Authors: Chad Oliver
The
ground
was
wet
and
marshy
around
him,
but Mark
was
unaware
of
it.
He
put
one
foot
mechanically ahead
of
the
other
and
plodded
on,
his
shoes
making sucking
noises
in
the
soft
earth.
His
pace
had
slowed to
a
virtual
crawl,
and
he
knew
that
he
had
to
find some
place
in
which
to
rest.
He
kept
on
until
he
could
go
no
farther
and
then cut
back
into
the
mountain
foothills.
He
looked
around him
dazedly.
There
were
a
few
pines,
but
nothing that
offered
any
hope
of
concealment.
He
was
just on
the
verge
of
collapsing
where
he
was
and
taking a
chance
when
he
noticed
an
outcropping
of
rock
on
a little
ledge
above
him
to
the
east.
He
crawled
up
to it,
hand
over
hand,
unable
to
stay
on
his
feet.
He pulled
himself
over
the
outcropping
and
found
a
slight depression
in
the
rock
wall,
surrounded
by
large
and formidable
boulders.
He
dragged
his
body
inside, where
he
was
at
least
sheltered
from
the
cold
wind.
It
was
not
the
best
possible
place,
but
he
could
go no
farther.
He
was
wet
and
numb
with
cold,
but
he knew
that
he
did
not
dare
to
build
a
fire,
even
if he
had
had
the
strength
to
do
it,
which
he
hadn’t.
He took
out
his
.45
and
wiped
it
as
dry
as
he
could
on his
torn
shirt,
and
then
returned
it
to
its
holster.
Gasping
for
breath,
his
chest
aflame
with
pain,
he
thought briefly
of
climbing
out
to
get
some
snow
he
saw.
He could
eat
the
snow
and
thus
quench
his
thirst
a
little—
But
his
body
refused
to
move.
It
had
served
him well,
but
it
was
spent.
Mark
heard
his
heart
beating with
a
rapid,
exhausted
flutter
and
he
could
not
even move
his
hand.
He
was
hopelessly
cut
off
from
the
space-time
machine.
He
was
ill
and
unutterably
tired,
without
food or
water.
He
did
not
even
have
the
satisfaction
of knowing
that
he
had
eluded
the
Neanderthals;
they might
be
right
behind
him,
and
he
was
too
weak
even to
pull
the
trigger
of
his
.45.
Mark
looked
at
the
cold moon,
now
fading
in
the
east.
From
the
plains
that stretched
below
him,
he
heard
the
trumpeting
cry
of some
animal
that
he
could
not
even
imagine.
For
the first
time,
he
became
aware
of
the
enormity
of
the thing
that
had
happened
to
him.
He
was
only
a
boy, after
all,
and
he
was
tired
and
hungry
and
terribly alone.
A
line
from
a
poem
he
had
once
read
whispered through
his
mind
in
the
dawn
of
time
.
.
.
I,
a
stranger
and
afraid—
In
a
world
I
never
made
…
Mark
coughed
brokenly
as
sleep
washed
over
him like
a
warm
and
comforting
sea.
He
was
a
long,
long way,
and
a
long,
long
time,
from
home.