by Lou Cadle
“Shit,” said Garreth.
“I’m okay. Barely touched me,” said Ted, but he stuck his hand in his mouth just after he said it.
“Defensive position,” Bob said. “Everyone together, in a tight circle.”
The second saber tooth was intent on them, ignoring the one dragging M.J. away.
They crowded together, keeping their spears out, and kept pushing the weapons at the second saber tooth. It circled them. Their own circle moved in response, the stronger people trying to stay in front, the weaker ones protected.
Bob was the only one throwing rocks. They bothered the animal more than the futile lunges with the spears. Hannah said, “We need to throw at it. People in the back, pass your rocks up.”
Claire edged around, taking a forward position and began throwing, too. Laina did. Hannah felt her hand pulled back and someone tried to push a handful of rocks into it. She dropped the spear to take them and hurled them, one by one, at the unhappy animal.
It took forever to drive it away, but drive it they did. Hannah supposed no more than three minutes had passed since M.J. was hit, but it felt a lifetime had.
“M.J.,” said Jodi. “Where is he?”
She turned and saw the path through the leaves, where the first saber tooth had dragged him. “Everybody, stay together. Watch every direction.”
“We’ll save him,” said Laina.
Hannah thought it was too late for that, but they had to try. They followed the trail out to the grasses. The saber tooth was bent over M.J.
It raised its head, its long fangs coated in red.
Hannah pushed back Ted, who was right at her side, and took a step forward to see better.
They were definitely too late. M.J.’s neck had been broken, and the animal had already started to feed.
“We have to go,” she choked out. Then louder. “Okay. We have to go.”
“Leave him?” said Nari.
Chapter 47
“Yes,” Hannah said. “Back to the stream, everybody. We need to retreat to the cave.”
“What do you mean, we have to leave him?” Jodi was sobbing the words out.
“He’s gone, sweetie,” she said. “I’m sorry, but he’s gone.”
Rex moved forward, looked out at M.J.’s body and turned away quickly. He cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t we bury him?”
The saber tooth hadn’t gone far. It was still there, fifty yards away, pacing back and forth over its kill now. It snarled at them. This was a kill it was not going to give up.
“If we leave him,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “We can get away.”
There was a silence.
Then Zach said, “You mean, let the nimravid eat him.”
She nodded. “Look at it. It wants its kill. If we let that happen, we can walk back to the cave and be safe, that is, if the other one doesn’t come for us. There’s nothing we can do for M.J. now. I’m sorry, but he’s gone.”
Bob cleared his throat. “And if the saber tooth feeds now, it won’t want to eat for another few days. We’ll all be safe from this one, at least.”
“God,” said Jodi, turning away.
“That’s too—” Nari choked out. She began to cry, too.
“It seems wrong,” Rex said.
“I know,” Hannah said. “But we can’t fight anymore. Three of us are hurt. M.J. is dead. We need to cut our losses.”
As if agreeing, the saber tooth tilted its head back and screamed its defiance.
“Let’s go,” said Claire. “I’m sorry about M.J. As sorry as anyone. But Garreth is bleeding, and so is Ted, and we need to go.”
One by one, they turned away from M.J.’s still form. Laina made the sign of the cross before she turned, and Hannah looked down at M.J.’s body one last time. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. Then she began walking backwards, keeping the saber tooth in her sight.
When she had backed another hundred yards away, the saber tooth bent to claim its meal. She turned away, unwilling to watch, even if it left them exposed in this direction. After another hundred yards, she turned. It was pulling something red out of M.J.’s belly, and she swallowed her bile and quit looking.
An irreverent thought passed through her mind. At least he’s not missing alcohol now.
And a selfish thought followed it. They had lost their expert on the flora and fauna of the epoch. They were really on their own now.
*
The hour-long walk back to the cave was made in silence, everyone alone with his or her own private thoughts. Hannah checked Garreth and Ted’s wounds once they were out of sight of the grove and decided they could both wait for first aid until they were back at the cave. Not until the cave entrance and the reinforced stockade were visible did the first quiet conversations start again.
Bob let the kids get ahead and turned to Hannah, putting up a hand to stop her. He went back to meet her. “You okay?”
“Better than M.J.”
“I know. It was awful. They’re never going to forget this, not a one of them.”
“No. Nor will you or I.”
He sighed. “But what are we going to do for food today? We can’t just sit here and mourn. We have to keep up our work.”
“Maybe now that it has fed well,” she said, “it’ll leave our traps alone for a day or two.”
“If the raider was the nimravid at all. It could have been anything raiding the traps. We need to build more pit traps. I don’t think any animal will climb down into them. And if it does, it may just double our catch.”
“Yeah.” She looked at the kids. Most had plopped down in front of the smoldering fire. Rex was poking at it with a long stick. A few were talking together, but most were sitting, heads bowed, lost in thought. As she watched, Claire took her shirttail and wiped her eyes with it. “It’s not even noon yet. Maybe we can give them a couple hours, and then send out work crews.”
“Maybe one work crew. Everyone may be too frightened to go out in smaller groups.”
It was a petty thing to think about, but M.J.’s death screwed up the numbers. Three groups of four now became two groups of four and one of three, without an adult in it. That one would be more vulnerable. All she said to Bob was, “We need to stay in bigger groups for a while. For defense, and for everyone’s peace of mind.”
Bob nodded. “And we need to stick close to the cave, or to the old stockade. So we’ll have a place to hide, if need be.”
Hannah hoped maybe the saber tooth would find that after all this, it hated the taste of human meat. And then it would leave them alone. Wishful thinking, of course. In the bloody world of tooth and claw, meat was meat. To the saber tooth, she was just a walking hamburger, easier to kill than some others.
She’d have to work at making this group harder to kill, that’s all. Training, practice at weapon use, improving the technology of weapons: that would be her next order of business. As awful as she felt about M.J., think if it had been Laina, or Zach, or any one of the others. As she watched Dixie pull out her compact and lipstick and apply a smear, trying to get herself together as best she knew how, she realized even Dixie would have hurt her worse to lose. Not because she was more valuable than M.J. But she was just a kid. She deserved a chance at a longer life.
But what kind of life would they have here?
“What are you thinking?”
“Dark thoughts,” she said. “Wondering if maybe M.J. isn’t the lucky one.”
“Don’t let yourself go there.”
“No. I know.” She couldn’t indulge herself in despair or depression. “You and I have to be strong.”
“You be strong. I’ll be sympathetic.”
She almost smiled at that. “I’m the traditional dad, and you the traditional mom, eh?”
“Indeed.” He was watching the kids, too, and Hannah took a moment to turn around and check for danger. Nothing.
Bob said, “I’m wondering if—”
At that point, Ted came running out of the cave. He p
ulled up, looked around and caught sight of them.
“It’s back!” he yelled. “It’s back! The timegate is back!”
Chapter 48
Hannah took off running toward the cave, yelling, “Stop! Don’t anyone go in there!”
“Why not?” asked Dixie.
“Remember how we all got separated before? We can’t let that happen again!”
“But I want to go home,” said Claire, still crying.
“Me too,” said Zach. “I don’t want to end up like M.J.”
“Hold up,” she said. “Wait for your teacher. You don’t want to leave him behind, do you?” She pulled her flashlight off her belt loop. “Everybody line up, behind me.”
Bob trotted over and said, “Ted, are you sure you saw it?”
“You can even see it in the dark. It’s just the same. Glimmery, and colors, and everything.”
“Okay,” Hannah said. “Everybody here? Look around, see if anyone is missing.”
Bob counted heads. “Only eleven. Oh. Right. Yes, we’re all here.”
“Let’s go then,” she said, and then stopped. “Grab the spears,” she said to Ted, who was right behind her. “And Dixie, grab the cordage that’s coiled by the fire there. And whoever is in back. Nari? Take that really good flat digging rock.”
“Why?”
“Because we may need them,” she said. “And someone, get those cured skins.” She didn’t want to say it aloud, but maybe they’d need them to survive. What if the timegate only went back, never forward? What if they stepped out of the cave next time and were another 30 million years back in time?
But they had to take the chance of using it. If there was any possibility at all that this was a stable gate, one end here, the other in the modern world, they had to step through.
Hannah realized her hand holding the flashlight was shaking, half in terror, half in hope. She led them through the cave, past their line of mattresses, and back to the place where it had all started, almost a month ago. And there it was, ahead, a shimmer in the gloom.
She walked nearer it and watched it for a moment, that same mesmerizing curtain of shimmering, shifting light. The kids lined up in a semi-circle around it.
Ted said, “It’s up in the air. Just like we fell from it. Now we have to get up to it.”
“Hmm,” Hannah said. He was right. And it was going to be a problem.
“We can pile up rocks,” Bob said. “Everybody back out. Quick. Take what’s around the fire ring. We’ll build steps.”
Hannah stayed where she was, alone, watching the timegate, hoping it didn’t disappear. How long had it been there? How long did it stay open when it was? Would it appear every month or so? Sporadically? Had it appeared every day, but they hadn’t been here to see it? She had no idea.
Ted was back first with a big rock.
“Don’t touch the light. I’m afraid you’ll disappear if you do,” she said.
“Okay.” He sat down and pushed the rock forward with his feet, until it was almost directly under the shimmer. “Good?”
“Looks perfect.”
Garreth came next. He had seen what Ted had done, and he pushed his rock up to nestle against the first. One by one, the other kids built a platform, and then a step, and then another step. Three steps up, and they could walk through.
She was terrified to do it. She was just as terrified not to. “Bob, you go first. Everybody else, line up. And do it quickly. We don’t want it to close and strand one or two of us back here.”
They were schoolchildren. Forming an orderly line was easy as could be for them.
Bob turned and looked her. “Ready?”
“I’m ready. So is everyone. Go.”
Bob stepped forward, jerked a little—probably at that initial shock—and then he was gone. Dixie was next. Nari. Garreth. Laina. Zach. Jodi. Claire. Rex. Ted was last and he shot a glance at her before he stepped through.
Then it was her turn, and she pushed through the curtain of light. The charge zapped through her.
And then she was falling again….
The End
The series Dawn of Mammals will continue with another book in about a month. To keep up with release dates, check:
www.loucadle.com
Acknowledgements
I had the opportunity to work for a year in paleontology, collecting and cleaning fossils and helping to manage a fossil collection, and I’m grateful for that experience. I’ve made the process of fossil hunting true to the standards and technology of that time. I promise to mostly keep to the fossil record in Dawn of Mammals, inventing very little, so you can read more on these fascinating animals if you care to. All of the animals and families of extinct mammals referred to here have pages on Wikipedia, and many Kindles allow you to look these up as you are reading. Dinosaurs get all the press, but extinct mammals are really cool, too.
Thanks to my terrific proofreading team: Liz, Peg, Cathy, Becca, and Suzanne. Thanks to my cover artists: Deranged Doctor Design and the original artist Igor Krstic, who did such a gorgeous job on these covers. I appreciate your reading.
Keep reading for the opening to my post-apocalyptic novel series, Gray.
Gray
Lou Cadle
Chapter 1
The midmorning sun lit her way as Coral pulled in near the cave’s entrance. She parked, climbed out of the cab of the motor home, and looked around the small clearing. An evergreen forest stretched down the slope ahead of her and back up to the distant mountain ridges. The woods were eerily still, not a bird singing or insect buzzing.
She shook off a vague sense of unease as she walked over a pad of fallen pine needles to the cave’s entrance. She could see inside to curved walls marked by horizontal striations, carved patterns of water cutting through the rock in centuries past. Beyond the first few feet, the darkness of the cave beckoned.
Returning to her brother’s aging 20-foot motor home, which he kept for hunting getaways and had reluctantly let her borrow for this trip, Coral found a flashlight in the glove box, shoving it into the daypack she always kept ready on the passenger seat for spontaneous hikes. Hauling the pack with her, she crawled back between the bucket seats to the living area. In the propane-powered mini refrigerator were two one-liter bottles of cold water. She made sure the cap of one was tight and tossed it in the pack, then, thinking better of it, grabbed the other, too. From the closet, she pulled her gray sweatshirt off a hook and tied it around her waist.
She had nowhere to be and no one to report to until July 1, when her summer job started. Over the past ten days, she had lost track of days and calendar dates, a loss she found made her nearly giddy with relief after the past year of a rigid and packed freshman schedule at the University of Michigan. She was pre-med, and the classes were tough. This month was her well-deserved reward for a freshman year spent working while most of her friends had spent theirs partying.
At the cave’s low entrance she stooped to peer inside. The floor was flattened by time and wear. She hesitated. She wasn’t afraid of the dark, or of small spaces. And the website had said it was a safe beginner’s cave, right? But caving alone, she knew, was a risk. Maybe she should leave a note on the windshield of the motor home, with the date and time she went in.
Then something—not a sound, but some other sense—made her look up into the sky.
A dense black cloud was boiling up in the southeastern sky. It rose high and fast, like a time-lapse movie of the birth of a thunderhead. But it was no rain cloud. Deadly black, it reached up and loomed over her, blocking out the sun.
What the—? She stood and gaped. The menacing cloud was nothing like any Coral had ever seen before. Nothing natural. Four mule deer crashed through the clearing, running to the west. They disappeared, and Coral stood alone again, staring at the coming blackness.
She had no idea what it was. It looked like some Renaissance vision of the world’s end. It looked like death itself coming, silent and swift. And damned fast, she reali
zed. Coral’s shock turned to fear. Logical thought fled. She stooped and dove into the cave’s maw.
The sky outside went dark. Blackness covered all the world around her. A hissing wind whipped through the clearing, whistling at the cave entrance.
She dropped to the ground, covering her head with her arms. Her bare arms were stung by tiny pricks as pebbles rained down outside and bounced inside. Coral scrambled away from the barrage and farther back into the cave, scuttling like a beetle. She escaped the rain of rocks and curled into a tight ball, her eyes shut, hoping desperately she was having a bad dream.
Her panic may have lasted only a minute. It might have been as long as ten. When she forced herself to raise her head and look around, the world to her right was a bit lighter than to her left. The cave’s entrance was barely visible.
Groping to the sides, she touched a rock wall, rough and cool to her fingertips. That reassured her. Anything solid—anything normal—was reassuring. The outside world had just gone crazy, or maybe she had just gone crazy, but rock walls in a cave were a comforting link to the real world.
She dug out her flashlight, flipped the switch, and a thin beam of LED light came out, enough to illuminate the ground before her feet, to see the sloping ceiling. She crept toward the entrance, shining the beam outside. The flashlight beam reflected back at her, like headlights bouncing off fog.
Black, menacing fog.
What was going on out there? A memory pushed its way forward—a television show on Mt. St. Helens erupting in 1980, clouds of ash, a downwind town turned to twilight at midday.
Was that what this cloud was? A volcano had erupted to the southeast? Something dark and solid was falling in the sky—hanging there and falling both. Not rain. Not hail. So ash?
But the Cascades, the only collection of volcanoes in the lower forty-eight states, were far to her west. What, then, was this black cloud that had come from the southeast? Yellowstone was due east of her, so it couldn’t be that. Her mental map of the country didn’t have any volcanoes in the right direction. But couldn’t new volcanoes pop up? Maybe, but she didn’t think they popped up like this. Not in an instant, without warning, and not this vast.