Lightning streaks everywhere. My fur burns. Thunder pulverizes my ears, and I can’t tell if I am lying down or tumbling through the air. When the world settles, I am flat on the ground with charred and smoldering men scattered about me.
A fissure that had not been there before now snakes across the ground, and what had been a flat ledge now slopes gently downward. Smoke rises from the very rocks. I strain to all fours, but my injured leg gives way. Three men with spears come toward me. I struggle up and lurch. But not toward them.
I dive into the fissure, and push with my good hind leg against one side and my shoulders against the other. Nothing happens. Men laugh at me. I push harder, my ribs popping, realizing I will probably die looking a fool. A few pebbles fall onto my belly. The crevice widens, and the ground lurches downward. A man on the rim of the ledge falls screaming into the river.
The men rush up the now steepening slope. Flashes of lightning illuminate the fear on their faces, and they lose interest in killing me. They stumble into the trench I hold. Some I push back. Some I kill. A few make it past me. Rocks roll toward the river. So do men.
Pu’nah strains to get over the fissure. Two arms and a leg make it across, but I bite into his lagging leg. As we struggle, other men use my back as a bridge.
“Let me go,” Pu’nah yells. “You stupid beast! We can both live!”
But I don’t need to let him go to live. I will live in stories. I will live in Kip’s memory. And I will live as a part of this land. I crush Pu’nah’s head in my jaws. The ground cleaves, and we fall.
~~~
I float. I am a spirit now. Perhaps I will see my father. Who else might I see? I keep my eyes closed, not wanting to know the answer, not wanting to think of those whom I’ve betrayed. Something lands on my nose. Ach!The spirit of a fly? I swipe it away and open my eyes.
I lie on a lumbering mammoth. Bears and mammoths trudge forward. The plain before me is just as never-ending as the one behind. The sky is blue and stretches into the same infinity. I crane my neck backward, but it feels like it’s full of cactus prickles, and I let my head fall again onto the mammoth.
“Old Mother?”
From a few paces away I hear, “Over here, you fool. I’m far too old to be carrying bears around.”
I smile and it hurts. Everything hurts. My lower body is little more than an assortment of bone fragments.
“Believe it or not, Kerg, you’re in much better shape than the man we found lying underneath you. Not enough left for a buzzard there. Oh that reminds me.” She reaches her trunk behind her ear. “That cub of yours will make quite a hunter some day. This poor bird’s feet had barely touched the ground before he was hanging from Kip’s mouth. Though for the life of me I don’t know how you eat this stuff.” She tosses me something.
It’s the leg of a condor.
~~~
ADAM DUNSBY has published speculative fiction in venues such as Story Quest Magazine and The Nautilus Engine. He has also published nonfiction in the field of investing. He lives in Connecticut.
What if the legends of angels arose from an extinct human branch? Lucia doesn’t believe in angels — but she might believe in a little boy cloned from a forgotten race.
THE ANGEL GENOME
by Chrystalla Thoma
Lucia smoothed her black dress over her legs, wondering what her ex-husband wanted now. She patted her hair, twirled a dark curl around a finger, pulled it behind her ear. Grabbing her lipstick, she applied brick red to her lips — her armor against a bad day — and snapped on the phone’s loudspeaker.
“Hey, Fred.”Deep breath. “They tell me you’ve called ten times this morning already. What’s so important?”
“Lucy?” His bright voice grated on her sorrow. The accident had happened barely six months ago. How could he sound so happy? “You’ve been avoiding me. Listen, I won’t take much of your time. Do you remember the Angel Genome Project?”
God, not again. She opened a financial report on her computer and stared at the numbers without really seeing them. “Yes. What about it? They were going to sequence the genome of whatever it was they found in Iran. Angels, they said. We’ve got the mammoth parks and the Neanderthal town. Let’s clone angels, have ourselves a park with cherubs, a wish-fulfillment fantasy with merry-go-rounds and everything.”
“Such a cynic, girl. You used to believe in science. You even signed that donor card after we had Sammy, remember?”
Stiffening, she closed her eyes. She had, hadn’t she? There had been a time she was hopeful and happy and believed in so many things. “Don’t call me girl, Fred, it’s patronizing. I’m not your girl or anybody’s. And hurry this up.”
“All right.” His voice darkened. “Listen, I’m going to break some big news to you. Ready?” When she didn’t answer, he sighed. “Right. You know I’ve been financing part of the project.” He paused. “It’s done, Lucy. We cloned one. We’ve got an angel.”
She froze, blinking, fingers poised above the keyboard. “What did you say?”
“It’s a boy. He’s six now. I want you to meet him.”
“There’re no angels, Fred. Wake up. And I don’t want to meet anybody.”
“I got you a private session.”
“For what?”
“To meet the angel, of course.In person. Go to the Angelus Project Foundation and ask to talk to Marcia. She’ll let you in. You cannot imagine —”
“Fred.” Cold gripped her spine. “Stop calling him an angel. He isn’t one.” She didn’t believe in angels, not
