Ben sighed. “What should we look out for?”
Drake sloshed up next to them as Helen cast a glance around. “In this part of the world?” She bobbed her head. “The last holdouts of the Eryops; a six-foot amphibian with a bear trap for a mouth.”
“Six feet?” Drake snorted. “A tadpole.”
Helen scowled at him. “Or we might run into the last of the Metoposaurus species. A 10-foot salamander with interlocking razor teeth.”
“We can deal with those too,” Drake said and winked at her.
“Only if you see them coming.” Helen turned back to Ben. “Also, we might have the misfortune to run into a Mastodonsaurus. They grew to about 15 feet. That thing was like a slimy tank with row after row of teeth like a great white shark.”
“Okay, we’ll avoid that one,” Drake scoffed and then faced Ben. “Hey, how did you survive in this hell for 10 years?”
Ben half turned to his friend. “Pro tip number one, stay out of the damn swamps.”
“Ugh.” Helen sank into a hole to her groin. “Could have been worse. Down in Australia and Antarctica was something called a Koolasuchus; that amphibian grew to about 20 feet and was basically all shovel-shaped head and mouth.”
“Lucky Aussies,” Ben said.
Ben held up a hand and the group halted. Light beams waved out over the reeking water where a heavy green mist curled around moss-covered tree trunks, roots lifting like tentacles from the bog, and interspersed with bubbles of methane popping to the surface.
“Getting too deep,” Ben said.
“Gotta be coming to an end soon. Place isn’t that big,” Drake said.
“We’re at a disadvantage and our blind spots are getting bigger every inch that water rises.” Ben put a scope to his eye and turned it slowly. “We give it another 10 minutes, and if it doesn’t begin to shallow out, we back up and go around. Okay?”
“We’ll lose a lot of time,” Helen protested, but then: “And I agree with you 100 percent.”
A large bubble of gas rose beside them and then popped with a shitty vegetable smell. “Nice,” Drake said and waved it away.
“Okay, stay tight. Chess, bring up the rear. Francis and Shawna, take the left and right flank. And everyone keep your eyes open, we may pick up some interested critters along the way.” Ben shook his head. “And Shawna, carry your own damn gear.”