Mists of Dawn

by Chad Oliver

  He tried to sleep, but it was impossible. He was more wide-awake than he had ever been in his life. But he closed his eyes and attempted to get what rest he could. What were his chances, really? He didn’t know. But he did know that he was not going to give up. He would try, give it the best he had in him, and that was all anyone could do. And he knew, too, that he was fortunate in being as well educated as he was. He was not going into the Ice Age unequipped, and he suspected that what he carried in his head would in the long run prove more valuable to him than the .45 he carried in his holster.

  Mark’s first awareness that the space-time machine had stopped came when he suddenly noticed a complete absence of sound. It was dead quiet in the lead sphere. He opened his eyes. The gray atmosphere was gone and the air seemed stale and flat. The red light in the control panel was off and the yellow light had replaced it.

  Slowly, Mark got to his feet. He hesitated a moment and then walked steadily toward the circular entry port in the side of the sphere.

  Chapter 4 Mists of Dawn

  Mark threw a small switch and the circular portal hissed back. A cold gust of fresh air chilled the machine. Mark shivered and looked outside.

  Instantly, with unexpected suddenness, something roared almost in his face and Mark lurched back inside, snatching out his .45. He waited, his heart pounding in his throat. But whatever it was that had challenged him was evidently just as surprised to see Mark as Mark had been to hear the sudden roar. Mark heard the thud of retreating hoofs and, gun in hand, cautiously advanced again and looked outside. He caught a quick glimpse of a large, woolly animal with a horn in its head, just as it disappeared from his line of vision. Mark relaxed a little and examined the landscape before him.

  It was early evening, evidently, and a blood-red sun was drifting down toward the snow-capped mountains in the west. Carefully, Mark stepped out of the space-time machine to look around, the .45 ready in his hand. The sphere had come to rest in a great treeless plain, a forest of damp grass, dotted with brilliant flowers and small shrubs. Mark spotted some red berries on a near-by shrub, but did not recognize them and could not tell whether or not they were edible.

  Far to the north, he saw a glint of what looked like an ice sheet, although it was too far away for him to be certain. It might have been some sort of mica-like mineral, or even a trick of the light from the setting sun. To the east, the grassy plains extended for miles, to be broken finally by a low range of snow-capped mountains some twenty or thirty miles away. The mountain range curved around toward the south, becoming somewhat higher, and Mark could see what appeared to be scrub pine trees in the near foothills that seemed to be no more than five or ten miles away from him. A low mist, clearly a product of the approaching coldness of the night, hugged the ground in tiny whorls and rivulets.

  Mark hesitated, uncertain of what course to follow. He was stunned and dizzy from the shock of what had happened, and he was ravenous. He squinted at the sun and judged that he had still an hour or two of daylight left to him. But he could not be positive; he knew it would depend on precisely where he was and what time of the year it happened to be. Night could descend with fearful speed in some parts of the world, as he had seen for himself many times.

  He thought it over carefully and then threw the switch that would close the entry port into the space-time machine. The circular door hissed shut. It wouldn’t do, obviously, for some strange creature to wander into the machine while he was gone. Mark looked around, looking for he knew not what. Which way to go?

  There was evidently game around in profusion, although he didn’t care to tackle anything as big as the woolly rhinoceros-like animal he had seen, with only a pistol. He eyed the berries, but decided against them. It wouldn’t help any to poison himself, and as a rule of thumb he knew that it was usually wisest not to eat anything you weren’t familiar with. He had only one testing animal available—himself. And if the test turned out for the worst, he wouldn’t benefit from the knowledge.

  Mark decided finally to move due east, so that the sun’s position could guide him back to the space-time machine. He hefted the .45 thoughtfully. It was heavy, but having it in his hand might mean the difference between life and death. He smiled and patted the dull lead of the space-time machine.

  “Take care of yourself,” he breathed fervently. “If anything happens to you, my name is mud.”

  He set out then, resolutely. The evening wind was blowing toward him, into his face, which was good— the animals wouldn’t get wind of him and disappear. It was cold, and getting colder, but it was not unbearable and Mark’s mind was on other things. He turned and looked back at the machine that had carried him across the ages. The great sphere squatted there on the plain, a stranger, utterly out of place under the deep blue sky with the little rivers of white mist beginning to curl around it as though curious about the odd thing that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

  Mark kept going, on into the strange new world. He realized that it was funny he should think of it that way. This world was old, lost in the past byways of an almost forgotten history. And yet it was new too—new and fresh and clean with the scent of millions of wild flowers. Some of Mark’s natural fear left him. If only he could find some food, it might not be so bad . . .

  It was quiet save for the sighing of the grasses. Mark had never heard such silence before. Always, in his own time, there had been the mechanical noises of civilization all around him. The great cities clattered and banged in their dirt and grime, and in the green countryside the cars and tractors hummed and chugged. No matter where you went, the buzz of civilization went with you. Even far out on a mountain stream, alone, you would be startled by the thunder of airplanes or the whistling scream of jets. The silence now was uncanny—and somehow it seemed choked with life, invisible life that hid itself from his eyes.

  Mark walked on, feeling his way, every sense alert. He had himself under control, and steadfastly refused to think of the terrors and the horrors which might confront him at any moment. He concentrated on the objective at hand, and did not think about the dangers and the coming cold and the loneliness. What he could not change could not be helped.

  On he went, through the grasses and the flowers, with the red sun fading into dull orange and sinking lower and lower in the west. Soon, he knew, he would have to start back or else run the risk of getting caught out at night away from the space-time machine, his only refuge—a prospect that was far from pleasant. But hunger urged him on.

  Mark began to grow uneasy as the long shadows walked along beside him and the cold breeze strengthened into a forcible wind. He hesitated and was almost ready to give up and spend the night hungry when he spotted movement ahead. Mark instantly dropped to one knee. Holding his breath, he peered ahead through the grass.

  There was still enough light to see by, and he could make out dark patches not far away. They moved slightly as he watched, evidently grazing. Mark wormed his way forward through the grass, scratching himself slightly on small shrubs but not noticing the pain. He crept closer and closer, stalking the black shadows. They were just ahead of him now. Holding his breath again so that he made no sound, he carefully parted the grass and looked out.

  There they were, five of them. Mark examined them intently. They were fairly large animals with shaggy manes. They had short legs and two small horns. They had a distinct hump on their front shoulders and they were heavy and bulky. For a moment, Mark was haunted by a distinct sense of familiarity. Where had he seen animals like these before? Then he had it. They were bison, buffalo, much like those which had once roamed the plains of America before their virtual extermination by white hunters like Buffalo Bill. There were four adults and one smaller calf, and they obviously suspected nothing.

  Cautiously, Mark inched his way closer. He could not afford to waste one of his precious shots, and a .45, for all its smashing power, was a very erratic weapon as a target pistol. He settled on the calf as his best bet. It grazed a little apart from the
others and should be easier to bring down.

  Mark halted, a scant thirty yards from his prey. He checked his gun and slipped the safety off. He lay down full length in the grass and raised his pistol to take aim.

  He never had a chance to fire. With a sudden snort, the lead bison lifted its head and broke into a lumbering run that covered ground with a deceptive speed. The others followed him instantly. Mark still had a shot of sorts, but he passed it up. He simply could not take a chance on missing, with bullets in such short supply. It had to be a sure shot or nothing.

  There was something else, something that sent a cold chill through Mark that was not entirely due to the chillness of the coming night. Something had frightened the bison, and he was positive that it hadn’t been himself. He lay very still in the grass, listening. He heard nothing. There was only the whisper of the wind.

  It was growing late. With an alarming rapidity, the sun was gone and the long shadows of twilight were merging into the black of night. It was colder now, a wind-driven cold that threatened to drop the temperature far too low for comfort. Mark was painfully hungry. He had been so close to food that he could almost taste buffalo steaks in his mouth. And the skin could have kept him warm, if he could have managed to get it off with his pocket knife.

  Mark did not want to move. He felt the weird presence of something alien in the shadows of the onrushing night. He felt unseen eyes upon him, boring into his back, lifting the hair on his neck. But he had no choice. He told himself that it was all imagination and got to his feet, the .45 ready in his hand. He saw nothing, but the shadows were thick around him now.

  Desperately, he started back the way he had come, guiding himself by the faint lingering light behind the mountains in the west. He was grimly afraid that he had waited too long, that he would be unable to find his way back to the space-time machine before nightfall. He could never find it at night and he knew enough not to try to blunder on, which would only result in his getting hopelessly lost. He would have to stop, if he didn’t make it; build a lire perhaps.

  He did not like the idea of a night in the open, in this unknown country, so Mark kept going, praying that the light would not fail. But it was growing darker by the second; he could hardly see at all. The feeling that unseen eyes were upon him persisted; he could not shake the feeling off. He tried to tell himself that it was a normal reaction under the circumstances, but he couldn’t convince himself.

  Doggedly he went on—and then stopped dead.

  There was something there.

  Ahead of him, they were ahead of him. Mark turned around. They were behind him too. He could feel them. He gripped the .45 tightly, feeling cold sweat start out on his forehead. The night wind sighed eerily through the grass and he could not see.

  He was trapped—the things were all around him!

  Chapter 5 The Neanderthals

  Mark was terrified. This was too much. Panic 1)1 shrieked along his nerves. He had a wild impulse lyI to shoot crazily into the darkness—shoot anywhere, I I at anything. He mastered the impulse with difficulty. But what could he do? What . . .

  One small corner of his mind still functioned. Wait, it whispered. Don’t lose your head. Wait.

  Mark waited, clutching the gun as though determined to squeeze it into a shapeless mass. The things came closer, closer. He could almost see them now. He stifled a sudden, terrible scream. Those things! What were they? What could they be?

  His hand trembled, but he raised his gun, took careful aim. But he did not fire. There were too many of them. He could make out at least ten shadowy figures in the semidarkness. He had only six cartridges. There was a chance that the shots might scare the things, but that was a long chance to take. They didn’t look like anything would scare them, ever.

  They were nightmares . . .

  Mark waited. His eyes peered through the gloom. He was beginning to make them out—and suddenly he did not want to see them, not in the light. They were terrible enough dimly glimpsed in the darkness. The things walked on two legs, which were bent slightly, giving them a stooping posture. They were short, about five-feet-five. They had two arms, and they seemed to be carrying weapons of some sort. They were not apes—and yet they were not men either. They were half-men, and Mark knew that if he ever got a good look at them he might well go out of his mind.

  One of them snarled hideously. The thing came forward. It touched him. Mark tensed. A foul animal smell assailed his nostrils. He dug the muzzle of the .45 into the thing’s belly but he did not dare fire. He waited. If he was attacked, he determined to sell his life as dearly as possible. Otherwise—what?

  The thing snarled at him again and jerked his arm.

  “Who are you?” Mark heard a voice gasp. It was his own. “What do you want?”

  There was no answer, of course. The things could not possibly understand what he said, even if they had a language of their own. But Mark had to talk. He felt better talking.

  “What do you want? Get away from me, get . . .”

  The thing snarled again and then screamed hideously. Mark shuddered. The half-men’s eyes seemed to glow redly in the darkness, like monsters, like fiends from Hades . . .

  The thing jerked at his arm again, harder this time. Its hand was rough and as hard as iron. The half-man growled deep in his throat. Again he pulled at Mark’s arm, while Mark kept the .45 buried in the thing’s stomach, his finger curled around the trigger.

  Mark understood dimly what the creature wanted.

  It wanted Mark to come with them somewhere, that was clear. Mark weighed the possibilities. He could shoot the thing arid make a break for it, but where could he go? It was too dark to see now, although the stars were coming out, and he could not find his way back to the space-time machine without a stroke of extraordinary luck. And the others would be all over him in a minute, ripping him apart, tearing at him. He had no chance and he knew it.

  “Okay,” Mark whispered. “Let’s go.”

  The thing understood nothing of the words, but it seemed to sense the meaning of Mark’s voice. The iron hand relaxed and Mark was free. The shadows of the half-men closed in around him and began to walk across the plain into the night. With a sinking heart, Mark kept in the center of them. Whenever he fell back or hesitated, a warning snarl kept him in line.

  Mark kept the .45 ready in his hand. However, he had abandoned all hope of using it. It was very cold now, although the wind had died down with the coming of the night. It was very still, except for the shuffling of feet and the harsh sounds of breathing. From far, far away, as though from another world, he heard an awesome trumpeting like the cry of an elephant.

  Mark shivered. If only he had a fire to keep him warm! He was not used to such cold, nor was he dressed properly to endure it, the chill going through his shirt as if it didn’t exist. A fire. That gave him an idea. He still had the matches in his pocket—could he do anything with them? Mark had read stories in which people had startled savages by unexpectedly striking a match, and thus making good their escape. It was a slim hope, but worth a try.

  Mark holstered his .45 and fumbled with numbed hands for his box of matches. He opened it and took out a match. With a fervent mental prayer he suddenly struck a light and held it aloft.

  Nothing happened. The things looked at the light without even curiosity, their faces swimming in the feeble, flickering light.

  Mark blew out the match, quickly. He wasn’t going to get out of this by any such simple trick, he realized. And the sight of their faces, even half-seen by match-light, was almost more than he could stand. They were awful. Like men, and yet terribly, horribly different.

  Mark walked on in the midst of the half-men, a grim suspicion growing in his mind. As nearly as he could tell by the stars, they were moving southwest. Toward the snow-capped mountains Mark had noticed earlier, and away from the space-time machine. Would he ever see it again?

  Onward they went, with Mark’s legs beginning to ache with weariness. His hunger was an empty
knot inside him, and the cold numbed his body. He was very tired and his eyes burned with the dry flames of exhaustion.

  The moon began to swing up on its arc through the night. It was a half-moon, a silver crescent, and its pale rays swept down on the shadowed world, lighting the things that walked beside him. Mark did not trust himself to look.

  It was a nightmare procession, touched with the fantasy of the forever unreal. Under a frozen moon, across the plains of the vanished past of earth, Mark stumbled forward. And around him, unbelievable monsters from the fears and the legends of forgotten history, the half-men shambled over the mist-kissed grass, their red eyes gleaming in the black shadows of the night.

  How long they traveled through the darkness under the moon Mark did not know. It seemed to go on forever, the shuffling of the feet and the harsh breathing all around him. Finally, he noticed that they appeared to have left the level plain. The ground was rising under him and his feet occasionally stumbled on sharp rocks. The grass had played out now and he could see the black outlines of scrub pines along the trail. The rise in the land became steeper and turned into low hills. Up they climbed, and Mark found himself gasping shallowly for breath in the cold, thinning air. Sharp pains lanced through his chest, and he knew that he was close to collapse.

  The half-men set a murderous pace through the night. They seemed never to tire. The world became a horror of stooped figures and a merciless moon swimming through the stars. Mark was dimly aware of splashing through a rapid, icy stream, with the moon shimmering the rushing water with silver. Then they went on, with Mark’s open shoes wet and cold and beginning to freeze.