Chapter 1.2 - Predator and Prey

Billy now stood where the ground was soft and the air indescribably fresh.

    The whiplash between the beige archives, and the verdant forest, nearly caused Billy to topple to the ground with dizziness. Eventually, though, he found his footing.

Still unsure of what had just happened, but spurred on by curiosity, the historian took in the beauty of his new surroundings. Everything looked ancient. Trees grew tall and strong, all of them blanketed with lichens and mosses. The air was cool, filled with the symphony of bird and animal calls, some Billy could not begin to identify.

“Where am I?” he asked himself. “More to the point, when am I?” He took a deep, brave breath of the sweet air. He pressed on, keeping an eye out for signs of movement. His instincts told him to remain guarded.

The most vital question on Billy’s mind was where that wily god had sent him. Thankfully, Billy didn’t have to wonder for long. He stepped through a thicket between the trees and ended up on a craggy overlook. What he saw nearly drove him to his knees.

Between Billy and the distant glaciers stretched a rolling, brown-scrubbed tundra pocketed with splotches of snow. The bluest sky only intensified the summits of the white glaciers in the distance. They reminded Billy of his grandmother’s Catskill homestead, but that’s where all familiarity ended. A towering mountain sat in the center of the mighty range, churning up mist and clouds. Billy realized, stupidly late, that the ‘misty mountain’ was a smoking volcano.

Holy shit, he sent me back to the literal BEGGINING? No. Can’t be. Be rational, Billy. Hey, what’s that moving down there?

The flock of lumbering animals was nearly half a mile from Billy’s vantage point, but the vast distance only illustrated their enormous size. At first glance, they resembled elephants, tusks included. When Billy saw their shaggy, brown coats—however—his skin broke out with goose bumps.

Woolly mammoths!

That sexy son-of-a-god had indeed sent him back to the Stone Age—somewhere between the transition of the last major ice age and the Holocene epoch, if Billy had to guess. Billy panicked, on the verge of tears brought on by the strange, nearly spiritual awe of being confronted with living history. The sudden, palpable fear of never returning home was tempered only when Billy pressed his fingers to Eros’s charm and knew—via the god’s distant power—that his promise was as secure as the lock around Billy’s neck.

Which was especially comforting when Billy turned back towards the grove and locked eyes with a very large cave lion creeping through the brush. In all likelihood, the beast had been stalking him since he’d arrived.

Like its distantly related cougar cousins, the lion's appearance meant death. Eyes sharp, and haunches raised, the lion had no reason to growl at Billy, or roar (if it could roar at all). The apex predator’s intent wasn’t to drive the tasty human away. It simply meant to tear out Billy’s throat and devour his flesh!

Billy could have screamed, or even made a futile attempt at fleeing, but Billy only sighed in frustrated resignation. “Sure. Of course. Yes.” The only solace came from the understanding that a millennia from now, archaeologists might discover his backpack and bones. The mystery of it all would probably end up side-by-side a TV special on how the Mayans invented Wi-Fi.

Billy closed his eyes. He waited for the inevitable.

“RAGGGH!”

The thundering roar did not originate from the lion, but a blur of bulky movement darting past Billy, nearly throwing him to the ground. Too much was happening too quickly for Billy to process or properly react to the chaos. He realized that the hulking figure was not another animal, but a man. And a very early one, by the looks of him.

From his crouched viewpoint on the ground, Billy could only discern the man’s broad, muscular back. He wore an animal skin around his waist, not unlike the stereotypical ‘Tarzan style’ loincloth. There was little point to the backing of it, Billy thought, as it was nearly swallowed up by the inviting crease of the wild man’s muscle-butt.

He gasped. Damn, caveman is thick!

A hood, made of a lion or wolf’s head (it was hard to tell) covered the man’s head and shoulders, with his long, coarse black hair flowing beneath. The man and the cave lion circled each other in a prehistoric standoff.

Billy noticed the stone knife wedged in the hunter’s fist. What does he expect to do with that? Billy momentarily considered ditching the scene while he still had a chance, but curisoity won out. So, he watched and held his breath.

The lion pounced first. The muscular hunter let out another roar and met the beast head-on, charging at the predator in an act of absolute recklessness.

Billy anticipated a flurry of claws, a spray of blood, and one very dead caveman to follow. Instead, he watched the speedy wild man grapple and catch the lion around its midsection, hoisting it off the ground like it was a mere kitten! The creature, naturally, struggled, clawing at the hunter’s back—but the man was built so damned wide that the beast only managed to dig its nails into his left shoulder before…

“RAGGGGH!”

Crunch!

Billy watched in horror and fascination as all of the caveman’s muscles contracted at once, not unlike a bodybuilder at the climax of a pose-down. the hunter squeezed, bear-hugging (or lion-hugging) the beast…and that was that. 

It was quick and efficient. The creature’s head slumped, its body limping. Billy couldn’t believe what he’d seen; his rescuer had killed his quarry with his bare hands!

“Ragh!” The cavemen let out another howl, more subdued than his earlier wary cries, and squeezed down again—just to make sure his prey was dead. After holding the beast for a moment more, almost tenderly, the caveman let it drop to his feet in a pile. The hunter stared at his fallen prey. Billy dared not ascribe modern interpretations to antiquated man, but the hunter's stance appeared to be a silent acknowledgment, not unlike a prayer of thanksgiving. 

Without realizing it, Billy sighed. The hunter's ears pricked up and he immediately pivoted around to face Billy.

The time traveler gasped. “Oh shit.” Was he next? Well, better to have one’s spine snapped in half by a muscle man than being mauled by a lion, he supposed. Not a bad way to die either...

“Grr.” The prehistoric hunter, his face still partly obscured by his cowl, strode forward. Billy made sure not to move, hoping that his obvious lack of weaponry and ill-intent would prove he wasn’t a threat.

About two feet from Billy, the caveman stopped and pulled back his hood, thereby revealing to Billy the face of early man, which, it turned out, was not a bad face to look upon.

The hunter’s physical appearance could not be easily categorized, as he obviously preceded most modern ethnicities. His body, skin tone, and facial features reminded Billy of a very handsome, Mongolian personal trainer he knew back in college (sadly straight). The caveman had a wide nose, and startling light eyes, which jogged Billy’s academic memory. Billy could have sworn reading an article hypothesizing that ancient Europeans were naturally darker skinned, blue-eyed people, and that fairer skinned Europeans were—in the grand scheme of things—a relatively recent group.

The beautiful human staring at Billy with cautious, wide-eyed wonder proved those theories correct. He was far from the stereotypical, ‘ape-like’, hirsute caveman with a forest of body hair and a scraggly beard (though he did maintain thin patches of hair around his spherical chest and thick belly). His head and jaw were round, with lower cheeks and chin trimmed with coarse, black stubble. His face was remarkably smooth.

Billy’s attempts at reading the hunter’s body language or facial queues proved futile. However, the man did tilt his head slightly to the side, suggesting curiosity rather than a threat display.

“What…is this one?” the massive man finally said. He slowly tilted his head towards Billy.

This…one? Me? Billy’s head spun again, mostly from bewilderment at hearing the words of a man thousands of years before Billy’s time. “I’m…Billy.”

The hunter’s squint suggested confusion. “What is…Bill--Lee?”

“Billy is me. What’s your name?”

“Name?” The man made a circular gesture with hands that Billy failed to understand. “Where is this one’s people?”

At least he wasn’t likely to kill him. Billy sighed. “Solid question, Tarzan.”

The prehistoric beefcake blinked. “Uhr?”

This was going to be more difficult than Billy expected. “I’m…lost. I’m not from here. I don’t know where I am.” He shrugged. “Do you understand me?” Come on Eros, I thought your charm was meant to translate!

The man grunted, either an acknowledgment, or some other quirk of his proto language. He approached Billy with hands open, the universal sign of ‘do not freak the fuck out’. He then proceeded to put his face very close to Billy’s own…and then started sniffing him.

 “Oh…I guess you’re…uh…doing that now.” Weird. I thought he’d be…smellier. The caveman was a bit musky, but not potently so. On the contrary, Billy kind of didn't hate it...

“Strange smell,” the man replied, likely picking up the scent of Billy’s deodorant and God-knows-what smells he carried on him from thousands of years into the future—the stench of fossil fuels probably.

“Uh, thanks. Yours is…uh…nice.” Billy sniffed. “Very post-workout musk.”

The caveman grunted in approval. Perhaps sniffing each other was the proper friendly greeting around these parts. Though he was only a half a foot taller than him, the lion killer was incredibly built and naturally muscular, with a cushioning of fat around his chest, belly, and arms. His most notable appendages were his legs—quads, thighs, and calves the size of the enormous trees rising around the wild grove.

In other words, he was a stone age stud.

Billy was still hesitant to make any sudden movements. The big guy had since sheathed his stone knife into a loop on his loincloth. He slowly reached his hand towards Billy’s chain necklace, poked it with his finger, and then tugged the collar of Billy’s shirt. “What skins…these?”

“Um...clearance rack?”

The words were lost on the mighty man. “This one has no tools. No weapons.” He poked Billy’s stomach, then his chest. “But…well fed. Big arms too. Hmm. You need food. Me…give food.” He gestured to the lion carcass lolling in the dirt a few feet away.

His prehistoric generosity did not come as a surprise. Billy knew hunter-gatherer societies of the time were remarkably equitable and altruistic. If anything, it was modern men who could learn a thing or two from them.

The wild man looked like he still didn’t know quite what to make of Billy, and for Billy, the feeling was mutual. “Me alone too,” the hunter grumbled.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Me take this back to dwelling.” He pointed at the carcass with hands flat, and palms open, another quirk of prehistoric communication. He then moved his hands towards Billy. “And take this one back too. Me alone, so me will make you this one’s mate.”

Billy had been entirely focused on studying the hunter’s mannerisms, so it took him a second to process what the caveman had said. “Yeah, I…WHAT?”

The near-naked man in the skins examined Billy like he had been misunderstood. “You? Me? Mate.” He clapped his hands together—which Billy took as the prehistoric gesture for ‘fuckin’. The hunter smiled (his teeth, while not perfect, were remarkably clean). “Make many babies. Then, no alone anymore! Me have clan again. Very happy. Strong babies!”

The man enthusiastically cuffed Billy in the shoulder. “Strong mate.”

The friendly pat hit Billy harder than he’d expected. Billy rubbed his shoulder, trying to decide what do next.

The long-haired hunter decided for him. One moment, Billy stood with feet on the ground, and the next he had been scooped off the earth and slung over the wide man’s shoulder like a wet towel.

Billy’s heart skipped a beat. “I…oh wow, you ARE strong. But…you got the wrong idea, bro! I can’t make babies!”

The strong man knelt forward, gingerly, and slung the lion carcass over his other shoulder with one arm, not so much as breaking a sweat. “Of course, make babies! Me is very fertile and strong. Auru.” He began walking briskly towards a break in the tree line.

“Auru?” Billy asked. The words didn’t translate.

As Billy re-adjusted his cap, ensuring it didn’t fall off the ground and pervert the course of human history (he’d seen enough time travel sci-fi to be wary of things like that) he felt the strong man pat his bottom. He blushed. Damn, these tight, ass-eating shorts!

“This one is healthy…but no weapons. Auru teach you how to roar.”

“Auru…is your name?” Billy had questions, but a drip on his head distracted him from any sort of follow-up. He looked up to see that the blue sky had shifted grey, and it was starting to drizzle.

Auru, if that was his name, stopped and sniffed the air. “Oh, rain. Dwelling not far.”

“I can walk, dude. You can let me down.” As much as I love taking a ride on a big, strong hunk…

The lion hunter happily obliged with grunt, letting Billy down and re-adjusting the lion carcass by splaying it across his shoulder. Billy imagined it weighed more than he did and was both impressed and—more to the point—slightly aroused. Well, I’ve seen the strong, now where’s the fertile?

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