by Frankie Love
It's a little strange being on my own as a woman, but I have my pepper spray, and my working knowledge of the language has helped me so far. Besides, I trust myself, my instincts. And as I go deeper into the cave, I start to really believe that.
Sure, my life hasn't panned out the exact way I wanted. I grew up in foster care. My dad was an asshole who never got his life together to take care of me. My mom? Never even met her. I haven't the first idea what love is, which is probably why I have that bad dick detector. But today, all that stuff in my past is behind me. I'm focused on one thing and one thing alone, the present.
All seems well until a group of rowdy guys run into the caves, laughing. They're speaking a language I don’t recognize, with hard consonants and fast syllables. One thing leads to another and I realize they have firecrackers with them.
"Stop," I shout, feeling like this is completely inappropriate, all things considered. We're in one of the most magical places I've ever been. The cave is cavernous and beautiful, stalactites hanging above. It's dark in here and cold. But it feels special and sacred.
I know there are bats in the ceiling, but they don't scare me. The only thing that's scaring me in this moment are these jackass guys who are trying to create chaos during my moment of bliss. It's not okay.
"Just knock it off," I say in Spanish, hoping they can understand. "Go do that somewhere else. Please. Leave me alone. What did this cave ever do to you?"
But it's too late. They've already lit them. And those firecrackers, they're big, and they go off fast. I'm fuming. For a moment, I hold my breath as they crackle and pop, but then I scream, feeling like the blast is bigger than those boys anticipated.
I duck low, covering myself with my arms, screaming as the entire cave seems to rattle and roll, rumbling around me. I gasp, falling on my back as rocks begin to fall from the ceiling of the cave, and the entire thing is shaking in a way that is otherworldly.
Before I black out, my last thought is this: I was so busy spending my whole life avoiding dickheads that I never even got the chance to fall in love.
And now? I never will.
3
Stone
I hear her before I see her. A woman shrieking, swearing like a sailor. I frown, on high alert. I haven't heard a human voice besides my own in five long years. That's a lot of days to count by marking with a stick on a stone. One day merging into a week, a month, a year.
Five long ass years in this prehistoric world. And now, there's someone else. A woman.
It takes me a moment to realize I’m really hearing a woman’s voice. Am I hallucinating? Years of wishing have finally paid off… is the portal open?
I quickly leave what I’ve labeled my safe zone. I have a cave, sure. But I've also built a hut for myself for when I need more light.
Leaving the area, I realize the sky is quickly growing dark. Light rain falls on my bare shoulders. I look up to hear the crack of lightning, thunder rolling.
And yet, a woman runs toward me. Behind her is W.M., the neighborhood woolly mammoth, who likes to roam this area snacking on grasses. For the most part, he's pretty tame. But right now, he looks like he's got a stick up his ass because he's charging her with the intention of attacking.
She should just stop, turn around, hold up her arms and talk slow. I realized a few years back that W.M.'s favorite thing is a lullaby. I begin humming as I walk toward her, as she races towards me, her eyes wide.
And, fuck, as I begin to sing, "Hush little baby, don't say a word," I realize this woman is no baby.
And I don't want her to hush. Hell, I'd like to hear her scream my name.
She's gorgeous. If I had to describe her beauty as she's racing toward me, it would go like this: curves for days, muscles on her thighs, a narrow waist, long, wavy dark hair.
She looks like she belongs out here. Fit as fuck. Does she live here, somehow? Or has she just traveled through time?
She's certainly not from the Stone Age, not with her high-tech backpack, her hiking boots, wool socks, and cute crop top.
No, she's from the real world, from the 21st fucking Century.
And she's scared.
I remember what it was like when I first got here, I was goddamn terrified. For weeks, I stumbled around in a daze, crawling through those fucking underground caves, trying to figure out what triggered the travel through time to bring me here.
I'd hoped, of course, that my brothers I was on the mission with would have landed here somewhere with me. But I've never found them. And if they did land here, hell, maybe they didn't make it as long as I have.
I hold up a hand as I keep singing that song. When the woman reaches me, she stops, turning around, realizing nothing’s chasing her anymore. W.M. stopped charging and is instead looking at me.
" Mama's going to buy you a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird don't sing, mama's gonna buy you a diamond ring." I pass the woman, my skin electric as I stand a few feet away from her. I want to talk to her, but first I need to tell W.M. that she isn’t an intruder.
This woman, she's mine.
"Hey W.M., it's all good," I say.
He leans down, offering me his nose to rub. And I do. I take the last piece of fruit from my satchel, offering it to him. "Sorry, buddy," I tell him, "I don't have any more." I pat his nose again and I turn around. Knowing W.M., he's probably ready to go search for some food, realizing that’s all I have.
"Where am I?" the woman asks. "What was that? And who are you?" Tears fill her eyes, eyes that look like chocolate, coated in long lashes. She's beautiful. But she is terrified, shaking her head, scared.
"You from around here?" I joke, running a hand over my thick beard, knowing she's not.
"From around here? Where are we?" she asks, lifting her eyes to the sky as a squawk above catches her attention. Polly has decided to make an entrance, my yellow tailed bird swooping down, checking out the situation.
"It's all good, Polly," I tell her. She circles us, but once she realizes I'm fine, she flies away.
"Did you just talk to a bird? Are you a bird whisperer?"
I shake my head. "No, she's my friend."
"You're friends with a bird named Polly?"
"Yeah," I say. The rain begins to pelt down harder. I'm used to it. Tropical storms come in fast and pass just as quickly.
For a while after I landed here, I started walking far, thinking maybe I would eventually find someone, another human. But I never did.
And, after a month or so, I turned back around, grateful for my training in Special Ops to help me chart my way home. Figuring if I was ever going to leave, it'd be through the cave in which I’d come.
And if anyone else was ever going to arrive, it would most likely be from the same portal. I wanted to stay close.
And I'm glad I did because now, she's here.
"You're not in The Flintstones," I tell her. "This is no alternate reality. It's just time travel."
She snorts. Soaking wet. Her hair looks good like this though. It's getting curlier as the rain falls.
"Flintstones? Time travel? Is that your idea of a joke?" she asks. "Because I kind of want to punch you in the face."
"Wow. You got a little spark, huh?"
She rolls her eyes. "This isn't funny. I don't know what this is, or who you are, or what is happening. But that was like, a woolly mammoth, wasn't it?"
"I know it's silly. Yes. That's W.M."
"Clever." She groans, then falls to the jungle floor, taking deep breaths in and out.
"Not my finest work."
She looks up at me. "And that? Is that like a giant rhino armadillo thingy?" She points to a lazy friend of mine who snoozes in the brush near my home most of the time.
"Yeah. That’s Dude. I don't know his technical name, but he doesn't bite. At least not me. He prefers lizards."
"Lizards?" She smiles. "Great. This is really fucking great. I'm supposed to be on the trip of a lifetime and I've ended up here in the Ice Age."
"Uh, this isn't the Ice Age," I correct her.
"Right. Tell me, oh, wise one, what is this exactly?"
"Well, there are no icebergs in sight, are there? So, I mean, technically it can’t be."
"I didn't realize we were being technical when we were talking about time travel."
"That's a fair point," I say. "But do you want to get out of the rain? Because it's really gonna start pouring any minute."
"How do you know?" she asks.
I smirk. "Because I've been here for five years, sweetheart."
"Don't call me sweetheart. I'm Skylar."
I stick out my hand. "I'm Stone."
"Is that supposed to be a joke?"
"No," I say, "it's the goddamn truth. I'm Stone Maguire, ex-Special Ops. Currently, I'm in survival mode. Have been for a long ass time."
She shakes her head in disbelief. "This is ridiculous. I'm going back to the cave." She turns around and begins to walk, but I reach for her elbow.
"Don't," I say. "Right now, during a rainstorm, there'll be some saber-toothed tigers taking shelter there."
There's a roar in the distance, cawing too, and Skylar’s eyes widen. The mountain bears and the lions are letting the other jungle dwellers know that they're here. She begins to tremble and I realize she may have a tough girl act going on, but she's terrified.
"Come on, Skylar, let's get you warm."
"You have a house here?" she asks.
I smirk. "A house? I’ve got more than that. Honey, I've got a cave free of wild animals."
4
Skylar
As we walk through the jungle Stone asks what happened leading up to my time travel.
“I was alone, exploring. And there were kids with fireworks,” I explain. “The cave started shaking, spinning.”
“That is what happened to me,” Stone says. “Only it was a grenade.”
“I woke up in the cave with blood on the back of my head. It was pitch dark. I was terrified. The boys with the firecrackers were nowhere to be seen.”
“And you managed to get out of the cave pretty quickly?”
I nod, the rain falling heavy on my shoulders. “The exit was small. Large rocks had fallen all around me. And the fact I wasn’t hit by one feels like a small miracle.” I smirk. “I made it out alive only to be nearly trampled by a goddamn woolly mammoth.”
He chuckles. “Next thing you know, you see a man wearing nothing but a loincloth.”
Stone has long hair, unruly and curly. A thick beard. He’s tanned, with a chest so chiseled I could make a carving. And when he began to sing an actual lullaby to the woolly mammoth, my heart broke a little. It was the kind of song my mother would've sung to me when I was little if there had been a mom at my side.
There wasn't.
Yet somehow his voice didn't just soothe the woolly mammoth, it also seemed to soothe me.
With Stone leading the way, his calloused hand wrapped around mine, I try to take in what he’s shared.
I’ve time travelled. To the Stone Age. And I’m with a strange man who seems to know his way around. He's barefoot with a satchel hanging at his waist. The sky darkens with each step we take.
If we’ve really travelled through time, that means I entered some portal that landed me in a prehistoric era. My mind spins as I consider this.
I thought he was joking when he said he lived in a cave. But then we pass a thatched roof hut and walk into a stone cave. This one isn’t underground. There’s a ceiling just above Stone’s head, with a large rock out front that I assume he rolls over at night for protection. It’s nothing like the cavernous underground caves I’d been exploring.
This one is smaller, intimate, and there's a fire going, woodsmoke filling the air. A pile of wood and small kindling is close by. It smells like leather and sage, not unpleasant. And there is what appears to be a bed next to the fire. Animal pelts of various furs that are spotted and striped lay over a wooden frame.
“You live here?” I ask, taking it all in.
The fire is warm and enticing and I realize I'm shivering. Night came quickly. And I suppose I don't know how long I was out cold.
“I'm going to need to take a look at the cut on the back of your head,” Stone says.
“All right,” I say as he tells me to sit down on a leopard print that is not some faux pattern like I would've bought on a pair of leggings at Target. No, this is the real thing. I run my hand over it. Did Stone hunt this leopard down, kill it? How has a man like him survived out here with so many wild animals?
I blink, thinking of my life before I took the one-way ticket to Mexico. What would Sarah and Tori think right now if I told them I'd traveled through time and was being taken care of by a goddamn caveman?
They wouldn't believe me. This is a Lifetime movie on steroids.
“So your name is Skylar?” he asks as he pours some water from a hydro flask over a cloth. He must have come to this place with some gear, same as me.
“Yeah,” I say. “I was backpacking through Mexico.”
“You got many supplies in there?” he asks, eyeing the bag still attached to my back.
I shrug it off, setting it on the floor of the cave, trying to think what all is in there. “Some stuff, sure. A water bottle, a sleeping bag, some dehydrated food and a lamp.”
He nods. “Let me just clean you up,” he says.
I pull back my hair, wincing as the cool water touches the cut. “Is it bad?”
“Not so bad, which is a good thing considering I couldn't have given you stitches.”
“I have a first aid kit,” I tell him. I open my backpack and reach for the little pouch, but he shakes his head.
“No, you should save that for a real emergency.”
“A gash on the back of my head doesn't constitute a real emergency?”
He shakes his head again, kneeling next to the fire, looking up at me. He lifts his arm, showing me the underside of his bicep. There's a six-inch scar. “That was a cave bear attack. Year one.” He lifts his leg and on his calf there's another sizeable scar. “Year two, hyena.” He lifts the cloth covering his man parts. On his upper thigh there's another gash that's been stitched back together and healed. “Woolly rhino. Year four.”
“You've been in a war zone,” I say.
He shakes his head. “Nah, I’ve been in an actual war zone, this is different. This is very different.” He swallows. His eyes look out over the fire. To a faraway place. And I wonder what it would be like to live in this land for so long alone. “I was in the military before I ended up here. I was on a mission in that underground cave and hell, things went sideways, as I'm sure you can imagine.”
“Unfortunately, yes,” I tell him.
There's a look about him that is commanding. In control. And a shiver runs over me as I take him in. His strength is different than that of the CrossFit junkies back home. He is a real man, a real caveman.
He tells me to lie down and I do, feeling like right now I’d do anything he asked. The attitude I wear as armor falls aside as he places a blanket over me. His hand stills as he tucks me in, and his eyes meet mine. For a moment, as he leans down to me, I have the urge to wrap my arms around him and thank him with a kiss.
But he pulls back, as if the moment has become too intense too fast. It dawns on me that we might very well be the only two people on earth. It’s an overwhelming thought.
He adds wood to the fire, making sure the flame grows. And he reaches for another pelt in a corner, wrapping it around himself like a cape.
He has an edge to him that is rugged and wild. And I feel like I would've been screwed if I had wandered into this jungle alone.
“So what are we, like a million years back in time?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Give or take a couple 100,000.”
I laugh. Tight. Sharp. It hurts. “Did you ever try to leave?” I ask him.
“The first year, yeah. A lot.”
“What do you think made the portal open?” I ask.
/> “I assumed it was the grenade. Now I’m certain, considering a blast got you here as well. Early on, I did whatever I could to try to create chaos in that cave to make the walls shake, but I couldn't. Eventually I gave up trying.”
“And there's no one else here?” I ask, trying to piece the situation together. My body, though, is exhausted. Maybe it was the woolly mammoth chase. Maybe it's the adrenaline that's finally slowed. I feel tired deep down to my bones.
In the distance I hear the howl of an animal. And I shiver. Scared.
“Nothing will happen to you here,” he says. “I mean it. I'll roll the rock in place, and I’ll stay up watching over you tonight.”
“You don't have to do that,” I say. “I'm not your responsibility.” I begin to sit up as if I could go do something, as if I could go somewhere. “I have a tent,” I say, both worried and excited at the thought of being holed up in this cave with a man I just met. “I could actually just sleep in that tonight. Is there a place I could set it up?”
“You're not sleeping in a goddamn tent,” he says. “Besides you think a tent will do much to protect you from the bite of a wild lion?”
I swallow, realizing how stupid that idea was. Zippered nylon isn't exactly fang-proof.
“Thank you,” I say.
He runs a hand over his thick beard. And I see the muscles in his arms flex. He's strong, capable. But he's a soldier doing his job. And besides the hand holding that happened on our way to this cave, there's been no indication he sees me as any more than a person to keep safe.
Still, there is a bit of awe that I feel when I look at him. Realizing he is no ordinary man.
I may have been complaining about my poor dick detector my entire life. But right now my ovaries are telling me that this is no ordinary man.
