The Deadly Past Read online

  Then there were the eggs. They lay off to her right, four of them, leaning against one another for support. Each was almost as big as Cindy and sickly yellow in color. As she stared at them the egg closest to her began to crack on the top.

  “That’s just great,” Cindy said. “Now I’m going to be baby food.”

  Fortunately the mother pterodactyl was nowhere to be seen, and Cindy believed she could handle a single baby dinosaur. But she worried that all four might hatch at once, and she shuddered to think of the babies surrounding her and pecking at her flesh. Also, the mother could return at any moment and seriously wound her so that she couldn’t put up a fight. Cindy realized that her blacking out was probably the only thing that had saved her. The mother pterodactyl had probably thought that she would be an easy meal for her children.

  The top of the egg broke open and a single tiny claw emerged.

  The creature inside screeched thinly.

  Cindy knew she had to get out of the nest.

  But the mother pterodactyl had built wisely, so close to the edge of the rocky peak that only the most agile enemies could prey on the eggs. Standing up, Cindy decided that her only chance was to climb up to the top of the peak, and hope there was a way down the other side. On this side there was nothing but sheer cliff below her.

  Cindy was gripping the side of the nest when the first baby pterodactyl spilled out of its crumbling egg. The creature had simple needs. It was alive and now it wanted to eat. The first thing it did was stagger free of the ghostly fluid that covered its pale brown body. Then it screeched at Cindy.

  “Food!” it seemed to say. Cindy tried to pull herself out of the nest but was forced to stop to defend herself. The pterodactyl wanted a bite of her leg. Cindy watched in horror as it scampered toward her.

  “Leave me alone!” Cindy cried, kicking at it, which gave it reason to pause but not go away. Cindy tried not to think about what would have happened if she hadn’t regained consciousness a few minutes earlier. The baby pterodactyl would have just walked over and begun to feed on her. Like Sally said, it probably would have fed on her brain first.

  Yuck!

  Cindy kicked at it again and the nasty little baby had the nerve to scratch her right leg with one of its claws. Cindy couldn’t believe how painful the cut was, and wondered if baby pterodactyls had poison on the tips of their claws. But the weird thing was she didn’t really want to hurt the creature, even though it was trying to eat her. She understood that attacking any living thing was its nature, that it was just hungry. At the same time she wasn’t feeling warm enough toward the creature to take it home and build it a playhouse.

  But where was home?

  These couldn’t be the mountains that surrounded Spooksville.

  The shape of them, the plants that grew on them—everything looked primeval. It was as if the mother pterodactyl had not merely carried her away, but carried her into the past—far into the past.

  Of course it was the present moment she was worried about.

  The baby pterodactyl tried to scratch her again and Cindy was forced to kick it. She caught it with a clean shot and the little monster howled and backed off.

  “Let that be a lesson to you,” Cindy said. “Don’t go trying to eat things that are bigger than you.”

  Cindy managed to pull herself out of the nest and onto a narrow ledge that ran along the mountain peak. But the drop below her was at least two thousand feet. Her head spun. Desperately she clutched the surrounding stone. She had always been afraid of heights. Even riding up in an elevator in a tall building could make her dizzy. Trying not to look down, she slowly made her way toward a sharp break in the wall of the cliff that offered her handholds to pull herself up to the top of the peak. Behind her, the baby pterodactyl continued to screech. Cindy hoped it wasn’t calling for mom to come home quick.

  But that was probably exactly what it was doing.

  Cindy carefully began to pull herself up, making sure with each step that her weight was fully supported. She wasn’t far from the top of the mountain, maybe only two hundred feet. But that two hundred feet took her ages to cover. Glancing down set her head spinning, yet the temptation to do so refused to leave her. For the time being, she was her own worst enemy. She kept telling herself to stay cool, that she was lucky to be alive.

  After what seemed an hour of climbing she pulled herself up on top of the peak. For a moment the view stole her breath away. In every direction was the most exotic scenery she had ever seen. Massive waterfalls plunging thousands of feet into churning pools. Purple colored trees, larger than redwoods, that seemed to be straining to touch the sky with fat branches covered in blue leaves.

  There was even a volcano, blowing off dirty steam, percolating off to the far side of the peak. It looked like a classic volcano, cone shaped, with black sides and an angrily glowing red tip. But just the sight of it made Cindy uneasy. Maybe it had been shooting off steam for ages, but there was something immediately threatening about it. Was it ready to blow its top?

  “This is definitely not Spooksville,” she said out loud to herself.

  But then where was she?

  She wasn’t given a chance to think about the question.

  A terrifying sound—like the huge beating heart Watch had described—could be heard in the distance. Cindy strained her eyes in every direction but didn’t see anything. The sky was largely covered with thick gray clouds, and she knew her old friend the pterodactyl had to be hiding behind them. The pulsing sound grew louder and louder. When the monster finally emerged it was less than a hundred yards away. Cindy started to scream. Clearly it must have come for her, and standing on top of the peak she was totally exposed and completely helpless. Yet the pterodactyl swept past her as if she didn’t exist, aiming at something or someone far below her. Curious, Cindy crept to the far edge and looked down. She could see nothing, but was amazed she could hear something.

  A human voice. A friend calling to her?

  4

  Is that an apatosaurus?” Adam asked as the kid on top came into view.

  “Is that Bryce Poole?” Sally asked, showing what was more important to her.

  The answer to both questions was of course “yes.” Who else would be riding a dinosaur into town but the dark and handsome Bryce Poole? At least Sally might have posed the question that way. For his part, Adam was more interested in the dinosaur. It had to be about ninety feet long and weigh over thirty tons. It shook the ground as it moved. Bryce waved to them as the dinosaur swung its small gray head in their direction.

  “Don’t worry!” Bryce called. “This one is a vegetarian.”

  “We know that!” Adam yelled back. “But what are you doing with that dinosaur?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Bryce yelled back. “I am riding it into town. I need to show everyone that we’re in real danger.”

  Sally gushed to Adam. “Isn’t it incredible that he could tame a real live dinosaur?”

  Adam frowned. “I don’t think he’s tamed anything. That dinosaur looks like its going where it wants when it wants.”

  “Oh, you’re just jealous,” Sally huffed. Then she smiled and waved brightly to Bryce. “Why don’t you come down here and talk to us? We need your help.”

  “We don’t need his help,” Adam muttered, thinking of the time Bryce Poole had helped them when they were trapped in the Dark Corner on the other side of the Secret Path. Bryce had run off as soon as they showed up. He left them to fend for themselves against the demons. For that reason, neither Adam nor Watch trusted Bryce. But the girls couldn’t get enough of him, much to Adam’s dismay.

  “I’ll be down in a few seconds!” Bryce called back. And with that he said a few words to the apatosaurus and, by golly, if the massive beast didn’t lower its head and neck so that Bryce could slide off. He casually strolled up to them. “What’s happening?” he asked.

  “For your information we were just attacked by a pterodactyl,” Adam said. “Cindy was carried away,
and Watch has gone to rescue her.”

  “I know,” Bryce said. “I saw the whole thing as I was riding down from the mountains.”

  Adam was angry. “Then why didn’t you help us?”

  Sally interrupted. “Obviously Bryce would have helped us if he had had a chance. He must have been too far away. Isn’t that right, Bryce?”

  “Yes,” Bryce said. “I was riding the apatosaurus, but you can’t make it go faster.” He paused. “I really hope Watch is able to rescue Cindy. I know if I had been there she would probably be safe now.”

  “I don’t think so,” Adam said, amazed that Bryce could say such a thing with a straight face.

  “Adam has been through a rough time,” Sally told Bryce. “You have to forgive his bad manners.”

  Adam rolled his eyes. “I’m the one who needs to be forgiven. You still haven’t explained what you’re doing with that dinosaur.”

  “Yes, I have,” Bryce said. “I am taking it into town. We have to mobilize against this invasion.”

  “What are the dinosaurs doing here?” Sally asked.

  “An interdimensional time warp has opened between present time and seventy million years ago,” Bryce explained. “The warp is way back in the mountains.”

  “Watch figured that out already,” Adam said.

  Bryce shook his head. “What Watch couldn’t know is what he will find on the other side of the mountains. A doorway hasn’t simply opened to the past. Actual pieces of the past have materialized here and covered the land just beyond Spooksville. What I’m saying is we have mountains and volcanoes from seventy million years ago sitting just beyond those peaks.”

  “So you’ve been there?” Sally asked, impressed.

  Bryce was grim. “Yes. I’ve been studying this phenomena for the last two days, and have been trying to find a solution to it. But so far I haven’t been able to stop it.”

  “But I know you will,” Sally said with stars in her eyes.

  “If you knew about these dinosaurs two days ago,” Adam complained, “you were awfully slow in warning people.”

  “I didn’t want to start a panic,” Bryce said.

  Adam was bitter. “A panic? We had a little panic this morning when a pterodactyl carried Cindy away. If you hadn’t decided to try to solve this problem all by yourself, she would probably be here now.”

  Bryce nodded reluctantly. “I may have made a mistake. But I did accomplish a great deal in the last two days, even if I haven’t reversed the time warp. I do know that we can use the Secret Path to help stop it.”

  “How do you know that?” Adam snapped.

  “The Secret Path is not just a path into other dimensions. It is also a portal into other times. I am convinced that what created this time warp exists in the past.”

  Adam snickered. “You’re just guessing. You don’t know any more than we do.”

  “You’re wrong,” Bryce said simply. “About this phenomena I know a great deal more than any of you, and that includes Watch. For example, I know that for time to have become so distorted a tremendous amount of energy must have been set loose in the past, probably seventy million years ago. I also know that this explosion—if you want to call it that—must have happened at a place that was susceptible to time as well as space fractures.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Adam said. He really didn’t.

  Bryce spoke with patience. “Madeline Templeton’s tombstone in the Spooksville cemetery is the one place that leads to the Secret Path. It is a natural spot for space and time distortion. It’s my belief that the explosion that occurred in the past happened there. It sent a ripple of time space distortion into our time and space.”

  “But you say land from seventy million years ago lies beyond the mountains,” Adam protested. “The cemetery is on this side of the mountains. I don’t see the connection.”

  “The doorway to the Secret Path is here now,” Bryce said. “But where was it seventy million years ago? Whole continents have shifted since then. I think in the past the cemetery and what is happening on the other side of the mountains overlapped. I’m going to use the Secret Path to go back in time to stop the explosion from ever happening.”

  “What a magnificent plan!” Sally exclaimed.

  “And you just thought you’d ride a dinosaur into town while you were at it?” Adam muttered, still annoyed at Bryce’s nerve. Yet despite himself, Adam was impressed by Bryce’s logic.

  Bryce spoke darkly. “I may fail in my plan, and die in the past. I told you twice why I am riding this dinosaur. Why don’t you believe me?”

  “Adam suffers from poor self-esteem,” Sally explained. “His nasty remarks are just part of a defense mechanism.”

  “I believe you,” Adam said reluctantly. “But I suspect you won’t need to ride a dinosaur to warn people of the danger. I think a few dinosaurs will get there ahead of us, at least as long as we waste time by standing here arguing. Also, I still think it’s a mistake to tackle this problem all by yourself. We could help.”

  “I just don’t want to expose you to danger,” Bryce said. “If something happened to you, I’d never be able to forgive myself.”

  “I’d forgive you,” Sally said quickly.

  Adam frowned some more. “Ann Templeton knows more about the Secret Path than any of us, and she is a powerful witch. Since all of Spooksville is in danger, I say we head to her castle first to try to get her help.”

  “That will slow us down,” Bryce warned.

  “Not much,” Adam replied. “Her castle and the cemetery are right next to each other.” Adam added, “You can’t be so sure of yourself that you don’t need help.”

  “Some heroes work better alone,” Sally said.

  Bryce nodded. “I don’t mind help. I’m not an egomaniac, no matter what you think, Adam. I just don’t want to see any more people killed.”

  “Cindy could be alive,” Adam said flatly. “We haven’t given up on her.”

  “I understand.” Bryce turned back toward the apatosaurus, which appeared to be waiting for him. “Let’s all ride Sara back to town.”

  Sally hurried to catch up with Bryce. “Did you name her after me? You know my real name is Sara Wilcox.”

  Bryce shrugged. “Maybe subconsciously.”

  “Oh brother,” Adam muttered.

  5

  Watch was surprised when the road ran out and he entered a primeval forest. He realized immediately that he had to revamp his theory about a doorway to the past opening. The doorway had not only opened, the past had at least pushed a portion of itself through.

  He was fortunate, however, that he was able to keep driving even without the road. For a while the terrain remained relatively flat. But he could see the sharp peaks in the distance getting closer with each passing minute. He suspected that was where the pterodactyl had taken Cindy and he tried to take the truck as close as he could. But soon enough he was on foot and climbing. There were six peaks to chose from—he just chose the closest one.

  He had been climbing less than thirty minutes when he saw and heard two things almost simultaneously. He caught a peek at what looked like a huge nest partway around the steep peak he was scaling. Above that, in the low hanging clouds, he heard the strange beating sound he associated with the attack of the pterodactyl. He was therefore not surprised when the monster suddenly pierced through the clouds and dove in his direction.

  But he was surprised, and relieved, to see Cindy appear at the top of the peak.

  He waved. “Cindy!” he shouted.

  She waved back. “Watch! Be careful!”

  The pterodactyl was coming. Maybe it remembered him from the cave. The screech that rang out from its long mouth certainly didn’t sound friendly. For a moment Watch was utterly perplexed as to what to do. A quick glance around revealed there were no sticks handy. But what he did have were some places to take shelter. The trouble with hiding, though, was that he would leave Cindy open to attack. From what he could see she
was completely exposed on the peak. No, he thought, he had to hurt the pterodactyl, and he had to hurt it bad.

  The pterodactyl screamed. It would be on him in seconds.

  There was a cave directly off to Watch’s left. Yet it was no ordinary cave. It seemed to form a loop in the side of the cliff. In other words, he could walk in one entrance and walk out a hundred feet higher up. It got Watch thinking that if he could entice the pterodactyl to come after him on the lower level, he could slip up and around and try to attack it from above.

  Of course he didn’t know what he would attack it with.

  Now he wished he had taken time to go to town for a gun.

  Watch waved his arm at the approaching creature.

  “Here I am!” he shouted. “Come get me!”

  “Don’t do that!” Cindy screamed from far above. “Take cover!”

  Watch inched closer to the shelter, but waited till the last possible second to rush into the cave. He almost waited too long. He actually felt the brush of the pterodactyl’s wings as he slipped into the hole in the cliff wall. He was lucky the monster paused once it landed and took a moment to get its bearings. During that time Watch managed to work his way through the cave to come out the other end one hundred feet above the creature. To his immense pleasure he found a large boulder sitting at the opening to the cave. Now if he could just roll it off the edge and onto the head of the pterodactyl, the day could be saved.

  The only problem was when he looked down the pterodactyl had disappeared.

  It had slipped into the cave.

  Watch whirled around, half expecting to find the monster preparing to jump on his back. What he did see was terrifying enough. The pterodactyl had followed him into the cave and had even climbed up the same way he had. The only problem—as far as the hungry pterodactyl was concerned—was that the cave narrowed at the top. Narrowed too much for a full-grown flying lizard to squeeze past. The monster could see Watch and he could see it but it couldn’t get to him. Watch almost laughed out loud.