Danger: Dinosaurs!

Chapter 11 Vicious Swimmers

They didn’t start across the lake the next morning. Chuck was disappointed, but he shoved his disappointment aside and concentrated more ferociously on the task of building the raft. He had hoped they could complete the job the night before, after supper. But he had not taken into consideration two important points: the fact that the raft had to be a very large one in order to hold eight people, and the fact that their only tool was a rather dull ax.

They worked eagerly now, fighting against time, knowing that every minute counted.

By midmorning they were still no more than a quarter of the way finished. Chuck began to doubt the wisdom of deciding on the water route rather than the overland one. He saw gloom settle on the faces of every member of the party as the day wore on. Even Pete, cooking the remarkably modern-looking lobsters and crabs he had caught in the lake, did not look happy.

They concentrated their efforts on chopping down the large cycads first. The work was slow and back-breaking. The ax resembled the kind a boy scout carries in his belt. Chuck longed for a real ax — a lumberjack’s ax or, at least, a sharp ax.

They took turns. The ax changed hands at least a dozen times every half-hour. From Chuck to Arthur to Dr. Perry to Dr. Dumar and then around again — and around once more. Pete was busily adding to their food supply from the mollusks and decapods he found in the lake. Denise did not work because Chuck had refused her offer to wield the ax. The journey was really beginning to tell on her, and Chuck knew that the girl was bone-weary.

Masterson and Gardel refused to lend a hand in what they called “a fool’s venture.” Chuck didn’t try to force them. He was too busy working against time.

By noon they had what they felt to be enough felled trees and they set about the job of lashing them together. The raft not only had to be big, it also had to be strong enough to carry them across the long lake. Chuck was not discounting the possibility of meeting dinosaurs in the water, even though he could not see any from his position on the shore. The raft had to be strong enough to take a solid tail swipe or a head — on collision should they encounter any of the brutes. It also had to be strong enough to withstand the buffeting of the water.

It was not an easy job.

They used all the rope they had with them and then they cut vines and lashed these together, intertwining them with the slow patience of a weaver.

By three o’clock, without stopping for lunch, they had finished half the job. Pete left his boiled lobsters to grow cold and lent a much-needed hand on the raft. Denise began working on the vines, twining them together into the necessary lashings. Only Masterson and Gardel insisted they were heading in the wrong direction and adamantly refused to be a party to what they termed Chuck’s misdirection.

They all stopped for supper at six-thirty. By this time they were exhausted, and the day was almost gone. Chuck no longer hoped to get the raft in the water before nightfall. His only concern was to finish it in time for an early-morning start. They got to work immediately after supper and worked through until almost midnight, laboring in the light of a huge bonfire.

On the morning of the fifth day they launched their vessel. It was a mild day, the kind of day that made Chuck want to take off his shoes and lie on the shore with the sun strong on his bare chest. That kind of day. The lake reflected a flawless blue sky, opened overhead like a parasol. The ferns dipped gracefully under the mild caress of the breeze. It was a day meant for dreaming, a day that needed a fishing pole and a blade of grass sucked dry between the teeth. It was like the beginning of spring, and it gave Chuck the same feeling because he knew they would have half their problem solved once they crossed the lake.

He watched the shore line recede as the raft nosed out into the water. There was a strange happiness inside him, a happiness that nudged his heart, tempting it to burst open like a blossoming flower.

The raft left a mild wake behind it, wrinkles on the surface of the calm, mirror — like lake. It drifted away from the shore and the men dipped their paddles into the water. The raft reached out to gobble up distance like a hungry tortoise.

It wasn’t until they reached the middle of the lake that the currents hit them.

“We’re turning!” Masterson shouted. “I told you this was a foolish...”

The raft had begun to turn abruptly toward starboard and, as it floundered in the grasp of the strong current, it began to whirl — slowly at first — and then with ever — increasing rapidity. It was like some sort of crazy merry — go-round. It spun dizzily, and Chuck dropped to his belly, clinging to the lashings with grasping fingers.

“Everybody down!” he yelled. He saw the two doctors drop to their knees and reach for the safety of the lashings. Masterson and Gardel were already flat on the deck, holding tightly as the raft gained speed. Arthur staggered for a few seconds, tottering like a drunkard, and then dropped down next to Pete, who had wrapped one fist around a lashing near the end of the raft.

“Denise!” Chuck shouted. “Get...”

He watched the girl stagger around the raft, her knees buckling, her hands groping blindly. She stumbled forward, and Chuck struggled to get to his knees, the whirling motion making him sick inside. The raft suddenly shook itself free of the whirlpool, was captured in a cross current that sent it zooming forward in a straight line. Another current caught it and deflected its forward motion, slapping it to one side like a billiard ball.

Chuck was up now, reaching forward for Denise, who fell to her knees and began rolling toward the edge of the raft.

“Denise!”

The currents were enjoying themselves now. They were playing catch with the raft, tossing it back and forth like a beanbag. The raft tilted precariously, and Denise rolled rapidly to the edge. There was a blur of movement, and her long legs flashed in the sun, her hands groping for some kind of grip on the deck.

And then she was over the side! Her blonde head disappeared beneath the water, bobbed to the surface like a yellow cork and was swept away suddenly as the current found a new plaything. In ten seconds flat she was thirty feet from the raft, with the distance widening every second. Chuck ran across the raft, stopped near the edge to kick off his shoes, and then dived into the water.

The water was cold. It closed over his head like an icy tomb. He felt the powerful grip of the current yanking at his legs, saw the blue depths eddying before his eyes. He thrust his arms downward and shoved himself up to the surface. His head broke water and he opened his mouth wide, sucking in a great gulp of air. Far off in the distance, like a speck of sunlight against the water, he saw Denise’s golden head.

He reached out with one arm, pulled against the water. His other arm came up over his head, completed the stroke, pulled. Up, over, pull. Up, over, pull. He kept his legs going like powerful pistons, never relaxing his struggle against the current. His arms ached from the strain of fighting the water, and his body was numb with the icy coldness that embraced him, but he kept swimming. He was aware of a jumble of voices back on the raft, but they merged together into a meaningless hum in the background. The voices and the raft were not reality. The only real thing was the water and it had to be fought.

Denise hadn’t uttered a sound. She kept her head above water, her arms flailing at the blue surface of the lake, her lips trembling with the cold. Chuck’s mouth fell open as he saw her head disappear beneath the surface. He quickened his stroke, saw the blonde hair bob up again, to disappear almost immediately afterward. A few more feet now — a few more feet.

He wanted to quit. Every muscle in his body protested against the strokes he was taking, every nerve fiber screamed shrilly whenever he moved. Denise’s head came up for a third time. She opened her mouth, and he saw her eyes wide with terror.

And then she went under again.

He dived immediately, the blue-green curtain closing about him. The water was clear and he saw her drifting down, down, her short hair flowing around her head like seaweed. He lashed out with his arms, feeling the pressure on his eardrums as he went deeper and deeper, swimming rapidly after the descending girl. He reached out with one cold hand, felt the clammy touch of her hair as it contacted his fingers. He closed his hand then, grabbing her hair in a firm grip, lashing out with one arm, kicking his feet frog fashion as he looked to the surface far above him.

The sun laid a pale golden sheen on the surface of the water, almost like a metallic lid to a cool, dim coffin. He kept his eyes on the surface, trying not to think of Denise’s weight tugging on his arm, trying to forget the aching shriek of his lungs, the frantic pounding of his heart.

He kept on swimming, and the water seemed to get bluer and then darker and blacker. Sudden fear shot up his spine as the thought of passing out assailed him. His lungs were ready to explode. There was no more air in his body, and the lake began to waver and shimmer before his eyes. He kept his eyes on the layer of sunshine above him, and when his head broke the surface he watched the layer disappear in a filigree splash of gold. He pulled Denise’s head to the surface, his eyes opening wide when he saw the color of her face. He gulped at the sweet, clean, fresh air, filling his lungs, resting for only a moment and then striking out for the raft.

“Chuck!”

The voice cut through his senses like a dull-edged knife. It was a long time reaching him.

“Chuck!”

The voice was Arthur’s, good old Arthur’s. Good old Arthur. Good old buddy back on the raft, waiting to help him aboard, waiting with a blanket, maybe.

The second voice that spoke was not Arthur’s.

It was a booming voice that spoke with authority, a voice that cracked ominously and then was still.

It was the voice of a high-powered rifle.

It took a long time for this to penetrate. When it did, Chuck rejected it in confusion. Why were they shooting at him?

The gun went off again, and a geyser of water spouted into the air some three feet to Chuck’s left.

“Chuck! Behind you!” This was the voice of Dr. Perry. “An ichthyosaur!”

Ichthyosaur? Chuck’s mind yanked the word out of his memory, turned it over so that he could examine it more carefully. Ichthyosaur? Ichthyosaur? I beg your pardon, sir, but haven’t we met before? That is to say, the name’s familiar, but the face escapes me. Ichthyosaur. Ichthyosaur. His memory turned the pages of a book, and the word slowly became a body.

The rifle went off again and again. He didn’t look back. He kept towing Denise, keeping her head above water, trying to remember what an ichthyosaur was, and wondering why Dr. Perry was so excited, and wondering also what everyone was shooting at.

Large. Yes, surely an ichthyosaur was large.

The rifle sounded again, closer now as he approached the raft.

A powerfully huge body, 25 to 30 feet long, with four flippers, and it swam through the water by lateral undulations of body and tail. A fish? No, not a fish. Simply a reptile that had adapted itself to the water. A reptile with a sharklike dorsal fin and a powerful tail with two vertical lobes. Enormous eyes set in a three-foot-long head. An elongated snout set with as many as 200 sharp teeth. A conical head and slender, beaklike jaws.

This was Ichthyosaurus quadricissus.

With jaws that could tear open the toughest hide of the strongest reptile, and teeth that could rip out the flesh.

A flesh eater, the ichthyosaur.

A flesh eater!

“Behind you, Chuck!” and then the bellow of the rifle again. He turned his head over his shoulder, saw the rapier-like jaws, the teeth glinting in the rays of the sun. Sudden fear covered his body with a clammy chill. He swallowed hard and heard the rifle erupt again. The ichthyosaur leaped out of the water, its deep gray flanks gleaming wetly, its white belly looking cold and hard and uncompromising.

Then a flower blossomed on the belly.

There was the boom of the rifle, and the flower appeared magically — a brilliant red bloom against the snow-white flesh. The bloom spread as the fishlike reptile wrenched violently in midair, great jaws snapping, the blood spreading until it was washed away in the water as the ichthyosaur splashed down beneath the surface.

Then it was all over, Chuck thought. The ichthyosaur was gone, and all he had to do was tow Denise back to the raft and then relax, with the sun warming his bones and his muscles.

“Good gravy! Another one!” a voice shouted.

Another one? Chuck thought. Really another? Not really another one? Please, please not really.

The rifles started firing, all of them this time, their voices ringing with wrathful thunder. A spout of water leaped into the air on the starboard side of the raft and then cascaded down in a silvery shower that revealed a massive brown head. Arthur.

Chuck watched Arthur and then he saw the glint of the ax clutched in his right hand.

“I’m coming,” Arthur shouted. “Hold on, Chuck!”

Chuck took a deep breath and turned his head over his shoulder. Behind him he saw the huge dorsal fin of the ichthyosaur as it sliced through the water, the long jaws snapping in fury, the blood of its slaughtered mate spreading around it in deep red silence.

Chuck pulled Denise closer to him and struck out against the water with his free arm.

Behind him he heard the thrash of the water as the reptile gained on him.