Chapter 9
I was in the jungle crouched down looking over a nest of golden eggs, when a raptor came up behind me and kicked me with it's powerful leg. I could feel the flesh tearing and I let out a scream. The raptor was grinning it's evil grin, licking it's lips and staring at me with it's reptilian eyes. I was all alone, I don't know how or why I was in the jungle.
The rest of the crew was nowhere to be found. I started screaming calling for someone to help anyone to help. The raptor just tilted it's head to the side listening to my words that I was sure were going to be my very last and then it spoke to me.
“Richard!” the raptor had said my name I started thrashing at it violently screaming in disbelief.
“Richard, calm down, your alright” the raptors voice sounded comforting but the dinosaur was still wearing it's evil grin. Just then another raptor appeared from the brush and it too began to speak.
I couldn't make out the words until the first raptor spoke once more. Saying “he's having a nightmare.”
That's when my mind began to clear up as I looked around the jungle I realized that it wasn't the jungle at all. I was half way tangled in my hammock. The raptors where Jessica and and John. Kevin was still asleep in his hammock unaware of my thrashing around and screaming.
I told John about my nightmares and he said that we were in a new place and a lot of stuff had happened and we were all stressing out and scared. He didn't have any medications to help with the nightmares but talking to someone helped.
Now that everyone was awake I talked to them about trying to stay up all night to avoid the dinosaurs. We could live a lot longer if we didn't have to face the dinosaurs. There would be other benefits to staying up all night such as the sun not taking a tool on us as we worked. The others agreed that might be a good idea. If it didn't work out then we would switch back to days.
I told the crew that hunting at night or searching for food would be easy the planet was even bright at night because of the two extra moons and if we needed to we had extra flashlights. During the day we tried our best to rest and take it easy. We stayed in the shelter telling stories about how things were when we were children and what we liked to do when we were on Earth growing up.
Jessica, John and Kevin even taught me how to play poker. The day crawled by so slowly it was as if time was standing still. From inside the small shelter we heard the animals trumpeting and calling to one another.
Then we heard a sound that we had not heard since we left our home planet. Drips of water falling from the sky. It started to rain. Thankfully the little shelter had zippers on the inside to keep water out in case it ever did rain on distant planets. The sound of the rain was comforting at first. Until the lightning started to flash and the thunder started booming and echoing throughout the jungle.
The sun was hidden behind dark clouds and the only light we had came from the four little flash lights. The shelter had two small plastic windows in the top where we could see out and to provide light but I had never seen a sky so black as it was now. The lightning flashed and lit up the shelter.
As I looked over towards the middle of the room I saw a large shadow flashed across the wall when the lightning flickered. I knew exactly what that shadow was the moment I saw it. The others must have seen the shadow too because they remained perfectly still and silent. Lightning flashed again and the shadow hadn't moved it was standing in the same exact spot.
I couldn't help but wonder what the dinosaur was doing so I slowly arose from my hammock and walked over to the side and unzipped the privacy window just enough to see the large animal sniffing at the air. He was swaying a little from side to side as if trying to pick up a sent. The rain must have created a cover scent for us.
We might have lucked out for today but tomorrow if the T-Rex returns I doubt we will be so lucky. The giant dinosaur looks more frighting in the darkness of the storm than he does in the regular daylight. The wind howls and I slowly close the privacy window. For the next few minutes the T-Rex remains in the same spot but soon gives up on whatever he was doing and slinks back into the jungle.
“Tonight after the storm passes we must find a new location.” I suggest to the others. The others listen to my plans to move to another area of the new world. The storm lasts for hours and we do what we can to sleep it out. When we awake the storm has passed and the sun is setting. The dinosaurs are settling down for the night and we figure if there is a good time to get moving now would be the time.
We leave the snap together shelter the way it is and we take off towards what I hope to be a new beginning for us. The three moons were now visible casting light open the surface of this unusual planet. We walk for hours getting who knows how far away from camp. My ankle still hurting me but still splinted up so the pain is manageable.
The ground soaked from the storms of the day, we still have a while to go before we reach the mountains that I was aiming for. I am hoping that the mountains are not crawling with dinosaurs like the jungles are. I am also on the search for a cave to dwell in that might be hidden deep within a mountain.
We continued walking towards the mountains and listening to the sounds of the night. We could hear the heavy breathing of dinosaurs and the snoring sounds they made as they slept. I felt like an explorer coming to a new land, well at least I had reason to feel that way cause that's pretty much what we were now.
My legs were aching and my back was getting stiff from all the walking but we had to carry on if we wanted to make it to the mountains before the sun came up. We walked all through the night.
When the sun was rising we had reached our destination.
“Are we almost there yet?” Kevin asked.
With the mountains extremely close now I chuckled at the question and continued walking. It had been awhile since we had heard the snoring of the giant beasts. Now there was a deafening silence. I had a pretty good feeling that all the dinosaurs lived below the mountains. I wondered what creatures if any lived on the mountains.
It wasn't long before I got my answer. When we reached the bottom of the mountain I found the very thing I was praying for a cave! When I put my head into the cave listening I could hear water dripping from the ceiling and a familiar sound. I didn't think it could be but it was. Chattering! It wasn't a language that I couldn't understand but it came from the vocal cords of human like creatures! I shined my flashlight into the cave and took a look at the bipedal human like race. They looked just like earthlings!
“Caveman” I shouted with joy. These creatures were just like the early humans of planet Earth. The cave dwellers were frightened at first but once they saw we meant them no harm they calmed down and went back to doing the things that they were accustom to. I was surprised to find out that they were not hostile in anyway. We slowly entered the cave one by one and the cave dwellers stood up to retreat to the back of the cave.
Making soft soothing sounds I tried to assure them that they would be alright and that we were friends. I made motion by putting my fingers towards my mouth and opening and closing my mouth to see if they could understand I was trying to say that we were hungry. A couple of the cave dwellers repeated the motion until one of them finally understood I meant food he grunted and started jumping up and down rubbing his stomach.
It was amazing I had successfully communicated with one of the cave dwellers. He took me by the hand and lead me to a corner of the cave where there was an underground lake he picked up a spear and focused his eyes on something I couldn't see. A few minutes later he jabbed the spear into the water and pulled out a large fish.
I was amazed at the speed and strength of the cave dweller. He took it to the center of the cave and rubbed two sticks together until he got sparks and then blew on the sparks until he created a fire. These cavemen have come a long way but they have so much to learn and I can teach them, I thought to myself. After the fire was big and strong the cave man took the fish to a corner where he used a knife made from a rock from the cave to cut off the fishes head and gut the fish, next he removed all the scales from the fish and placed the fish on a stick and hung it above the fire.
I was so impressed but I guess the cave people had learned to live this way or else they wouldn't have lasted this long on this planet. We all gathered together and ate of the giant fish. Jessica, Kevin, John and myself were so worn out by our journey that we passed right out after we finished eating our portion of the cooked fish.
I have no clue how long I had been sleeping but when I awoke I felt refreshed and more energetic than I had the whole time we had been on the new world. I could tell that my crew were feeling well rested. Jessica was playing with the children while John and Keven were trying their hand at making new weapons.
I got up and walked to the mouth of the cave and looked outside. The sun was high in the sky and there were clouds but they were white and fluffy non threatening clouds. I could see for miles as I looked into the new world that I was now prepared to call my home.
I walked over to Kevin and John sat down and started making a weapon of my own. It was a dagger made from a a rock that I had found in the cave. Kevin and John worked together studying the local plant life to make new medications for any sickness that might over take us. The cave dwellers were very interested in learning what we had to teach.
We started out by teaching them how to count and say the English alphabet. Just as I thought the children picked up on things a lot faster than any of the adults but everyone gave it their best efforts. It took a while but the clicking sounds and grunts that the cavemen used to communicate were replaced by broken words.
It was too bad we didn't have any flash cards on us with pictures of the Earth objects that the cavemen were sounding out words such as cat, dog, mom, dad, ant and bat. Soon the cave dwellers were speaking cats and apples. Of course they didn't make much since but we gave them credit for sounding words out and remembering the words. The cave dwellers clapped wildly hooting and hollering when they learned a new way to put a word together. Even if the word wasn't a word at all.
I guess to them all that mattered is that they could make new sounds not just clicks and grunts and they sounded like they knew what they were talking about half the time. Like a child learning to speak their words would go in the wrong orders and they knew nothing about grammar.
“Me is friend, you” a caveman spoke those words to me and I couldn't help but to smile at him. He clapped his hands and waited to see if I had a reply for him. I spoke soft and slow to him in a friendly way saying “Thank you, for being a friend to me.” he almost resorted back to grunting and then he said “You welcome” With a much greater smile on his face. I couldn't help it I had to give this extraordinary caveman a hug. I already had an understanding of the words that he was saying and he was practicing saying more words for the sake of learning.
Everyone had heard him and they were going crazy about him. I heard Kevin had something against him for the next words out of Kevin's mouth were “Show off”. I turned and looked at Kevin but he was staring blankly back up towards me. I mouthed what was that about and Kevin just left the crowd of celebrating, happy, hyper learning cave men.
Later that night when things settled down the gave men were asking real questions all on their own. We had to dumb down the answer so that they could understand everything that we were saying. It had been less than one day and even the children were learning to speak. This made us feel like we were back on Earth teaching needy kids the importance of life. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days and days into weeks. The changes in the cave dwellers were so outstanding I had never seen such a transformation before. Now most of the cave dwellers were talking amongst themselves.
Others came to me and my crew to get answers to questions that we most likely didn't have the answers for. They were extremely spiritual beings without being told anything about church or how to pray. They gave thanks for everything that they had, One cave man started clicking and grunting while another cave man explained this is our language. To you they sound like sounds that can't possible mean anything but they are our why to talk not only to one another but also to the one who has put us here.
“I don't understand, who put you here?” I asked in shock. He looked at me and said the same one who must have put you here” I couldn't believe my ears.
“How long have you'll lived on this planet with these dinosaurs?” The cave man looked at me puzzled until I realized he had not understood me, there was no such thing as time on this planet.
“Were you born on this planet or did you come by other way here.?”
The cave man smiled and said “I've lived on this planet for as long as I have breathed air. I realized this conversation was going no where. It was just stories that their parents had passed. Most likely how a god had delivered them from the dinosaurs by placing them in the mountain. Surely they don't believe in the same God that I believe in. If they do they were never mentioned in the Bible. This kind of made me doubt my own faith if God didn't mention dinosaurs in the bible and he didn't mention aliens what else was he hiding from me? That's when I heard a voice inside my head say give it a break Richard how much are you trying to hide from him. That immediately shut my mind down as far as to doubting my faith in the one I call God.
I couldn't help but think about the millions of people back on my home planet and the doom that they had but themselves in. I made up my mind and my heart. For as long as I had the opportunity to live with these gentile cave dwellers I was going to teach them the history of earth, so that they never make to the same mistakes as man had. This was what the humans were calling Second Earth might as well be used as the planet for second chances.
The cave dwellers were eager to learn new things daily. They didn't ask how we gained all the understanding that we had they just saw it as a gift that was were willing to share with them freely. In return they thought us their ways. We learned as much about the tribe as we could as they learned as much about humans as they could. We brought time to their world. They were amazed when seconds turned to minutes, minutes turned to hours, hours turned to days and days turned to week. Weeks turn into months and months turned to years.
We had spent seven years with the cave dwellers who were no longer acting like cavemen at all. We had watched as the babies had grown into small children and the children had grown into preteens and teens, the teens of the tribe were now in their twenties and getting married to bring more children into the world. It was sad to see every one aging but time touches everyone.
Made me wonder if I had never introduced them to time would they have ever changed. I know that was a stupid way to think considering time was a man made concept but still the thought of me unleashing time on this planet that might not have changed for millions of years haunted my soul.
When it came time for one of the cave dwellers to die they simply left the cave never to return.
So far only two members left the tribe to die alone in the wilderness. They chose to do that because they thought it was the easy way to say goodbye to their loved ones. They would walk as far away as they could from the mountain and say a prayer that their bodies would be used as food for the animals and then they prayed for the opportunity to help flowers grow.
We have known these wonderful people for seven long years and still had so much to learn about their customs and their ways. I remembered my home planet and it made me break down in tears. Jessica, John and Kevin came over to me and tried to comfort me and they asked me what was on my mind I had to tell them.
“Everyone one we used to know is now dead unless they had a successful flight to some distant planet that could support life, Earth is gone for good” I said with tears streaming down my face.
“Richard it's not your fault we couldn't bring everyone our mission was secrete, you didn't destroy the ship. You have done amazing things on this planet. You have helped us stay alive. Seven years ago you walked us to these mountains with a hurt ankle, you risked your health and well being to save our lives. You have taught the frightened cave dwellers how to be a modern person without the violence.”
Jessica was trying to remind me about all the good that had happened on the mountain and all the evil that had taken a hold of the Earth in it's final stages of life. That kind of helped me let go a little at a time. I would always miss my friends and family along with my loved ones and I would always wonder if someday we would all meet up again somehow in this great universe.
Kevin patted me on the shoulder and said “I am happy to follow you captain”. This made me smile a little. They had stopped calling me captain and started calling me by my birth name, Richard about seven years ago. I had to admit it felt kind of good to be called captain once more.
I straightened up, wiped the tears from my eyes and decided that I wanted to go for a walk. I asked if anyone would like to join me and Kevin, John, Jessica and half the men in the cave spoke up saying that they wanted to walk with me. The women and children stayed behind. They would rather play and gossip where it was safe.
All the people going on the walk picked up spears and daggers some even picked up home made bow and arrows along with home made sling shots. No matter where you go outside you have to go with weapons. The dinosaurs not only live in the jungle but there are a number of them that roam the mountains as well. The T-Rex never wonders this far but we have to watch out for other large meat eaters such as the Allosaurus and the Spinosaurus.
I had no clue that such dinosaurs even existed until the cave dwellers painted pictures of them on the walls of the cave, they even compared the size of each animal to one another. The Spinosaurus looked huge compared to the T-Rex and I didn't want to run into him at all.
The Allosaurus is a deadly hunter as well. I had actually gone on a hunt and seen on of those in action myself. The cave dwellers have taught me about a special plant that you can rub on a dagger or spear and all you need to do is pierce the dinosaurs skin and the dinosaur will drop dead in a matter of seconds. I have learned how to fire the bow and arrow so I carry arrows, a dagger and a spear.
While we are out we come across a few harmless dinosaurs they are about the size of chickens I still have my laser gun so I shot one just to see how the animal would react. The laser was just powerful enough to bring the prehistoric poultry down for the count. The men laughed as the small dinosaur fell and started going into a fit. I didn't kill the animal I just stunned it. At least we found one game animal we could hunt with the laser if we started running low on fish.
We continued our walk around the mountain when I spotted a heard of Triceratops. The dinosaurs never ceased to amaze me. I thought their horns would be three little points on their heads and that would be the end of the story about them.
They were huge roughly the same size as the Stegosaurus Kevin and I had seen years ago. These giant beasts were brightly colored red with with bright orange on the crests above their heads. Their horns were long and sharp enough to penetrate at least six people at one try. We let the dinosaurs eat but we would be prepared if they decided to charge after us.
We walked down past the heard that seemed to ignore us and we walked to the river. The water was flowing down the mountain and over the rocks making some serious white water. It was hard hearing anything over the white rapids.