Diffusion Box Set

by Stan C. Smith

  “I had that dream,” Carlos said. “There was this thing, like in a tree.”

  “Perhaps I might help elucidate these visions.” The voice was new to Bobby. A strange man emerged from behind the others. He was dressed like he lived in the forest but was not black like the Papuans and was not Indonesian. “The dreams are peculiar to your medicinal treatments.” He patted a pouch at his waist. “The poultice I carry possesses healing qualities, but is not without curious effects. I myself had the very dream of which you speak, long ago.”

  “Bobby, this is Samuel,” Mr. Darnell said.

  “Pleased to meet you, Bobby.” The man talked like he was reading lines from a play.

  “How could we all have the same dream?” Mr. Darnell said.

  Mrs. Darnell frowned at him. “You had this dream too?”

  Mr. Darnell nodded. “This morning. I was surrounded by stars. It seemed incredibly real. But then Samuel woke me up.”

  Samuel said, “Then the vision may revisit you, Quentin, until you have witnessed its conclusion. The vision will lead you to the very destination for which we are bound today.”

  Addison’s black eyes still stared directly at Bobby. “It will speak to you,” he said. “You should listen.”

  Mr. Darnell put his hands on Addison’s shoulders. “Son, what does that mean?”

  The black eyes turned to Mr. Darnell. “You won’t understand it.”

  For a moment no one spoke.

  “Curious,” said the half-naked white man named Samuel.

  The tree kangaroo studied the humans’ activities from a snug depression between two rotting logs where damp soil cooled it belly. Events were unfolding rapidly but in unpredictable ways. The recently arrived strangers displayed novel attributes, indicating they were yet another step in an accelerating progression. But yet some of them revealed impulses that could disrupt this progression. The tree kangaroo had observed such disruptions before—somewhat interesting although devastating to those who were unfortunate to be in the vicinity. Now, the behaviors of the one they called Addison could prove to be interesting as well.

  Again the afternoon sun gave way to clouds, and everything faded to gray. The forest made it impossible to walk side by side, so they hiked in single file as Samuel and Mbaiso led the group toward the village of the Papuans. Bobby brought up the rear. Mr. Darnell had asked him to, and this made Bobby feel important. Physically, he felt great. No more sore bruises, oozing cuts, or bug bites. He even had a belly full of wallaby meat. He felt like he could walk all the way to Jayapura.

  But they weren’t going to Jayapura. They were going to the Papuans’ village. Being stabbed by a spear was still fresh in Bobby’s mind. He wanted to believe it had been a mistake—perhaps if they had spoken the same language, the fight wouldn’t have happened. But he still feared what might happen at the village.

  As they pushed on, the group became quiet and gradually spread out. Like Bobby, the others seemed to have their own thoughts. Carlos began humming a familiar song that Roberto’s band used to play in their basement. It cheered Bobby up to see him acting normal again.

  “Hey Bobby, what did the kangaroo say when someone cut off his tail?”

  “What?”

  “It won’t be long now. And Addison, where did he go to get a new tail?” There was no answer. “To the retailer, man.”

  “You’re so funny that I wallaby your friend,” Bobby said.

  Carlos stopped to poke at a covered termite trail running up the trunk of a tree. He broke a hole in the tunnel. “Look at those little mothers,” he said. “Probably think I’m their god or something.” He flicked one of the termites off the tree. “You will obey me!”

  Bobby laughed. “Bite him, guys! He’s not koala-fied to be a god.”

  “You insulted their god, man. You gotta pay.” Carlos held out his hand, fingers hooked and thumb straight up. “This hand was busted to bits. Think you can beat it?”

  The hand looked almost normal, but Bobby wasn’t sure he should mess with it. He looked ahead to see if the teachers were watching. He saw only Addison, looking back at them, so he grabbed Carlos’s hand, ready to thumb-wrestle. Addison walked back to where they stood, and Bobby released Carlos’s hand. Addison looked at the termites on the tree.

  “Those are my subjects,” Carlos told him. “They worship me.”

  The termites were now swarming around the hole in their tunnel. Suddenly Addison rubbed his hand on the tree, killing them. Then he licked the smashed bodies from his palm.

  “Now they worship me,” he said.

  “What the hell’s wrong with you?” Carlos said.

  Addison stared at his palm and then licked a few termites he had missed.

  Bobby said, “Addison, your mom and dad are worried about you. We are too.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you may have brain damage,” Carlos said.

  “Do you remember things?” Bobby asked him. “Things before the plane crashed?”

  “I remember flying. And I saw the other plane. Then we crashed.”

  “You’re messed up,” Carlos said. “There was no another plane.”

  They were interrupted by Mr. Darnell’s shout. “Hey, you guys, is Addison okay?”

  Bobby looked at Addison. “Well, are you?”

  Addison licked his hand again.

  Bobby shouted back, “Yeah, I guess so. We’re coming.”

  The three boys stayed together as they walked. As Bobby looked ahead he got a glimpse of Mbaiso jumping between trees. “I feel like I know just where we’re going,” he said.

  Carlos leapt into the air, trying to touch a pair of seedpods hanging from a tree. “I know, too. It’s from our dream.”

  Bobby jumped at the seedpods, easily grabbing one loose even though they were at least a meter above his head. His chest wound tingled a little, but it didn’t really hurt.

  Carlos nodded toward the other seedpod. “Your turn, Addison.”

  “Can’t eat those,” Addison said.

  “I don’t want to eat them. I just want to see if you can jump.”

  Bobby held up the green seedpod. “How do you know we can’t eat these?”

  Addison’s black eyes seemed to stare through Bobby, like they were looking at something behind him. “Kembakhi,” he said.

  Bobby looked at Carlos, then back at Addison. “Huh? Kim-backy?”

  “Kembakhi,” Addison said again. He pointed to the pod. “Inside.”

  Bobby snapped the seedpod in two. From inside, a swarm of black ants rushed out and onto his hands. The ants were mad, and Bobby felt stinging bites. He flung the pod away and wiped his hands against his thighs. They both looked at Addison.

  “Kembakhi,” Addison said. Then he turned away.

  Eventually they reached a dirty-brown river. There was a footpath by the river, the first sign of human impact that Bobby had seen since the plane crash. Mrs. Darnell said she was tired and needed to sit down, so they decided to rest. Ashley said she was tired, too. The flies were really swarming and biting the two of them, but no one else.

  They all waded in to cool off. Samuel said they could drink the water, except for Ashley and Mrs. Darnell, because they might get sick. Mrs. Darnell grumbled something about the miracle medicine and just washed her face. Ashley drank some anyway. Bobby didn’t blame her. He was thirsty, and he drank a lot, even though it tasted like mud. Then he noticed Mr. Darnell trying to talk to Addison.

  “… and then we’ll get you out of here, and we’ll go home,” Mr. Darnell was saying.

  Addison looked at Mr. Darnell the way he’d looked at Bobby, like he didn’t really see him. “We can stay here,” he said.

  “Addison, we’re getting you home as soon as we can.”

  “We can stay here,” Addison repeated.

  Mr. Darnell looked around like he didn’t know what to do.

  Bobby spoke up. “Mr. Darnell, do you know what kim… backy is? Kimbacky?”

  “Kembakhi, did
you say, young man?” It was Samuel. “The indigenes here speak that word. You have heard them speak it, no doubt?”

  “No. Addison said it. What does it mean?”

  “The word makes reference to Hymenoptera. Ants. Aggressive, biting ants, to put a sharp definition to it.”

  Bobby turned to Addison. “How did you know that?”

  Addison’s eyes looked through Bobby. “Kembakhi live in the lepun melun.”18

  “Young man,” Samuel said. “How can it be that you know words spoken by the indigenes if you have awakened in this place only today? Anggufa diabo?”19

  “Nu khomile-lé-dakhu khosü kha-lé,” Addison said. “But I’m better now. Khi-telo.”20

  Bobby’s skin turned cold. Addison had said the words without even slowing down, like he’d been talking that way all his life.

  “Do you know what he said?” Mr. Darnell asked Samuel.

  Samuel’s eyebrows were wrinkled, and this was the first time Bobby had seen him look completely baffled. “Very curious, indeed. He said, ‘I have died and have gone there.’”

  “Gone where?” Mr. Darnell asked. His voice had an edge of fear.

  “To the place of the dead.”

  Addison stopped speaking after that, so Bobby looked for something else to do while they rested. Mbaiso was drinking at the edge of the river, so Bobby and Carlos sat on the footpath, coaxing the kangaroo to come near them. Soon Ashley and Miranda joined them. Mbaiso approached their group, but then he climbed a tree to watch them from above.

  Ashley said what was already on Bobby’s mind. “Do you think we should be listening to this guy?” She waved a hand toward Samuel. “He seems like a nut job to me. What kind of British guy would want to live in this creepy, hotter-than-hell place?”

  Miranda had been quiet, but she spoke up. “If he’s taking us to the place in my dream, then I don’t think we need to be afraid.”

  Ashley said, “It was just a dream, Miranda.”

  “But we all had it,” Carlos said, like this proved Ashley was wrong.

  Bobby looked at Ashley. Her face was red, and flies were trying to get into her eyes. “Not all of us,” Bobby said. “Ashley didn’t get the medicine.”

  Ashley swiped at her face for the zillionth time. “If it gets rid of the damn bugs, I’ll take some. But I’m waiting to see if it’s turning you guys into monsters or something.” She pulled her hair over her face to keep the flies at bay.

  After a moment of silence she shoved her hair back. “I’m really starting to feel left out. You all have this dream, right? It’s at night and you can see the stars, and then you go—”

  Miranda interrupted, “It’s not really at night, Ash. It was like being in the stars, flying through space. For a long time, it seemed like.”

  “It’s the thing in the tree,” Bobby said. “It’s trying to tell us how it got here.”

  Ashley sneered. “You mean you think it’s an alien. Great.”

  Bobby paused, embarrassed. “In the dream there was something there—on the tree but not part of it. It was telling me not to be afraid.”

  Ashley said, “What if it just wants you to think that, so you’ll come closer?”

  No one answered.

  The forest grew dark again, and Quentin could scarcely believe this would only be their fourth night since the crash. They had suffered enough for a lifetime. And now, as they approached the Papuan village, led by an eccentric Englishman and a talking kangaroo, Quentin had no idea what awaited them. Getting straight answers from Samuel was like pulling teeth from a toad, and the Papuans had shown a fondness for jabbing their spears into people.

  Quentin had tried concocting escape plans, but they all had similar outcomes: they would either be killed for trying or they would succeed, only to find themselves lost in the remote rainforest. If it was twenty miles to the nearest airstrip, it might as well be a thousand.

  Lindsey walked the path in front of Quentin. She had become quiet. She stumbled on something, and Quentin grabbed her arm. He brushed away the mosquitoes biting her neck. With evening setting in, the flies were resting and the mosquitoes were taking over.

  Addison would hardly speak unless pressed to, and Quentin feared what might come out of his mouth next. Should he rejoice that Addison now seemed healthy, or agonize that the medicine he’d been given had somehow changed him forever? Addison could now speak a second language, something that would make most parents proud. But the language damn sure wasn’t French or Spanish. And most kids don’t learn a language while they are in a coma.

  Lindsey stumbled yet again, this time falling to her knees. Quentin helped her up. It appeared they were no longer on the footpath, and it was difficult to negotiate the vegetation in the growing darkness.

  Quentin called ahead, “Samuel, why aren’t we on the path?”

  Samuel turned to wait for them.

  “I need to rest,” Lindsey said. She settled onto the ground. The kids did the same.

  “As I have told you, Quentin, the indigenes value their privacy. Would it not be to their advantage to conceal the path near to the village itself?”

  “So how do they get plants to grow more on the most heavily used part of the path? Wait—don’t tell me. The same way they get animals to talk and airplanes to turn to dirt, right?”

  Lindsey said, “Maybe he’s not taking us to the village.”

  Samuel frowned. “My Papuan hosts are stewards of a most unusual phenomenon. In their low state of civilization, they are ill-equipped to understand it, but they value and guard it nonetheless. In all the years since I arrived here, there have been few allowed near their village. But you are to receive this privilege. I assure you, the village is our destination.”

  Quentin said, “There isn’t going to be an airstrip, is there? Or a radio?”

  “I am not acquainted with either, but I fear not.”

  Lindsey had been rubbing her ankles, but now she stopped. “Samuel, how long have you been here? Please give us a straight answer.”

  He sighed, as if giving in. “I was once an eager young student of natural history, with interminable wanderlust. As I resided in London, and frequented the proceedings of the Linnean and Royal Societies, I was fortunate to attend a reading by an esteemed naturalist, Mr. Wallace, whom I greatly admired, regarding his studies of the flora and fauna of this region. He was a student of the entire Malay Archipelago, as a matter of fact. His tales of the great island of New Guinea particularly seduced me. I persuaded him to give me advice, so that I might travel to this land to discover living things new to science. In his time here, Mr. Wallace only explored the northern coasts. This determined me to forge inland, to collect species new even to Mr. Wallace’s substantial collection.”

  Quentin held up his hand. “Wait. It sounds like you’re talking about Alfred Wallace.”

  “Ah,” Samuel said. “I am pleased that you know of him. A great man of science, surely worthy of such recognition. Upon Mr. Wallace’s counsel I assembled supplies and funds for my own journey. Unfortunately, my resources were—”

  Quentin interrupted again. “Alfred Wallace is long dead. He lived back in the eighteen hundreds. When Charles Darwin lived.”

  “Mr. Darwin was also an esteemed naturalist. But I hadn’t the occasion to meet him.”

  Quentin stared. “That was over a hundred and fifty years ago.”

  “Lift your shirt, Quentin,” Samuel said. “Examine your wounds there.”

  Quentin felt his chest. There was no pain. The wounds were healed.

  “Examine your own son, Quentin, and your students who have reaped the benefits of our medicine. Do you find it so difficult to believe?”

  Quentin sank to the ground, overwhelmed. He held his head in his hands.

  A voice came from behind him. “We’re there now, father.”

  Quentin turned. “What did you say?” Addison had always called him dad.

  “We’re there now. Khosükhop, khaim.” Addison pointed up.21

>   “He is correct,” Samuel said. “We have arrived at the village.”

  Quentin turned. Around them was forest, no different than everywhere else.

  “As your son attempted to tell you, the village is there.” Samuel pointed up.

  Quentin looked. He could see only dark foliage.

  “There, Quentin!” Lindsey pointed and he followed her finger—still only darkness. In fact, the place where she pointed was especially dark, with no gaps where the sky peeked through. He looked around and saw another spot that was too dark, and then another. The Papuans’ village was far above them, hidden in the rainforest canopy.

  Quentin turned back to Samuel. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  The kids became very quiet as they followed Samuel. Quentin tried estimating the height of the tree houses, but the darkness made it difficult. He sensed a slight rustle from the trees above. Something was moving up there. If these were indeed huts, the people in them were keeping to themselves.

  He poked Samuel and whispered, “Do they know we’re here?”

  “Your excessive noise long ago declared our approach. They are a deliberate people, and there is little they do not observe. You will also find them exceedingly shy. Do not anticipate a welcoming party. You have been allowed to come here, but most assuredly not for a social visit. That concept is unknown to them. You may not see the women at all. Even I am not certain I have seen all of their women, and you are now privy to the duration of my stay here.”

  “Privy to your claims, anyway,” Quentin mumbled.

  Samuel turned. “As I’ve said, Quentin, my hosts are aware of your presence. Whispering is without warrant.”

  “If they won’t show themselves or talk to us, why are we here?”

  “You ask too much of me, sir. As a visitor, I am not told all things.” Samuel stopped, resting one hand on a massive buttressed tree. “We have arrived.”

  Quentin had hoped the hut prepared for them was actually touching the ground. Almost afraid to look, he gazed upward. If there was a tree house there, it could have been ten meters above them or fifty.