BY NORMAN PRENTISS<\/span><\/h4>\nWhat could <\/span>possibly<\/span><\/i> be worse than the giant gnashing nightmare bearing down on me?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThat high-pitched scream indicated a horrific instant of torture — and the certainty that the torture would continue.<\/span><\/p>\nThe Tyrannosaurus paused, its prehistoric ear-holes evidently pierced by the woman\u2019s shrill outburst. It shook its head, then looked past me and into the forest.<\/span><\/p>\nKenneth rushed out of the shadows, back into T-Rex territory. His face was flushed, arms waving at the air. The scream belonged to him, not Barb, and it continued.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nBarb and Troy followed from the forest, both of their faces twisted in pantomimes of terror.<\/span><\/p>\nWhatever scared them, might also be enough to scare the Tyrannosaurus — a hopeful thought, but mixed with dread of what new threat awaited.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nIt poured out of the woods: a foul-smelling mass of hair and filthy, scabbing skin, rushing upright on multiple scrambling legs. A giant, bristled centipede.<\/span><\/p>\nPatterns along its segmented torso fluttered open like tiny screaming mouths. Stiff bristles, brown and talon-tipped like porcupine quills, waved in the air.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAs with any worm-like creature, it was difficult to tell which end was which. I tried to distinguish the monster\u2019s head.<\/span><\/p>\nUntil I realized they were all heads. The repetitive mouth-like designs I\u2019d seen along the centipede\u2019s back actually <\/span>were<\/span><\/i> mouths, and each pair of legs belonged to a hideous humanoid figure. The stiff porcupine bristles were hand-fashioned spears.<\/span><\/p>\nThe cavemen moved in such tight formation that their heads practically knocked together, and their dark hair intertwined into a massive frizzy carpet. As they swarmed onto the beach, they began to separate, each stocky, loping body becoming distinct.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThere were hundreds of them — essentially an army — and I knew their number had frightened the rest of our group. But there was another aspect to their appearance that made them especially terrifying. These were not your well-groomed upright Cro-Magnon or the hunched and muscular Neanderthal that you\u2019d find on the Ascent of Man chart in the first chapter of your Civilization textbook. These hominids were savage creatures, waving weapons they\u2019d built, and moving as if they shared one primitive mind, swarming fearlessly across the beach toward that giant lizard.<\/span><\/p>\nTheir faces were a mess of red-leather folds and wrinkles and crusted pustules; their teeth had rotted into sharpened fangs; their bloodshot eyes flashed a vacant yet malicious stare. Each of their hideous loping movements followed a preening choreography that was especially unsettling.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThat\u2019s when I knew why Kenneth and Barb and Troy had been so terrified. I wanted to let out my own high-pitched scream.<\/span><\/p>\nBecause I recognized them. Our ancestors. The worst of us, unexorcised by veneers of civilization, unashamed of that unclean, gnarled exterior, their bodies swarming forth in a mindless mob.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe dinosaur snapped once at the area above them, careful not to catch one in its mouth. Spears flew through the air, but the foul mass of cavemen bodies was deterrent enough: the Tyrannosaurus turned tail and ran. The lizard stepped quickly across the beach, diving into the path it previously made through the forest. Its taloned foot caught the edge of our raft where Troy had hidden it, tearing through cloth and rubber.<\/span><\/p>\nThe cavemen, soundless and relentless, followed the beast into the forest.<\/span><\/p>\nOne of them remained behind.<\/span><\/p>\nJack helped me up from the ground, and I tested one foot and then the other. My right leg was sore, and I had to lean against him to remain standing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nKenneth held Barb close, in a territorial assertion of their relationship.<\/span><\/p>\nTroy instinctively moved ahead of our group, suggesting himself as our leader — appropriate, since he was the one who\u2019d slayed the first dinosaur. Shirtless and covered in dried, stinking blood, he was also our most primitive representative, and the closest match for the caveman\u2019s demeanor.<\/span><\/p>\nUp close, the caveman was even more horrifying. He was older than most of the group, but his hair had not turned gray. Instead of wrinkles, the skin on his face had ridges of leathery meat veined with a sickly white gristle, like undercooked bacon, framed by a lion\u2019s mane of bristled beard. The hair on his torso grew in odd, matted patterns: a ring around his neck seemed almost like a braided collar, and his chest looked like a patchwork sweater that had been eaten by moths. Below the waist, he wore a small stiff undergarment which I guessed was the uncomfortable texture of steel wool.<\/span><\/p>\nThe caveman — a straggler or a medicine man or a leader-chief, but I\u2019ll call him the elder statesman — made a brief attempt to stand up straight. In response, Troy offered a slight bow. Next the elder statesman bounced on one foot and then the other. He pointed at the dead Stink Bug dinosaur, then at Troy, and grunted through rotten-fanged teeth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<Did you kill that beast?><\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n(And Celia, I\u2019m only guessing what he tried to say. Basically, I was on the losing team of the worst possible game of charades, downwind from a rotting dinosaur corpse and trying to keep a respectful demeanor while ol\u2019 caveguy\u2019s sweat-matted armpit and crotch musk wafted thick in the air.)<\/span><\/p>\nTroy acknowledged his kill by squatting in a rider\u2019s posture, arms miming his attacks at the creature\u2019s eye and neck.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe caveman paused, clearly impressed. Then he beat at his chest, with thumps so powerful that a few scabs or flecks of dirt fell from his arms. He shook his head back and forth, then pointed at Troy\u2019s face. At his mouth.<\/span><\/p>\n<And are you also the fool whose boastful cries echoed in the forest, calling down an even mightier beast that you hadn\u2019t skills or weapons to defend yourself against?><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n(Or something to that effect. Believe me, Troy understood the gist of his grunted remarks. We all did. Our guide had beamed with pride when admitting he\u2019d killed the smaller dinosaur single-handed, but now his face fell in humiliation.<\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019d thought of our caveman as Elder Statesman, but the more accurate label should have been Jester — as borne out by his continued acts of mimicry.)<\/span><\/p>\nOur caveman Jester had trouble breathing now, hand on his stomach and a series of uncontrollable snorts from the back of his throat. <\/span><And you,> <\/span><\/i>he said, high ballerina kicks alternating one leg then the other, while pointing a <\/span>tsk<\/span><\/i>-ing finger at Kenneth, <\/span><running away like a baby.><\/span><\/i> Pausing to catch his laughing breath, then scrunching his face to make a high-pitch shriek, <\/span><And squealing like a scared baby, too!><\/span><\/i><\/p>\nAfter another series of snorts, the Jester nearly collapsed in laughter. Next he held one leg, then deliberately knocked it from under himself to crumple in an exaggerated pratfall.<\/span><\/p>\nHis performance was so elaborate that it took a moment for the satire\u2019s target to recognize himself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nMe. My fall as I\u2019d run from the Tyrannosaurus.<\/span><\/p>\nThe caveman rolled on the ground like a turtle stuck on its back. He touched his \u201csore\u201d leg with a gentle fingertip, then snapped back in a mime of agony. <\/span><Boo, hoo, I hurt my widdle weg. I\u2019ve fallen, wah, wah!> <\/span><\/i>He kept rolling on the ground, his expression scrunched in a baby-cry face.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nI felt warm. Not just from the Jester at my feet, pointing up at me and laughing, but from the sense that a whole swarm of cavemen were watching from the forest shadows, an audience for this primitive comedy routine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAs I thought of them — of that whole hideous population that swarmed to our humiliated rescue…and this older caveman left behind to mock us, a hunched figure lolling on the ground, the hair of his scalp swept up and away from his face, and falling to his neckline in the back.<\/span><\/p>\nA mullet. It hadn\u2019t registered with me earlier, but all of the cavemen wore their hair in a mullet.<\/span><\/p>\nI felt even warmer. If Jack looked at me, he might have seen steam coming out of my ears.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nBut he didn\u2019t dare look at me.<\/span><\/p>\nThe way the hair around the Jester\u2019s neck grew in an odd braided pattern, like a collar. Or a bow tie.<\/span><\/p>\nAll of the caveman had a similar pattern, like an army dressed in similar uniform, or dancers wearing the same costume.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nOh God, that was the other thing that had been so disturbingly familiar about these cavemen. Mullets. Bow-ties. Speedo-sized garments over their loins.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAn army of prehistoric men, choreographed like the world\u2019s earliest troupe of male strippers.<\/span><\/p>\n#<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cStop it, Jack.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m not…\u201d If my partner tried to feign innocence, he should have done it without a smirk on his face.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cJust stop.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nDespite that lingering smirk, Jack seemed genuinely confused. His head tilted — a sheepish gesture of apology, meant for my eyes alone.<\/span><\/p>\nWhich made sense. I was the only person in our group who\u2019d have any inkling that Jack had caused our recent fantastical experiences. If the others suspected Jack had summoned the whirlpool or the dinosaur attacks — a parade of images with sounds and smells…and <\/span>teeth<\/span><\/i>…to match, dream-glamours that had the physical presence to toss our raft like a toy or crush us with a giant taloned foot — they\u2019d be furious.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThey\u2019d be angry at me also, by association. We\u2019d have fared better with dinosaurs or Chippendale\u2019s cavemen than we would with pissed-off Troy and Barb and Kenneth.<\/span><\/p>\nSo to save Jack\u2019s skin, and my own, I played dumb. I rubbed my eyes, and muttered a Shakespeare-stilted line, something like, <\/span>do I dream, or do I wake?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\nOur environment shifted to support my utterance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n(I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve ever explained what it\u2019s like to emerge from one of Jack\u2019s glamours, but it\u2019s very similar to waking from a vivid dream. Reality intrudes but sometimes doesn\u2019t fully banish the sub- or other-conscious follies that seemed so natural just seconds earlier. It takes deliberate effort to restore normalcy, a figurative pinch at logic — <\/span>I saw that rabid werewolf so clearly, but that\u2019s impossible because the lights were off in my bedroom, and I\u2019m not wearing my glasses<\/span><\/i>, that sort of thing, and also <\/span>werewolves are stupid<\/span><\/i> — and <\/span>poof!<\/span><\/i> you\u2019re awake and back in the calm, mostly-predictable world. In this case, our Jester Caveman who\u2019d been lolling on the ground to mock my clumsy fall was both there and not there, yet it\u2019s as if I\u2019d simply stopped thinking about him, or Jack had, our reality like a mind that has moved on to other things.)<\/span><\/p>\nThe Jester was gone, because he shouldn\u2019t have been there to begin with. Troy was shirtless, but without reptile blood war-painting his torso. The ridiculous dinosaur corpse had disappeared, too, the sky was blue with modern-day clouds, and we stood on a muddy shoreline that was nothing like a red-sand Jurassic beach.<\/span><\/p>\nOur raft lay intact, half docked in mud and rocks, half afloat on calm water.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cFor a while there,\u201d Jack said, \u201cI thought this tour felt a little too authentic.\u201d He shook his head slowly, arms out like a drunk driver preparing to walk a straight line after being pulled over by the cops.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cKinda lost my place,\u201d Troy said while taking in our surroundings. \u201cBut I know where we are now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cIt was the drink.\u201d Kenneth, whose girlfriend had angrily rejected his wire-kite Pterodactyl theory, again attempted the steadying voice of reason. \u201cYour Pap\u2019s batch of hootch must have gone bad — had some peyote or wacky mushrooms in it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nBarb backed him up this time. \u201cWe\u2019d been expecting dinosaurs on the tour. It\u2019s power of suggestion, right? I mean, that\u2019s what I <\/span>thought <\/span><\/i>I saw…\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nShe looked from one to the other of us for confirmation. I hoped everybody would keep quiet. A conspiracy of denial, like I imagine the Donner survivors tried to maintain when they realized they were being rescued. <\/span>Nah, I don\u2019t know where the others\u2019 bodies disappeared to. <urp!> Oh, pardon me.<\/span><\/i> Because if we started sharing stories, matching detail to detail, that would make our experiences seem more real.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI saw colors,\u201d I blurted out. \u201cBright wavy lights and floating geometric shapes.\u201d I reached in front of me, as if hoping to pluck lingering shapes from the air — apples from Eden\u2019s tree, bursting like soap bubbles.<\/span><\/p>\nJack caught on and followed my lead, insisted he\u2019d been flying like a fairy princess, his wings spread wide and a sparkling contrail following him thorough pink clouds.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n(It\u2019s not politically correct, but Jack made his account, well, as <\/span>gay<\/span><\/i> as possible. He actually mentioned rainbows and Judy Garland. The idea was to embarrass the others — hopefully, scare them out of sharing their dinosaur and cavemen stories and reaching a consensus.)<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThat\u2019s enough of that,\u201d Troy said. \u201cImportant thing is to get back to the shop.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nTroy jogged over to inspect the raft. Kenneth headed that way also, and he tried to copy our guide\u2019s confident stride — reasserting his masculinity, I guess, even though the rest of us weren\u2019t supposed to have witnessed the taunting he\u2019d gotten from Jester the Caveman.<\/span><\/p>\nBarb glared at me and Jack, her gears turning, and I could swear we were busted. Instead, she shook her head with a bemused chuckle, then walked over to join the men who hadn\u2019t hallucinated about bright lights and Tinkerbell.<\/span><\/p>\n#<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cIt wasn\u2019t me,\u201d Jack whispered once she was out of earshot. \u201cNot intentionally, at least.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI believe you. Except for those final moments.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cKinda had my signature.\u201d He checked the others, their attention firmly on the raft, and risked an arm across my shoulders, a quick brush of fingers across the back of my neck. \u201cI honestly wasn\u2019t controlling it — was as scared as the rest of us. Then those cavemen showed up…\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nBarb\u2019s head turned slightly, and I stepped away from Jack\u2019s half-embrace, letting his arm fall to the side.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019ll admit to <\/span>some<\/span><\/i> of those closing effects,\u201d Jack said. \u201cI mean, I\u2019ve never been able to do that before — the sounds and smells and physical contact. Physical <\/span>threat.<\/span><\/i> I\u2019d been nervous because of the water, that paper-thin raft bobbing on the river, and maybe those fears intensified some of my powers?\u201d His next words were whispered so softly I could barely hear them: \u201cI don\u2019t want to go back on that raft. I\u2019m afraid of what might happen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nThe exact same thought had occurred to me. But we\u2019d been scared before, and it had never given a sensory boost to Jack\u2019s projected hallucinations. \u201cI actually think Kenneth got it right,\u201d I reassured him. \u201cThere was something wrong with the drink we all shared.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cA bad trip?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cLiterally. Terrible lizards.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nBarb jogged up from the embankment, her sneakered feet squishing loud in the mud. \u201cTroy decided the raft looks fine,\u201d she said, and I sensed Jack deflating beside me. \u201cBut he wants to be a hundred percent sure it\u2019s seaworthy before using it again. There\u2019s a trail that will get us back to the road, but he says it\u2019s a pretty rough hike. You guys up for it?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nShe looked mainly at me, as if recollecting a nasty fall I\u2019d taken, a tender twist to my ankle. Knowing Jack\u2019s preference, I figured I could answer for both of us. \u201cWe\u2019ll be fine with the hike.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nBarb yelled our assent to the guide, and he and Kenneth secured the raft in place before joining us to share the game plan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe route we followed took us through unmarked, unpaved paths, some of it steep. On one rocky slope, it felt as if I was climbing on a vast cheese grater — helpful with traction, but if I slipped my clothes and skin would have scraped off in fine shreds.<\/span><\/p>\nPhysical exertion was a blessing, though. The ground may have been unfamiliar and challenging, but it was solid beneath us. We concentrated on the journey, getting from one spot to another. Troy shouted instructions whenever the terrain changed, and none of us talked about absurd whirlpools, dinosaurs, or cavemen. If we spoke at all, it was to complain of headaches, dizziness, sore backs and feet.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nAnd an awful sinking in our stomachs from a bad batch of homemade hooch.<\/span><\/p>\n#<\/span><\/p>\nI never expected I\u2019d be so happy to see that dingy gas station again. I coughed from dust raised with each footstep, but the ground was <\/span>level,<\/span><\/i> and the simple wood-and-glass building was surrounded with a firm walkway of concrete.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nPeople took turns visiting the station\u2019s one bathroom, while Troy went to the dinosaur exhibit to retrieve our belongings from the lockbox. The dispenser in the bathroom provided a gritty soap powder that barely dissolved in water, and I used it on my hands and arms and face, then took off my shirt and scrubbed at my chest and armpits, wiping off brown water with sandpaper-brown paper towels.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nJack smiled when I emerged back into the store. I guess I looked flushed and healthy, finally, after the day\u2019s ordeal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nHis own visit to the bathroom took less than a minute. Afterwards, he pretty much rushed me to the car.<\/span><\/p>\nI opened the passenger-side door and rolled down the window before climbing into the VW. \u201cNot that I want to linger,\u201d I said, \u201cbut don\u2019t you want to interview Troy, or maybe his dad, about the history of the exhibits? For the travelogue you\u2019re writing?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nHe tapped the side of his forehead. \u201cGot everything I needed.\u201d Jack tossed his large pack between the bucket seats, and it thumped and sloshed behind us. Then he twisted the key in the ignition, and the Beetle puttered to life.<\/span><\/p>\nJack glanced in the rearview mirror before pulling out of the lot. It wasn\u2019t the routine move of a cautious driver: to me, it seemed more like the nervous glance of a bank robber pulling away as the alarms sounded.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nA joke, really, because who would rob a bank in a VW Beetle?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nYet the metaphor seemed too accurate. Jack\u2019s quick decisions on the road, without waiting for me to trace our route on the fold-out map, suggested he didn\u2019t care which way we went. He was simply putting as much distance as possible between us and the gas station. His face had broken out in sweat — not simply from summer\u2019s heat, or delayed nerves after surviving the day\u2019s ordeal. There was exhilaration in it.<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cWhat did you do?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
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