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Now if that wasn’t enough, this whatever it is, this creature looks at us and growls like a monster. No, he more like roars like a lion and it’s one loud ugly sound. Then he threw up two furry arms that looked like a couple of tree trunks with brown moss growing on them. I was sure he was going to come charging at us because he thought we were going to steal his place from him. But as far as I was concerned, he was the best neighbor in town if he had evicted Eric Dickey on his bragging ass. When I thought for sure Mr. Caveman was coming for us, I put up my hand-palm out. I was even about to say “How!” like cowboys do to Indians when they meet up on the prairie. Where that idea came from in my brain I do not know, except maybe I thought you greeted dinosaur eaters the same way you did Commanches. Even though the two groups were only about a few million years apart on the time line. When he roared again I thought it was time to get out of there so I started off.
“Wait, don’t run. He can’t bother you.” Zin Zan called out. I stopped but my feet weren’t convinced. They kept going up and down, sort of ru
“Because we’re with you. We know how to keep him away. You’re protected so long as you don’t go into his house. That’s why it was so dangerous when you went into that other man’s place.”
“But where’s Dickey and his wife?”
“Hiding in their basement.”
“No shit?” Ear to ear I was gri
“You’re going to have to stop using that kind of language, Mr. Gallatin. It just won’t do.”
I wanted to say “fuck you,” but the picture of Eric hiding in his basement from a furry caveman, while all his high-priced possessions sat in a heap on the curb-that was happiness enough for the moment to keep my dirty words in my mouth. “So dead people from all the different ages are being sent back here? Not just recent ones like Mel?”
Brook shook his head and frowned. “That is correct. It’s totally chaotic but only part of the problem we face. Look! That is exactly what I’m talking about!” From behind the house smoke and flame started coming around the corner. And not just “too many burgers on the barbecue” stuff-these were big impressive clouds of brown smoke and some yellow flame coming fast and scary toward us.
“What’s happening?”
Zin Zan pointed at the caveman. “He probably started a fire back there. He can’t help it-guys like him don’t know any better.”
“Should we do something about it?”
From the distance came faint siren sounds.
“No, someone’s obviously called it in already. We’ve got to get to your house now.”
“Yeah, but what’s going to happen when the firetrucks get here and have to deal with Mr. One Million B.C.?” I pointed at you-know-who.
“That’s their problem, not ours. Right now we’ve got to get you back home.”
We started walking again but I kept turning around to look at that hairy guy standing in front of Eric’s house. He didn’t move. The sirens got louder, nearer. Were those voices coming from inside the house? Was someone shouting in there?
“Come on, Mr. Gallatin. There’s no time.”
I looked at the Brothers. I looked at the caveman. I looked at the house, the smoke behind him. I knew I was about to do something really stupid and probably u
“We can’t just go.”
Both Brothers turned toward the siren sounds and gestured toward them. “They’re coming now. They’ll be here any minute.”
“But what happens in the meantime? Maybe they’ll die down there of smoke inhalation or whatever. Don’t you watch those emergency rescue shows on TV? Every minute counts.”
“Every minute counts for you too. You have to save your home! Do you understand that? They are taking your house!”
I lowered my head and started walking in the wrong direction. One of them touched my arm. I shook him off. Eric Dickey was a turd but I wasn’t going to let him die. Maybe I was being stupid because he probably would have been saved just fine without my help. But I didn’t want ugly things on my conscience. I didn’t want to live the rest of my life with a picture pi
“We won’t be able to help if you go in there. We can’t go with you!”
“Then just wait out here. I’ll be right back.” I kept walking. The caveman saw me but seemed to have his mind on other things. He lifted his head and sniffed the air like an animal-nose up high, making these little up and down jerks every now and again. Sniff-jerk-sniff-jerk. Then he turned and ran around the house to the back.
Which was just fine with me because it gave me free access to the front door. The moment B.C. disappeared from sight, I ran for it. Behind me the Brothers were hollering now, “Don’t!” and, “Please come back!” But I was already there. The bad news was that the door was locked. The good news? An aluminum baseball bat was leaning against the house. Without a second’s hesitation I picked it up. Not a second too soon because I heard a rough animal grunt behind me. Not too close but close enough to have me bringing that bat up to “play ball!” height by the time I’d swiveled around to face that grunt. In shock I almost dropped the damn thing seeing what I did.
The caveman was about ten feet away. In his hands was the charred body of what could only have been a dog. In fact it was definitely a dog because the head wasn’t as grilled as the rest of the black, still-smoking body. I could make out that it was once upon a time a beagle or some such. That’s what the fire behind the house probably started off being-he was cooking some poor sucker’s Lassie or Snoopy. Rest in Peace, Snoopy. Bet you never thought you’d end up lunch.
I didn’t have any time to think about it because B.C. dropped his Happy Meal and came at me. I swung the bat at his head. Lucky for him, he was able to turn a bit at the last second so instead of hitting a home run I only knocked him flat.
The clang of metal-on-head sounded like a cooking pot dropped on concrete. I knew I hadn’t killed him because he was already dead, but also because he was twitching and frothing up ugly stuff out at the mouth. I stood over him a few seconds to see if he’d get up again. But most of him was on vacation and what wasn’t, was busy jerking around.
So I swung that fine silver bat again, this time through one of the large windows into what I assumed was the Dickey living room. After the first crash of glass, I knocked out some slivers still stuck in the window frame and after a last glance at him just to be sure, I climbed in.
I’ve never been to a jungle. I’ve never been most places but that’s okay because I don’t speak other languages and the idea of a passport makes me nervous. But as soon as I put both feet down inside the Dickey’s house I was hit by a wet tropical heat the likes of which I’d never experienced. Everything around me was like this 3-D green. A green so strong it almost hurt my eyes. When I took a step forward, I was hit in the face by some kind of nasty thick vine that was a whole new scare in itself. When I managed to push that out of the way I tried to get my bearings looking left and right but all I saw was green everything and sounds that screamed and screeched and cawed and pretty much made me deaf. I was in a jungle somehow and as that sunk into my brain I somehow remembered a line from school that just popped up out of nowhere but said it all-the forest primeval.
Mel Shaveetz had said they got to choose a décor when they came back to Earth. So of course a caveman would want one exactly like where he had been living. In the forest primeval. The Earth a million years ago or fifty thousand or whatever.
Instead of Eric Dickey’s living room, I was back on Earth a zillion years ago, standing like a rabbit frozen in the headlights. And there were no walls in this “décor,” it wasn’t limited to a few closed-in rooms like Rick’s Bar. Everywhere I looked was jungle that went out in every direction with no end in sight. This wasn’t a room-this was forever. Right about then the next words came to my mind.