by David Simms
“Let’s go that way,” Poe yelled, and the band headed west without question.
After about fifty feet, the edge of the clearing appeared. As usual, Poe saw the obvious more easily than anyone else did. It was amazing how her senses were enhanced not only when one was taken away, but because she’d learned to focus on the now, which was all she believed she had.
Muddy half-expected the trees that engulfed them to swallow them whole. They didn’t, but fear still stoked his anxiety and the feeling that the behemoths above could do business with them if they felt the need. So, instead of stopping to check on Leo’s injuries under the cover of the canopy, the foursome continued to drag him to where the sun shone at the edge of the tree line. The clearing was only another fifty feet or so, but with their adrenalin fading, dragging the seventeen-year-old began to feel like they were pushing a full manure truck with no wheels.
Otis complained the entire way, as usual, which fit his personality, but also showed his fortitude. Any extreme stress on his brittle bones could cause a break, possibly compound, which in this situation, could kill him. But his only concern right now was for a member of the band they barely knew. He couldn’t let Leo die. Not here. Not another bass player accident.
Then there was Muddy. Getting beaten around by schoolmates for years, made fun of by them, even cousins, teachers, etc. had done its damage. It gave birth to anxiety, already festering within his flesh from problems in the classroom. The fear of not being able to handle life as it was dealt disgusted him. The drummer who was diagnosed with a lifespan of less than eighteen years never faltered, at least in public, and treated the world as his stage. Muddy acted as though he was the world’s opening band reject, caught behind the curtains, chained by his own demons.
The sun lashed through the last remaining branches above them, stripping away the heavy shadows that further weighed upon their backs. The group crashed to the ground as if its rays had zapped the final bit of energy from their already aching muscles. The five found themselves spread out on an open field, with grass—real, short, non-moving grass.
For a moment, a jolt of anxiety raced through Muddy’s veins before he realized they had cleared the obstacle. It shook him out of his funk and onto his knees to check on their wounded friend.
“Is he okay?” Poe asked, putting her hands on his shoulder, propping up his head.
“Yeah,” Otis echoed. “He okay? I don’t think I ever pulled that much dead weight before in my life!”
Leo stirred. “Just tell me—am I okay? What was that back there? No one told me there’d be noodles masquerading as grass trying to kill me here!”
“Actually, it was more like thin spaghetti.”
“The word’s linguini,” Poe added, “but green and brown, like the fancy kind.”
“Guys,” Corey said, shoving Leo back a little. “Instead of fussin’ and whining, check out what that Chef Boy-R-Dee reject thing did to him.”
So they did. Thankfully, the unlucky bassist had been wearing jeans. The living pasta grass had left them in tatters, a hundred times worse than the styles teens bought in stores. Corey and Muddy carefully stripped away the remaining threads which were covered in sweat, blood, and—goo?
“Eww,” Corey said, shrinking back. “What is that stuff?” he asked, rubbing it off his fingers onto the real grass.
“What’s what?” Leo shivered beneath them.
Muddy swallowed a mouthful of foul tasting stomach juice brought on by the red and clear mixture. He hated blood. Great disposition to have as a son of a horror writer, but he couldn’t help it. His belly even turned when watching gory movies.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Plant spit? Digestive juices?”
“Poison?” Poe added, as they shrunk back, staring at their hands.
“I sure hope not,” Muddy replied. “If it is, then we’re all screwed. We’ll need a whole new band this time.”
“Instead of worrying about yourselves,” Leo whined, “can you please just tell me how bad it is?”
Nodding shamefully, Muddy went back to peeling away the last bits of denim that stuck to his friend’s legs. What he saw underneath sent his stomach into spin cycle and he lost it. Swinging his head to the side, everyone cleared in time. He vomited all over the clean, non-deadly grass.
“Dude,” Otis said, still backing away. “You okay?”
He spat out whatever remained in his mouth, gagging as he attempted to speak. “Yeah, I think so. Look at him,” he whispered, not wanting to alarm Leo.
“Oh-oh,” came the collective response.
Leo dropped his head to the ground. “I heard that. I’m dying, aren’t I?
The band members stared silently at each other as each hoped to find the answer in someone else.
“Of course not,” Poe said in her best reassuring voice. “It’s just a flesh wound.”
His fists smacked the soft grass. “This is no time for movie quotes!”
“Okay, okay, let’s take a good look,” Muddy said dryly. Humor seemed to be everyone’s defense mechanism lately.
Once his system seemed bile-free, Muddy examined the wound. As Poe dabbed up the blood in some tissues she must have had in her pocket, what the pasta grass did became clear.
Inch long “bites” traveled up and down his leg, from ankle to upper thigh. The grass had to have some sort of “teeth” or else just whipped and constricted so hard it bit into the skin. But that wasn’t the worst part. Each slice in his skin pulsated, as if something was pretty angry about being in there. Muddy prayed it was only Leo’s system fighting a likely infection, but something in him knew better.
“What the heck?” Corey said, leaning in closer.
The paling flesh rose and fell as if a spastic heart lie beneath each open bloody slit. As each wound rose, it threatened to poke through and show what it actually was, but stopped just short. As everyone gaped at his legs, an image came to mind of the bugs Muddy usually felt beneath his skin. But his never seemed to have a wild beat. Heck, these seemed to be having their own little circus.
“So, am I okay? Am I dying?” Leo asked, more panic in his once deep voice.
They looked at each other, next at Poe, who usually equalized the group. She just stared, as if she could see his grim future. “Sure,” she said, without an ounce of conviction. “We’ll make sure you’re fine.”
“But what do we do? Drag him back through that stuff and try to cross back over?” Corey stood, and began to pace.
“I don’t know, but we need to do something.”
Muddy gazed back at the forest and remembered what lay beyond. “If we have to, so be it. But there’s got to be another way.”
“There is, but you’ll have to come with me.”
He turned to Poe, who shook her head mouthing, “I didn’t say anything.” Instead she pointed to someone behind him.
Chapter Eleven
“I said it, and you’ll have to come back with me if you want your friend to be healed in time.”
They turned to the voice and saw that The Accidentals weren’t the only people on this side.
The girl seemed to be about their age. Not as striking as Poe, but seemingly familiar, especially in the eyes. About five-foot-three, long, licorice-colored hair hanging without a trace of curl, she stood nonchalantly watching the group as if she met five misfits from another dimension all the time. But those eyes...who did she remind him of?
“Um…hi,” Muddy managed to say.
“Who are you?” Poe asked. “And can you please help us? He’s hurt.” She pointed to Leo’s leg just in case the girl didn’t comprehend words.
The stranger tilted her head as if to gauge the bassist’s condition then back at Muddy. “I’m Lyra,” she said in a voice that sent shivers down his back, so smooth and lilting, as if it slid from her throat on waves of silk. “I think we can help your friend, but we’ll need to get him to the town. He was bitten by the grass?”
Otis turned to the guitarist and
whispered, “We just crossed over into some parallel world with tons of weird crap and they don’t even have a name for that stuff that attacked Leo?”
“Why should we speak differently?” she asked, her tone staying the same. “Where are you from? Obviously, not from around here.” This time a slight grin cracked her expression.
“She knows?” Corey whispered. “How? Wait a minute.” He leaned in closer and squinted at her. “Man, she looks so much like…”
Otis hummed a song he knew for ages.
This time she giggled a little, but still remained far enough from them. “It’s been awhile, but we’re used to visitors. Actually, I’m surprised you got this far. Most don’t. Either you’re pretty skilled or just very lucky.”
“I think it’s a little of both,” Poe replied. “We had a little help.
“I know,” Lyra answered, her expression unchanged.
But how? Muddy wondered. Was she watching when we came with Silver Eye?
“No, I didn’t,” she said.
“Didn’t what?” Poe asked.
“Didn’t watch you when you came here with Silver Eye.”
What the...?
Otis hopped to his spindly, short legs. “You spying on us? Did you sic those big goons on us?”
She just gazed with an unchanging pair of alluring eyes. “No. What lives out here have knocked off plenty of our people in town. I stay clear of them. You should, too.”
“What do you mean? Knocked off? Killed?” Corey asked.
She averted her gaze.
“A lot?”
“Corey,” Poe chided, slapping at his arm. “Get a clue!”
Lyra visibly shook it off. “We need to get him some help,” she said, pointing at their bassist.
Muddy’s body trembled as he sought his voice. “Is he going to be okay?
She looked right into his soul and he swore he heard, “He will die if the poison reaches his heart. Many do not make it with a bite like that, but I have hope.”
The rest of the group did not react.
Did they hear what she said?
“You know they didn’t,” she answered and he realized the voice had bypassed his ears, straight into his head.
Holy cow…
“They’ll hear if I want them to. Right now, I need you to understand and not worry them.” Her eyes told him not to ask the details of her skill.
“Come with me,” she said aloud. “We need to get him to the city—now.”
And so they followed.
She led them about two miles along the winding, but much-widened path. The area lay open and as free from obvious disaster as walking through a field of dozing kittens.
Never once did Corey flinch as he carried Leo over his shoulder.
Muddy remembered he once got two stitches from a kitten that his mom adopted.
Of course, he worried.
As they passed the final grove of trees, a city appeared. Resembling something from pioneer times, houses built of logs and wood planks stood everywhere. Towers rose in the four corners of the development, which reached as far as their eyes could see. It must have been at least a mile or so across and possibly twice as long. Why people always imagined a city in an unknown land to be medieval, he had no idea. Maybe it was because of all those fantasy novels and movies. It seemed as though most movie makers couldn’t imagine that any other civilization could exist as anything but something out of King Arthur. Were people so ignorant that they couldn’t imagine another culture was capable of building a society to rival their own?
Yet there it was, something straight out of the late 1800s, not the age of The Sword in the Stone and Merlin. Within the quartet of towers lay a scene straight out of the Old West. Buildings a few stories high reached into the clear blue sky above, nestled in between the huddles of small houses and log cabins. Busy, but not crowded, a small market bustled in the town square. Colors bloomed outward in the shades of the basic spectrum—blue, green, red, orange, yellow, purple—some white, but very little black.
She halted before she reached the throng of citizens. “I think it’s best if no one sees us.”
“Why?” Muddy wondered if more monsters lived there, ones in human skins.
She looked around. “Let’s just say that people in this town don’t look too kindly on your folk. They blame you for the shape we’re in now.”
“And what shape is that?”
“You don’t want to know, but we once had music here. Now, if one is caught even humming a tune from someone who visited here, they… Well, they’re not here anymore.”
Muddy froze and knew the others felt the same chill.
People, more humans, strolled through the mini-streets and congregated in the city’s heart, ebbing and flowing like vital blood through arteries. Clad in outfits of those seven colors, mixed and matched in songs of different fashions, men, women, and kids carried various wares and baskets. Muddy felt as though a rainbow had exploded in front of his eyes and burst into life. Most of whom he could see strode in peaceful strides, some smiling, but more in slow, steady gaits that suggested something less than happiness lie underneath.
“What is that?” Corey asked, pointing at an odd-shaped, prism-type thing that just sat in the center of the town square. People revolved around it like fearful moons, drawn to it but never daring to orbit too close.
The band stared, waiting for Lyra to explain, but she simply kept walking without even a flinch. So they turned to him. Why, he had no idea. If they only knew the fear he hid in his heart…
“Don’t look at me, I suck at geometry.” Something about it scared the living hell out of him. It looked innocuous, but somehow it’s presence felt much like the tip of an iceberg. What lay beneath, he had no clue, but the feeling that seemed to reach out like invisible fingers nearly froze him in his steps.
Why aren’t you telling us about that…prism thing? He reached out, hoping her apparent telepathy was on the way one more time.
She didn’t even gaze his way.
Atop an ebony platform which stood about two meters tall in a series of decreasing squares, the crystalline pyramid of hexagonal sides, balanced itself—inverted. From his vantage point, the glass-like object appeared to be hovering an inch or so above the platform. Was it wires? An invisible magnetic field like the one he saw in the science center? Something about it freaked him, but no one seemed to notice it even existed there, completely juxtaposed into the middle of their odd little world.
“Lyra,” Poe said, as a question.
“Just follow me,” she answered. “We need to get your friend to care, now. I know someone who will help, discreetly.”
“But…”
“Now. You don’t know the power of the poison.” Her voice showed more tension than with the previous comment, and it had little to do with Leo’s bite.
He could tell both of them wanted to talk about the strange object and the things it suggested, but neither said a word. He prayed they would have time to discuss it later before anything else happened.
A young couple stood inside the house when they arrived. Greetings were exchanged, but not names. Both parties regarded each other with cautious looks. Muddy could swear he recognized something in their faces. Did everyone here look like they were related to someone famous back home?
The young man spoke. “You know Silver Eye Watkins?”
“Yeah,” Muddy replied, attempting to sound strong. “Silver Eye trained us, but we’re here to find my brother. He came over two nights ago.”
The couple shared an odd look.
“Just bring in your friend. I take care of most of the healing in town.”
“Will he be okay?”
“He’ll be fine. We know how to cure the ills the forest brings as long as the poison hasn’t reached the heart. He won’t feel any more pain in a few minutes.”
Didn’t that exist as a cheesy line in so many horror and mob movies?
* * * *
The band waited in the
front room while the couple disappeared with Leo. Soon, Muddy felt himself dozing off, but before he fell asleep, he noticed the others were already zonked out as well.
A loud noise awoke him some time later.
“I’m sorry,” the man said.
Anxiety flooded Muddy. “What do you mean? Sorry for what?”
“I sent my wife out for supplies and someone followed her back. I guess someone somewhere here knew you’d crossed over. You weren’t exactly quiet.”
“What does that mean for us?” Corey grabbed his horn.
Lyra shared a pale look with her friends. “Nothing, if we can get you back in time.”
Poe stood, sneaking a gaze out the window. “And if we don’t?”
“Then you’ll find out what happens when the music dies around here.”
* * * *
They pushed open the front door and gasped at what lie before them. The streets of the town bustled with an overflow of people. Men, women and kids all wore expressions that said the same thing.
“They’re not going to let us out of here,” Muddy said. The guitar shook in his hands, sounding weird notes.
“What, no torches and pitchforks?” Otis quipped.
“Shut up. Just let me think about this for a second.”
Yet the crowd advanced. They seemed wary, but intent on reaching the boys.
“They don’t seem to be armed. We can run for it,” Otis offered.
They looked behind them at the road to the forest’s edge where the path began. It was maybe a hundred feet to a different kind of danger, but also a long way home.
“We gotta try it, Muddy.” Otis knew his friend only felt confident when called by his nickname. Music gave them all a boost of self-esteem. “Let’s go for it.”
Muddy, confident as he was in his own sprinting ability, knew Otis wouldn’t make it and everyone else knew it as well. If the drummer hit a hole or rock, an ankle might snap in a heartbeat.
