Page 13 of Caveman Alien's Bride

“That was for us,” I manage, my heart beating fast. “He’s saying goodbye.”

“Or ‘I’ll be seeing you later’,” Piper seethes. “This planet keeps surprising us with its monsters. Now we can’t even fish without summoning one. It’s justfuckingdelightful.”

I let my breath out. “Yeah. ‘Delightful’ is the word. All right, I vote against any more fishing today. There’s no telling what you might attract. For dinner, I think we should just check on ourpantry.”

“The pantry does need checking on,” Piper says, breathing out too. “We have to make sure the food is fresh.”

It’s a sneaky way we use to say ‘let’s eat from the scraps of food we’ve painstakingly stored up for an emergency’.

That settled, we amble towards our little hut, passing by the ‘farm’. It’s a part of the beach that goes right up against the cliff where we’ve planted herbs and seeds and just about anything we think may grow.

The sand isn’t the best kind of soil, but we’ve dug up some jungle dirt and the plants are finally coming along. There are small shoots everywhere. But they’re nowhere near big enough to eat yet. It took us years to even get this far, and we have the patience to wait. It could get us out of this desperate food shortage.

“What do you think will happen?” Piper asks. “With the caveman, I mean. It sounded like he planned on coming back. He wouldn’t have told you his name if he wasn’t.”

“Maybe. Best case, he will act like a one-man relief organization and keep bringing us food and such for as long as we need it. Worst case… well, do we want to even go there? He’s a giant with a sword as big as me. If there are more like him, and they’renotthe disaster relief type, then we may have a problem.”

“It’s not that Iwantto go on like this,” she says, pointing around us. “We’re struggling for every little scrap we can squeeze out of that damn jungle. New monsters keep scaring us shitless. But I was kind of getting used to the dinosaurs and the giant insects. And even sea monsters. Cavemen… that’s another level of scary.”

“He seemed nice,” I try to alleviate her fears. “And we may never see him again. Maybe he was just traveling. He had a big pack with him. Probably lots of food.”

“Maybe. I guess he doesn’t really have much of a reason to come back here.”

I look away. If Korr'ax is like most guys, he may think he has areallygreat reason to return: it might get him laid. Which he has every reason to believe. I wasn't exactly acting like a nun back there.

Just thinking about him gets the tingles starting up again. He was incredible. I don’t know if he knew, but the sexy experience with him totally overshadows being hunted by that not-raptor. Being that close to death would otherwise have been a traumatic experience. But now, I just associate it with his skilled and textured tongue…

“Exactly,” I catch myself before I just stare into space. “Hey, he’s the first alien we’ve seen since we got here. It’s not like the jungle is full of those guys.”

“Maybe this is the only place they’re not,” Piper says darkly. “Maybe the planet is crawling with them. And now they’ve decided to pack their bucket and spade and go to the beach.”

“I didn’t see a bucket,” I tell her. “But he could probably dig up this whole beach with his sword.”

We get to the small hut made from wood, straw, and fallen leaves. We’ve put rocks on the roof to keep the leaves from flying away at the first gentle puff of a breeze, and now it barely leaks at all. Two heaps of dry grass are our beds.

Most of our items are braided from grass or twigs, and we made some wickerwork baskets when we found a suitable vine. We wanted to try pottery, but there just isn’t a lot of clay around here.

We take off our silly hats and sit down on the ground with our backs to the hut, each munching on a wrinkled piece of fruit. We both know this could be the only food we get today.

My hand seeks out my makeup pouch, which I always carry with me because it’s my most precious possession. I happened to have it in my hand when I was abducted, while my phone was left behind in my shoulder bag.

Piper was holding her phone when she was taken, and she held onto it for a while. But it’s completely useless here and she lost it before we ever found this beach.

“Do you think those cavemen have something to do with us being abducted from Earth?” I ask, trying to enjoy the fruit while it lasts.

“Those aliens that kidnapped us and dumped us here were definitely nothing like that guy,” Piper says. “They were small and gray. Maybe they work for him. But I don’t think so.”

There’s nothing more to say. Everything about our abduction is just guessing, and we have talked it to death over the years without making any progress.

The waves peacefully wash onto the beach. It smells almost like the shore on Earth, and that’s only one reason why we live here. The main reason is that the dinosaurs don’t seem to come here much, probably because of the cliffs and the hill that separates the shore from the crazy jungle.

I’m about to suggest that we try some fishing again when a shadow falls on us.

We both scramble to our feet.

“Hard ereh ar,”says a deep voice. “Brahs tedfor anhyteh.”

I stand and look at him while my heart beats fast. I don’t remember him being this big. But it is him, sword and hair and colorful stripes and everything. And the kilt.

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