The Door to September: An Alternate Reality Novel: Survival in Prehistoric Wilderness (Back to the Stone Age Book 1)

by R Magnusholm

“Just call me General Buttnaked.”

  Liz giggled. She scratched her side. “Some tiger fleas must have jumped on me. I’m going for a wash next.”

  ***

  In silence, they gobbled the hot, smoky mushrooms. Liz, having bathed, wore John’s spare shirt. He wore nothing at all. Her hair, twisted into a tight braid, was plastered with wood ash paste. He imagined they looked ridiculous, but he was clean, fed, and warm—even hot—at least on the side facing the flames. His other side was covered in goosebumps, so he kept turning different parts of himself to the fire, as if he were not a person at all but a giant self-roasting marshmallow.

  He swallowed the last mushroom chunk and wiped his fingers on the grass. “Now I’m ready to crack some stones into flakes.”

  He got up. A naked savage with a stone mallet. Selecting a suitable river cobble, he balanced it sideways on the ground and lifted his stone-age tool, poised to strike.

  “Wait,” Liz cried. “You didn’t do a risk assessment.”

  “Ugh?”

  She took the stone from him and jammed it into a crack in the rotten log. “This way, you won’t whack your hand by accident. And close your eyes just before you hit.”

  “Ugh,” he grunted in an agreeing tone. Who needed words when you had intonations?

  His first strike missed. His second dealt a glancing blow. The third landed squarely on target. Splinters of stone flew every which way and peppered his chest and face. He swore under his breath and picked through the broken fragments of rock. One or two might be used for arrowheads. The rest was junk. He reached for a new stone.

  Two hours later, his arm muscles burned, but he’d managed to produce a triangular axe and a dozen smaller but still useful shards. He fished their clothes from the water and hung them out to dry in the sun.

  In the meantime, Liz had melted a blob of pine resin using the metal lid from his broken sugar jar. She inserted a glass shard into a split stick and fixed it in place with molten resin.

  “A scalpel,” she said.

  It took another hour to find a suitable axe handle.

  They left their clothes to dry and returned to their bramble fortress where the tiger carcass lay. The morning sun had barely cleared the treetops in the east.

  John said, “It might be just me, but the sun seems to rise awfully slowly.”

  “You noticed it too, then?”

  “Ugh.”

  “I’ve done some calculations,” Liz said. “On day zero, the sun had set at 10 a.m., but yesterday, on day five, it set at 3 p.m. This means the day here lasts twenty-five hours. Approximately. That would explain why we’re so sleepy in the evening.”

  They came to the dead sabertooth. It was huge, probably eight feet from snout to haunches. So much meat. Its camouflage-green pelt gleamed in the morning light.

  “How the hell are we going to skin it?” Liz regarded her glass scalpel with a frown. “We’d have to turn it over somehow.”

  John looked around. His gaze fell on a pile of logs and other deadwood they had dragged into their clearing for the fire. Didn’t Archimedes say: Give me a fulcrum and a lever, and I’ll lift the Earth? Sure he did.

  Chapter 20

  On Cavemen and Zen

  Nightfall, Fleet Woods

  John wiped the tiger fat off his hands with a clump of dry grass, then dropped the greasy bundle on the coals. The fire flared, briefly illuminating their dark clearing and the beautiful stripy pelt suspended from tree branches and swaying in the gentle breeze. A dozen strips of meat hung alongside, drying in the rising smoke.

  “Another tiger and mushroom kebab?” Liz offered.

  Tiredly, he waved her away. He’d never had so much meat in a single meal. With a stick, he heaped more hot cinders over the bundle containing the prime-cut sirloin steak wrapped in wild mint and encased in river clay.

  He’d expected the tiger meat to be tough and gristly, but it turned out to be rich in fat and quite palatable.

  “Hey Liz, assuming my theory that we’ve been copied to this new world is correct, would you still want to go back?”

  She remained silent, watching Jupiter rise over the eastern woods.

  He felt a strange and unfamiliar sense of quiet fulfillment that had been somewhat lacking in his previous life. It wasn’t as joyous as seeing your baby smile for the first time or watching your children take their first steps. Nor as intoxicating as a first kiss. But raw survival trumped a good return on investments. And blew meeting an arbitrary business target out of the water.

  Deep down, he realized that the meat and dry weather wouldn’t last. Unless they managed to preserve this unexpected glut of food, it would turn into a putrid mess fit only for carrion eaters.

  Yet somehow, none of those practicalities mattered. It seemed he could be happy to sit here for eternity, feeding sticks into the flames, watching purple shadows thicken and stars twinkle in the black velvet of the night sky, his mind empty of care and worry. A perfect state of Zen equilibrium.

  For a long while they sat in silence, then he stretched, groaning. If only his limbs didn’t ache so much after the long and tiring day, but at least he wasn’t sleepy. They’d solved the problem of twenty-five-hour days by taking a nap at midday.

  He touched Liz’s arm, “Imagine returning to the Old World to discover copies of ourselves. Not sure I could face that.”

  “I suppose the original Liz and I could take turns going to work.” She laughed ruefully. “I guess that shows what I think of working in Accounting.” She stretched and added, “But that’s beside the point. Since we found no portal at ground zero, we must assume there’s no way back.”

  “But you would still return if you could?”

  She sighed but didn’t reply.

  “As John Number Two, I’d rather stay here,” he said. “Oh, sure, I’d like to stock up on supplies and assemble a team of volunteers to settle this world. We’d buy a heavy-duty truck, load it up with camping gear, weapons, tools, seeds, portable solar panels, and half a dozen laptops holding the sum of human knowledge. Then we’d drive it through the portal and liberate this land from aurochs and sabertooth tigers or whatever else is lurking out there.” He made a vague trigger-pulling gesture toward the dark woods ringing their glade.

  Liz laughed. “That’s some fantasy.”

  “You’ll be Queen Elizabeth the Third, and I’ll be King John the Buttnaked Conqueror.”

  She poked him in the ribs. “That’s not appropriate dress code for this climate.”

  He stretched by the fire and stared at the sky. Tomorrow they’d resume rendering the tiger carcass. The hide would have to be taken to the peat bog for curing. Sinews and guts too. They’d need lots of those for bowstrings and for securing arrow tips to their shafts and axe heads to their handles. And he’d check how the scraps of deerskin were doing.

  Far away, wolves howled in the night. John added more wood to the fire, and he and Liz went into their shelter.

  In the darkness, he tickled and stroked Liz’s hand.

  “I’ve been wondering when you’ll make the first move,” she said huskily.

  “If we are copies of ourselves, we’re not committing adultery. Not that we cave people care about such high-level concepts.”

  Her kiss tasted of smoky barbecue and hazelnuts. She felt soft and warm in his arms. He imagined that in a year, she’d be as svelte as that yoga-pants-sporting hotty he’d seen outside a gym entrance last week. Except in this world, plumpness equaled success, while being slim meant that your clan buddies were clumsy hunters and inept gatherers.

  She climbed on top of him and pushed her breasts into his face. He nuzzled her nipples as she slowly sank onto his rod.

  “Mmm. You’re so much bigger than my husband.”

  “Ugh?”

  In lieu of a reply, she kissed him and started moving.

  Within seconds, a wave of rapidly approaching ecstasy made his toes curl. “Hey Liz, slow down, slow down. Make it last, huh?”

  S
he carried on for a few more seconds, tensed, cried out, and then collapsed on top of him. Breathing heavily, she said, “I don’t remember this being so good. Ever. Must be all that fresh air. And tiger meat, of course.” She resumed moving up and down. Up and down. A couple minutes later, she began moaning. Her movements assumed a new urgency.

  “Stop, Liz, stop,” he gasped. “If you don’t, I’ll . . .”

  “It’s all right,” she whispered into his ear. Her warm, moist tongue tickled his earlobe. She pressed her lips to his and rode him with frenetic urgency. And then, quite abruptly, the smoldering fuse inside his loins reached the main charge, and he detonated into a white-hot bliss.

  Liz giggled and kissed him, all the while continuing to move. A few heartbeats later, she tensed again, and her mouth went slack.

  For a while, they lay side by side, listening to the eternal sounds of the forest. Undergrowth rustled with secretive life. Trees creaked in the wind, and an owl hooted. Wolves howled. And somewhere far away, a ferocious sabertooth roared. Now and again, dry twigs snapped as if something purposefully marched around their bramble enclosure—something big and strong that didn’t give a damn about being stealthy.

  But with the fire crackling in front of their hut, the previously ominous sounds had lost their power to terrify.

  “I don’t think this is a very safe environment to bring up babies,” he said.

  Liz didn’t reply for a long time. Her hand traced random patterns on his hairy chest. When she finally spoke, there was a strange wintry quality to her voice. “No need to worry about that.”

  “I still worry.”

  She sighed—a forlorn sound like December wind rushing over lifeless glens.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I had a hysterectomy.”

  “Oh.”

  “Sorry, Johnnie boy. On this planet, the human race starts and ends with us.”

  “I’m so sorry, Liz.”

  “So am I.” She placed his hand on her stomach. “Here’s the scar.”

  He traced his fingertips below her belly button but found only the smooth skin and a tummy that while still plump had a surprisingly good muscle tone. He searched again. Nothing.

  “Hey Liz, I don’t feel a scar.”

  She shifted in the dark. “Hmm. Used to be very prominent. But I lost at least ten pounds . . .” She sounded uncertain. “Must have dissolved somehow.”

  He closed his eyes, wondering what else might have happened during the copying process. Copies often had subtle differences from the original. And sometimes not so subtle. After a while, he slept.

  Chapter 21

  Murphy’s Law

  Morning, Fleet Woods

  John kneaded a lump of bluish-white clay he’d fetched from the riverbank. Satisfied with its consistency, he molded it into a lumpy pot. He examined his handiwork, frowning, then put it aside to dry. This pot might have been the ugliest crock in the world, and they had no means to bake it hot enough to make it watertight, but it would allow them to carry smoldering coals comfortably—and for considerable distances.

  He formed a domed lid and poked three holes in it. “Voila, the world’s first censer. The thingy the Greeks use in their churches for incense burning.”

  Liz laughed. “Looks good.” She held up her latest weaving project—a reed hat. “There, finished. This should keep your baldy head warm.” She handed it over and began to work on a wicker basket.

  “My head’s not that baldy . . .”

  The wind gusted, swirling yellow birch and aspen leaves around their clearing. Smoke blew into his face, and his eyes watered. John flexed his cold stiff fingers and held both hands to the fire. They’d have to build a hearth with a chimney at some point, but working cold clay wasn’t an easy task. Besides, their tiny shelter was too small to have a hearth, let alone to store their smoked meat and hazelnuts. Should they erect a smokehouse, or should they build a proper log cabin?

  Too slow.

  Maybe a teepee or a wigwam. He had a flint axe now, and after some experimentation he’d managed to cut down a twenty-foot-long pole.

  Liz lifted her gaze from the wicker basket, a troubled look in her eyes.

  “Yes, I’m the worst potter in existence,” John said.

  “No, you’re the best potter there is.”

  “Huh?”

  “No other potters in the world.”

  “Oh.”

  “About the last night . . .” she said. She shifted her feet—now clad in crude bast shoes woven of willow bark and stuffed with dry grass.

  “You’re not regretting it?”

  She smiled. “It’s not that.”

  “What is it then?”

  “My tummy scar’s really gone,” she said. “I checked. Not a trace. And I feel different. Younger, somehow.”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “It’s possible that this version of Liz”—she smoothed her hands over her hips—“didn’t have a hysterectomy.”

  “You can’t know that for sure.”

  She smiled enigmatically. “Oh yes, I do. I also had a molar tooth removed. It’s back.”

  He said nothing. It had taken him and his wife two or three months of daily unprotected sex to produce their two children. But he sensed the Sod’s Law or Murphy’s Law (or whatever the hell they called it) would ensure that Liz was already pregnant. And nine months later . . .

  A large bird, an eagle, swooped from the sky, landing at the opposite end of the clearing where crows were squabbling over the bloodied tiger bones for the second day.

  “Fancy that.” John poked a clay bundle half-buried in hot ash. The tiger’s heart was cooking slowly with mushrooms and herbs. “It died of a heart attack.” No wonder we killed it so easily, he thought. The beast’s ticker had a chunk near the apex that looked like mincemeat. Still perfectly edible.

  “He died of fright. You looked pretty frightful that night.”

  He glanced at the camouflage-green pelt turning in the wind. “When I saw green squirrels on our first day, I thought I was hallucinating from thirst. But now, here it hangs.”

  “I have a theory,” she said. “We must be two hundred million years in the future because the Earth’s rotation has slowed to over twenty-five hours. In that time, animals evolved green pelts.” She gazed about their forest home. “But I don’t understand why we still have common plants, and why we have a super-size Jupiter.”

  “The animals might’ve been created through genetic engineering. Plants too. In which case, this might be a planet-wide nature reserve.”

  “Or a zoo,” she said.

  They sat in silence for a while.

  “This pelt is big enough to make two cloaks,” he said.

  She sighed. “It’d be a crying shame to cut it up though. And we need a blanket.”

  “We could just bury ourselves in reeds like before.”

  “Too prickly.”

  He shivered. In any case, the pelt would need to be cured. At the very least, he should rub it down with handfuls of wet peat on the meaty side to prevent staining the beautiful fur. Earlier he’d rubbed it down with ash mixed with his urine. How disgusting. Funny, how he still cared for aesthetics. He supposed it was part of being a civilized human.

  Chapter 22

  Talking with Wolves

  With the raw tiger pelt resting on his shoulder, John trudged down the forest path leading to the peaty swamp. Liz carried a large grass bundle wrapped around live coals. John’s clay pot was still too wet to be used for this purpose.

  We must be absolutely reeking of smoke, he imagined. No wonder they had seen no animals lately. He parted the leafless alder branches with his spear, and there it was—their private peat bog, the place where they’d buried the scraps of deer hide marked with a tree limb.

  After building a small fire on the bank, they spread the tiger hide, fur down, on the carpet of moss and yellow leaves. They plastered it with handfuls of wet peat. Maybe that would make the hi
de supple and stop it from turning as stiff as a sheet of plywood. Like most city dwellers, he knew nothing about curing animal pelts, but Liz was full of ideas, apparently inherited from her father.

  He took off his oxfords—his office shoes had fared reasonably well after two weeks of abuse in the woods. That’s Hush Puppies’ quality for you, he thought, stepping into the water.

  The freezing swamp made him feel as if his feet were being amputated. He waded to the spot where the deer hide scraps were soaking and dug them out. He carried the dripping mess to the bank and dumped it by the fire.

  Liz picked the largest piece of deerskin that was some three-foot-by-two and began scouring it with a broken fragment of his lunch bowl. The bits of gristle and flesh were stained golden brown and came off easily. She held a small sliver of meat to her nose. “It smells like marinated venison.”

  “Thanks, I’d rather eat tiger steak.”

  He took another piece of the hide and started scraping it with a shard of stone. Liz was right—the scraps smelled far better than the pee-stained tiger pelt. The peat tannins really worked. He thought idly of the well-preserved ancient bodies that people found in peat bogs.

  Liz seemingly reflected on the same subject. “John, if I die, lay me down in the peat patch.” She put the hide she’d been working aside and picked up another. “With an iPhone in my hands.”

  “You won’t die, Liz.”

  “Everyone dies.”

  “Statistically, women live longer than men,” he said. “But you don’t need to bury me. Just leave me where I fall. Wolves make great mourners, I’ve heard.” He glanced around, wondering what made him think of wolves.

  “No. I’ll put you in the bog. With your Employee-of-the-Year glass paperweight in your hands.”

  “Okay, the funeral plans are sorted,” he said. “So no more doom and gloom talk.”

  “It’s not doom and gloom.” She laughed. “I’m just admiring the peat tannins.”

  “Morbid,” he said, and at that moment he heard a reedy voice behind him saying: “Meat.”