Return to Underland Read online

  Books by Alan Nayes

  BARBARY POINT

  GARGOYLES (Resurrection Trilogy, Book One)

  PLAGUE (Resurrection Trilogy, Book Two)

  THE UNNATURAL

  SMILODON

  GIRL BLUE

  RETURN TO UNDERLAND

  RETURN TO UNDERLAND

  by

  Alan Nayes

  anayes.com

  Orange, CA

  RETURN TO UNDERLAND

  Alan Nayes

  Copyright 2012 Alan Nayes

  Book Cover Artist: Tara Shuler [email protected]

  Allen Chiu [email protected]

  Editor: Karin Cox www.editorandauthor.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including recording, scanning, photocopying or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written consent of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Digital book(s) (epub and mobi) produced by Booknook.biz.

  Acknowledgments

  I wish to thank the following persons, who generously lent their time and/or expertise to this book:

  Linda Mackey

  Tara Shuler

  Allen Chiu

  Anna Reilly

  The Eclectives

  And a special thanks to editor Karin Cox for her fantastic suggestions and editorial guidance. You rock, girl!

  To all living things—past, present…and future!

  Contents

  * * *

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Part Two

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part Three

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  The Eclective

  Return to Underland

  PART ONE

  THE DISCOVERY

  CHAPTER 1

  * * *

  Spinner couldn’t recall exactly when he and Reglan became close friends. They were neighbors initially. The first time he’d seen her was right after Reglan’s family moved in next door, a little over three years ago. He had been eight and out in his backyard digging for shale, a grey-black rock noteworthy for preserving fossils. Though the valleys around Maramac harbored plenty of the drab-colored stone, most required an hour or two of hiking time to reach.

  Spinner had just pulled out a golf ball sized chunk of stone—not shale but limestone—when he’d heard a chorus of loud voices next door.

  The new neighbors were celebrating their daughter’s seventh birthday.

  “Happy birthday to you … happy birthday to Reglan,” came the chorus from next door. That’s how he’d learned her name.

  It turned out that, like him, Reglan was an only child. The village of Maramac was small and since the school was only a few blocks from their homes, they soon began to walk to school together.

  “I’m going to be a veterinarian when I grow up,” she boasted one brisk morning, a few weeks before spring would arrive in Echo Valley.

  “I like animals too,” Spinner replied, “but I’m more interested in fossils.”

  “You mean dead animals.”

  “I suppose. But long ago they were alive. Just like Otter is now.” Otter was his yellow Labrador puppy. As soon as Otter was old enough Spinner planned on walking him to Dwellers Meadow, just north of town, where shale deposits used to be mined.

  “Yeah, Otter’s cool.”

  “Did you know that all of Echo Valley used to be a huge shallow inland sea?”

  “When?”

  “Millions of years ago.”

  “You know a lot about this kind of stuff.”

  Maybe that’s when he began liking her more than just for a walk-to-school buddy. It wasn’t what she’d said, but how she’d said it—with admiration. She admired that he was interested in the science of the past. “It’s called paleontology,” Spinner had told her.

  “I know that.” Yet by the funny way she smiled when she said it, he knew she was lying.

  “If you’re going to be a vet, then I’m going to be paleontologist,” Spinner declared.

  “Here’s to animals—past and present!” Reglan grinned and put her hand up for a high five.

  After that, they began taking short hikes together: Reglan to observe songbirds and small mammals and reptiles, and Spinner to search for shale and fossils.

  One afternoon, Spinner watched Reglan’s parents rush her away in their white SUV. For more than four weeks she was absent from school. Spinner missed the discussions they had about bobcats, and foxes, and prehistoric horses that once roamed Echo Valley after the inland sea receded. While the other kids bragged about sports—which Spinner was never any good at, though he could climb trees pretty expertly—and video games, he preferred to talk science. Sometimes they would laugh at his geekiness, but Spinner never let his hurt feelings show.

  One baseball game just before Reglan departed still goaded him, though.

  Two out in the bottom of the ninth, and Spinner McPherson came to bat. His team was down by one run and the tying run stood on third. All he had to do was pop a simple grounder past the infield. Easy, right?

  “Come on Spinner, hit it out of the park,” his sandlot teammates shouted, although he could tell they had no faith in him.

  The boys in the field even yelled, “Yo, Spinner bro, blast that puppy—right into my glove. That is if you can hit it!” Then everyone had laughed.

  All three pitches, one after the other, came in so fast. Spinner closed his eyes for the first two. He swung twice and whiffed. Then he let the third pitch zip past with the bat still resting on his shoulder. Strike three!

  Both sides had jeered. “Next time, we’ll pitch you a fossil,” one boy had taunted.

  He had not known Reglan had stopped by with friends to watch, but when he started walking home, Reglan caught up with him. “You tried. You were close on one pitch, the second I think.”

  “I wasn’t even close,” he muttered, adjusting his glasses.

  “Try not to let it get you down.”

  “That’s easy for you to say.”

  “There are more important things in life than hitting some stupid baseball across a dirt field, you know.”

  “One day I’ll show ’em. Scientific knowledge beats hitting a home run any day.”

  The next week, Reglan had been driven away by her parents.

  Over dinner one evening, Spinner asked, “Where’s Reglan been?”

  His parents exchanged concerned looks.

  “Reglan is ill, honey,” his mother replied.

  Spinner set down his fork. “You mean like a cold? A sore throat?”

  “No. It’s more serious than that.”

  “How serious?” He hadn’t realized how much he missed her until then.

  His father cleared his throat. “She has a blood disease, son. It’s called leukemia.”

  Spinner shivered involuntarily. He hated the word just by the way it sounded. “Will she be okay?” he asked, trying to prevent his lower lip from quivering.

  His mother patted his wrist tenderly. “The doctors are doing all they can, dear.”

>   Whatever the doctors had done, it must have been enough. When Reglan finally returned to Maramac a month later, she didn’t look much different than before—maybe a little thinner and paler. She’d lost a lot of hair too. But she still liked talking about animals. And because she hadn’t made fun of him when he struck out at baseball, he never made a comment when the rest of her hair fell out. He still thought she looked cute, although he never mentioned that to anyone, and when her hair returned it grew in thicker and curlier than before.

  For her ninth birthday, Spinner bought Reglan a hot fudge sundae at the local drug store. He thought all the color had returned to her cheeks. “So you’re really okay?” he couldn’t resist asking.

  She offered up her trademark Reglan grin. “I’m in remission.”

  “That’s awesome!”

  Their treks outside Maramac never extended beyond Dwellers Meadow—parents’ rules—yet the fields and surrounding forest never failed to offer up surprises. One early morning they discovered a wounded raccoon. One of the animal’s limbs was bleeding and stuck out at an unnatural angle. Reglan guessed it had fallen from a tree limb and broken its hind leg. Spinner fashioned a sling from a poncho he carried in his pack and positioned the injured mammal on Reglan’s back for the walk back to town.

  The leg healed well and Reglan kept the raccoon as a pet until it was well enough to be released back into the wild. They had a lot of fun watching Otter learn how to slide his muzzle under the animal to urge the raccoon onto his back. Then he’d take off at a run with the varmint hanging on for the ride. The trick became quite popular in the neighborhood. Otter carried the pet raccoon around until Reglan finally decided enough was enough.

  “Otter’s going to make that animal lazy,” she said. She hadn’t given the raccoon a name because she didn’t want to grow too attached to it.

  “They’re just having fun.” But Spinner knew Reglan was right. They released the healed raccoon several weeks later.

  When Spinner turned eleven, his parents decided he was mature enough to explore the valley beyond Dwellers Meadow, as long as he didn’t wander too far. He had to take his compass and cell phone, too. And he couldn’t go alone. Otter didn’t count as a companion.

  Spinner knew exactly who to invite.

  CHAPTER 2

  * * *

  “Whoa, tell me these aren’t cool,” Spinner said, touching the tracks in the soft sand.

  “They’re weird.” Reglan leaned in closer and her long curls tumbled over her shoulder as she poked at the strange tracks with her foot.

  “What about you, Otter, any idea?” Spinner scruffed the neck of the yellow Labrador at his side. Otter, whose name arose from his excellent swimming ability, was three now and close to sixty-five pounds.

  Otter sniffed once at the tracks and growled.

  “Was that a yes or no?” Reglan asked.

  “Otter thinks they’re weird, too.”

  Two different sets of tracks, both close together, led away from them. The front prints were small and looked like the handprints of a baby—five distinct digits could be picked out. The back ones were much larger and were webbed. Spinner squatted down for a closer look but could detect no claws, only the strange webbed toes.

  He tried to imagine what sort of creature might have made these tracks in the sand in Echo Valley. Nothing familiar came to mind.

  Slinging his knapsack over to the opposite shoulder, he said, “Follow me. We’ll see where they lead.”

  CHAPTER 3

  * * *

  Whenever Spinner McPherson hunted for rare animals and fossils, he always took his Doomsday Animal Parade. His parents had given him the encyclopedia—featuring every animal that ever swam, flew or walked the earth—as a Christmas gift two years ago, when he turned nine. He and Reglan had already gone a half mile since first spotting the strange prints before Spinner stopped to thumb through the book’s pages. He picked out extinct ducks and otters and turtles, and also some amphibians. Yet he saw nothing close to whatever had been walking along the banks of Little Horn Creek that morning, except perhaps the devil frog. One minor problem—the devil frog had vanished from the face of the earth millions of years ago.

  Reglan pointed to a drawing. “How about those?”

  Spinner shook his head. “Those are moa footprints. See, no webs.”

  “Moas?”

  “Large flightless birds. They’re extinct.”

  Reglan wasn’t about to argue. Spinner was the smartest kid in school when it came to animals and paleontology.

  Spinner snapped the book shut and placed it back in his knapsack beside his flashlight, small first aid kit, compass and cell phone—all tools he took on his hunts.

  A red-tailed hawk circled low overhead, soaring on silent air currents as Spinner secured the strap of his knapsack. “Ready?”

  Reglan nodded. “I just don’t want to get lost.”

  Spinner heaved his knapsack onto his back and started forward again, followed by Otter and Reglan. “We won’t get lost.”

  He took each step cautiously, always checking for quicksand. Trees and vegetation flourished on both banks until they resembled green walls, making hiking through the woods difficult. The creek provided the best path.

  Where the sand bar dipped below the flowing water, the prints vanished, but they always reappeared further downstream.

  In other places the banks were composed of slippery, moss-covered boulders. They took their time in these areas, careful not to plunge into the cold spring runoff.

  Spinner had never explored this stretch of the Little Horn before. He knew the stream trickled from a natural spring located at higher elevations several miles north of the village of Maramac, but its exact path down through Echo Valley, and on to Majestic Mountain was a mystery.

  After another hundred yards, Spinner paused before a large sand bar. Beside him, Reglan drew to a stop as well. She had seen them, too: the tracks had changed!

  Quietly, Spinner and Reglan inched closer. Pulling a tree limb aside, Spinner stepped out onto the sand bar. There was no quicksand and his shoes oozed down less than a half inch as he knelt to touch one of the prints.

  “Whatever made these, it started running.” He studied a second print. “See the sand kicked up behind each track.” He pointed.

  He remembered reading that scientists could calculate the speed of dinosaurs by their tracks, by studying the shape of each fossilized print and how far apart they were.

  “Spinner, look!” Reglan ran halfway across the sand bar and pointed to the ground near her shoes.

  Testing each step, Spinner joined her, the sand squishing beneath him. As he approached, he saw what Reglan was pointing to: another set of tracks!

  He and Reglan stared in shocked silence. These tracks were human—or almost!

  CHAPTER 4

  * * *

  At Otter’s growl, Spinner placed a hand on the dog’s neck, feeling the hairs bristling beneath his touch.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Reglan asked.

  “He’s nervous. Must’ve picked up a scent.” Spinner gazed downstream.

  Sixty yards ahead, Little Horn Creek and the strange tracks disappeared around a bend.

  Otter growled again and trotted ahead a few paces. They listened. The only sound was the gurgling creek; even the birds were silent.

  Then it happened.

  Two loud splashes sounded downstream.

  With a bark, Otter cleared the sand bar in five bounds.

  “Otter!” Spinner yelled, but the dog didn’t even break his stride as he leaped into the flowing stream. Seconds later, he was lost to view.

  Completely forgetting about quicksand, Spinner took off after him. “Otter!”

  “Spinner!” Reglan joined in the chase.

  Otter’s splashing soon faded, lost among the trees and running water. Soon, even his barking grew silent.

  “Otter!” But Spinner was too late. His faithful companion had vanished.

  �
��What do we do now?” Reglan asked as they stopped to rest in the shade of a huge willow tree.

  “We have to find him. He’s never run away like that before.”

  They crossed five more sand bars, each marked by the strange prints, and now by Otter’s prints, too. After the fifth bar, the banks turned rocky and the tracks vanished in the limestone.

  They stopped and called his name. Only their echoes answered.

  Finding a high spot on a boulder, Spinner handed Reglan his knapsack and squirmed his way to the top. He raised both hands to his mouth. “Otter!” he yelled. Nothing. “Otter!” he tried again. Still no response.

  They pressed on somberly.

  In several places, the creek bank opened up and Spinner and Reglan were able to pick up some precious time. However, after only a hundred yards, the forest became too dense and they had to wade into the creek again.

  The water was cold, numbing their legs, but not far ahead they could see the point where Little Horn took a sharp turn to the right. Spinner balanced himself on a dry rock and helped Reglan up.

  “That feels better.” Reglan rubbed her calves, glad of the warm sun that would quickly dry out her shoes.

  The two gazed around to discover they were standing at the edge of a clearing at the base of Majestic Mountain. A lone giant oak towered toward the sky on the other side and ahead Little Horn Creek flowed a quarter mile across the open meadow, past the oak, to disappear between two large boulders that abutted a rocky cliff. The sheer cliff face rose straight up, several hundred feet above the two boulders, which sat like giant tortoises in the stream of water. On the other side of the nearest boulder, Spinner heard a familiar bark.

  “Otter!” He leaped off the rock and dashed across the clearing, over the thick carpet of bluestem and prairie grasses, with Reglan following close behind.