CHAPTER 12 - Dinosaur Attacks and Stuff that Attracts Readers

On deck, Dan was thankful he didn’t have the night shift. Not that it made much difference, as it was pitch dark in the bilge if the lamps were not lit.  He was gazing up at the stars, quite oblivious to the emergency below, when his own emergency became paramount.

He noticed that quite suddenly the stars vanished.

Well not vanished, but he couldn’t see them, and not all of them, only the ones being blocked by that enormous thing in front of him. Luckily, when the enormous thing fell back into the water, the stars came back into view.

If not for the wave that rocked the ship and the obscenities emanating from several sailors, he would have thought he imagined it. The crew were vocal.

“What in the hell was that?”

“It was a whale.”

“No, it was a sea monster.”

“It was a demon from the bowels of hell.”

Dan didn’t know it at the time but it was a Mosasaurus, a giant crocodile-like reptile that had been extinct for millions of years. Not that knowing this would have been at all helpful.  Dan was too busy looking for a place to hide to engage in anthropology.