“That’s velociraptor,” Jesse corrected.
“Whatever. It’s obviously a dinosaur and it’s walking right next to us. Please tell me that not everyone becomes stupid like that when they become an adult.”
There was a lot of petty bickering after that, but none of the adults tried to act like they were in charge anymore. They could be in charge again once they all made it back to the surface. For the moment it was the four kids that had found their way down here, and they were the only four who knew exactly how to get back.
Murky thought they probably made quite the sight, an entire small town’s worth of people walking through the glowing green caves. A lot of them had been injured when the ants took them, but no one dared slow down after what Laura had said.
Henderson gestured for them all to slow down a little as they got closer to the place where they’d encountered the killer mushroom. “I don’t think we’ve thought enough about this,” he said to Laura. “How are we going to get past that thing again with so many people this time? The first time we barely made it through with our lives.”
“I’m still just making up all of this as we go,” Laura said to him in a conspiratorial whisper. “Maybe Chicago will be able to help us again.”
Except, once they got back to the place where they clearly remembered fighting the killer mushroom, they found it gone. Except it wasn’t completely gone. There were still pieces of it, especially chunks of the rubbery tentacles and root-like structure. But most of the giant fungus was gone, and it didn’t look like it had somehow got up and walked by itself. There were clear signs of violence. Various tendrils looked like they had been ripped apart by something large and strong, and there was a disgusting goo on the ground in places that Murky thought might have been the liquid she’d seen in the mushroom’s stem.
“Something bad happened here,” Murky muttered. Chicago made a soft noise in response that almost could have been agreement.
“Doesn’t seem so bad to me,” Henderson said. “Anything that gets rid of that monster plant has to be good for us.”
“Monster fungus,” Jesse corrected. “And I don’t know. Whatever did this, it could still be around. And do you really want to meet something that could completely destroy a creature that almost killed us so easily?”
The four of them agreed that they didn’t, but none of them told any of the others that something capable of ripping up giant monster mushrooms might be lurking around. Instead they continued on, again expecting some rather interesting reactions from the townsfolk when they came to the cavern of the dinosaurs. But that was empty too, even if it didn’t seem to be the sight of some kind of fight like the space where the mushroom had been.
“Where did they all go?” Murky asked, half to her friends and half to Chicago.
“There’s a few of these tunnels that look like they might be big enough for the dinosaurs to hide in,” Jesse said. “But I’m betting it wouldn’t be a comfortable fit.”
“So they all ran away,” Henderson said. “What exactly could be so scary that it could make a tyrannosaurus run away screaming in fear?”
“I don’t know, but it’s not something I want to meet,” Laura said.
“Hey,” one of the townsfolk said. “You kids mind telling the rest of us what you’re whispering to each other that is making you turn so pale?”
“Oh, nothing,” Laura said. Unfortunately, Murky was pretty sure everyone could tell she was lying. Being the typical good girl that she was, Laura didn’t have a lot of practice at being convincing when she lied.
“We just need to get moving, is all,” Henderson said. From him, a lie sounded much more convincing. “We don’t have much further to go, but we’re probably really short on time.”
Even though every single person in their very long train was tired, exhausted and traumatized, they all picked up their pace. It wasn’t until they passed the shattered remains of Agent Larson’s communicator device that Murky began to have a suspicion, and it was one that her three main companions obviously shared with her.
“The thing we saw in this tunnel,” Murky whispered to them, “I think maybe that’s what ripped apart the mushroom.”
“And scared away the dinosaurs,” Jesse said.
“And also probably why the ants aren’t trying to chase after their dinner,” Henderson added. “Whatever it is, it’s something they didn’t want to mess with.”
“Do we still not have any idea what it even was?” Murky asked.
“I don’t know,” Jesse said. “Maybe. We’ve got giant ants and giant aphids. Based on that and what we were able to see of the creature when it passed, I have an idea, but I’d rather not say it. I kind of hope I’m wrong.”
“Oh come on,” Henderson said to him. “You can’t just leave us hanging like that. Tell us what you’re thinking.”
“Have you ever heard of an ant-lion?” Jesse asked.
“No,” Henderson responded.
Somewhere behind them, deep within the caverns, they heard an ungodly screech much like the one they had heard when they’d first come down. Everyone from town turned to look in the direction of the sound with terror on their faces.
“You may not have heard of one,” Jesse said, “but I think you just heard one. Everyone, I think maybe it’s time to run!”
Even though an entire town’s worth of people started running down the tunnel, it wasn’t the sort of panicked free-for-all that one might have expected. No one trampled anyone else, and no one was left behind. Children too small to run effectively were picked up, multiple people assisted with Mrs. Harmsen, and anyone who fell was given a
