Page 2 of Caveman Alien's Bride
I keep a solid grip on my stick. It won’t be a great defense against a dinosaur, but I’m hoping it might at least chase away a butterfly if we were to meet one. “Last time, there was a not-raspberry bush not far from here. Maybe it bears more fruit this time.”
Piper doesn’t reply. And she’s right. We should be quiet.
At the top of the hill, the view is worse than further down. The trees around us are so tall and their crowns so dense, they block nearly all the sunlight from above. The jungle is always in dusk, except at night, when it’s just dark.
“It’s so quiet,” Piper whispers. “Are there no birds on this planet?”
“Don’t say that,” I beg. “You know they would be the size of airliners. But you’re right. It is really quiet here today.”
The usual rustling in the leaves and in the undergrowth is scary, but it’s also kind of reassuring. Now, there’s nothing.
Piper supports herself on her stick, taking weight off her bad ankle. “And its chirp would be like a foghorn— shit!”
She stares past me, and I turn to follow her gaze, clenching my stick in a sweaty hand.
Two yellow eyes are staring at me from ten yards away. They’re the size of those old-fashioned DVDs, and they have a reptilian deadness to them. There’s no consciousness behind them, no reasoning, no chance for compassion.
This is a dinosaur, and it’s a killer.
My veins fill with ice as I take one stumbling step back.
The dinosaur responds by taking two steps towards me, out of the foliage that hid it. A part of my mind notices thatit’snot worried about making noise. It doesn’t have to be. Nobody will be hunting a predator like this.
It’s the same type as the one we met that first day. It looks like those velociraptors fromJurassic Park, all teeth and powerful hind legs. This one is bigger than in the movie, and it’s clearly not the same thing. It’s an alien dinosaur, sky blue with black spots, with short feathers growing on its head. It’s staring at me with great intensity, its lower jaw dropping as if to show me its untidy rows of brown, triangular teeth.
“Run,” I whisper with a dry mouth. “Get away!”
“I’m not leaving you,” Piper whispers right back. “We have a better chance together!”
“Your ankle,” I tell her as an explanation, because my tongue won’t handle any longer sentences right now. “Run!”
“I’ll find a thorn bush,” she hisses as she finally sees sense and hobbles away back down the way we came.
I’m alone with the not-raptor, and I could swear it’s smiling. But the eyes are as dead and unmoving as ever.
I take another shaky step back.
It takes a step forward.
The monster is playing with me. It may not be a thinking creature, but it sure knows how to be mean.
Every fiber of my being is telling me to turn and flee as fast as I can.
But if I turn now and run after Piper, I’ll catch up with her in ten seconds and the predator will be right on my tail. I know there are no thorn bushes anywhere close we can throw ourselves into. They’re not very common.
But I have one possible way to deal with the predator. Quickly looking around, I spot one of the two things I need.
With trembling fingers I fumble with the woven straw pouch hanging at my hip and take out the other thing: a small plastic case.
The not-raptor chooses that moment to charge. It bounds easily past trees and through small bushes, its thin, claw-tipped forelimbs reaching out in front.
I yelp and run away on legs that feel slow and stiff. I round one tree and zigzag past two others, going in a rough arc towards the possible rescue.
Behind me I only hear the rustle from the undergrowth as the monster bounds through it.
Right before I get to the spot I want, I trip over a root and fall headlong on the dirt. I drop my stick, but not the small case.
The thin ray of sunlight from above is just within reach. And the predator is coming right at me, not fooled at all by my zigzagging.