Welcome To The Stone Age by Sylvia Cumming

Welcome To The Stone Age by Sylvia Cumming

Victor G. Bevens, data clerk extraordinaire, lit his midday cigarette and leaned against a potted palm outside the Natural History Museum, watching a crowd of mothers herd their children inside the wide glass sliding doors. It was lunchtime on a Tuesday, the first Tuesday of the month, the day the museum waived its entrance fees, and the day Bevens made a habit of spending his lunch hour enjoying the ancient atmosphere of reconstructed dinosaurs and early man exhibits.

The sign for the new ride at the Natural History Museum looked like a chunk of granite with rough, hand-chipped writing: “Welcome to the Stone Age.” Below it in a smaller font it advertised: “An Immersive Experience! Watch Actual Stone Age Hunters!” and he debated whether he wanted to spend the forty dollars or just take his usual route through the Early Man exhibits.

Bevens flicked at the sign with his fingers and smiled, satisfied at the slight “thunk” that indicated actual stone. No expense spared, he thought. Well, sooner or later he’d take the ride, and he had the time now, so he walked in the glass doors, paid the extra fee and got his ticket.

There wasn’t much to see from the designated moving pathway except some bushes and dusty boulders. The projection on the giant electronic screen in front of them showed a few Stone Age people idly sitting around and scratching themselves. This was a disappointing start.

Bevens wondered if this new display was all hype like so many things were these days. The Early Men onscreen looked genuine and moved smoothly and easily, but they could just be sophisticated robots or A.I. People were paying to be entertained, after all. Standing on a people mover and watching hairy, slope-foreheaded robots do nothing on a giant TV monitor while you rolled by some desert scrub and rocks was not his idea of interesting, but there was nothing for it now. He was stuck on the ride until the end.

A crawling informational ticker at the bottom of the screen read, “Enjoy the Display of Homo Erectus – first discovered in Africa. They lived approximately 1.5 million years ago and made and used stone tools. They were the first to discover fire.” The ticker continued with other factoids about the exhibit.

“Boring!” said a guy in a button-down shirt and jeans.

“Definitely not giving it more than one star,” said a curly-headed mother, typing into her cellphone as a whiny kindergarten age child clung to her skirt.

Victor Bevens wondered if the tribe currently showing onscreen was aware of the cameras and had placed the women, sitting and grooming their hair and picking their teeth, in camera view, while the men were doing something interesting somewhere else, like hunting dire wolf or sabertoothed tiger. He stifled a yawn. He might as well be watching a Quaker quilting party for all the interest this exhibit was generating.

Just then, the people mover jerked and stuttered and the electronic screens pixelated. Something interesting at last, he thought. Is this part of the ride?

The crowd murmured its disapproval of this new turn of events and crowded forward together, pushing him to the edge. He felt for the electronic hand rail but it had juddered out, and he was pushed off the ride onto a concrete curb. He stumbled back, getting dust on his shoes and pants cuffs from the dry dirt of the exhibit. With another judder, the picture onscreen returned to normal and the people mover started up again without him. He brushed himself off and stepped back onto the curb but when he reached for the rail he was jolted backwards by a shock. The electronic handrail which protected the ticketholders from getting off the ride, was stopping him from getting back onto the ride. Bevens felt a tiny rise of anxiety in his stomach.

“Excuse me,” he said to the nearest patron.

It was the curly-headed woman, who looked at him, surprised. She stepped back and pulled her child close. “Who are you?” she said as the ride jerked on and carried her past him, further into the exhibit.

“I fell off the ride and I can’t get back on. Can you get someone to help me?”

“Can’t you just step back on?” she said, turned away and resumed tapping messages into her phone.

Now the big electronic screen was showing a scene of some Homo Erectus hunting, crouching behind some rocks as a dire wolf approached. The crowd on the people mover watched the action closely.

Bevens grunted in frustration. He tried the hand rail again and this time the shock threw him onto his back in the dirt. He lay there a minute, disoriented. This was not the lunch break he was expecting. He decided to call the museum to get someone to help him and he felt in his back pocket for his cell phone.

The phone was not there.

He patted his other pants pockets, then his jacket pockets. A picture of his desk sprang into his mind, the computer screen front and center, and his cell phone propped up on its lower right corner.

“Oh, no,” he said aloud.

Briefly he thought of the large sign with fine print that was posted at the entrance to the Stone Age exhibit, one of those “I accept all risks, promise not to sue, won’t break the rules, etc., etc.,” that he had glanced at briefly when he had paid, and he wondered if falling into the exhibit and not being able to get back on the ride had broken the rules. It seemed a little ridiculous, but so was the situation.

He picked himself up and brushed the dirt off his shirt and tie, then looked around for an “Exit” sign in the exhibit.  There really wasn’t much to see, just boulders, bushes and grasses and some dusty footpaths. The plants were randomly placed to look completely natural. Bevens was impressed. A lot of work and expense must have gone into making it look that way. He kicked a large rock and was painfully surprised to find it was solid. He’d been expecting papier-mâché or plaster-covered wire. He yanked at a large-ish sage bush but it remained firmly connected to the earth, and he could smell the pleasant aroma of the plant on his hand. Everything here was real, he thought with surprise.

Then he noticed that not only were there no “Exit” signs, but he couldn’t see any walls, either. Again, he felt a rise of anxiety, but he soothed himself with the thought that it was just an exhibit, and this must be part of the experience. The exit signs must be well hidden.

He picked a random path away from the people mover and started off to find the way back into the museum’s main hall. The ground was hilly but not steep, and there were paths snaking off in various directions from the path he was on, which was the widest and most used-looking. He couldn’t see far because of the hillocks, and when he walked to the top of the nearest one, he saw an expanse of hilly rises, stones and patches of grasses and shrubs amongst the dry, sandy dirt, same as the view from the people mover. He didn’t see any people, Early Man or otherwise. There was a slight wind, which surprised him, but he guessed it was from the exhibit’s air circulation system.

He didn’t think he’d walked that far from the crowded people mover but when he turned back, he couldn’t see any sign of it. That was also probably part of the exhibit’s design. Bevens thought it was clever to design the ride so the Homonids could act natural and not feel like they had to show off for a crowd the way animals in a zoo would. There were probably microscopic hidden cameras everywhere to pick up all their activities. He hoped someone would see him and get him out soon.

There were no clouds, no surprise there, but there was a very realistic and mercilessly hot sun above him and he was amazed at the heat it put out. He loosened his tie and wiped his forehead and continued trudging along the path he’d chosen. His tongue felt dry and his shirt was sticking to his back.

“Hey! You there! Get out of the exhibit!”

Victor looked up, startled. A young woman in a tan uniform was running toward him, pointing something gun-like at him. Bevens’s first thought was that he must really be in trouble, and his second thought was that it would be a good idea to get away from the gun. Fear rose in his throat, and he broke into a run away from the guard and the weapon. He ran off the path and into the hilly shrub land. Rough branches and thorns caught at his face and arms as he pushed his way mindlessly through. His cheap oxfords were not made for the rocky terrain, and almost immediately one of the soles split, pushing tiny pieces of gravel up into his sock at the ball of his left foot with each step. He had to keep going. He could hear the heavy, regular thud of a good pair of boots not far behind him. He didn’t dare turn and look for fear of slowing down, but he was limping now. Running in a suit and oxfords was hard. The burning in his lungs slowed him, and he could feel the effects of his occasional cigarette and current lack of an exercise program. He regretted doing too much of the one and not enough of the other. Too late now.

The more hills he ran up, the slower he went, the more tired he felt, the harder he worked and the worse his foot felt. After the seventh hill or so, he didn’t hear the guard’s boots any longer, but his left shoe was starting to flap at the toe.

By the time he stopped in a hollow between hills, his face was scraped and dusty, his pants cuffs were filled with burrs, and sweat stains were showing under the arms of his ripped-up jacket, which now flapped in places jackets were not supposed to flap. He was not going to be able to go back to the office like this, that was for sure.

He found a small boulder that was mostly flat on top, dusted it off with his hand and sat down to rest. He thought longingly of the water bottles that he’d passed up for sale at the start of the exhibit. Well, surely the Museum had created a water source for the tribe that lived here when they’d made the exhibit. He would just have to find that little stream or lake or whatever it was, hope there were no really bad germs in it and drink from that.

When he had caught his breath, he crept to the top of the next hill and looked back. He didn’t see the guard nor hear her footsteps. He scanned the horizon in all directions. Nothing much at all was moving except a few branches stirred by the light breeze. Maybe she’d given up and went away, although he had his doubts. He certainly hadn’t done anything particularly clever to lose her. Maybe she was watching through those hidden cameras and would be back once he stopped to rest. Then a thought struck him – if she returned, even if she had a gun, he should just go with her. He wasn’t even sure why he had run from her because she would have gotten him out of here, which is what he wanted. He felt embarrassed for running away. Well, he would just have to figure another way out.

He looked around and saw nothing but what he’d seen before; shrubs, rocks, hills and the burning sun. He broke off a twig and sniffed at it. It smelled green and alive. A fly buzzed around his head and landed on the twig. Nothing anywhere appeared even remotely to be manmade. The Museum must have been very clever about camera placement when they planned out this place because he hadn’t seen a single one. He knew they were there, though. How else had the guard known about him?

He sighed, brushed the dust off his hopelessly torn pants, and set off once again to find an exit. It seemed to him that the artificial sun in the exhibit was hanging a little lower in the artificial sky. He wondered what happened when the lights went out. He hadn’t seen any animal life yet except for flies, but the advertisements had hyped the chance to see Early Man hunting. He assumed that meant they had actual animals to hunt since everything else around here seemed real. Did that mean that there were also things that hunted the primitive tribe? Were they extinct animals like dire wolves? Sabertooth tigers? Something worse? He shivered and looked around for a weapon. There were plenty of jagged-edged black rocks lying around. He loaded his pants pockets just in case.

After back tracking through the hills that led back toward the people mover and seeing only more shrubs, rocks and hills and no people mover, he began to worry. His forte was computer data, not wilderness survival. Not more than an hour after leaving the ride and he was lost. All the hills looked the same, and the boulders were all big, rough and the same granite-y gray. There were too many paths, forking here and there. He tried to recall any advice he’d ever read about wilderness survival, but anything he’d run across had been advice for if you are lost in an African jungle, or how to survive a snowstorm. He shrugged, and figured he couldn’t go wrong if he followed the main path, which he had just found again. It made sense to stick to one direction and not go wandering off without a plan, now that he had some idea where he was. He had run quite a distance, and walked back maybe half a mile or so before he’d found the path again. The exhibit covered a lot of ground. He was impressed—from the people mover, the exhibit had looked no bigger than the largest animal enclosure at the zoo.

He kept on walking. The shadows were getting longer, and he was beyond thirsty. It was long past when he should have found the people mover, an exit, a wall, anything indicating the limits of the exhibit. He knew he was lost, but it didn’t make sense. How could he be lost? The exhibit was in a large building, true, but it was much smaller than the nearby stadium and convention center. He definitely should have found a door, or at least a wall by now. He kept walking – there wasn’t anything else he could do.

He wondered what his boss thought when he didn’t return from lunch. Bevens was a punctual person, rarely late. This would certainly merit a note in his HR file, if not a full interview. He wondered how to explain his absence. Then he wondered if he would ever return.

The sun had now set, and stars slowly appeared above him as he walked. It was an amazing view, and he was particularly impressed at how realistic the movement of the constellations was. He looked for the North Star but he couldn’t find Orion’s Belt to point to it. He couldn’t even find the Big Dipper. None of the star formations looked familiar to him, but that was fine – this was just an exhibit, not a real sky after all.

The cold crept up on him. The rocks stayed warm for quite a while, and only started cooling off about the time the quarter moon rose a good while later. He was surprised to hear crickets chirping and an occasional croaking from some desert toad species. He wondered whether any of the larger animals were out hunting, but nothing much moved in the gray-and-black silhouetted night so he felt somewhat reassured.

Suits and oxfords really don’t cut it after dark in the Stone Age, he thought, leaning back against one of the still-warm rocks in a hollow between hills. He’d taken his shoes off and he was rubbing his aching feet. One of his heels was blistered. He couldn’t tell how bad it was in the light of the moon. The stones he was on formed a bumpy recliner, and he leaned back. He was so tired his eyes closed against his will, and almost instantly, he was asleep.

He was awoken by the delicate tick of a pebble bouncing off the rock his head rested against. He opened his eyes and sat upright, confused. He looked around and saw rocks outlined in gray and black and remembered.

I’m in the Stone Age, he thought.

There was no moon now, but the stars provided just enough light to distinguish the shapes of bushes and rocks. He noticed the largish silhouette of something hunched on the rocks above his right shoulder. There hadn’t been anything on that rock before he fell asleep.

An uneasy feeling formed in his stomach. In the dim light he tried to make out more details, while trying to remain perfectly still. From its silhouette, it looked like his cat at home, but it was much larger, the size of a well-muscled guard dog. He could see its tail twitching, and could almost feel the tension of its muscles as it crouched, watching him from the rocks above his right side. He felt his body instinctively tensing up at the thought that he was being hunted. Then from behind him he heard a low, rough, wheezing growl, “Hrrrrhunh,” and felt a rush of warm air pass over his head. Slowly, Bevens turned his head to see what was making that sound.

Whatever that first animal was, there was a larger one like it, poised in a tense crouch on the top of the rocks just above his head. The animal by his shoulder shifted slightly and answered with a growl of its own, its tail twitching faster. He caught a gleam in its eye as it stared at him. Were these sabertoothed tigers? Their grunts sounded lion-like.

A series of growls passed between the two animals. He had the idea they were arguing over who found him first and who was going to get to eat him. He stifled a strong urge to run, knowing it was useless. He could feel the stones in his pockets digging into his thighs. Unbidden, the mantra, “Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic” repeated itself in his mind as his heart raced madly. He was panicking, but he forced himself to remain still.

He scanned his memory for advice for scaring off mountain lions. Weren’t you supposed to stand up and pull your coat up over your head, stretch it out like a big umbrella, and yell a lot? That wasn’t going to work here because the animals were much too close. He couldn’t stand up before one or the other of the cats attacked. They were too close for him to throw the stones so he decided he was going to have to arm himself with the rocks in his pockets, make himself look big sitting down, and yell a lot. He might be able to hurt them with the rocks but he doubted it. If he were lucky, he might scare them off, but he didn’t recall any advice for when two mountain lions had you cornered, and the best he hoped for was to discourage them from killing him when they did jump on him. For a brief instant, he let fear take over, and saw in his future the news headlines, ‘Modern Man Savaged To Death By Prehistoric Animals – A First in History.’ He didn’t feel better.

He wondered if whomever was watching on the cameras could see the whole thing and if they were looking for him now. He didn’t hold out much hope for a rescue. Even if they saw him, they would be too far away to do anything immediate. He tried to dig his hands into his pockets but he couldn’t even get at the rocks that were pushing into his thighs because his pants were too tight while he was sitting. Well, if he was going to die, he ought to at least die standing up, even if the cats got him. Randomly, the Patrick Henry quote from the Revolutionary War flitted through his mind: “Give me liberty or give me death!” It wasn’t really fitting, but still, he felt a little braver.

Bevens took a big breath, slowly pulled his legs under himself. Mentally, he counted to three, and jumped up with a loud “Aaaaarrrrgh!” waving his arms wildly, fists clenched.

At that same moment, a spear flew toward him, narrowly missing his waving arms. And the roaring cats leaped at him. The spear lodged with a solid ‘Thump!’ into the chest of the first cat, the one that had been on the rocks above him. It fell, screaming in pain and anger, claws wildly raking at Bevens. The second cat vaulted from the rock behind him, claws extended, fully expecting to connect with its dinner, but instead, the cat went neatly over his head and onto the rock he had been sleeping on. It gave an annoyed “Reeooww!” and ran off into the night. The first cat, injured and frantic, fell, knocking Bevens back onto the rocks. His head hit the granite with a resounding crack, knocking him unconscious.

Moments later he began to rouse. His head felt like it had connected with a sledgehammer. He was convinced he was dying. Desperate, his hand found a rock next to him, and he began beating the cat’s skull. The cat ignored him, unaware of everything but the spear. All its energy was spent heaving, clawing and yowling at the bloody spear that pierced its body. It was doing everything it could to be rid of the agony in its chest. Bevens was pinned between it and the rocks, fighting it with all his strength. Nothing he did seemed to affect the animal. It slashed and bit at him, at the spear, at the rocks, and with each slash of its claws pain ripped through him. It writhed, growled, moaned, mauled and bit anything and everything while blood spattered everywhere. He tried to lever himself off the rocks, hoping to roll the big cat off him but the cat resisted, still tearing at him. He didn’t want this to be his end, but he could feel himself weakening. His breath was shallow, almost panting, just like the cat’s. His heart pounded in his ears, and he could smell his own sweat rising to mix with the cat smells. His face was pressed into the cat’s rough, wet fur, making it hard to breathe. He couldn’t get away from this nightmare. This was the worst night he had ever had in his life, and it wasn’t over yet.

Gravel ground into his back and ribs and a new pain emerged there, a broken rib. The animal exuded the pungent smell of fear mixed with ammonia, and Bevens realized it had pissed on him, too. The front of his shirt was soaked through with blood. He hoped it was from the cat and not him, but from the pain in his arm he knew at least some of it was his.

Slowly, a change filtered into his consciousness through the confusion and agitation—the cat’s movements were becoming weaker, clumsier.

Gradually, the animal stopped moving and lay heavily on top of him. He waited a minute, catching his breath and staring up at the starry sky. Funny, the frogs were still croaking and the crickets were still chirping.

He gathered his strength and rolled the cat off his chest. It lay in a sad lump, still warm but not breathing. Dead. Bevens felt nauseous. He had never seen a dead animal before. He scooted backward, until his back pressed hard against the rocks and he felt pain in his rib. Now that the danger was past, a primitive, unthinking aftereffect kicked in and the only thing he wanted was to be as far away as possible from this strange animal that had attacked him.

He was suddenly ice-cold. His teeth chattered and he wrapped his arms around himself to try to stop shaking. Just as Bevens was beginning to relax, he heard a piercing cry, “AAAAAHHH!” and a human-like form landed in front of him in a crouch, waving a spear. It was too much for Bevens. He screamed and fell back, slumping sideways against the rocks and lay there, an unconscious, scratched-up, bloody mess.

&&&

He was dreaming of eating raw steak, his teeth gripping it, tearing it, chewing it until blood dripped down his chin and onto his pristine white button-down shirt. The steak morphed into the face of a jaguar, growling, jaws dripping with saliva, and he smelled the hot stink of its breath on his face. The smell was acrid, dreadful, overpowering. He couldn’t breathe. His head was pounding and he groaned in his sleep. In his dream the jaguar stood above him, panting into his nostrils, teeth shining as it grinned. Sweat poured off him. He rolled over to escape the terrible smell, but the rocks beneath him jammed into his bruised ribs and woke him up.

For a moment, he wondered why his bed was so lumpy. Then he remembered what had happened. The smell was still there, still awful and stifling. He was afraid of what he would find if he opened his eyes, and lay still. He took stock of his body. The headache in his dreams had intensified and his ribs and arms hurt and his tongue felt dry and swollen. There was nothing he could do, whether he was in danger or not, so he opened his eyes and tried to focus.

A man, inches from his face, was staring intently at him. What did the man want? Bevens wondered. He lay back and studied the man.

The man’s face was leathery and worn from sun exposure. From a prominent brow his forehead sloped back into a thick tangle of black hair. He smiled and all Victor Bevens could see were black and broken teeth. His breath smelled like a dead animal.

“Aaah!” Bevens screamed and crab-walked backwards away from the man as fast as he could. His head rammed into something hard, a rock, adding to his already massive headache, and he fell flat onto his back. He grabbed his head and moaned. Through his fingers, he could see daylight behind the strange man.

The man picked up something and walked toward him slowly, proffering what looked like a roughly cut steak, raw and dripping. He was dark skinned, short, hairy and naked. As he pushed the meat at Bevens he said something in a strange, guttural tongue.

Confused, Bevens looked around frantically for a way to escape. The strange man stood between him and the mouth of the cave. He could see other primitive men and women gathered around the mouth of the cave, staring intently at him, spears at the ready. Some were naked and others wore what looked like loin cloths made of animal hide. All were filthy, with matted hair and dark, leathery skin. They looked tense and fearful.

The primitive man smiled more widely, and bobbed his head in a bowing motion, again offering the lump of meat to Bevens.

“Ar oh,” he said.

“Where am I?” Bevens asked him. “Who are you?”

The man gently placed the bloody meat on Bevens’s lap and backed away. “Ar oh,” he said again.

Bevens looked at the meat, felt his stomach turn and tried not to make a face. He didn’t want to make the men with spears angry. “Can you cook this?” he asked, picking it up with two fingers and holding it out away from his body.

The man smiled, showing his blackened teeth again, and bowed nervously. “Ar oh,” he said again. Then he made pushing motions with his hands to show Bevens that the meat was his, and then pretended to eat, making smacking noises with his lips and rubbing his belly.

Bevens carefully laid the meat on a flat stone near him, and stood up, groaning. His head brushed the top of the cave and he made a mental note to be sure to stoop when he walked. He didn’t need any more blows to his skull. The man with bad teeth looked at him with wide eyes as Bevens painfully stretched. The others backed away from him, spears still pointed in his direction. The primitive tribespeople stood erect, like their name, Homo Erectus, and were well muscled. They were not handsome by modern standards, but they looked well suited for life in the wilderness. Bevens was a bit taller, and due to his soda-and-donuts diet, a little paunchy and soft. To the primitives he must have looked like an alien. Probably a disappointment as a descendant, if the Homo Erectus had any premonition about the future.

“Water?” Bevens asked, pantomiming drinking.

Excitedly, Bad Teeth motioned for him to come and walked outside. Bevens ducked his head and haltingly limped behind the primitive man down the hill to a small stream trickling through the rocks. The man knelt at a shallow pool and shoveled water into his mouth. Bevens knelt next to him, groaning, and did the same. The water was cool and refreshing, and tasted better than any bottled water he’d ever had.

His head felt a little clearer. He noticed a fresh smell to the air, and took a deep breath. It was a deeper and easier breath than he had taken in a long time, and even though it hurt his ribs to do it, the clean air invigorated him. He was a little surprised at how good it felt to just breathe. It made him wonder just how dirty the air in the city really was. He saw that the lacerations on his arms were starting to scab over. There would probably be scars but he would be okay. He was feeling much better after drinking that water. He grinned at the primitive man.

The man grinned back.

“What’s your name?” Bevens asked. He pointed to himself and said, “Victor.”

The man grinned again. He pointed to himself and said, “Bic-terr.”

Bevens laughed. “No, I’m Victor.”

The man with bad teeth laughed and patted himself. “Bic-terr,” he said again. Then he motioned for Bevens to be quiet and pointed at the stream. A shiny silver eel-like fish was swimming upstream. Bad Teeth quietly lowered himself to the bank and lay, arms outstretched, waiting for the fish to swim close. As it did, the man’s hand swiftly dipped into the water, and he pulled the squirming animal out by the gills. He dispatched the fish with a small rock and offered it to Bevens.

“Thanks, I think,” he said, carefully grasping the fish. This was the second dead animal he’d ever touched and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. “Now let’s cook that meat.”

Bad Teeth grinned again, patted himself and said, “Bic-terr.”

Bevens gathered brush and bits of wood as they walked back toward the cave. The grinning man imitated him, gathering an armful of brush. “Ar oh,” he said.

When they got to the mouth of the cave, Bevens set the sticks down. “I hope I can remember how to make a fire. I was a Boy Scout once.” He pulled a pink plastic disposable lighter from his pocket and flicked it. It sparked a few times, then flamed up.

Bad Teeth sucked air in through his teeth, wide eyed. He began speaking rapidly and ran away.

Bevens shrugged, scratched his head, then turned to the business of making a campfire. He didn’t notice the tribe gathering to watch at a respectful distance. The men with spears were no longer pointing them at Bevens. Bad Teeth crept back to the group and stood with them as Bevens flicked his lighter at a leaf, and watched as it sparked a few times then flamed up and the leaf caught fire. He dropped it onto the kindling and blew on the tiny flame, feeding it twigs until it grew.

Bad Teeth crept up to the fire, and showed Bevens two jagged, shiny black rocks. “Ar oh,” he said, holding one against his thigh and striking the other against it. Bevens recalled reading about the ancient art of making spear heads and tools by flint-knapping in an earlier exhibit at the museum. It appeared that was what Bad Teeth was doing. As he struck the rocks together, sparks flew onto the ground. “Ar oh,” said Bad Teeth, pointing excitedly.

The primitive man continued flint-knapping. Tiny pieces of rock flaked off as Bad Teeth slowly fashioned a rude spear tip from one of the rocks. He held it up for Bevens to see.

Bevens took it and examined it closely. The edges were very sharp. “That’s amazing,” he said. Both men smiled.

“Bic-terr,” said Bad Teeth, and motioned for Bevens to keep it. He wandered away from the fire, searching the ground for another good stone to flint-knap. The others moved toward the fire, talking excitedly amongst themselves in their guttural tongue.

&&&

In the security office of the Stone Age exhibit, a uniformed guard with the nametag “Carter” was playing games on his cell phone and glancing occasionally at the twenty-four screens set up in front of him. Each showed a different scene — some showed bushes, rocks and pathways, and some had various animals grazing or hunting. One showed some women gathering berries, another showed some men making flint spearheads. These were the live videos that were later edited and the most exciting were shown on the Stone Age ride. One screen showed the brook where Bevens had recently drank, and another showed him at the mouth of the cave with the group of primitives. Carter looked up from his game and watched openmouthed as Bevens lit the fire. His eyes widened. He set his personal phone down and picked up the land line. “Sir, you know that ticket miscount from yesterday’s ride? I found the missing guy and you won’t believe this. He’s teaching the primitives how to make a fire.”

He listened for a minute to the tinny, angry voice coming through the line. “Yeah, I know. Angela tried to catch him yesterday when he jumped the ride during that power surge, but he got away. We’ve been keeping an eye out for him since then.”

The voice on the phone became even louder.

“Sir, I don’t know who this guy is or what his game is but we’ll handle this, no worries. We will send our best guys. Yes, sir, I know the contract terms – we have to let the primitives develop in their own time or lose our rights to them.” The guard put the phone down in its cradle and sighed. Life was too complicated and all he really wanted was a good cup of coffee. Looked like that was going to have to wait.

Ten minutes later, five guards entered the Access Portal to the Early Man habitat. Each of them had tasers and dart guns loaded with heavy sedative-tipped needles. The ride’s screens had been set to replay scenes from a few days prior. The screens in the security office showed the guards stepping out of the Portal and into the rocky terrain, but the paying patrons on the ride saw a replay of Tuesday’s dire wolf hunt on their big screen monitor. The arid desert scenery on either side of the ride was quiet, no animals or primitives in sight. The hand rails stayed on, and the patrons continued on the people mover watching the Stone Age scenes on the monitors as it moved past. If they had cared to look, they would have seen a door slide open in a large rock and five uniformed guards walk into the exhibit and go over the hill, but no one did.

When the guards found Bevens, he and the band of primitives were hunkered over the small fire outside the cave, roasting meat on sticks. One of them was playing with the lighter, flicking it and watching it spark and catch fire, laughing.

Bevens heard a small branch crack and looked over to see Carter approaching him, dart gun out.

“Oh, hey, am I glad to see you!” he said, just as another guard shot him with a dart. He fell backwards, unconscious, and his roasted meat fell out of his nerveless hand and into the fire. Simultaneously, the other guards shot darts into the primitives, and they fell over in a heap, instantly asleep.

Carter picked up the little pink lighter and pocketed it. “Can’t have a fire here, we’ll lose the exhibit. Angela, get this half-cooked meat out of here.”

The guards gently moved the drugged primitives away from the fire pit and laid them in a row at the mouth of the cave. Then they stamped the little blaze out and scattered the burnt wood across the dry terrain, far from the cave. Two guards dragged the sleeping Bevens by his armpits over the rocky path and dropped him in front of the Access Portal. Angela followed, carrying a plastic bag full of half-cooked meat at arm’s length. Carter took a branch and swept the ground clean of the guards’ footprints; then they all went into the Portal and closed the door.

The Early Man habitat was still, silent, except for the sound of a bird in the distance.

What neither the guards nor the cameras saw was Bad Teeth, watching them from behind a bush. After the Portal doors closed, he carefully gathered twigs and dried leaves from nearby shrubs. Then squatted before the tiny pile of kindling. Holding his hands above it, he struck two shiny black rocks together, and smiled broadly as they sparked. The sparks fell and fizzled out on the dried leaves at his feet. Again and again he struck the rocks together, sparks falling onto the kindling, until finally a small leaf smoked and then lit into a tiny flame. He gently blew on it, and the flame grew stronger, catching on some of the twigs.

Bad Teeth smiled and patted his chest. “Bic-terr.” He added more twigs to the flames.

Behind him, he heard the sounds of his tribe stirring.

THE END

Copyright Sylvia Cumming 2021