Danger Dinosaurs! полностью

It was as if the ichthyosaur behind him wasn’t really a threat to his life, as if Arthur swimming toward him awkwardly, with the ax poised in his fist, was really an apparition.

He only wanted to reach the raft. He kept swimming. Denise was a dead weight on the end of his arm; Arthur was a dim blob on the water ahead, and the sound of the reptile’s gnashing teeth behind him merged with the greater sound of the thunder in his ears.

He swam and he saw Arthur pass him. Then the raft suddenly loomed ahead like a square wooden rug. He reached up with one hand and felt the coarse, splintery surface. A stronger hand closed around his own, and he shook his head weakly, dragging Denise up beside him, wanting them to take her aboard first.

When the weight was lifted from his arms, he felt marvelously light, light enough to drift up into the sky, almost weightless. Suddenly he was drifting up to the sky, with strong hands clamped under his armpits. He saw red hairs curling on rounded forearms and he knew that his benefactor was Pete. He was lowered gently to the deck of the raft.

“Artificial… resp…“ he gulped, struggling for breath. “Denise. Artificial respiration.”

He saw boots near him and a pair of bare feet. The lashings of the raft were before his eyes, and beyond those, the water. And in the water he saw a brown man raise a powerful arm to ward off the swipe of swordlike jaws. He saw brown fingers close around the jaws, saw the other arm come back quickly, caught the flick of the ax as it came down against the conical-shaped head of the huge reptile. The arm came back in a blur of brown, and the ax descended again. And again. Arthur clung to the twisting jaws, the water splashing up around him as the reptile twisted furiously. Blood sprayed into the air as the ax glinted murderously in the sunlight.

He’s going to get killed, Chuck thought. Arthur is going to die.

The blackness came in then, as swift and as sudden as Judgment Day, and Chuck drifted off into a welcome oblivion.

“He’s coming around,” the fuzzy voice said.

Chuck kept his eyes closed tightly. There was a warm orange glow on them, capping them shut, obliterating everything but its own brilliance.

The voice receded down the length of a long black tunnel. A faint spot of light glowed there, grew larger, larger, until it filled Chuck’s consciousness.

There was warmth on his face, and the warmth felt good. He didn’t want it to go away. He kept his eyes closed because he thought he was dreaming and he didn’t want the dream to end.

His eyelids flickered.

He felt his fingers move involuntarily, and then he blinked his eyes rapidly, opened them and closed them once more.

“Chuck?” the fuzzy voice asked.

He wanted to answer, but somehow he couldn’t find his voice. He groped for it, reaching into his throat with a swollen, parched tongue. All he could produce was an unintelligible “ugnhhh.”

“Chuck?” the voice repeated. It had lost some of its fur and it sounded a little clearer, a lot closer.

“Yes,” he said, surprised to discover that he had a voice, after all.

“This is Pete, Chuck. Are you all right?”

“Fine. I’m fine.” He opened his eyes, and the sun splashed into them. He closed them quickly, surprised when the smell of growing things invaded his nostrils.

After awhile he opened his eyes again. He was lying on the ground, the ferns spreading around him in green abundance.

“Denise?” he asked, pushing himself to one elbow, his arm sinking into the soft earth.

“She’s all right,” Pete said. “It took awhile, but we got her breathing again. She’s all right.”

Chuck didn’t want to ask the next question. “Arthur? Is he… did he… ?”

He heard a hearty laugh echoing in his ears, and then a deep voice boomed, “Chuck, it’ll take more than a little old fish to do me in.”

He didn’t bother telling Arthur that an ichthyosaur was a reptile and not a fish. Instead, he clasped Arthur’s hand firmly, a smile covering his face. “Thanks, Arthur,” he said. “Thanks… a… whole lot”

“Shucks, I enjoyed the swim,” Arthur said.

“We made it, I guess.” Chuck sat up and looked around him. Far in the distance he saw the twin white rocks leaping up at the sky.

“We made it,” Pete repeated. “Once we got rid of those ichthyo-whatever-you-call-’em, the rest was easy.”

Chuck looked again at the white rocks. “There’s our goal,” he said. He paused. “You think we’ll get there in time?”

“Why not?” Arthur asked.

“We’ve only got two days. That’s an awful lot of distance to cover in…”

“We’ll do it,” Pete interrupted. “But first I’m going to make some hot chow for you.”

“Maybe we ought to get started right…”