In the distance, a troop of macaques belted out a series of barking calls. The sound echoed throughout the canopy. Suddenly Marty felt small and vulnerable, a fish out of water in a primeval world that had existed relatively unchanged for millions of years before him and would exist for millions more to come.

We shouldn’t be here, he thought. We need to leave.

Rad, appearing uneasy, said, “Okay, let’s head back—”

Jacky screamed.

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

MARTY

Jacky and Rad leapt to their feet. Marty looked to where Jacky was looking. He saw nothing at first but palm fronds and shrubbery and shadows…before making out a darker shape, solid and unmoving, what might have been a head, and shoulders. The full man came into focus, and Marty wasn’t sure how he’d missed him in the first place. He had shoulder-length black hair and a long beard that reached the middle of his smooth, brown chest. He wore a necklace made of curved animal teeth and a loincloth suspended by a string around his waist. An axe was hooked over his shoulder, the wooden haft parallel to his right arm, within easy reach. He was staring unblinking at the group, his brow angry, his eyes intense.

From beside Marty, Rad gasped. She saw him too.

Unconsciously he moved his hand, found hers, and gripped it firmly.

Jacky was turning in a circle, her feet disturbing dead leaves, the only sound Marty heard aside from the blood pounding in his temples. She said something so softly he didn’t catch what it was until Rad asked “Where?” and he realized Jacky had said there were more of them.

More of whom? Marty wondered, picking out the other men camouflaged in shadows and vegetation, all of them statue-still, wraith-like, watching…and holding weapons. Axes, bows, spears. They looked as though they had just stepped out of the Neolithic era.

“What should we do?” Rad asked in a stilted way that suggested she was trying not to move her lips.

“Don’t do anything,” Marty told her.

Jacky had stopped turning. “They’re all around us.”

“What do they want?” Rad demanded.

“Likely nothing,” he said. “Stay calm. Maybe they’ll go away.”

The one with the axe hooked over his shoulder stepped forward. He was shorter than Marty, stocky yet muscular.

“It’s okay,” Marty said to him. “We’re leaving.” He pointed the way they’d come.

The man’s dark eyes showed no sign of understanding. The frown lines between his eyebrows bunched tighter.

“Follow me,” he said to Rad and Jacky.

He only took two steps when three of the tribesmen moved with the quiet stealth of hunters to stand shoulder to shoulder, blocking his path.

“Shit,” he muttered.

“What do they want?” Jacky hissed.

The one with the axe spoke, a quick, short burst of words.

“Did either of you understand that?” Marty asked.

“No,” said Rad.

“No,” said Jacky.