We stayed there all night. We didn’t talk much. When we did, it was in short, hushed whispers so we wouldn’t attract attention. Janelle and Deke slept. Jorge shut his eyes, but opened them every time there was a noise from the forest. Deke cried in his sleep, but I didn’t mention it to him. After all, I cried, too. Only difference was my eyes were open.
“What are they?” Janelle asked the next morning.
“Big damn lizards,” Deke told her.
“I know that. But where did they come from?”
“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “Y’all know about these big bones in the rocks that folks dig up out of the ground, right?”
“Sure,” Deke replied. “There’s rich people who collect them.”
Janelle nodded. “They’re called fossils-all that remains of the dinosaurs.”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s the word. I reckon these lizards are living versions of those fossils. They’re dinosaurs.”
“The Reverend might have disagreed with you on that,” Deke said. “He seemed to think they were something out of the Bible. I don’t remember any dinosaurs in the good book.”
“Well, the Reverend’s dead. I don’t reckon he’ll be any more help.”
Janelle frowned. “You should be more respectful of the dead, Mr. Hogan.”
“I usually am. But our recent experiences with the dead have soured me a bit. It’s hard to be respectful of something when it’s trying to eat you.”
“But the Reverend wasn’t like those dead.”
“No, he wasn’t. I reckon he was one of the lucky ones.”
“You’re forgetting one thing,” Deke said. “I thought dinosaurs were supposed to be extinct.”
“Somebody forgot to tell them that.”
Jorge glanced at each of us as we talked, clearly trying to follow the conversation. His expression was desperate. I smiled at him. He smiled back and then pointed outside.
“I’m with him,” Deke said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“We need to find our way back to the desert,” I agreed.
“But the dead are still out there,” Janelle said.
“They’re here in the valley, too,” I reminded her. “But there aren’t any dinosaurs in the desert. Given a choice, I’d rather take my chances with just the dead, rather than worrying about them both.”
Deke rubbed the whiskers on his chin. “You remember how to get back to the canyon entrance?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I got all turned around when we ran. I was hoping one of you knew the way.”
Neither Deke nor Janelle remembered, and when we tried asking Jorge, he just stared at us in confusion and pointed outside again.
“Try your compass,” I told Deke. “Let’s get a bearing on where we are, and which direction we’ll need to go.”
He pulled it out, wiped condensation from the lens, and then stared at it.
“What’s wrong?” Janelle asked.
“Damned thing ain’t working,” Deke muttered. “It’s just spinning round and round, like it can’t find north.”
“Let me see.” I tried it for myself. Sure enough, the needle just kept spinning in a circle. I handed it back to him. “How much did you pay for that?”
“Five cents.”
“That was five cents too much.”
“It worked in the desert.”
“Well, it ain’t working now.”
Jorge pointed outside again.
“We can’t just go stumbling around through this valley,” Deke said. “We’ll get eaten.”
“That might be so,” I agreed, “but we can’t stay here, either.”
“Then what do you propose, Hogan?”
“I say we head for high ground. The valley is ringed by those hills. I say we get to the top of one of them, and then work our way back down to the desert. Should be easy without the horses.”
“That’s another problem,” Deke said. “With no mounts, how do we stay ahead of the dead once we make it out of here?”
I shrugged. “They’re slow. And judging by the shape those coyotes were in yesterday, I’d say the desert has been harder on them than it was on us. Long as we keep moving, we should be able to outpace them. With any luck, they’ll fall apart before too much longer.”
“And if you’re wrong?” Janelle asked.
I didn’t have an answer for her. None of us did.
Soon as it was light, we crept outside and held our breath. When nothing charged out of the undergrowth, we relaxed. I shimmied up a tree and got a fix on our location. The hills were there on the horizon, ringing the valley. Pale clouds floated above them, almost touching their tips. I saw a few dinosaurs-long-necked, soft-eyed things with square, blunt teeth, chewing on the treetops. They reminded me of cows. I shuddered, watching them warily. Big as they were, they could have reached me in no time. Luckily, they paid me no attention.
We set off on our trek through the valley. I took the lead, followed by Deke and Janelle. Jorge brought up the rear. We went slowly, communicating with each other through hand gestures. The forest was full of animal noises, but they weren’t sounds that I recognized. There were croaking, raspy grunts and long hisses and chirps that sounded almost, but not quite, like birdsongs.
The first sound we recognized was a tree snapping-a loud crack, like a schoolmarm’s paddle smacking someone’s behind. We couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from. Then we heard it crash to the ground. The forest floor vibrated with the impact. Another tree snapped. We caught a glimpse of the thing-a tail as long as a stagecoach and hind legs taller than a barn. It was walking away from us. We hurried straight ahead, not wanting to attract its attention. We moved so fast that we didn’t see the dead dinosaur until it lurched out of the undergrowth.
Janelle’s shriek echoed through the valley. Deke and I dove to the side. Jorge stood there gaping as it towered over him, staring down at him with one good eye. I recognized the lizard right away. It was the same one we’d encountered the day before. The missing eye and the scars on its face were unmistakable. When we’d last seen it, the dinosaur was still alive. Apparently, the dead coyote it had eaten hadn’t agreed with it, because now it was dead-infected with Hamelin’s Revenge. It already stank. A swarm of flies hovered around it. Its movements were sluggish, but it was still quick enough to catch Jorge. He tried to run, but it swiped at his back, plunging its talons into his skin and lifting him off the ground. Jorge jerked and jittered like a drunk at a square dance. He opened his mouth to scream and vomited blood instead. The lizard’s claws burst through his chest. Then the dinosaur ripped him in half.
I grabbed Janelle’s hand and forced her to run with me. Deke was at my side, breathing heavily. His cheeks were flushed. I wanted to ask him if he was all right, but couldn’t spare the breath. We plunged through the greenery, heedless of where we were going or what was around us. One-Eye lumbered after us. We couldn’t see him, but his steady, thudding footfalls kept pace.
The ground started to slope upward. The trees tilted forward, then thinned out. Janelle stumbled and fell, but I scooped her up in my arms and continued on. Deke’s face turned beet red. He was drenched with sweat.
“Not much farther,” I panted. “Just keep climbing.”
They nodded. Janelle tapped my shoulder, indicating that she wanted down. She was wobbly when she first tried to stand, but soon regained her footing. We scrabbled upward. The vegetation thinned to scrub, and the soil turned rocky. Huge boulders thrust from the earth. I glanced back down into the forest and saw treetops swaying back and forth as One-Eye passed beneath them. Then he lurched into sight. Without pausing, he started up the hill.
“It’s no use,” Deke sobbed, mopping his brow with his shirttail. “That thing’s dead. It won’t tire. It’ll just keep coming until we tucker out, and then get us.”
“I ain’t gonna let that happen,” I said.
“Well, how do you reckon you can stop it?” Deke glanced back down at the dinosaur, creeping closer but still a long way off. “We ain’t got any weapons.”