The explosive rounds blew out bucket-sized chunks of scales and flesh, and the snakes went wild. The one that had just devoured Chess vomited, and the man’s body was ejected to the ground before them.
“Aw, fuck me.” Shawna’s face twisted in horror as she glanced at it.
Chess’ body was now about eight feet long, and nothing but a red and brown twisted mess of crushed flesh and pulverized bone. If the boots weren’t intact, it might have been hard to even recognize it as once being a human being.
Drake fired, racked, and fired again, and the crack shot scored only once on the now thrashing monster. Leaves rained down on them like a ticker-tape parade.
“Yeah!” Shawna yelled. “Come git some!” She also pumped and fired over and over.
“Stop.”
The voice was unfamiliar.
“Please, just, stop.” The bedraggled skeleton ran into the center of their camp and pushed Drake’s gun up and away from its target.
“Andy?” Helen’s mouth dropped open. “Andy?”
Helen immediately dropped her gun hand, and Ben and Drake ceased firing, but Francis and Shawna kept punching out rounds at anything that moved in the upper canopy.
“Just please stop, now.” He held his hands together as if he was begging.
“Andy.” Helen smiled through her pain. “We came… ”
She went to cross to him, but Ben held out an arm. “Why?” Ben scowled and kept his gun pointed at the thrashing monsters. “Why not kill them?”
“Why the fuck? They killed Chess.” Shawna blasted again.
“Stop!” Helen shouted. “Hear him out.”
“Hold fire!” Ben yelled. “For now.”
Francis ceased firing, and then Shawna did, but took the time to reload.
“Andy’s going to tell us why. Right, Andy?” Ben said and stared hard at the giant snakes one last time.
One of them hung in the trees with huge holes in its body, and both of them leaked fluid that rained to the ground. The other Titanoboa withdrew, but wasn’t in a much better state.
Andy watched it withdraw back into the massive trees, and then exhaled and shook his head. Ben dragged his gaze away to face Andy.
“Welcome back, son.”
“Ben.” Andy turned. “Drake.” He then faced his sister and smiled weakly. “Helen, I knew you’d come. I missed you so much.” He went to her.
She hobbled to meet him and hugged his skin-and-bones frame. He returned the hug and she grimaced.
“Oof.” She held him at arm’s length. “You look like hell.”
“No worse than he did.” Andy nodded at Ben.
“Bullshit.” Drake grinned.
“This toothless old bag of bones is Andy Martin?” Shawna blew air through pressed lips. “You can keep that diet.”
“You don’t seem that surprised to see me,” Andy said.
“We knew you’d be alive. We’ve felt it,” Drake said. “You must have got lucky.”
“Pfft.” Andy waved it away. “Ben survived by using his Special Forces survival skills and a lot of luck. But I survived because I know dinosaurs and their environment. No luck involved for me, just scientific deductive reasoning.”
“Modest as always.” Helen smiled. She then looked into his straggly bearded face. “So why not kill the snakes?”
Andy turned to look at the single bleeding corpse of the snake hanging limp now in the tree. “That was a full-grown male. The other one was a female of breeding age; it’ll probably die of its wounds as well.” He sighed. “I think it’s already too late.”
“Too late for what?” Ben asked.
“We could never work out why they went extinct. After all, other large snakes survived, their prey survived, and they could even tolerate cooler climates.” Andy gave Helen a crooked smile. “We did it, we small group of arrogant humans. We killed them off. Us, right here… and maybe 10 years ago as well.”
Andy looked up at the mutilated corpse in the tree again that now seemed deflated. “This plateau was where they lived and survived, and for all we know, those two were the last breeding pair.”
Drake grunted. “I’m not sorry to see those things canceled out of history.”
“Yeah, who gives a fuck?” Shawna snorted. “Nature boy just wants to let them eat us.” She pointed at the disgusting mass of pulp that used to be Chess. “Tell that to my buddy there.”
Andy shook his head. “It’s too late anyway. What’s done is done.”
“We’re not too sure about that. We’ve just got to make sure that no more things are changed.” Ben nodded toward the female merc first. “That’s Shawna, over there, and the big guy is Francis. The rest you know.”
Francis nodded and Shawna just stared.
“You came back to see me.” Andy grinned. “And I came to see you. I really missed you, sis. I’ve got so much to tell you, and if you let me, so much more to show you.”
“Yeah, we came to see you. But here’s the thing, Andy.” Ben cradled his gun. “Every time we came back, we changed something. You said that we killed off the snakes, but we think there’s a lot more than that. Somehow you being here, and something you’ve done, are doing, or will do, are making catastrophic changes to the future.”
“What? I don’t believe that.” Andy shook his head, but his forehead creased, as he seemed to think on it.
“True, son,” Drake said evenly. “We need to bring you home. Stop the re-evolution effects. Stop what’s happening.”
Andy frowned. “What’s happening? What are you talking about?”
“Things are changing, Andy,” Helen said. “Creatures that shouldn’t be in our timeline are appearing. And others are vanishing.”
“It’s bad, real bad,” Drake said.
Andy shook his head. “I only came to see Helen. But that’s all. Anyway, time is set in stone; it’s all too late. Don’t you see? What has happened has already happened… 100 million years ago.”
“Not from now it’s not,” Ben said. “You need to come home.”
“This is my home now.” Andy raised his voice and pointed at the ground.
“Gluck.”
“And his home too.” Andy opened his bag, and then grinned into it. “He thinks I’m his dad.” He lifted free the tiny pterosaur, and let it perch on his shoulder. “It’s our home.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Shawna shook her head. “He’s even got a dino-parrot.”
“No, Andy, nothing is yet set in stone,” Ben said. “We don’t know if you live for another week, a year, 10 years, or how many. But you do something or some things that alter our future world. It’s going insane back there. We’ve all seen it.”
“Me?” Andy narrowed his eyes, and then pointed to the dead snake in the tree. “Are you blind? Look at that; it’s already way too late.”
“Please, Andy, you have to come.” Helen’s voice was small. “You have to.”
Andy rubbed both hands up through long straggly hair. “Then maybe I was wrong. Time is changeable.” His eyes shimmered with tears, but his vision seemed turned inward. “Maybe time is like a road with a million invisible intersections, and our travels along it are influenced by events, choice, and luck.” He took a few steps toward the snake and stared at the carcass as he spoke. “Some of the roads run parallel and others diverge greatly. If we were to go back and choose another, then our lives, and perhaps millions of others, would be vastly different.” He turned back. “I don’t care; what’s done is done. I’m not going with you.”