A very crazy day
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™.
5 in the morning
The sun hadn't risen – not yet. The whole world was cloaked in a dusky shade of grey – various colors could be distinguished, but they were much more subdued than the usual. Both late bats and early birds fluttered overhead, and only the chattering of monkeys and similar animals disturbed the overall silence.
"You know, I could get used to this," Connor muttered, as Abby and he sat at the foot of a fig tree, partially concealed by the undergrowth. "The world we've left was a world of death; this is a world of life instead!"
"Yeah, yeah, I hear you, and got to ask – doesn't it bother you that our dinosaur friends have lost themselves somewhere while we were recovering?"
"Of course it does," Connor nodded earnestly, "but so far I've got no idea as to how we're to capture or handle them at all, should we run into them again, for they do outnumber us, after all."
"Yeah, by a single digit!" Abby said in irritation, "and I can even show you that digit if you feel like it."
"Now, Abby, don't be crude," Connor muttered, getting to his feet, "we're going to-"
"Wak? Wak!"
"Hah?" Abby blinked and got to her feet. "Oh."
That 'oh' was centered on some flightless bird, easily as tall as Abby, but built much more solidly, and armed with an equally solid big that looked as sharp as a woodcutter's axe and just as lethal.
"Nice birdie," Abby weakly muttered, hoping that the bird was only interested in the ripened, or even green, figs. "We were just leaving-"
The bird lashed-out with all the precision of an angry woodcutter – the only reason why neither Abby nor Connor was hurt was because the bird was unable to choose between them, and so landed a hit solidly in the middle… at the tree trunk. Sadly, that impact didn't hurt it any – the bird whirled around, aiming for Abby, who struck first, kicked the bird in the chest…and the bird didn't flinch at all. Rather, it reared backwards, preparing another axe-like strike, when Connor's stick whizzed through the air, and hit the bird on the head with all of Connor's strength behind the blow.
The stick cracked and fell apart. The bird sagged and flopped against the tree trunk. Connor and Abby just ran like Hell.
7 in the morning
The sky didn't clear one bit – in fact, it began to rain, and rain hard. Neither Abby nor Connor were particularly good at making shelter against the rain – they never really got that chance back in the Cretaceous – so they currently hid underneath a half-fallen dry tree, rather wet and miserable.
"So, what was that bird?" Abby asked Connor, trying to forget about the cold that seemed to have crawled into her very narrow and now leaked out via her nostrils. "I don't think it was the same as the ones who have confronted us during Christine Johnson's takeover, I reckon."
"And it probably isn't," Connor agreed. "Back then, we were dealing with a pack of some species of phorosrachid birds – they haven't evolved during the early Cenozoic, so what we've met must be a Gastornis instead."
"So how do we deal with it?"
"The Gastornis belonged to the bird group that later evolved into both chickens and ducks, so we're dealing with a practical literal bird brain here. In fact, since most mammals of this time are very small, it probably thought that we were rivals rather than food, and now that we've fled, it probably won't chase us at all-"
With another waking cry, the flightless bird burst from out of the undergrowth. Caught practically flat-footed, Connor and Abby jumped up exactly when the bird launched its next strike, and hit their heads on the half-fallen dry tree trunk, under which they unsuccessfully hid from the rain.
Groaning, the rotten wood gave way, falling apart in a shower of wood dust, mould and termites. When the cloud cleared away, all that was left of the Gastornis were a pair of legs protruding from beneath the pile of wooden rubbish.
"We meant to do that, right?" Connor asked Abby with a weak smile.
Abby just shook her head, launching another, albeit a much smaller, cloud of dust into the damp air. "Connor? Let's just go and find ourselves a body of water to take a bath, okay?"
Judging from Abby's tone, she was less than a hair's width away from an explosion, so Connor just nodded and complied.
9 in the morning
The rain finally stopped, though the sky was still quite overcast, and that was good.
"This is good," Abby muttered, as she continued to check her hair. "I don't want to know just how it reacted with all that all-natural junk that had fallen onto us."
"Abby, come on – this is Paleocene or maybe even Eocene! There is no pollution, no radiation, no nothing! We're walking in the prehistorical prototype of Eden-"
"Where man-sized killer birds send to end our lives," Abby added grimly. "Connor, you just don't get it, do you-"
"I don't get what?"
"Hah? What did you say?" Abby frowned. "Sorry for spacing out – I feel like we're being watched."
"And we probably are," Connor agreed, "though it'll be probably hard to watch them right back – most animals here are small, very small, and can observe giants like us from the undergrowth with impunity-"
Splash!
"Oh, look, I found us a lake," Connor continued without missing a beat. "Want now to take a bath, Abby?"
"I-" Abby froze, saw a line of ripples begin to approach them at an increasing speed, and made a split-second decision, "-think not!" She grabbed Connor and pulled him backwards onto dry land, into the proper jungle – and just in time, as the water burst into spray, revealing briefly a crocodile-like head but with undoubtedly mammalian whiskers on it as well. For several moments the two humans stared at their attacker, and then it submerged with nary a ripple.
"Abby, I don't think that that was a crocodile," Connor said slowly.
Wordless once again, Abby just glared.
Noon
The rain has stopped. The temperature had climbed steadily up…and up…and up…until it resembled a Turkish steam-bath, without any conventional wooden benches or any other sort of seat, let alone a way out.
"It's not the heat that makes it so bad, it's the moisture," Abby admitted to Connor, as the two of them walked down the lake's shore, "after all, it was hot in the Cretaceous as well, so we should be used to it, right?"
"You know," Connor spoke up, clearly once more ignoring Abby's points, "I am sure that what has attacked us is an ambulocetus or some similar species of an early whale that still had ties to land and its ancestors-"
"Connor, you're not listening to me, are you?" Abby whirled around, in anger. "Honestly, when will you start listening to me? Now appears to be the perfect time – there is nothing to distract us, not even a bird, and-"
"You're right, it is too quiet – listen," Connor agreed, suddenly worried. "There aren't any bird songs, even, only this…"
"What 'this'?" Abby said skeptically. "It sounds almost like rain – again…"
Abby trailed-off. Out of the undergrowth a stream of yellowish-colored bodies began to emerge, each possessing 6 legs and an impressive pair of jaws.
"Ants," Abby said in a flat, emotionless voice. "Giant, carnivorous ants. And they're-"
Whatever Abby intended to finish, remained unsaid, for Connor grabbed her by the upper arms and jumped with her back into the lake. Immediately, a set of ripples began moving in their direction…
To be continued…