Oh, she looks fine, no doubt. But if you had actually ever SEEN her in person, you would know. No other woman could hold your fancy after that. She was a goddamn goddess.
In our old world The Big Guy would be away from alcohol and things he didn’t truly understand. He would be with The Woman. He could speak the old language and live the old ways. And me, I could come back to New York City where I truly belonged, among the civilized. I didn’t find that savage life all that appealing anymore. It was different when it was all that I knew, but I liked my winter heat and summer air-conditioning and no flying beast and saber-toothed cats. I liked what my money from the movie royalties could buy. It was my intent when I came back to get a college degree. I thought I might teach anthropology. Lots of college girls around, nice cushy job, retirement, and all that shit. It beat working, which with the money I had coming in from the films I wouldn’t have to do for a long time to come; but truth be told, it wouldn’t last forever. Already the checks were slightly smaller. It was a matter of time, and I had to plan for the future, and I didn’t have any plans where I would be out in the jungle with my ass hanging out in the wind, glancing over my shoulder for predators.
It took about two more months for them to get the zeppelin refurbished and for Dr. Rice to get the old navigator on the task. Turned out Bowen Tyler had retired from navigating air flights and was living in Greenwich in England (the half that belonged to Germany; he was there on a visa), and he was teaching at a small college in the area. He really didn’t want to go back into the air, but, as he was one of the few who knew how to get to our little lost world, we told him it was necessary, and he kindly agreed. We also knew we could trust Tyler, as he had refused to give the location of our world these last few years, though he was constantly asked. He had written about it, but never in any detail. His work was a fictional account, and I will be quick to add it is very fictional and has little to do with the truth. He got the part right about how savage the place was, about the creatures that lived there, but the rest of it, about evolutionary pools and submarines, and so on, that was just pulp magazine junk. Another reason we have been marked down to nothing more than a hoax. But hell, that’s all right with me.
Bottom line is it all got planned. The Big Guy healed up good as new. That’s how he was. He could mend quickly, and considering how many injuries he had from that car crash, it was amazing. The doctors who worked on him were astonished. One of them, a nice man named Dr. Cupp, told me that there was something different about The Big Guy’s insides, that it appeared as if everything was unique about his body. That would have been the injection he received from his parents, but I didn’t say that, though I had done a bit of research on the matter, and figured that the drug he had been given not only gave him long life, but made him capable of healing rapidly and perfectly. He could be hurt, and he could die, but because of that drug, he had advantages over you and me.
Now, if you are paying attention, I bet you are thinking about now what I was thinking about then, and it was simply that The Woman didn’t have that serum in her blood. What happened when she aged, and he did not? It was an ugly thing to think about. I decided for the time being to be silent.
[14]
O n an early morning with the copper sun edging into the city, we launched off from atop the Empire State Building and into the rising light. No cars and no people visible; the city had not truly awakened yet. It was so quiet up there you could have heard a gnat fart. As we rose, a flock of white birds flew before us, and I took that as a good omen.
Let me tell you what I know now.
Omens are for shit.
…
The zeppelin had been worked on and retooled. It was larger, but
In our old world The Big Guy would be away from alcohol and things he didn’t truly understand. He would be with The Woman. He could speak the old language and live the old ways. And me, I could come back to New York City where I truly belonged, among the civilized. I didn’t find that savage life all that appealing anymore. It was different when it was all that I knew, but I liked my winter heat and summer air-conditioning and no flying beast and saber-toothed cats. I liked what my money from the movie royalties could buy. It was my intent when I came back to get a college degree. I thought I might teach anthropology. Lots of college girls around, nice cushy job, retirement, and all that shit. It beat working, which with the money I had coming in from the films I wouldn’t have to do for a long time to come; but truth be told, it wouldn’t last forever. Already the checks were slightly smaller. It was a matter of time, and I had to plan for the future, and I didn’t have any plans where I would be out in the jungle with my ass hanging out in the wind, glancing over my shoulder for predators.
It took about two more months for them to get the zeppelin refurbished and for Dr. Rice to get the old navigator on the task. Turned out Bowen Tyler had retired from navigating air flights and was living in Greenwich in England (the half that belonged to Germany; he was there on a visa), and he was teaching at a small college in the area. He really didn’t want to go back into the air, but, as he was one of the few who knew how to get to our little lost world, we told him it was necessary, and he kindly agreed. We also knew we could trust Tyler, as he had refused to give the location of our world these last few years, though he was constantly asked. He had written about it, but never in any detail. His work was a fictional account, and I will be quick to add it is very fictional and has little to do with the truth. He got the part right about how savage the place was, about the creatures that lived there, but the rest of it, about evolutionary pools and submarines, and so on, that was just pulp magazine junk. Another reason we have been marked down to nothing more than a hoax. But hell, that’s all right with me.
Bottom line is it all got planned. The Big Guy healed up good as new. That’s how he was. He could mend quickly, and considering how many injuries he had from that car crash, it was amazing. The doctors who worked on him were astonished. One of them, a nice man named Dr. Cupp, told me that there was something different about The Big Guy’s insides, that it appeared as if everything was unique about his body. That would have been the injection he received from his parents, but I didn’t say that, though I had done a bit of research on the matter, and figured that the drug he had been given not only gave him long life, but made him capable of healing rapidly and perfectly. He could be hurt, and he could die, but because of that drug, he had advantages over you and me.
Now, if you are paying attention, I bet you are thinking about now what I was thinking about then, and it was simply that The Woman didn’t have that serum in her blood. What happened when she aged, and he did not? It was an ugly thing to think about. I decided for the time being to be silent.
[14]
O n an early morning with the copper sun edging into the city, we launched off from atop the Empire State Building and into the rising light. No cars and no people visible; the city had not truly awakened yet. It was so quiet up there you could have heard a gnat fart. As we rose, a flock of white birds flew before us, and I took that as a good omen.
Let me tell you what I know now.
Omens are for shit.
…
The zeppelin had been worked on and retooled. It was larger, but
Similar Books
