He pushed up and stumbled away. Nearby, he found his spear and used the blunt end as a walking stick.
The forest was easier to move through now. The herds had carved paths through the underbrush like a flood across a mountain range.
At the ridge, Sam stopped to catch his breath. What he saw confirmed his theory: a cloud of ash rose from the volcano. Lava seeped over the crater wall in waves. Halfway up the rise, magma was pushing through a secondary vent, dribbling down the side, joining the main lava flow.
The scientist in Sam wondered if this was the opening salvo in the Triassic–Jurassic extinction event. The survivor in him said it didn’t matter. The eruption was enough to cause his extinction, and that was all that mattered at the moment.
At the volcano’s base, a fire was consuming the forest, lit either from the lava or the volcanic bombs thrown during the eruption.
Below, in the desert, he spotted the herd of dinosaurs and reptiles moving away over a high dune.
He had hoped to avoid the desert. But the fire made his choice for him.
Sam began hiking down the ridge. His body ached, but he pushed through. With each step, the smoke from the forest fire grew thicker, joining the volcanic cloud of ash spreading out, slowly blotting out the sun.
By the time the forest gave way to the desert, the shadow from above was already spreading across the sand.
Nearby, Sam spotted a massive bony rib cage sticking up. As he studied the skeleton, a sense of dread settled over him. He recognized the creature—it had been one of the exhibits in Daniele’s Triassic creature picture book. One near the end.
The remains before him were from the apex predator of the era: the Prestosuchus. It was a large reptile shaped like a crocodile, except it could walk on its hind legs and had small arms similar to a T. rex. Upon seeing the picture in Daniele’s book, that’s what Sam had thought: it was like a love child of a T. rex and a crocodile. Mentally, he decided to simply call it a giant croc, because, well, Prestosuchus was a mouthful, even to think.
Archaeologists had found giant croc skeletons up to twenty-five feet long. This one was the same shape, but it was larger. At least forty feet, if Sam had to guess. There was no doubt that this was the biggest carnivore he had seen since arriving in the Triassic.
The giant crocs would be hard to deal with. If they were still around. His gaze moved over to the swamp, where the trees were swaying.
Sam realized then that the bones sticking up were what had made the black shadows in the desert that he had previously seen from the ridge.
There were more of them across the sand. A lot more.
Beyond the skeleton, he spotted another oddity: the twinkle of metal. The last rays of sunlight peeking through the cloud of smoke and ash danced across the small object, reflecting as though it was a diamond half-buried.
Sam trudged across the sand, feet sinking as he went. As he approached, he realized the metal was attached to another human skeleton, to the femur, just like the man who had attacked him. The object was the same, too: three pins with an Absolom Sciences serial number.
These bones were pitted and older, though he had no idea how much older. Hundreds of years? Thousands?
He was so caught up in his thoughts that he barely noticed the dinosaur rushing past him. Another skipped past, throwing sand in its wake.
They paid him no mind. Their only thought was getting away from the volcanic catastrophe taking place.
Sam collected the three pins and shoved them in his pocket.
On the ridge, the wildfire was burning fast now, carried by the wind. From the desert, looking up, it was a stunning scene. The forest was alight with flames, belching smoke into the sky where the cloud of ash grew, spreading across the world like a dark, thick blanket.
Another dinosaur charged past, propelling itself on its hind legs, forelimbs dancing back and forth. A quadruped barreled by next.
At the base of the hill, where the desert began, the forest seemed to expel every animal it had left, the fast-moving fire driving them. They were large and small and flowed like waves from the ocean toward Sam.
Behind him, he heard what sounded like gunfire.
He turned and immediately realized what it was: branches and fallen logs breaking under the massive feet of giant crocs emerging from the swamp. They trampled the wide bushes and dug into the sand, rushing forward in leaps and bounds, their long jaws open, teeth gleaming as they barreled toward Sam.
THIRTY-SIX
In the basement of Hiro’s home in Las Vegas, Adeline writhed on the floor, trying to break free of his grasp.
“Stop!” he shouted, his breath hot on her ear. “Please. I just want to show you.”