Stuck In The Time Of Dinosaurs

The last thunderclap still trembled through Mara Caldwell’s teeth when she opened her eyes.

A fern taller than her stood inches from her face, each frond tipped with silver rain. Beyond it, a plain stretched beneath a bruised purple sky. Mud shone between patches of red grass. Black rocks crowded the mouth of a ravine, and something enormous moved far across the open ground.

Mara pushed herself up on one elbow.

“Mom?”

Her voice vanished beneath the rumble rolling away over the plain.

She sat up too fast. The world tilted. Her sneakers slid in the mud, and she caught herself against a stone slick with rain. Her backpack lay several feet away, half buried beneath crushed plants. The zipper had torn open. A notebook, two pencils, and her flashlight floated in a shallow puddle.

She crawled toward them.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Come on, come on.”

Her fingers closed around the flashlight first. The plastic case was cracked, but the button still clicked. A thin beam blinked on, then died.

Mara grabbed the notebook and shoved it into her backpack. She tried her phone next. The screen lit for half a second.

No service.

The time read 4:17.

Then the numbers scrambled into black squares.

Mara stared at the phone until rain blurred the screen. She wiped it on her sleeve and pressed the button again. Nothing.

A low call rolled across the plain.

It was not thunder. Thunder did not breathe between sounds.

Mara looked up.

The enormous shape in the distance lifted its head. A long tail dragged behind it, cutting a dark line through the wet grass. Another shape moved beside it, smaller but still taller than the trees near Mara’s house.

Her hands tightened around the dead phone.

“No,” she said.

The first animal gave another booming call. Birds burst from a stand of strange, fan-shaped trees. Their wings flashed blue and green as they fled.

Mara stumbled backward. Her heel struck the stone. Pain shot up her ankle, but she stayed upright.

The dinosaurs did not look like museum skeletons. They moved. They breathed. One swung its long neck toward the ravine, and its eye caught a pale glint of light.

Mara ducked behind the fern.

Rain ticked against the leaves. Mud chilled her palms. She pressed one hand over her mouth and tried to make her breathing quiet.

A memory pushed through the fog in her head: the storm over the old quarry, white lightning twisting down instead of striking across. The broken fence. The flash that had swallowed the world.

Then the thunder.

Then this.

Mara looked toward the ravine. It was not far, but the space between them was open. No trees. No shelter except low shrubs and scattered rocks.

If she reached the ravine, she could hide. Maybe it led to a road. Maybe to a cave. Maybe someone would find her.

She pulled the backpack onto one shoulder and waited for the long-necked dinosaurs to turn away.

They did not.

One lowered its head toward the ground. The smaller animal beside it gave a sharp, barking call. Both began moving across the plain.

Toward her.

Mara ran.

Her first step sank to her ankle. She yanked free and splashed forward. Rain slapped her cheeks. The backpack bounced against her spine, and the loose strap snagged on a thorn bush. She tore it loose without stopping.

Behind her, the ground shook.

Mara risked a glance over her shoulder.

The dinosaurs were not chasing her. They were still too far away, lumbering toward the ravine. But their size made the distance seem shorter. Each footfall pressed a dark print into the shining mud.

A shrill cry rose from somewhere near the rocks.

Mara faced forward and ran harder.

The plain dipped suddenly. She slid down a muddy slope and landed on both knees. Her palms struck sharp gravel. She bit back a cry.

The ravine was closer now, a narrow cut in the earth with walls of dark stone. Water rushed along its bottom, brown and fast. On the far side, a shelf of rock made a shallow hollow.

Mara scrambled down toward it.

Then lightning split the sky.

It did not flash above her. It flashed inside her wrist.

Mara cried out and fell against the ravine wall. A thin mark had appeared beneath the skin of her left wrist, bright as a blue-white thread. It curved in a broken circle, with tiny lines branching from it like cracks in glass.

The mark pulsed once.

Across the plain, the thunder answered.

The distant dinosaurs stopped.

Mara stared at her wrist. The mark faded to a dull silver, but the skin around it tingled.

“What are you?” she whispered.

A second pulse shivered through her arm.

The larger dinosaur lifted its head.

Mara clutched her wrist with her other hand. The mark warmed beneath her fingers. A pale glow leaked between them.

The dinosaur turned toward the ravine.

“No,” Mara breathed. “No, don’t.”

She scrambled along the slope, searching for a way across the rushing water. The ravine narrowed a few yards ahead, where flat stones formed a rough bridge. She could cross there....