by Teresa Grabs
Charlie wasn’t anxious or scared, which helped her keep her composure even though inside she was screaming and running around in circles. Charlie trotted into the cave as if he always lived there. Echo shrugged and tucked her fear into a closet in the back of her mind and slowly walked in after him.
The back wall of the cave was covered in a type of sticky mucus that gave off a faint blue light that bounced around the cave, providing enough light to see its contents. The floor was hard and stamped down, and a small boulder acted as a chair. Next to Michael’s chair was a metal plate, fork, and a worn blanket filled with holes from dry rot. He must have been here quite a while, and she wondered if he had carved this cave for his home himself. It just looked too homey to be a natural cave.
“He had a nice cave,” she told Charlie. “Don’t think he’d mind if we take it over, do you?”
Charlie cocked his head and barked. Echo laughed. He always seemed to understand what she was saying. Leaning against the cave entrance, Echo gazed the night sky and breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time since they left the city, she felt safe and secure in a proper enclosed space. She looked around the cave and sat on the rocky chair. Echo collected the blanket and scrunched it up for a bed for Charlie. He was happy to have something to lay on that reminded him of his dog bed back in Echo’s room at home. He curled up and immediately went to sleep. Echo petted him and sighed. She was pleased to have Charlie here with her. If it weren’t for him, she might have died like Matthew at the rock oasis. She leaned back and looked at the stars through the cave entrance.
“I’m sorry, Matthew. I’m sad you died, but I’m happy I’m alive. You weren’t nothing. Neither was Michael, or Edward, or even Andrew.”
Echo pulled out the family photo and told Johnny of the storm, what happened to her old home, and described her new home. She wrote about the storm, finding Michael and their new home, and of seeing the object glinting on the horizon in her journal.
“There’s all kinds of stuff out here, Charlie. This is where they threw the ones they didn’t think belonged in their city. Maybe that’s why they called it the Austero Plains. They think we are nothing. They’re wrong. We’re not nothing. Michael and Matthew weren’t nothing either. We need to find a new name for it, Charlie. Tomorrow we’ll do that. And we’ll go find out what was reflecting the light that I saw.”
She laid next to Charlie and gently fell asleep.
◆◆◆
It was another warm day, but a cool breeze cooled Echo off as she drew water from the old stone well in front of her house. The old woman’s garden was gone, and grass had replaced the rows of growing vegetables. Charlie ran around barking and chasing after birds that enjoyed teasing him knowing he couldn’t climb trees. She laughed and watched Charlie leap again and again as he tried to catch a bird on a low-hanging branch. As she pulled the full wooden bucket up by its rope, two young boys walked over the crest of the hill carrying fishing poles. She had never seen them before, but she was happy to see people again, especially people close to her age.
“Howdy,” the tallest boy said as they got closer.
“Hi,” Echo said, smiling. “Catch anything?”
The younger boy frowned and shook his head. “No fish left. Too bad too, cause Mom says if there’s no more fish then we have to leave like the others.”
Echo leaned on the well and looked closer at the boys. They weren’t dressed like the old man and woman. The older boy wore a white t-shirt like Johnny’s but thicker, and he wore heavy blue pants turned up at the bottom so that they barely touched his ankles. The younger boy wore overalls, no shirt, and rolled up pant legs. Neither had shoes or socks on.
“Where’d the others go?” Echo asked, offering them some water.
The boys looked at each other as if Echo had just asked what kind of fruit went in an apple pie and snickered. She was used to strange looks from the people she met near her house, but their expressions made her laugh.
“What do you mean? They went to the new city. To Hope. Can’t live in the old ones anymore,” the older boy said.
“Who would want to,” the younger boy added. “There’s nothing there.”
Could their new city be Bakerton? Is this a dream, or the past? Echo had so many questions running through her head that she never thought of with the others. Would they answer them? Where to start? So many things she wanted to know. Before she had a chance to ask anything, Charlie’s incessant barking turned from playful to a warning. Vicious. Growls filled the air around them, and Echo instinctively ducked as birds bolted from the trees and took to safety in the air. Even the boys were startled and looked scared.
◆◆◆
Echo’s eyes jerked open. Wide awake. Her heart pounded in her chest as she bolted upright, standing pinned against the cave wall. She heard Charlie outside the cave entrance barking at something. She had never heard him bark like that. He wasn’t playing, nor was he afraid. Something was out there. Echo quickly searched around for something, anything she could use to defend herself and Charlie. Her foot stepped on her backpack, and she remembered the man’s hammer.
“Hang on Charlie, I’m coming,” she hollered, trying to calm her trembling hands enough to open her backpack and retrieve the hammer.
She stood in the middle of the safety of the cave. Tears formed as she wrestled between staying in the safe cave or running to her possible death. Another bark and a single, small yelp from Charlie made her decision for her. Echo shrieked the highest pitched scream she ever thought possible and bolted from the cave, waving the hammer around in wide circles over her head ready to attack anything or anyone that hurt her friend. Whatever that had been there ran off, but growls in the distance stirred memories of Andrew and the anghenbeast her first night. She panted and spun in a circle. Looking. Waiting. Nothing came as she slowly lowered her arms as her breathing slowed and her anxiety waned.
“Charlie!” she yelled. “Come here, boy!”
Nothing. Panic rose again. Where was Charlie? Where was her friend? Was she too late?
“CHARLIE!” she screamed, tears flowing down her dusty face.
She heard his bark first, then saw his tiny frame outlined in the rising sun. Echo ran to him, snatched him up in her arms, and hugged him. He let out a yelp but licked her face, happy to see his owner and friend alive. She snuggled her face in his fur all the way back to their cave. There, she laid him on his bed and saw the slash in his back leg. It wasn’t too deep, and the remnants of Matthew’s uniform made perfect bandages. After fixing him up, she treated him like the king and savior he was. If he had not barked and carried on the way he did, the anghenbeasts could have easily killed her in her sleep. She fed him the last of the strawberries and carrots that she collected the day before.
“Was it really one of them?” Echo stroked his fur while he ate, wishing he could talk.
For the first time since her exile, she knew for certain that she had more to fear than dying of thirst or hunger. There were unseen enemies out there. Maybe these weren’t the anghenbeast. Maybe there were other, more vicious things out there. Maybe they had been watching her the whole time. Waiting for the right moment to strike. She stood up and walked to the cave entrance. She looked back at Charlie who was nursing his wound, then out into the plains and started thinking. What would her mother do? Was she strong enough to survive? She could give up. She could kill Charlie quickly so that he wouldn’t suffer. She looked back at Charlie. That would be the merciful thing to do, wouldn’t it? He did just save her life though. Didn’t he deserve better than that? She remembered the promise she made to Matthew to survive. Michael didn’t give up. He found this cave and was surviving. Wasn’t he? Did he know about this new enemy? She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and felt the morning sun warm her face as it burned away the fear and doubt from her mind.
“A promise is a promise,” she told Charlie. “Stay. I’ll be back soon.”
Twelve
With a new-found resolve, Echo
quickly dumped everything out of the backpack, replaced the cup and hammer, and ran to the oasis. Prints in the sand and soft dirt between her cave and the oasis sent a new jolt of fear surging through her body. The creatures had to be almost as large as she was, if not larger. After a quick drink from the spring, she harvested the remaining strawberries, whether they were ripe or not, and pulled all the carrots she could find. She rested her full backpack next to a fallen tree, took another long drink, wiped her brow, and got to work.
“You’ve done so much for me, Charlie,” she said, looking around at the oasis. “It’s my turn to protect you.”
As she sat wondering how she was going to do that, she absentmindedly tapped a small stick on the ground until it became wedged in the dirt and pulled out of her hand.
“That’s it!” She pulled the stick out and looked at its now blunt tip. “I got it!”
Echo raced around the oasis and stripped the trees of any low-hanging branches she could break off. The bark peeled off a smaller tree quite easily. Branches in one pile, bark in another, and any vines or tough, stringy plants and leaves in another. She jogged back to the cave with her full backpack and a small bundle of branches to a waiting Charlie.
“I got it all worked out, Charlie,” she said, tossing the branches by the cave entrance, and setting out a fresh pile of strawberries for him. “I’ll make us a door!”
Five trips later, now midafternoon, she brought the last of the collected materials from the oasis. Charlie went with her on the last trip which made it seem so much shorter and quicker than the others. Finally resting, she sat by the cave entrance eating carrots and admired the pile of branches and lashing materials.
“First things first, though,” she told Charlie. “Have to make a weapon. Something better than me flinging an old hammer around my head.” She chuckled picturing what she must have looked like that morning.
She lined up the branches by length and picked five strong, straight, sturdy ones to turn into spears like the stick she had played with. Using the hammer, she pounded and molded the tips into as sharp of a point as she could. They were still blunt, but she hoped they would cause puncture damage to anything that tried to hurt her or Charlie. If she ever found a knife or sharp stone, she could shave them into sharp tips. That took longer than she had expected. Sweat dripped from her forehead as the late afternoon sun warmed the cave.
“This’ll make a very nice home this winter, won’t it, Charlie?”
She paced outside the cave entrance, held up branches to the cave entrance, and laid them on the ground in an overlapping pattern. Echo fabricated an unlashed barrier that would become the cave’s nighttime door. Using strips of cloth and twine she found in Michael’s cave, she weaved and lashed the gate into a sturdy barrier. Strips of bark woven in between gaps in the branches gave the appearance that it was more solid than it was. Still, for being the first thing she ever created with branches and lashing, it looked remarkable.
“Now for the test, Charlie,” she said, lifting the gate upright. “Will it just fall apart on us?”
Shock filled her eyes as the gate creaked but seemed to hold its own. Giddy laughter burst through her lips and made Charlie happy. He jumped and ran around without a care in the world. The closer she looked at the cave entrance and her gate, the more she was sure that Michael had at least changed the shape of the cave entrance somehow. The inside of the entrance was taller and wider than the outside, which meant, all she needed now was to find a way to prop the gate up from the inside, and they would have a proper door for their new home. Inside the cave, she walked around and thought about what she could use that would be heavy enough to hold the gate, yet movable.
“I got it, Charlie. Stay here.”
As the sunlight faded, she climbed the rocks again and pushed two medium-sized, sturdy rocks off the edge by the entrance. Once back down on the ground, she pushed them into the cave, propped the gate up from the inside, and pushed the rocks into position.
“Think that’ll hold?” she asked Charlie, tugging on the gate.
Charlie wagged his tail and barked his approval. Echo laughed and stared proudly at the sky through small gaps in the top of her protective door. She and Charlie retired to the back of the cave near his new bed and enjoyed the evening. After a few hours, Charlie’s ears perked and his growls filled the cave. Echo’s trembling hand instinctively reached for one of the five spears that lay by her side. They may not be too long, but they are light and sturdy.
“Shh, Charlie,” Echo whispered. Even she felt the change in atmosphere. Something was out there. “It’s okay.”
Though the mucus on the cave walls gave some light, it was not enough to shine into the vast plains that lie on the other side of her protective gate. Her elbow rubbed against the wall as she stood up. Her shirt glowed as she moved.
“I’m such an idiot! Why didn’t I think of it before?”
She reached into the backpack and took out the last piece of green cloth and wiped the wall with it. A glowing cloth wrapped around a small stick became a rudimentary torch that was able to shine just enough light to prove something was walking on the other side of the gate. Two large creatures paced yards away from their cave home. The closer she inched to the gate, the more she could hear their pants and guttural growls. She retreated to the back of the cave near Charlie as silently as she could, hoping they would just go away, but they had no intention of doing that. Their patience ran out. One of the creatures charged toward her gate.
“GO AWAY!” Echo screamed into the growing cacophony of growls, barks, grunts, and howls.
The two creatures leaped onto the rock formation and scurried around, sniffing the ground where she had been just hours earlier. Once back down on the ground a fight broke out between the two creatures. Growling and snarling quickly turned into chaos, only stopping when one released a loud yelp. The creature’s whimpering continued as they retreated, accepting the loss of the fight until only one was left by the gate.
“Poor guy,” Echo whispered, feeling bad for the injured creature.
Feelings of sympathy shattered when the remaining creature lunged at the gate, snapping the smaller branches.
“Oh no, Charlie. I’m such an idiot!”
Echo realized the magnitude of her situation. There was only one way in and one way out, and that way was now blocked by a wild creature breaking the gate, intent on killing them. The only outcome possible was its death or theirs. Images of her mother standing in the kitchen, smiling, telling her she could do it and Johnny in his room playing with his toys saying to go get ‘em flashed through her mind. The creature howled and slammed into the gate again. She thought of Matthew who never made it that far and of Michael who had worse luck than she did. The creature ran up the rocks again and growled in frustration. Her mouth dried as her grip tightened on the spear.
With one great leap, the creature was in front of the gate again, snarling and frothing in anger. She slowed her breathing. Charlie remained by her side snarling, ready to defend at her command. Acutely aware of the sound of her heartbeat. Time slowed to a blink of an eye. Everything happened in slow motion around her. The creature snarled and howled as it lunged feet first at the gate, snapping it in two. She breathed in and held it.
The ground shook as the creature’s feet landed, smacking its chest on the ground. Exhale as Charlie’s bark echoed in her ears. Breathe deeply and hold. She screamed as she lunged toward the creature who was now rising and preparing to attack, driving the spear deep into its chest. The spear broke, and she tumbled into the creature as it fell where it died. Charlie ran to Echo’s side barking in the face of the creature that attacked him the night before.
“Go get ‘em,” Echo said, standing up.
Charlie’s barks turned to yaps as he congratulated himself on protecting his friend from the monster. He had saved her once again. Echo half-heartedly laughed, more from fear than joy, as she sat down by her remaining spears in case the second one returned. Hou
rs passed without event as images played on repeat in her mind. What if she had missed? What if Charlie had not stayed by her side? She had never killed anything before in her life, but she had to, didn’t she? Eventually, shock and stress took over, and she cried herself to sleep clutching Charlie.
Barking startled her awake and she jumped into action thinking the second creature had returned, but then she started laughing when she saw Charlie tugging at the creature’s paw trying to get it to play. It was long dead now, and she was no longer afraid of it. Rather, she was very curious about it. Where did it come from? She walked over to it and squatted between it and Charlie.
The creature was as tall as she was with large clawed paws like Charlie’s except it had six toes on the front paws and only four on the back paws. It’s short, sandy-colored fur was stained red where Echo plunged the spear. There was no tail, and its ears were short and pointy, unlike Charlie’s ears that flapped every time he bounced. She gasped as she pushed the thin layers of dark brown fur that covered its eyes out of the way. Three eyes? Why does it have three eyes? She peeled the top lips back and uncovered two rows of razor-like teeth. She didn’t want to see what the bottom ones looked like. Its head was too heavy to lift properly.
Echo walked past the shattered gate and looked out into the plains. It looked different that morning. Less bright. Less new. Less entrancing. As she stood there thinking about the night’s events, she realized that it wasn’t the plains that had changed. She had changed. She oversaw her life, and she was now willing to protect it, and Charlie, at all costs.
“I wonder what else is out there, Charlie. They can’t all be predators, can there? I wonder who else is out there.”
She looked back into the cave. As nice as it was to have a home, it was no longer safe, and she was sure more creatures would return that night. They had to leave. Echo remembered the light reflecting off something on the Western horizon.
