The Deadly Past Read Online Free PDF Page A

of the nest but was forced to stop to defend herself. The pterodactyl wanted a bite of her leg. Cindy watched in horror as it scampered toward her.
    â€œLeave me alone!” Cindy cried, kicking at it, which gave it reason to pause but not go away. Cindy tried not to think about what would have happened if she hadn’t regained consciousness a few minutes earlier. The baby pterodactyl would have just walked over and begun to feed on her. Like Sally said, it probably would have fed on her brain first.
    Yuck!
    Cindy kicked at it again and the nasty little baby had the nerve to scratch her right leg with one of its claws. Cindy couldn’t believe how painful the cut was, and wondered if baby pterodactyls had poison on the tips of their claws. Butthe weird thing was she didn’t really want to hurt the creature, even though it was trying to eat her. She understood that attacking any living thing was its nature, that it was just hungry. At the same time she wasn’t feeling warm enough toward the creature to take it home and build it a playhouse.
    But where was home?
    These couldn’t be the mountains that surrounded Spooksville.
    The shape of them, the plants that grew on them—everything looked primeval. It was as if the mother pterodactyl had not merely carried her away, but carried her into the past—far into the past.
    Of course it was the present moment she was worried about.
    The baby pterodactyl tried to scratch her again and Cindy was forced to kick it. She caught it with a clean shot and the little monster howled and backed off.
    â€œLet that be a lesson to you,” Cindy said. “Don’t go trying to eat things that are bigger than you.”
    Cindy managed to pull herself out of the nest and onto a narrow ledge that ran along themountain peak. But the drop below her was at least two thousand feet. Her head spun. Desperately she clutched the surrounding stone. She had always been afraid of heights. Even riding up in an elevator in a tall building could make her dizzy. Trying not to look down, she slowly made her way toward a sharp break in the wall of the cliff that offered her handholds to pull herself up to the top of the peak. Behind her, the baby pterodactyl continued to screech. Cindy hoped it wasn’t calling for mom to come home quick.
    But that was probably exactly what it was doing.
    Cindy carefully began to pull herself up, making sure with each step that her weight was fully supported. She wasn’t far from the top of the mountain, maybe only two hundred feet. But that two hundred feet took her ages to cover. Glancing down set her head spinning, yet the temptation to do so refused to leave her. For the time being, she was her own worst enemy. She kept telling herself to stay cool, that she was lucky to be alive.
    After what seemed an hour of climbing she pulled herself up on top of the peak. For a moment the view stole her breath away. In every direction was the most exotic scenery she had ever seen.Massive waterfalls plunging thousands of feet into churning pools. Purple colored trees, larger than redwoods, that seemed to be straining to touch the sky with fat branches covered in blue leaves.
    There was even a volcano, blowing off dirty steam, percolating off to the far side of the peak. It looked like a classic volcano, cone shaped, with black sides and an angrily glowing red tip. But just the sight of it made Cindy uneasy. Maybe it had been shooting off steam for ages, but there was something immediately threatening about it. Was it ready to blow its top?
    â€œThis is definitely not Spooksville,” she said out loud to herself.
    But then where was she?
    She wasn’t given a chance to think about the question.
    A terrifying sound—like the huge beating heart Watch had described—could be heard in the distance. Cindy strained her eyes in every direction but didn’t see anything. The sky was largely covered with thick gray clouds, and she knew her