Page 76 of Caveman Alien's Bride

I place her on my chest and hold her tight. “Well, now their tribe has lost its chief and its only woman.”

Bryar turns her head to kiss my chest. “Its best chiefever.”

- - -

The next morning I gather my own things and pack as much food as I can carry. I don’t want Bryar to carry anything — she’s too small to walk for long with a burden.

Some of the men are gathered by the gate, throwing long shadows in the sharp morning sun. But most of tribe said their goodbyes to me last night and don’t desire to see me leave.

“You are our tribesman still,” Breti’ax says as we clench each others’ wrists. “The Borok village always has a cave for you.”

The gates open for us. Both of them, I notice. It’s the tribe showing honor to a former chief.

“But not for my wife,” I counter. “And so not really for me, either. But I appreciate your kindness, Chief. I wish good things for the tri…”

The ground starts to shake under my feet and there’s a strange, distant thunder in the air.

Looking out the gate, I see a strange, brown cloud rising above the trees. “That looks like…”

“The skarp!” Breti’ax gasps. “The skarp is coming! Bang the drums! Raise the alarm!”

I freeze, coldness running down my back. Theskarp?

Bryar squeezes my hand. “What is that, my love?”

A tribesman starts to bang his drum, hard and fast, waking everyone.

“That is the skarp,” I tell her. “When the trok comes to the beach, it is a sign that the skarp will soon follow. It’s a Big like the trok, except bigger and more terrible. It will now make its way to the ocean. It will pass straight through everything in its way. And the way it looks, it’s coming straight for our village.”

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- Bryar -

“Can we escape?” I ask, not liking what I’m seeing one bit. “Can we run?”

“Everyone is running from the skarp,” Korr’ax says tightly. “Every Big and Small. That’s shy the ground shakes. And they’re coming this way. Close the gates! Close them! Now!”

Finally the gatekeepers react. But before they can get the heavy doors moving, two small not-raptors and a pack of smaller creatures come running into the village.

When the doors finally slam shut, the men are chasing the creatures around the village. There are hard thumps on the other side of the gates as other dinosaurs and smaller creatures hit it, trying to get in. A swarm of mosquitoes comes over the wall. They're the size of starlings, and the buzzing makes my skin crawl.

“Come on!” Korr’ax drops his pack, and we run up the stairs to the Mount.

“This place should be safe,” I begin when we get up there. Then I see the skarp in the distance and I shut up. No place is safe from that thing.

It's a triangular mouth the size of a cathedral. Its crimson gape goes on forever with rows and rows of churning, round teeth, each as big as a bowling ball and as black as obsidian. Long tentacles sprout from it, grabbing everything they can find and tossing it all into the mouth. Dinosaurs, trees, bushes and just rocks— everything gets devoured in a huge cloud of dust and dirt.

A thick stalk stands up from the top of the mouth, curving down above and in front of it like the light rod of an anglerfish. But where the anglerfish has a sac of bioluminescent bacteria, from this stalk hangs a giant cluster of simple, chameleon-like eyes, similar to the ones the trok had.

The rest of its body trails the mouth like the yellow, translucent body of a gigantic larva, millions of thin legs propelling it forwards.

It’s like the world’s biggest, most terrifying Roomba. Except this one will never veer to the side when it hits something — it just continues straight ahead. And if I can see only the mouth, then it means it’s coming straight for me.

Hordes of dinosaurs and smaller creatures run in a panic, trying to get away from the skarp. They turn to the side when they come to the village wall, but some of them hit the wall with loud thuds and some logs are about to break. It would be suicide to leave the village now.

The skarp moves fast. Nobody could outrun it. It’s going to be here in just a few minutes.

That will mean the death of us all. Those tentacles don’t miss anything. Even if Korr’ax and I were to push ourselves to the back of the cave, dozens of those ghastly limbs are going to seek us out and throw us into that horrific mouth. The Mount would be picked clean.

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