Page 18 of Caveman Alien's Bride

“Leave anytime you want, dude,” I say softly. “Don’t dig up our beach too much.”

“Is he looking for something?” Piper speculates. “Something that’s been buried?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” I tell her. “It would be just our luck if we’ve been living on top of a buried spaceship all these years without even knowing.”

The dinosaur turns and waddles back the way it came, still digging up our beach with its horns.

Finally it vanishes in the greenery that marks the edge of the jungle.

“It will have to walk uphill to get anywhere,” Piper says thoughtfully. “And that’s a heavy dinosaur. It’s going to cost a lot of energy. I wonder what it might find here that would be worth it.”

I walk over to the grooves it dug. “Just sand and water here. Whatever he was looking for, I don’t think he found it.”

“Which means he might be back,” Piper says. “Well, if this is the worst he’ll do, then I guess we can live with that.”

An hour goes by, and then the next dinosaur comes. This one is thinner than the first, with a giant fan-like ‘sail’ along its spine.

“That’s a ridiculous-looking thing,” I mutter.

“Let’s keep our distance,” Piper says tightly. “I don’t like those teeth.”

The dino’s head does look like that of a predator, with a big gape full of uneven, pointy teeth. The dinosaur starts kicking at the sand with both forelegs, sending masses of sand flying.

“There won’t be much of a beach left if this goes on,” I sigh. “And they’re definitely looking for something.”

The dinosaur gets to the end of the beach and starts making its way back. It raises its head as if it only now discovers us.

I clench my stick. “Damn. He either smells or sees us.”

The dinosaur comes straight for us, trudging on short legs. With shaky fingers I get the powder case and open it, painfully aware that blinding a dinosaur like this will only work if there’s an actual sun in the sky. Right now, it’s behind a cloud.

“What do we do?”

I aim the mirror at the dinosaur’s eyes, but not much light gets reflected. “When he gets close, we’ll hit his nose with our sticks. Aim for the eyes and don’t hold back.”

“Like he’s a shark?” Piper asks, sounding doubtful. “I guess it could work. I hope he’s more sensitive than he looks.”

The ground shakes as the dinosaur comes closer. He looks like he’s more curious than attacking, but I can’t be sure. Suddenly the sun breaks through the clouds and I get a decent reflection going. Aiming it at the dinosaur, I keep the little mirror steady with both hands.

The monster lowers its head, then raises it as if trying to get its eye out of the sun. I keep the small spot of light right at its eyeuntil the dinosaur turns to the side and walks past us, turning its long, spiked tail to the troublesome Earth girls.

“I think it worked,” Piper says. “Good going, Bryar! The easier we can get rid of these things, the better— ohshit.”

“Yeah,” I groan, “that has to be the whole jungle coming. What the hell is goingon?!”

Several dinosaurs come walking, one after the other. Already there’s some fighting breaking out among them. They’re as big as houses, and while I think most of them are harmless, there are definitely predator carnivores among them.

Piper and I push ourselves against the cliff, painfully aware there’s no escape.

The beach starts smelling like a zoo, and the ground trembles. Huge dinosaurs kick at the sand, using their horns to dig and carve it up with their mouths.

They grunt and hiss and slash their tails through the air with loud whistling noises. But they don’t seem too interested in us, and even our hut is being left alone.

“Look,” Piper says and points out to the sea. “Everyone’sinvited.”

Indeed the thick, oily arcs of the giant sea serpent are on the way, too. It’s moving fast, spraying seawater in white fans that must reach a hundred feet into the air.

“I don’t like this,” I say between clenched teeth. “What are they all here for?”

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