Once Upon a Caveman

by Cassandra Gannon

  “It’s illegal for one thing.”

  He snorted at that. “No, it isn’t. Our laws do not allow for dangerous men to threaten our mates without repercussions. I am well within my rights.”

  Craig seized onto the one part of Rhawn’s complains that he’d overheard. “That’s right. I am dangerous.” He sucked on his teeth, his eyes going crafty. “Now, you’re bright about most things, Meadowcroft. But you know shit-all about people. You think I’m going to just fall in line with your plans, like you’re the Mother of fucking Dragons?” He waggled the revolver at her. “With the gun, I can just take your boats.”

  “And go where?” Lucy arched a brow. “Any idea which direction to sail?”

  “I’ll figure it out, with --like-- astrology.”

  “Astrology? How is it going to help you to know if you’re a Capricorn or a Libra?”

  “I’m a fucking Taurus.” Craig snapped, looking annoyed. His eyes flicked down to the sparkly necklace for beat and it seemed to distract him. He frowned and shook his head, like he was trying to focus, again. “Fine. Whatever the hell you call it to drive around using the stars, then. Astronomy. That’s what I’m gonna do.”

  “Sure.” Lucy pointed upward. “Remind me again: Which of the moons should you navigate by, Magellan?”

  Craig looked up, apparently noticing for the first time that there were two bright orbs in the nighttime sky. When you were high, you didn’t pick up on a lot of details. “Holy shit.” His jaw dropped. “What happened to the moon? What did you do to the moon?!”

  “It wasn’t me, you idiot. The sky looked different because we’re not on Earth anymore.”

  Rhawn’s hand came up, keeping her behind him. His eyes stayed on Craig.

  Craig was lost in his chemical-induced mania, convinced that Lucy was to blame for everything that had ever happened to him. “You did something to send us here, then! The last thing I remember before we sank was you, somehow knowing it was going to happen!” He pointed the gun at her. “If I get rid of you, maybe all this goes away!”

  Lucy felt her heart racing. “You can’t be serious. Not even you are paranoid enough to shoot me for…”

  Craig started firing.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I’m thinking of getting a dog.” Lucy says conversationally, brushing a hand through the caveman’s thick, tawny hair. “Like a cute little one.”

  “A little dog?” He seems puzzled. “No. You should get a large one. Then there is more meat on it for cooking.”

  Lucy stares at him for a beat. “…So I take it you’re more of a cat person, then.”

  Rhawn and Lucy’s Dream- Five Years Ago.

  Lucy instinctively ducked to the side, narrowly avoiding getting shot in the brain. The bullet impacted one of the mutant trees, the sound like a thunderclap. How the hell was that damn thing even working, after it had been dunked in the sea? Craig must have kept it and his precious dope sealed up in plastic or something. Before she had time to figure it out, Rhawn was shoving her to the ground.

  “Stay down!”

  Lucy landed on her backside, cringing as more gunshots exploded. “Rhawn!” She shouted in panic. The lunatic was headed towards Craig, rather than away. “Don’t go near him! He’s going to…”

  Her frantic warning was cut off mid-word, as it became clear Rhawn didn’t need it. One huge palm locked around Craig’s hand, forcing the gun into the air through brute strength. Craig futilely struggled for control, but it was like fighting against the Terminator. Rhawn was bigger, stronger and he wasn’t going to stop.

  Lucy’s eyebrows climbed in amazement.

  “Shit!” Craig shrieked. “You’re gonna break my wrist!”

  Rhawn ignored that. His other fist hammered out, slamming into Craig’s jaw. Lucy flinched, pretty sure she’d just heard some teeth being pulverized. Clearly, the caveman wasn’t going to solve this using his superior brainpower. Craig ended up flat on his back, crying. He was literally crying. The whole fight took about three seconds and Rhawn made it look so damn simple that Lucy could only blink. She couldn’t believe it had been that easy.

  Neither could Rhawn.

  Three seconds wasn’t enough time for him to adequately work out his frustrations. Cursing in caveman-ese, Rhawn tossed the gun aside and hauled Craig back up to hit him again. “You threaten my woman?!” He roared. “You try to take her from me?! I should throw you in the pits to die!”

  “It wasn’t my fault!” Craig screeched. “She started it!”

  By this point, other members of the Clan had shown up, drawn by the unfamiliar sound of gunshots. They stood around in a loose circle, not one of them doing a damn thing to stop the show. Nobody knew exactly what was going on, but they were ready to be entertained by the bloodshed.

  God, Lucy didn’t care what Rhawn said about their wonderfulness. Most of the time, her “followers” were completely unhelpful.

  In fact, all of the time.

  “Awesome! Someone should have beat the piss outta Craig years ago.” Warren said cheerfully, coming up beside her. He looked pretty good, considering he’d been on a bender for days. His hair wasn’t oiled down and his face looked younger, like he was happy about something. This place was actually good for him. “Hell, maybe I like your boyfriend, after all, Moose-y.”

  Lucy flashed him a distracted glare, staggering to her feet. “Aren’t you supposed to be out cold someplace?” She hurried over to grab the gun off the ground before somebody else got it. Aside from Rhawn, there was no one around here she trusted with a weapon.

  “Hey, you’re just luckily I didn’t use my green belt on you earlier.” Warren retorted with a snort. “I do know karate, ya know?”

  She barely resisted the urge to shoot him.

  “Warren?” Taffi came strolling over, like they were all meeting up for cocktails. She even had her hair fixed in a jaunty braid high on her head. “Don’t tell me you’re finally out of that cave.”

  “No, I’m still in there. I’m just a fucking mirage, right now.” Warren snapped back, in possibly his wittiest remark ever.

  Taffi sniffed, unimpressed. “Well, as you can see, Lucy and her missing link boy-toy have been screwing things up royally, while you were plastered. As usual, it’s up to me to lead the way. No wonder I was vice-president of the class and not you.” She gave Skoll a careless wave from across the clearing. “Luckily, I’m totally winning over the savages. They believe I’m a god or something.”

  “Yeah, that’s kinda common around here.” Warren agreed sourly. “It’s a way worse job then it seems at first, though. Trust me. People throw rocks at you.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a whiner. I know what I’m doing.”

  Lucy seriously doubted that. “Skoll is a psycho, Taffi.” She warned, distractedly. Damn it, Rhawn had better not hurt himself fighting. “You should stay away from him.”

  Taffi’s eyes took on an angry glow. “Why? So you can be the one to save the day? So you can get the credit?” She shook her head. “Oh no… You’re not taking this from me, too, Lucy! First it was my prom dress and now it’s the spotlight. Well, you might have given up on getting us home, but I haven’t! I’m going to figure out a way to save us all and then I’ll finally be the star!”

  Warren blinked over at Lucy. “You’ve given up on getting us home? Hang on… we’re stuck here forever?” For some reason, he didn’t look too broken up about that idea. In fact, he started to grin. “That’s fucking tremendous! My ex-wives are going to be so pissed about losing their alimony checks.” He chortled with glee.

  “No!” Taffi raged. “I’m getting us home! Aren’t you listening?”

  “Oh be real, Taff.” Warren rolled his eyes. “If Lucy can’t do it, then you sure as hell can’t. Face it, we’re stuck in Jurassic Park.”

  “Dinosaurs didn’t live during the Ice Age.” Lucy interjected automatically. She got so sick of telling people that.

  Taffi’s collagen plumped lips flattened into a thin line, i
gnoring her. “This place is my second chance. My do-over. This time, Lucy’s not the special snowflake. I am.”

  “I was never the special snowflake, Taffi. I never did anything, except score high on a couple of standardized tests. And really? I think that fucked up my whole life, because of the unrealistic expectations that got heaped on me. In real life, I haven’t done anything extraordinary.”

  “No kidding!” Taffi shouted. “But you’re still the one everyone asked about, when I sent them invitations to the reunion. ‘How’s Lucy doing?’ ‘What kind of amazing job does Lucy have?,’ ‘Is Lucy off changing the world someplace?’ Teddy O’Connell even wanted your phone number and I was the one who gave him a hand-job at graduation!”

  Lucy rolled her eyes. “Just stay out of my way, while I go help Rhawn, okay? I’ll listen to your oversharing later.”

  “Since Craig is the one crying, I don’t think Rhawn needs any help.” Warren said casually. “I think he’d want you to stay outta it.”

  He was probably right, but that didn’t do a lot to make her feel better. To his credit, Craig was trying to fight back, even through his tears. Somehow he broke free of Rhawn’s hold and slithered forward, heading for a rock to use as a weapon. He didn’t get far. Rhawn grabbed him by the back of the neck and lifted him right off the ground. The rest of the Clan cheered enthusiastically.

  Lucy flinched. “Rhawn, please be careful!” She spared Warren a quick glance. “You see? He’s going to strain his back doing that.” She held up a palm to shield her eyes, as the caveman tossed Craig into a prickly-looking purple bush. “God, I can’t watch this.” Rhawn was following her wishes and not killing Craig, but there was still way too much violence for her liking.

  “Just give Rhawn a second to work through some stuff.” Warren soothed. “It’s a perfectly natural guy thing. I wail on people all the time at karate. Relieves stress, ya know?” Meanwhile, his attention kept flicking over to Skoll. “Hey, do you think that dude is better looking than me?” He asked suddenly.

  “Yes.” Taffi said without even checking to see who he was pointing at.

  Warren made a face. “Well, I think Skoll’s a dickhead.” He grumbled. “He wants to date Anniah or something.”

  “Who’s Anniah?” Taffi asked without much interest. “That girl who looks like Twiggy?” She clearly wasn’t worried about competition for Skoll’s fair hand. In her own mind, Taffi would always be the head cheerleader who all the boys wanted to ask to prom.

  Lucy ignored her narcissism. “Warren, this isn’t high school.” She reported although no one else seemed to have noticed that. Lecturing him provided a welcomed distraction from the bloodshed, so she gave it a shot. “If you encourage Anniah’s crush on you, there will be real repercussions. You get that, right?”

  “Well you’re the one who gave me to her.”

  “I didn’t ‘give’ you to her. I just said she could have you, if she wanted.”

  “How is that not giving me to her?”

  Lucy had no idea, but she wasn’t going to admit that. “Just shut up and listen, okay? I want you to think about what you want. Skoll could smash you into little pieces without even trying and he’s totally going to, if you date that girl.” For whatever reason, Lucy didn’t want this idiot dead. Warren was an annoying pest, but he was her annoying pest. “I like Anniah, but use your head! You couldn’t even beat me in a fight.”

  He brightened, missing the point. “Hey wait… Did you say Anniah has a crush on me? Why? What did she say? Tell me exactly.”

  Apparently, she was wrong. It was high school. Lucy sighed. “She keeps saying you’re her ‘vando.’ I think that means she likes you. That’s really not the point, though…”

  “It clearly means, ‘I love him’ or ‘I love you’ or ‘I love whoever.’” Taffi interjected importantly. “They don’t really use verb conjugations around here, so you have to use context to get an exact translation.”

  Lucy and Warren glanced at her in surprise.

  “What? I double-majored in French and Mandarin. Languages are --like-- my thing. I can figure out what these brutes are grunting about, if I pay attention.” Taffi was happy to have the attention back on her and she wasn’t letting it go. “So, is that Craig your orangutan of a lover is pounding?” She asked Lucy, even though she already knew who it was. It wasn’t like there were a lot of people running around the jungle in “Fuck the World” t-shirts. “God, they will just let anyone onto this island, won’t they?” She shot Lucy a pointed look, making sure to include her in the insult.

  Lucy didn’t give a damn. Her mind was whirling.

  Holy shit. All the times he’d said vando, had Rhawn been telling her he loved her? He must have been saying it all along! Her mouth curved. Wow, that was…

  Craig gave a sudden bellow of pain, drawing her attention back to the fight. Lucy winced as Rhawn broke Craig’s nose and kept going. Craig was back to crying. Clearly, this wasn’t going to wind down on its own.

  Crap.

  “You know what? Forget it. Both of you do what you want.” Lucy waved aside Warren and Taffi’s problems. Right now, all that mattered was Rhawn. “I’ve had it. Warren, help me break this up, will you?”

  “Don’t worry, Moose-y. Your boyfriend’s got Craig on the ropes, for sure.”

  “I want him to stop, though!”

  “Why? Craig’s always been a dick.”

  Craig gave a choked sound of terror and lifted his arms to cover his face, trying to hide from Rhawn’s wrath. It didn’t work. Since no one else was going to be the adult here, Lucy would have to do it herself.

  “Don’t, caveman.” She headed over, intent on saving Craig’s life for Rhawn’s sake.

  “He threatened you, Lucy! He could have killed you with that weapon!”

  “I know, but I’m fine.” She assured him, even as her eyes went down to the gun in her hand. Just looking at it had fear coursing through her system. She could’ve been killed. Rhawn could’ve been killed. Really, that possibility frightened her even more. Either way, she was fine with Craig getting beat up, as payback. She wasn’t about to let Rhawn do something he’d regret, though. “Come on, you won. Now let him go. This isn’t who you are. We’ll just…”

  Lucy stopped mid-word, cut off by a bloodcurdling, horror-movie-sound-effect howl. The eerie notes of it played over her spinal cord and stopping her heart. She instantly realized what animal had made the sound.

  Damn it, she’d known the tar pits would attract the dire wolves.

  “What the hell was that?” Warren demanded.

  Rhawn was already moving. He dropped Craig in a heap, focused on the new threat. “Lucy, do not move.” He caught hold of her arm, dragging her behind him. “Understand? Stay still.”

  Easier said than done.

  She looked around desperately trying to spot the damn things. It wasn’t hard. Dire wolves were bigger than modern wolves and modern wolves were already scary big, so it was terrifyingly simple to see the monstrous beasts coming towards her. There were four of them, their gray fur matted and their teeth bared.

  “Oh shit.” She whispered and then they attacked.

  Taffi let out an ear-piercing shriek as the pack charged into the clearing. “Help!” She grabbed onto Warren, violently shaking him like it might rattle loose some heretofore unknown heroism. “Werewolves! There are werewolves here! Do something! Do something!”

  Warren rallied himself and quickly did something.

  …He grabbed onto Lucy and shook her arm. “Do something!” He shouted.

  Lucy was too busy not moving to respond to that idiocy. All around her, it was pure pandemonium.

  The pack was half-starved. They weren’t backing away from an opportunity to eat, even if it meant attacking humans. Skoll, Tammoh, and some of the other men clambered up into the closest palmy-pine tree, pulling others up behind them. Craig dragged himself into a sitting position, trying to figure out what was going on. Then he saw the wolves and started crying, ag
ain. A few Clan members tried to race back to camp, but that just drew the animals’ attention.

  Lucy cringed as the wolves gave chase. One of them wrestled a Clan member to the ground, its teeth flashing. “Oh God.”

  Rhawn’s arms swept back, making sure she stayed behind him. “They follow the movement.” He reiterated. “It’s how they hunt. Just like the long-tooths. Do not run and do not watch.”

  She nodded, burying her face in Rhawn’s back so she wouldn’t have to see the blood. Too bad she couldn’t block out the screams as easily.

  “I’m not running.” Warren sounded like he was hyperventilating. “You see how I’m not running? I learned from that tiger chasing me, ya know? I’m just going to do whatever you say and you’re going to get us out of this, right Rhawn?”

  “Correct.” Rhawn turned his head, gauging the distance to the tree line. “Now, we must very slowly move towards the forest. Whatever you do, don’t run or…”

  Taffi took off running.

  “Shit!” Warren and Lucy chorused.

  Rhawn rolled his eyes in disgust.

  The prom queen tore off towards Skoll’s tree, waving her arms. “Help, help, help, help!” She barreled right past Notan, inadvertently kicking his walking stick. The old man fell, his bad leg twisting under him. The Clan let out a collective gasp of horror as the biggest wolf moved in on him.

  Anniah screamed and tried to reach her father.

  “Fuck!” Warren let go of Lucy and chased after her. For once, he was the one to make an interception on the field. He grabbed Anniah as she rushed by. “Stop!” He pulled her against him, trying to keep her still. “You can’t do anything, damn it! Do you think he wants you dead, too?”

  She tried to push him away, sobbing out frantic words in the Clan’s language.

  Lucy had no clue what she was saying, but it didn’t much matter. Warren was actually right and Warren was never right. But there was nothing the girl could do except get herself eaten, too. “Anniah listen to him!” She shouted.

  Warren held Anniah tightly, making soothing sounds to quiet her. It was undoubtedly the first time Warren had ever tried to help anyone. And it worked. Anniah collapsed against him, sobbing.