Broken tooth

By Harrison James

DO NOT EDIT FROM ORIGINAL COPY!!!

Before you begin:

This is a not-for-profit book, not designed to benefit any one company or corporation.

This story is set 95 million years ago, in cretaceous Morocco/Algeria, but may not be absolutely biologically/geographically correct.

Please give kind feedback/ feed forward

A lot of this information is from websites such as Wikipedia and other really helpful websites.

A lot of inspiration comes from (including but not limited to)

BBC’s Primeval series

Planet dinosaur

Walking with Monsters

And many other awesome t.v shows.

Here are some pictures of the dinosaurs and other animals mentioned in the book:

Spinosaurus:

Deltadromeus:

Brachiosaurus:

Charcharadontosaurus:

Aegisuchus:

Alanqua:

Thank you for reading this book. I assure you will enjoy it.

This is a story of the (sometimes overlooked) Moroccan/ Algerian environment of the Cretaceous period.

For all who love dinosaurs

Chapter

IIt was late one night, and I was just cleaning up the university. I was studying for a degree in palaeontology and I was cleaning up the professor’s office, in hope that it would impress him, and persuade him I deserved it. I had already published a paper that had obviously impressed him a lot. I figured all I needed was to clean up his office for a bit, and I would have no trouble getting the degree.

I was just cleaning his huge bookshelf, which had books about literally every dinosaur imaginable, from Tyrannosaurus rex to coelophysis and triceratops. He was literally a whiz on this stuff, and man did I think he was cool. He wasn’t the kind of professor who sits around with a beard and grunts at you, he was young and almost cool, in his thirties. The reason I said almost cool is that every time you joke to him about how it would really hurt if THAT grabbed you (pointing at one of the fossil teeth on his drawer, for example) , he looks at you with this hard, disapproving look. At first I thought he didn’t want you to kid around, but after a couple of times I realised. It is the same look my granddad gave me when I joked about the war. He looked at me with that same look, like I don’t know what I was talking about, that I wasn’t there, and that I have no right to make fun of it. But I had absolutely no clue as to why THIS guy would be giving me that look about dinosaurs. He gave me a similar, but more nervous look when I asked about the scar on his arm.

***

So anyway, I was cleaning the shelf, and I bumped one of the books with the cleaning cloth. I heard something rattle on the top shelf. I reached up, and brought it down. It was a plastic case, rectangular in shape with a padded bottom inside. And on that padded bottom was a massive, 4 inch long Spinosaurus tooth. I had a peculiar sheen to it, unlike a lot of other Spinosaurus teeth I had seen. It was in perfect condition; apart from the fact the root was obviously fake. Ignoring every instinct that told me it was wrong, I removed the tooth from the case, and grabbed the root and pulled. It came away immediately, and a small orange ball, about the size of pea, rolled out of a hollow inside. I picked it up. It had a miniature bug inside it, and I realised it was amber. Then I realised what I had done, and quickly fumbled to reassemble the tooth and put it away without him noticing. Suddenly I heard footsteps, and in my hurry I dropped the tiny amber bead. It hit the floor with a ping just as the professor walked in the door. I saw a flash in the corner of my eye, accompanied by a look of horror on the professor’s face, and everything vanished.

When I woke up, my face was covered in dirt, strange insects were making thier midnight ruckus, and strange smells filled my nose. I coughed, sat up and immediately froze. Something was standing in front of me, and it was not human. With a flash of horror, I realised what I had done, and why the

professor acted like he did. Amber shouldn’t make a ping noise when dropped on soft carpet. Why would the professor still have a fabricated Spinosaurus tooth? He was the kind of person who would give a fake to a junior fossil collector for free rather than keep it. And if my suspicions were correct, I was In real big crud. Standing in front of me was a Deltadromeus. It was 7 metres long, with long, slender legs, and a hungry glint in its eye. It moved one leg forward, and I heard a sinister noise escape its throat. I started shuffling back on my bum, terrified it would eat me. I bumped my hand on something hard and cylindrical, and picked it up. It was a torch, standard emergency issue. I picked it up, praying that the batteries still worked, and flashed it in the carnivore’s eye. It recoiled with an angry roar, and shook its head from side to side. And when it looked back, I was gone, the bushes swaying in my wake.

I was lucky. The bushes were there when I needed them. Deltadromeus was, from the fossil record, a fast runner. If I had been in open ground, It would probably have killed me. I trekked up the hill, trying to not bang that bush too hard or not hit my head on that branch overhead, all the while the roars of an angered Ceratosaur echoing behind me. I had brushed with death, and succeeded by means of a rare miracle. But why was the torch there anyway? I did not have to ponder this for long. I realised why the professor had that mark on his arm. He had been here. He had been as stupid as me, and dropped the amber bead. He had learned, and hidden it in a fake tooth. But why had he let me clean his office? And why, did he come to the university at that hour? Did he suspect me? These thoughts played badminton in my brain as I trudged up the hill. After a while I began to sweat, and realised my sweater was NOT Jurassic park trek gear. I took off the hot, prickly sweater and threw it at a bush that grew alongside a river, in hope that the Deltadromeus would get attracted to that because it was so sweaty, and not to me. But I shouldn’t have done it, or maybe I would have got back to the present.

Chapter

III saw the bush thrash, way too much for it to be my sweater. All of a sudden a massive crocodilian, Aegisuchus, sped out of the bush towards me, and grabbed my shirt. I started struggling, but it was no good; Aegisuchus’s teeth were adapted to eating slippery fish so it would have no trouble gripping me. I was dragged into the river, and I saw muddy, dirty water swirling past me. I saw the Aegisuchus jerking its jaw from side to side, not knowing what to make of me. Then is saw other, much larger jaws scything the water around me. All of a sudden I saw blood in the water, but I looked down and I was not even bleeding; in fact, the Aegisuchus was not even trying to kill me anymore. It had gone limp, and it was being pulled out of the water by something huge beyond measure. At first my scrambling mind said Mososaur, but I realised it could not be. Mososaurs do not live this far in land, and they lived underwater. Whatever had killed Aegisuchus was pulling it out of the water. It wasn’t another crocodilian; a crocodilian would not be pulling it directly upward out of the water, it would be pulling it horizontally up the bank. Quickly, I fumbled to loose my shirt from the Aegisuchus’ teeth, not wanting to be seen as part of the meal by whatever had killed the crocodilian. I swam away under the water, trying not to break the surface. I saw a clump of weed

protruding from a bank, and surfaced in the middle of it. Wet, gooey strands clung to my face, but I was relieved. I was alive. I looked around and saw the gigantic creature that had killed Aegisuchus. And I wondered why I had not thought of it earlier.

Standing on the bank was the largest carnivorous dinosaur known to man. It was an adult Spinosaurus, with a massive dorsal sail of skin, supported by spines, to regulate temperature. Its long, almost crocodile-like jaws were perfectly suited to kill the Aegisuchus, as Spinosaurus usually hunts aquatic prey, despite being the largest predatory dinosaur. As I watched, the Deltadromeus I had ‘met’ earlier burst from the forest onto the river bank, probably tracing my scent. It then saw Spinosaurus, and immediately started to back off. The Spinosaurus must have been hungry, however, because it didn’t even wait to discover whether this was another kill-stealer or not. It just dropped the carcass and slashed Deltadromeus across the neck with its massive claws. Its claws ripped out Deltadromeus’ jugular and it died in a shower of red. I didn’t want to watch, but I was transfixed. Palaeontologists had speculated for years about dinosaur vs dinosaur fights, and here I was watching one of the least-speculated duels, first-hand. Quickly I realised the potential danger of sitting in the river like I was, as another crocodilian could appear at any moment. And this time, Spinosaurus would be too gorged on Aegisuchus meat to care. I scrambled onto the bank, trying not to slip, and quietly crawled into the forest.

***

After trekking for a while, I found that I was getting tired way quicker than I should. Then I realised that, because this was the early cretaceous, there was a lot less oxygen. At the point that I almost blacked out, I decided to make camp. I thought of making a hut in a tree, but that would not stop many predators. I decided to save myself the labour of making a tree hut (for what little good it would do me) and made a small, camouflaged and (hopefully) inconspicuous hut. I didn’t make it TOO good; staying in one place for too long would attract predators. I would use it for 2 nights at the most; after that, I would HAVE to move, or die. As soon as I lied down, I blacked out. Or maybe it was sleep. I can’t tell which by now. I had tortured dreams of pounding waves, and drowning dinosaurs screaming. Only when I woke up did I realise that the sounds were real. But there were no waves, and the dinosaurs were not screaming because of drowning. The pounding was due to a large herd of Brachiosaurus grazing at the edge of the forest. The shrieks were from a pterosaur, Alanqua, riffling through my stuff. It had something glinting in its beak, and with a start I realised it was the amber bead. My only way back, down the gullet of that little morning-ruiner. I tried to catch it, but it flew off, shrieking. My arms sagged, defeated. Everything in this world wanted to kill me or seriously annoy me. The only things that DIDN’T were the brachiosaurus herd nearby. And even then, they woke me up early.

I started to wonder where I was. This was certainly not North America; these dinosaurs didn’t live there. I thought of all the ones I had seen: Deltadromeus, Brachiosaurus, Alanqua, Aegisuchus, Spinosaurus. I thought of where they had been found. I realised where I was.

Morocco, 95 million years ago.

Chapter

IIIThat morning, I decided what I would do for the remainder of my life. My hopes and dreams were gone; they vanished down the gullet of that infernal pterosaur. Making temporary bases was not going to suffice; especially not in the slim hope that the professor may have a way of rescuing me. I would need to make a permanent base if I was to survive for as long as possible until he could find me. There was no point in moving around anymore; sooner or later the carnivores would find me. And I had fears, knowing where I was, that there may be meaner things than Deltadromeus out to get me. Although I could not recall the name, I remembered hearing that large carnivore teeth had been dug up in morocco, in the same place as Spinosaurus teeth had been dug up. And this one wasn’t going to get pre-occupied by fish. I had read that it had shark-like teeth, and unlike Spinosaurus, was adapted for hunting on land. It would see me as an easy meal, no doubt. But as of yet, the name still escaped me.

Another issue that was increasingly apparent was food and water. Although I knew how to solve the water issue, the food was becoming increasingly worrying. All I had for dinner were some eggs that I had found and cooked over an open fire. The fire seemed to keep the dinosaurs away, but when I cracked open the eggs; I found that after eating some of the cooked egg inside, there were some cooked embryos inside the eggs. I had to eat those, too, and I admit they were not that bad. The only thing that worried me was what the embryos looked like, and consequently, who I had stolen the eggs from.

The embryos, who had been not too far from hatching, had a short, strong skull, and worst of all,

They had shark-like teeth.

***

My worst fears have been confirmed.

Early this morning I was chased out of my ‘permanent’ camp. I suppose you can’t call it ‘chased’; I saw the dinosaur coming and ran for the hills. My camp had been built in a small hollow in the side of a hill; a thick forest surrounded it most of the way, but directly in front of the hollow was a long clearing, that stretched most of the way to the edge of the forest. Beyond that, I could see herds of dinosaurs grazing next to a thick swamp. Occasionally I would see a large fleshy ‘sail’ move between the swamp trees, and I knew that a Spinosaurus was hunting in the swamp. On the occasions when a Spinosaurus came out of the swamp, it seemed relatively unconcerned with the herbivores nearby; indeed, it has been hypothesised that Spinosaurus was a fish-eater, and unless there was a drought in the area, would take little or no interest in prey it was not specialised to eat. This morning, however, a very different carnivore came out of the swamp. I recalled the name to be Charcharadontosaurus, meaning ‘shark-toothed lizard’, and it was headed straight towards me. It

stopped every ten metres or so to sniff the air; then it would turn back towards my camp and keep going. And it was roaring a lot, a very angry, deliberate sound, and not just a random roar at all.

This was what woke me up, and when I scrambled out to see what the fuss was, I literally gathered what little I had and made my way up the hill. As I was gathering my belongings, I realised I would not be able to escape it forever. Combined with what smell it had, and the fact that it was faster than me, I would never get away. Unless…

My sweater. It should still be on the bush on the other side of the hill. And from what I remember, they had a small deodorant aerosol in the pocket. It was a big risk, but I was willing to take it.

I smeared myself in mud and quietly stole out of my hut. After I had climbed about 25 metres up the hill, somewhat hidden in the bushes that covered the hillside, I heard the sound of something very large, and very angry, smashing my hut. I looked around, and saw the Charcharadontosaurus rooting through my hut. It withdrew its head, unsatisfied, and sniffed the air. It whirled its head round and roared, straight at me. I could see its eyes locked on me. I stayed stock still, hoping it would move away. But instead it started up the hill. I wondered why it had spotted me so quickly. Did I smell? But no, I was covered in mud, that was not it. I reached up to wipe my face, and wiped off some egg from the night before. Quickly I smeared mud on my face and double checked there was no more egg. I knew now why it had targeted me. It could smell the egg on my chin.

I knew there was no point in visual stealth now. I began to run, all the while hearing the boom, boom, boom of a very angry 15-tonne dinosaur getting steadily closer, as I steadily grew more tired. As I reached the top of the hill, I found a rocky outcrop and crouched inside another small hollow. The Charcharadontosaurus came up behind the hollow and started sniffing. But now, I could not run. It was too close. Suddenly, I had an idea. I picked up a medium-sized pebble and threw it down the hillside, and watched as it bounced and skidded on the way down. The Charcharadontosaurus wasn’t fooled, however, and continued sniffing the rocky outcrop. I realised it was now or never. As it was turned away, I quickly slipped out and sprinted down the hill. By sheer luck, it only spotted me on the way down. As I ran down I saw a boulder poking up from the soil. I ran right past it, and was rewarded when the Charcharadontosaurus tripped on the rock. It recovered quickly, and was up and running again in half a minute. But by then I was in the swamp, and the odds were stacked against it.

Chapter

IVAs I squelched through the mud, I hear the Charcharadontosaurus enter the swamp, smashing a couple of trees in its haste. Obviously it had made the connection in its predatory brain that I was the egg-stealer (guilty as charged) and would stop at nothing to kill me.

I was making steady progress, as Charcharadontosaurus was not adapted to the swamp, when I tripped and started sinking in a half-invisible pothole of mud. I started to pull myself up on the only nearby branch, but as I grabbed it came loose and I found it was not a branch at all. What I was holding in my hand was a flare. It was pretty muddy and mossy from the swamp, but by the looks of it still worked. Another piece of the professor’s junk.

But I had a more immediate problem: I had stopped sinking, but I could not get out of the bog. And the angry Charcharadontosaurus was getting closer and angrier. Suddenly I saw something move off to my right, and silently thanked god for my luck. It was a huge, fleshy sail, and in an instant I knew what to do. Grabbing the cap of the flare, I pulled it off and ground the rough side against the flare (this was a survivor flare; the cap has a lighting surface included) and threw it over the Spinosaurus’ sail. Dinosaurs have a natural phobia of fire, and the smell of smoke threw the Spinosaurus into a panic. It ran the opposite direction, and burst into the clearing just as Charcharadontosaurus did the same. Charcharadontosaurus was the first to react. It had expected a small egg thief and now it had a large carnivore. And it was NOT happy. Spinosaurus lashed out with its claws as Charcharadontosaurus charged, trying but narrowly missing Spinosaurus’ neck. Spinosaurus lunged, and clamped its Jaws down on the Charcharadontosaurus’ neck. It quickly withdrew, and in a second Charcharadontosaurus had bitten down on Spinosaurus’ sail. It pulled it over, and if not for the soft mud, Spinosaurus might have broken its back when it’s Sail spines hit the ground. But it didn’t, and in its scrabble to get back up, slashed Charcharadontosaurus’ neck with its feet. As Charcharadontosaurus went down, it fell onto Spinosaurus’ sail, breaking it’s spine.

And the fight was concluded, nought to all.

I grabbed Spinosaurus’ tail and dragged myself out of the pothole. I was dripping with mud, and stunk to high heaven, but I was more focused on a more apparent danger.

Even through the thick mud of the swamp, I could feel tremors rocking the earth. And they were too large for any dinosaur to make.

***

I carefully picked my way through the swamp, not wanting to make the same mistake as before. Every now and then a series of tremors would rock the swamp, and some rotten branches might fall from a tree. I could smell a burning smell in the air, accompanied by a slight tinge of sulphur. In the distance I could see a wispy column of smoke rising from a mountain far away to the east. But I was not heading away from it, like most of the swamp’s inhabitants. I even saw a juvenile Deltadromeus run past me, too preoccupied with escape to worry about me. The herbivores were a lot slower to react, and many were still eating, albeit a little nervously. But I continued the pursuit of my goal. Every 20 metres or so I might find something that didn’t belong in this time. Simple things like a muesli bar wrapper, or a tissue, or even an apple core. Obviously the professor had been here, and was in a hurry to get to the volcano for some reason, although I had no idea what. All I knew was that something important may be waiting at the volcano judging by the trail of litter, and I better get there soon, as the tremors were increasing with frequency and severity. They had gone from 1.3 to 2.1 magnitude (I could tell; there was another piece of equipment I found in the swamp: a pocket

seismometer) and the column of smoke had thickened, along with the smell in the air. As I reached the edge of the swamp, there was a large tremor, and the volcano spat a short burst of debris into the air. I heard a shriek above me, and the same Alanqua who had stolen my amber crashed into the ground next to me, killed by flying debris. I quickly gutted it and found my precious amber bead. I put it in my pocket and closed the flap. I was not going to lose it again. As I crossed the plain, I saw a small stream of lava emerge from the trees surrounding the volcano. As I watched another stream, half the size of the first, cleared the trees. I had to get up that mountain. I could now see what the professor had gone to the mountain for; about three-quarters of the way up, I could see a small hut, approximately three metres tall. On top of the roof was a regional transmitter aerial, designed for transmitting a signal for an area of about 15 kilometres. The professor hadn’t built it; gear like that would have been too heavy to bring through on accident, or even at all. It must have been put there by someone else, and whoever it was still there, as there was a yellow light coming through the windows.

Chapter VI toiled up the mountain, all the while with the tremors gaining in magnitude. One time I tripped over a root and my face hit the ground 2 centimeters from a little flow of lava snaking its way through the bush. When I finally reached the hut, the lava had almost reached it. Realising I was probably doomed anyway, I opened the door and slammed it shut. You can imagine my surprise when I heard a surprised voice yell “Oi! Who’s there?” and even more surprise when I find a dirty, unshaven, almost wild man in front of me with a sawn-off shotgun. He was probably expecting a dinosaur. As he realised what I was, he dropped the gun with his mouth wide open, the shotgun shells clattering on the floor like marbles. “Who- who the- how’d ya get here, mate?” he finally stuttered. “I.. well, I found this little amber bead, and I dropped it, and…” His ears perked up at the sound of the amber bead. “Do you still have it?” he asked frantically. “yes, I have it, just in this little pock-“ but before I could finish he ripped open the pocket and grabbed it. “come along with me mate- you arrived just in time! Now we can skedaddle out of this stinking mess!” he said, grabbing me by the arm and leading me down some concrete stairs. He lead me into what appeared to be a basement, with some kind of microscope-looking device on a desk attatched to a generator. It had wires with little foam grasps leading from the slide to some kind of miniature electrical pylon mounted on the back of it, with a little calculator wired up to it. He hooked the grasps up to the bead and flicked a little analog switch on the bottom. The little device hummed and flickered, before the calculator fired up and beeped. He then started punching in some numbers. When he finished, he took me by the arm and said, “hold on sonny. This could take us anywhere.” In a strange, sensible voice, much different from his earlier, wild tone. I heard the familiar PING as the bead hit the carpet, a bright flash, and then nothing.

All of a sudden, I was waist deep in a muddy stream, with rich oxygen filling my lungs. I looked around, giddy with the rush of air, and found myself in a jungle stream, with massive, weird trees towering above me, and the loud drumming of insect wings beating the air. I turned around and saw the man, and behind him, a giant Mesothelae spider crouched on a log, waiting to spring…

Continued in the next book: Swamp mud