Sheela and Trel had killed one of the other raptors, and I watched the cat-woman drive a spear into the chest of the last one they had been fighting. It collapsed with an angry screech, and I adjusted the direction I was running so that I would head toward the fucker I’d impaled against the wall.
The last living raptor was still thrashing against the spear stuck in the wall, so I stabbed my spear into his neck twice, and his body started to slow. By the fourth stab, he had stopped moving altogether, and his chest made a final death rattle sound.
“Damn,” I gasped as I turned around to survey the damage to the camp.
There was a ton of blood on the grass, and both Sheela and Trel were breathing heavily, but there didn’t appear to be any damage to the hut or Hope’s little corral.
“Are there any more out there?” I shouted to Sheela and Trel.
“I only saw the four trying to climb, and I only had two arrows, that is why I came to get you.” Sheela pointed to the hut, and I turned to see Kacerie and Galmine both poking their heads out. I gestured for them to come toward us as I walked to the center of the camp.
“You two okay?” I asked Trel and Sheela when I reached them.
“Yes, Victor,” Sheela said with a curt nod.
“Trel?” I asked.
“Fine.” The spider-woman shrugged. “But I have to go outside and look at the door. I’m hoping it isn’t damaged.”
“They figured out how to climb it,” I said. “We have to worry about that too.”
“I already have an idea.” Trel’s full red lips curled into a smile, and I could see her vampire looking fangs.
“I figured you would.” I returned her smile, but my legs were starting to shake, and my stomach was spinning. My mind was beginning to come to terms with the fact that I’d somehow Conaned the fuck out of a bunch of raptors, and it was trying to explain to me that I was a dogcatcher from Earth who shouldn’t be here.
“You did well, Victor,” Sheela said as she rested her hand on my shoulder.
“Yeah,” I replied as I took a few long breaths. “Just trying to protect you all.”
“Is it going to be like this every day?” Kacerie whined as she came to stand near us.
“Yes,” I answered her curtly. Then I turned to Sheela. “Check the walls again to make sure that this was the last of them.”
“Yes, Victor,” the cat-woman’s gold-colored eyes glittered, and she dashed toward the wall.
“What kind of answer is that? Yes? Don’t you care that they are attacking us?” Kacerie was pointing her finger at me, and her pretty nose was scrunched up.
“I just spent the last day explaining everything to you,” Trel groaned. “Don’t bug Victor. He has stuff to do.”
“Like the gray woman in the hut?” Kacerie crossed her arms. “Yeah, he’s been doing her for almost a day. I want to go home. Why don’t you all take me home?”
“Her name is Galmine.” Trel’s eyes narrowed. “I told you her name and I explained that we are all stuck here and there is no going home.”
“You did, but he didn’t.” The pink-haired woman pointed at me.
“Ugggggghhh,” Trel moaned. “I can’t deal with this. I’m going to go check the wall on the other side of the camp. Victor, I want to speak with you later.”
“Got it,” I said to the beautiful spider-woman, and she walked away on her human legs.
“So what’s your deal?” Kacerie asked as soon as Trel was out of earshot.
“Sounds like Trel told you what is going on,” I said as I glanced over Kacerie’s shoulder. Galmine was still walking toward us from the hut, and she could probably hear what we were saying.
“So did the fuzzy one, but I’m asking you…”
“Victor,” I reminded her as I saw her searching to remember my name.
“Yeah, that’s it. Sorry. I’m normally good with names. I’m just having a hard time.”
“I get it,” I said as I smiled at her.
“Victor, I brought you your pants and shirt,” Galmine said as she neared us.
“Ahh thanks,” I said as I took the clothes from her and started to put them on.
“Are you going to answer my questions?” Kacerie asked impatiently as I put one of my legs into my pants.
“We are stuck here,” I explained. “We were taken by powerful aliens and dumped on this world. Dinosaurs are trying to eat us, so we have to work together to survive.”
“But when are they going to let us go home?” Kacerie’s eyes were a light pastel blue that contrasted with her pink hair.
“Probably never,” I said as I buttoned my pants.
“But you don’t know for sure?” she asked.
“Victor knows a lot of things,” Galmine said with a gentle smile. “We are alive because he protected us.”
“Look, I don’t want to be here,” Kacerie said to both of us.
“Sorry,” I said with a shrug. “I didn’t put you here. I’ve only been on this world for a month. We are just trying to survive. I’m sure Trel and Sheela explained to you that we could use your help.”
“Clear over here!” Sheela yelled, and I nodded across the camp to her.
“Same over here!” Trel shouted.
“I’m not really interested in helping,” the pink-haired woman continued.
“Then you can leave.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I wondered if I had actually said them. It kind of didn’t sound like something I would say, but damn it, I’d just worked my ass off for a solid month to make this camp.
“What?” the woman asked with surprise.
“Yeah, this is our camp. We built it. I also rode out there on Hope to save your life. You haven’t even said thank you.” It was a bit petty since I didn’t really need her thanks, but it would have been nice if she’d said something instead of whining.
“You can’t kick me out,” she said as she waved her hands. “It is really dangerous out there. Those green feathered monsters keep trying to eat us. I won’t last an hour--”
“Then you need to stop demanding shit, start answering my questions, and then do what I tell you to do,” I interrupted her as I slid my sweat-stained T-shirt over my head. I was sure my clothes smelled awful, but I’d gotten used to living in my own sweat, so I couldn’t even tell anymore.
Bathtubs or a shower. One more thing for the too long of a list of shit we needed to build.
“Uhhh,” Kacerie’s mouth hung open, and she glanced over at Galmine to see if I was joking.
“Victor is really nice. It was his plan to build this fort. He is also a really great lover. You should let him penetrate you tonig--”
“Ahhhh that’s okay!” I interrupted Galmine and felt my cheeks turn red. “We don’t need to talk about it.” I sighed and then looked at the two women on the walls.
“Alright gang, group meeting!” I shouted. “It’s time to figure out what we are going to do next.”
Chapter 2
“First, things first,” I said after the four women had gathered around me. “How are we on food and water?”
“We need more water,” Sheela said. “Our jugs are almost empty.”
“Alright,” I said. “We can get that quickly.
“We have killed many of the orange birds,” Galmine said. “But they will spoil soon. We are also running low on berries.”
“So we don’t need to eat these raptors?” I said as I gestured the two corpses we stood beside.
“Ewww, you would eat those?” Kacerie asked with disgust.
“We do what we need to survive,” Sheela stated.
“I won’t eat it,” Kacerie said.
“You need to get with the program,” Trel growled as she tapped her legs on the ground. “If I can deal with this food, you can too.”
“Oh? Here we go again; you think you are better than me. Sorry spider-girl, just because you are some sort of princess or--”
“Duchess,” Trel corrected as she raised a clawed finger, “and yes. If y
ou would like to go there, I am better than you. I’m more beautiful, smarter, stronger; and did I mention I was a duchess? What did you do on your world again? Cut hair? You are just a peasant.”
“No one on my world speaks to each other as you have just spoken to me, or they get Lanced. So you better watch your tongue in a week.”
“You said Lance?” I asked. “That’s the beam that comes out of your hands?”
“Yes,” Kacerie answered. “While you were fucking the gray woman, these two explained this Eye-Q stuff.”
“Her name is Galmine,” I growled.
“Galmine, sorry.” Kacerie shrugged.
“You are a hairdresser?” I asked.
“Yes.” Kacerie crossed her arms. “One of the best in my city. I could definitely do something about this.” She pointed to Trel’s head. The spider-woman’s hair was a long lustrous obsidian color, but it was obviously tangled from all the work.
“My hair is--”
“Perfect,” I interrupted Trel. “Kacerie, tell us about your ability. The one your Eye-Q says.”
“Lance? Everyone on my world can do it. Once a week per hand. We can destroy another life if we choose.”
“That’s crazy,” I said as I glanced at her crossed arms.
“It’s crazy you all can’t do it,” the pink-haired woman said. “How did you maintain law and order on your homeworlds? Seems like idiots would just take advantage of people.”
“There was plenty of that on my world, but we are getting a bit off topic.” I gestured to her arms. “It takes you a week to recharge?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Until then, I am defenseless, and so alone here.”
“You aren’t alone,” I said.
“I will be if you kick me out,” she sighed. “You just said you would.”
“We all need to work together to help each other,” I said as I rubbed my forehead. “If you don’t help, then you can get the fuck out.”
“Victor is right,” Trel said. “We don’t want any freeloaders. It’s incredibly rude to just sit around and let others do all the work.”
Sheela and I glanced at each other, but I decided not to point out the irony to the black-haired woman. She’d spent most of the last month letting us do all the work around the camp.
“I don’t know how to do anything around here,” Kacerie said. “They showed me how to make those little stone knives, but I--”
“We’ll show you what to do,” I said. “We’ll also need your ideas to improve the camp.”
“I don’t know anything about surviving!” Kacerie shouted. “I’ll cut your hair or something. That’s the only thing I know how to do, but I can’t hunt those things or build walls, or dig ditches to poop in. It’s gross.”
“Look,” I sighed. “We all want to go home, but our number one priority is surviving. We need to get water and food every day. We also need to ensure the camp is stronger so that the dinosaurs can’t get inside. If we can live through the next few months, we’ll probably be able to have a pretty efficient system. We’ll also rescue more people. You can’t just sit around here. We need your help.”
My mind was spinning with all the different tasks ahead of us, and I started to feel a bit annoyed with myself for relaxing with Galmine. Yeah, the lovemaking had been wonderful, and I felt way more “manly” after being with such a gorgeous woman, but we had a lot of shit to do, and I needed to be the one directing everyone.
“Fine,” Kacerie moaned as she rolled her eyes. “I’ll help. Or do whatever. If you are going to throw me out if I don’t do it. I guess I have little choice. I’m defenseless until my Lance recharges, anyway. You’ll probably try to rape me or something.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked.
“Galmine just said I had to let you penetrate me tonight. What happens when I tell you no? Will you just do it anyway or throw me out of the camp?”
“Wow, you are an idiot,” Trel said with a sarcastic tone. “Victor just spent the night with Galmine, and tonight he will be inseminating my womb so that I bear children. Why would he bother with you when he could have either of us?”
“Because I’m--”
“Stop,” I said as I raised my hand to interrupt Kacerie. “I’m not going to force myself on you. I just spent the last month with these three, and I didn’t touch them. I’m not some sort of crazy monster. I’m done talking about your hang-ups. Let’s all discuss what we need to do then come up with a plan to do it.”
Trel, Sheela, and Galmine all nodded, but Kacerie just frowned.
“Let’s talk about water some more,” I said.
“Yes,” Sheela agreed.
“We are getting the water runs done quickly with Hope,” I started, “but I’d like to get it to the point where we only do one run a day. Heck, I’d like to get it to where we don’t even need to go get water.”
“How would we do that, Victor?” Galmine asked with interest.
“Check those clouds over there,” I said as I pointed up and to the distance. “They look like storm clouds. We’ve only had a few days of rain in the last month, but each of those days dumped enough water to last us a few months. We just have to figure out how to capture and hold it.”
“We will need a tank,” Trel said as she tapped one of her black claw-fingers against her lip.
“Yeah,” I said. “It sounds like a complicated endeavor right now, but we need to start thinking about making way more pots and methods of capturing rainwater.”
“We will need a lot of clay for pots,” Galmine said, “but I am good with it. I could make a tub to hold water if you get me enough.”
“We’ll start with a bunch of pots,” I said. “If we can carry eight or so on Hope, we’ll only need to make a single run every couple of days. Sheela and I can go and get more clay, and then you can show Kacerie how to make them.”
“Okay,” Galmine agreed as she slowly clapped her hands together.
“Along with that,” I said as I looked at Trel, “we’ll need a better harness for Hope so we can carry more water and clay.”
“I will think on it,” the spider-woman said as she glanced at our parasaurus. As if she knew we were talking about her, Hope let out a pleasant little toot.
“So that’s a plan for water,” I said. “We need to get some more today, and then we need a lot of clay. Let’s talk about food next.”
“Are you hungry?” Galmine asked. “Should I prepare us a midday meal?”
“When was the last time you all ate?” I asked Sheela, Trel, and Kacerie.
“It was lunch yesterday,” Sheela said, and I felt a bit of surprise that Trel had not barged in on Galmine and me last night to demand we make her food.
“Yeah, Galmine, let’s get food cooking. Trel, can you inspect the door to make sure the raptors didn’t damage it before you join us?”
“Yes, Victor,” the spider woman said, and then she bounded away from me.
The four women and I returned to the hut, and Sheela and I dragged the corpse of the raptor outside. Once he was gone, and we got the fire going at full power again, Galmine pulled the already cleaned and defeathered carcass of an orange bird out of a clay pot. It was one we killed yesterday and didn’t actually smell bad.
“Butchers often hang meat,” I said as I thought about various movies and books I’d read. “I don’t really know if it that keeps the meat fresher for longer, but we are going to have to figure out how to preserve things we hunt or gather, or farm.”
“Salt,” Sheela said.
“Yeah,” I replied to her with a smile. “I don’t know anything about getting salt or even how to use it to preserve food. Do you just throw a lot of it on the meat?”
“Yes,” Sheela answered. “The salt keeps the meat too dry for bacteria to infect. The thinner the slices the better, but we would need to find salt. We can also smoke the meat for a similar effect.”
“So we’ll need to find salt, or build some kind of oven that we can use to sm
oke,” I said as I thought through the labor.
“Victor, this might not be important right now,” Sheela said. “There is vast wildlife on this world, and it is not difficult to hunt or fish for food.”
“Yeah,” I said with a nod. “I’m just worried about if we have to hunker down inside the fort because there are a ton of raptors or a carnotaurus out there. We might not be able to leave the walls, so I want to be prepared. I’ll shelve the idea for now, but let’s talk about other ways to get food. We’ve got hunting, gathering, and farming. Seems like we are halfway decent at hunting. How do we get better at gathering?”
“We need more baskets,” Galmine said as she put the bird meat on a spit and set it over the fire. “Then we need to pick the berries. There are also roots and leaves we can eat.”
“Do you know which ones we can eat?” I asked. “I’m guessing that we each have different stomach workings.”
“I have a good idea,” the gray-skinned woman said. “We are different, but some vegetables, nuts, and tubers can also be soaked to remove harmful poisons. Then they can be eaten. I haven’t been able to get out of our cave and show you all what to look for.”
“Hmmmm,” I said as I rubbed the beard growing on my face.
“The door is undamaged,” Trel said as she walked into the hut. “The logs we used are a bit rough, and they were able to wedge their claws on some of the knots and leverage themselves up.”
“So how do we fix it?” I asked.
“We’ll need to take some knives or axes and shave some parts so they are smoother,” she answered. “I will work on it later. What did I miss in the conversation?”
“Galmine knows how to identify berries and plants we can eat, but we’d have to take her outside,” I explained.
“Ewww,” Trel said as she made a choking sound. “Who wants to eat plants? That is what my food eats.”
“It is what I also eat, Trel,” Galmine said with a friendly smile. “This meat hurts my stomach.”
“Ugh,” Trel sighed. “So we have to get plants?”
“We’ll also need some for Hope,” I said. “She’ll eat the grass inside of our fort, but we’ll eventually run out. We’ll need to bring more in, or figure out a way for her to be out to pasture.”
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