Page 12 of Caveman Alien's Bride

I told her everything.Exceptabout the eating-out he gave me. It feels a little too personal. But I wonder if she may have been watching from a distance. And now it’s a little too late to add that information.

It wasn’t that important anyway. He saved my life and then gave me food — what more do we need to know?

Still, it feels weird to keep anything secret. Piper and I have been stranded on this planet for years. We’ve worked together to survive, and we’ve done okay so far.

I think we’re too different to be natural friends back home, but this planet doesn’t give any choice of companion. We’ve cried together a lot, we’ve laughed together on rare occasions, we have talked dreamily about being brought back to Earth, and we’ve starved together just about the whole time. I know her as well as I’ve ever known anyone.

“I think he must qualify for sainthood,” I agree. “Especially for giving us that food.”

“Don’t remind me,” Piper laments. “Those were the best meals I’ve had on this planet.”

We pigged out a bit when we opened the leaf-bound packs and found Korr'ax’s food.

It was several compressed bars of meat mixed with fruit pieces, berries, and roots. It reminded us of pemmican, and while it wasn’t something I’d find in a fancy restaurant on Earth, it was fatty and sweet and salty, and it picked us up a lot. But the packs only lasted us three days, and now we’re back to the ordinary starving phase.

Piper points out at the ocean. “Bryar, what’s that?”

I squint against the glare from the waves. “Looks like a log that floats high in the water.”

“Keep looking.”

I do, and a few seconds later the log seems to turn and form an arc that rises out of the sea.

“What the hell?”

“And there.” Piper points again.

There’s another arc, growing higher. It’s dark and smooth, and it reminds me of a snake.

“Either I’m seeing things,” I mutter, “or you’ve just caught the Loch Ness monster.”

Piper hurriedly pulls her line and precious hook back in. “I didn’t catch anything. Whatever that is, it’s not something I want to catch.”

We stand there for a while, just watching as the sea serpent lazily makes its way closer. It’s as thick as I am tall, and it must be incredibly long.

I grab Piper’s upper arm. “Let’s move away from the water. I don’t like the looks of that thing.”

We quickly walk back to the sand and stand with our backs to the cliffs that separate the beach from the wild jungle.

The undulating coils of ocean monster slowly make their way towards the beach.

“It’s coming closer,” Piper says as she carefully winds the fishing line up around her hand. “Maybe it can hear us.”

“Don’t say that,” I plead. “Now we know that those things evenexist, I’m not getting any sleep tonight.”

Ahead of the sea serpent, the water starts to churn. Then a big head comes out. It’s shaped like a scythe, curved and narrow andthe size of a car. It has a crown of writhing tentacles, each tipped with a curved claw. Each moves by itself as if sniffing the air.

In the middle of the head is a cluster of crusty eyes like those of a chameleon, also moving individually before they’re all directed right at Piper and me.

She grabs my hand. “That thing is not mindless,” she whispers. “It’s thinking.”

We watch in horror as all the eyes are directed towards us and the head stays above the surface of the ocean. A mouth opens, revealing a round gape filled with black, triangular teeth.

Then a terrible screech reaches us, like a train derailing and sliding along the track. I clasp my hands over my ears.

The head ducks back under the surface. Piper and I push ourselves into the hard cliff at our back, scared that the monster is about to come ashore.

But the arcs of its body are going back out, slowly moving away. Behind them, a tail comes up. It looks like a huge, round hairbrush, except with bony spikes instead of soft bristles. As we watch, the tail wags back and forth twice before it drops back into the sea.

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