From the fear in her voice, Jake knew she was struggling to understand as much as he was.
He craned upward. Sunlight poured through the occasional cracks in the dense canopy. A wider gap overhead revealed the sun. The moon rested next to it, like the sun’s dark shadow. As Jake stared, the moon slipped clear of the sun’s face. An eclipse was ending. But was it the same eclipse that had started in London? It had to be. Another was not due for seven years.
But if this was the same eclipse, then no time had passed.
Is that possible?
As he stared at the sun and moon, something glided across the gap in the canopy. It stretched wide with leathery wings—then vanished before Jake could get a good look at it.
Despite the heat, Jake felt his blood go cold.
Something brushed his cheek. A flying beetle had landed on a frond of a fern in front of him. It was as large as his palm and was fronted by a wicked pair of pincing hooks. It clacked at him, then spread its iridescent green shell with a blur of flapping wings and took flight.
Jake ducked and stumbled back a step in shock. His foot sank into the muck of a small creek flowing through the meadow. He stared down as something scurried away from his toe. It was flat like a crab, but its oval body was segmented into ridged plates.
No way…
Dropping to a knee at the bank of the creek, Jake shrugged off his pack and picked open a pocket. He reached for an object he had stashed there.
“What are you doing?” Kady asked sharply.
Jake pulled free the trilobite fossil he had dug out of the rock quarry behind the house. He held it over the creature in the creek. It was an exact match—only the one in the water wasn’t stone. The creature scuttled away and disappeared under a rock.
Jake stood up. “It’s…it’s…” He had to force the words past his disbelief. “It’s a living trilobite!”
Kady was not impressed. She waved his response away as if it smelled bad. “What is going on?” she asked again with more force. She even stamped her foot. She wanted an answer. Now.
She got one.
A trumpeting roar.
Jake and Kady bumped against one another in shock. A second roar shook the leaves and sprinkled Jake with dewdrops. Off to the left, trees and saplings began to snap and fall. Underfoot, the ground trembled. Something massive pounded their way.
Jake squeezed Kady’s hand.
Before they could take another breath, a boy and a girl burst out of the underbrush. They raced straight toward Jake and Kady. The girl, her dark hair flying behind her like a pair of raven’s wings, was in the lead. She half dragged a taller boy along with her. He struggled with a long spear that kept getting snagged in the bushes and branches.
“Oh, just drop it!” she yelled.
“My father’s spear? I would rather die!”
“More like your father would kill you if he ever found out you lost it!”
A louder bellow roared out of the jungle. The ground trembled.
The pair raced faster.
It was only when they were a couple yards away that one of them finally noted Jake and Kady. The girl stumbled aside in surprise, then leaped past them like a fleet-footed deer. She wore a loose embroidered shirt and a long skirt tied at the waist and slit to mid thigh. Her eyes flashed a brilliant emerald, matching a jade necklace that bounced around her neck.
“Run!” she shouted back at them.
The boy pounded after her, eyeing Jake up and down with a stern frown as he passed. Gangly and long-necked, he was dressed in a grass-stained white toga with a leather belt, along with leather sandals strapped to mid calf. Another strap of corded leather tied back his curly, mud brown hair. He held his spear over his head as he ran.
Frozen in place, Jake stared after the strange pair.
Kady shoved Jake. “Do what she said! Run!”
Jake didn’t argue. Together, they fled after the other two kids.
An earth-shattering crack erupted behind them, accompanied by a screech of rage. Jake glanced over his shoulder. A thick branch from one of the giant trees broke away and crashed to the ground.
A giant head shoved a hole in the canopy. It was the size of a refrigerator. Its scaly skin steamed, its shark black eyes rolled, and its muzzle split wide with a roar. Razor-sharp teeth, like rows of yellowed daggers, gnashed and tore at the smaller branches.
Jake recognized the beast.
It was a carnivore that sat at the top of the food chain.
Millions of years ago.
Impossible…
“A tyrannosaurus,” Jake gasped out.
Looking back, he tripped on a root and went down on one knee.
Kady yanked him back up.
Behind them, the creature shook its thick head and bulldozed between two of the giant trees. More branches snapped. It was almost free.
“Hurry!” the strange girl shouted.
How could he understand her? Was this all a dream?
Ahead, the far side of the glade rose up into a jungle-shrouded cliff. It blocked the way. They would never be able to climb the cliff fast enough to escape the T-rex.
The girl seemed to read his thoughts. “We’ll never make it! Need to hide! This way!”
She veered off to the left and they followed. At the foot of a cliff was a tumbled nest of massive boulders. The girl aimed for them.
Another bellow chased them, followed by a shattering of branches. Jake risked another glance—maybe he shouldn’t have.
The T-rex heaved into the open glade. It shook its muscled frame. A thick tail whipped out and axed through some saplings and beheaded giant ferns. Scaly nostrils huffed, scenting the air. It cocked its head from one side to the other, like a bird searching for prey.
Despite his terror, Jake remembered an article he’d read about how birds were modern-day descendants of dinosaurs. But this T-rex was no clucking chicken. The beast was twenty feet tall.
Those black eyes found Jake. It froze, head still cocked, one eye fixed to its escaping prey.
“Run faster!” Jake yelled.
The T-rex leaped after them. It pounded, seven tons of muscle shaking the ground, gaining speed.
The girl reached the piled boulders first. She searched for a gap in them, some way to crawl to safety. Jake and Kady reached her, along with the other boy.
“Over here!” the girl called out.
She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled into a gap between two of the boulders. “It widens!” she echoed back with relief.
Jake nudged Kady toward the hole. “Go.”
He made her head in first, but he kept tight to her heels. The boy in the toga followed last. He climbed in backward and kept his spear pointed toward the opening.