james lecky
Active Member
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2013
- Messages
- 40
These have been bugging me for a while, I wonder if anyone can help, my recollection of these is a little sketchy but I'll try to remember as much as I can:
The first one is a sf story I read years ago (probably in the 1970's, so I'm guessing it was written in the 1960's or earlier). It's a time travel story about a man (a doctor?) who travels back to the cave man era and finds himself trapped there. The only real detail I can recall is that he helps one of the cave dwellers who has a rotten tooth by extracting it - only to be attacked and have one of his own teeth knocked out in retaliation, later he treats a man with a (leg) wound, but the man rejects the treatment and instead rubs dung into the wound, leading to an infection which the doctor cannot treat. By the end of the story (or at some stage in it) he has found himself a wife among the cave people and fathered a son, but his son is killed (either by accident or murdered, I can't remember). The story is quite downbeat as I recall, and ends with the doctor still trapped in the past but determined to help where he can regardless of consequence.
The second is a horror story I read in perhaps a Pan or Fontana collection - and I'm even more sketchy on this one. A man comes to a small and sinister village, takes a room in the local inn. At night the streets are deserted and he sees strange, ghoulish figures wandering through the village. Somehow he incurs their wrath (or maybe he's just seen as fresh meat) and is attacked in his room and killed. The only real detail I have on this one is that he defends himself by hurling heavy books at the creatures as they climb the front of the inn and into his room.
Any help on either of these would be greatly appreciated.
The first one is a sf story I read years ago (probably in the 1970's, so I'm guessing it was written in the 1960's or earlier). It's a time travel story about a man (a doctor?) who travels back to the cave man era and finds himself trapped there. The only real detail I can recall is that he helps one of the cave dwellers who has a rotten tooth by extracting it - only to be attacked and have one of his own teeth knocked out in retaliation, later he treats a man with a (leg) wound, but the man rejects the treatment and instead rubs dung into the wound, leading to an infection which the doctor cannot treat. By the end of the story (or at some stage in it) he has found himself a wife among the cave people and fathered a son, but his son is killed (either by accident or murdered, I can't remember). The story is quite downbeat as I recall, and ends with the doctor still trapped in the past but determined to help where he can regardless of consequence.
The second is a horror story I read in perhaps a Pan or Fontana collection - and I'm even more sketchy on this one. A man comes to a small and sinister village, takes a room in the local inn. At night the streets are deserted and he sees strange, ghoulish figures wandering through the village. Somehow he incurs their wrath (or maybe he's just seen as fresh meat) and is attacked in his room and killed. The only real detail I have on this one is that he defends himself by hurling heavy books at the creatures as they climb the front of the inn and into his room.
Any help on either of these would be greatly appreciated.
