A Stranger Thing (The Ever-Expanding Universe)

by Leicht, Martin

  • • •

  The inside of the cabin is just as dreary as the outside would suggest, if not more so. It’s not much warmer, and the only light to illuminate the place seems to be coming from two old electric wall lamps. Several long wooden tables run the length of the room, scattered with framing squares, hammers, chisels, pencils, a sander, and other fairly low-tech carpentry gear. Along both walls are shelves crammed with toolboxes and other foreign-looking supplies, and a few crates litter the floor for good measure.

  What I notice first and foremost, however, is the total lack of any other people.

  “Is this it?” I ask, dumbfounded. Is this what the Almiri meant when they said they were taking us to a secure location? They were just going to maroon us in a log cabin with one (admittedly kinda badass) loner to guard us?

  Oates sets down the box he’s carrying and gestures for us to do the same.

  “There was a time when the contents of this cabin would have seemed like luxury accommodations,” he says, moving with that slight limp to the far end of the room.

  “I guess I just imagined . . . I don’t know,” I continue. Because, really, I’m not sure what I imagined. Jailhouse Rock? “Are you, like, the only guard here?”

  Oates kneels down next to an inclined plane in the floor. On the side he pulls open a slide cover, revealing a small touchscreen console. He taps in a code, and suddenly the top of the incline slides open, revealing a staircase leading underground. A bright light emanates from below.

  “There are no guards here, child,” he says, rising to his feet again. “In this place we are prisoners all.” And he shuffles down the stairs.

  Ducky, Dad, and I all turn to Cole, as if he’ll know what’s going on, but Cole looks as lost as the rest of us, if not more so. You’d think if your civilization kept a big honking Phantom Zone–like prison on the underbelly of the planet, you might try to learn a thing or two about it, but not my Coley.

  As Cole and Ducky start down the stairs behind Oates, Dad stops to make sure the straps on Olivia’s papoose are snug—and that’s when I see it. In a far corner, by the window, there is what appears to be an old, twentieth-century ham radio. It is rusty, and possibly missing a few parts, but still. It’s a means of communication. I elbow my father. “Dad,” I whisper.

  He doesn’t even look up, just shakes his head. “Yes,” he says, as though he’s read my mind and found it lacking, “but who would we call?” My face falls. He’s right, of course.

  “Then what’s the plan, Dad?” I say. And can I help it if my voice comes out a little whiny? “Please just tell me what you’re working on. I’m dying here.”

  “Dearheart,” he says kindly, making eye contact at last. “There is no plan.”

  I’m pretty sure I was less shocked when my Dad showed me his high school graduation photo with the goatee and accordion bowtie (the ’50s were brutally tragic, fashion-wise). “But you always have a plan,” I say.

  He gazes at me, as though deciding how best to present his fatherly wisdom. “You can’t just shoot off into space in a trash compactor when you’ve got a baby to consider, Elvie,” he tells me, adjusting Olivia’s arm into a more comfortable position inside her papoose. “Things have changed now. For the moment I think it’s wisest to lay low, play along with our captors, and figure out who our friends are.”

  “But . . .”

  “The only plan you need to be concerned with is keeping this precious little girl alive,” Dad tells me.

  Well. It’s hard to argue with that, now, isn’t it?

  As Dad starts down the steps to join the others, I take one last look out the window at the snow, then kiss my daughter on the forehead. Keeping this precious little girl alive. I can do that. “Here goes nothing,” I whisper to her.

  And I descend into my prison—a Nara without an escape plan.

  Who would’ve dreamed it?

  The first thing I notice, as I descend, is how much warmer it is than in the cabin above. Brighter, too, with modern light panels casting a pleasing glow across the space. We funnel into a long, white hallway with metallic walls and auto-slide doors. Blinking LED control panels are peppered along each side.

  “A hidden bunker.” Dad whistles. “Would you look at that.”

  “Come,” Oates says. “You must be hungry. There’s soup in the canteen. The others will want a look at you.” And he leads us down the hall, Dad and Ducky up front. I hang back a few paces with Cole at my side. I rub Olivia’s back nervously. Suddenly I wish she were awake, screaming even, just so I’d have something else to focus on.

  “So there are others here,” Dad says to Oates as we make our way through a set of sliding doors.

  “Yes,” Oates says. “Twenty-two besides myself.” He shakes his head, correcting his count. “Twenty-three, excuse me. We’ve had an unexpected visitor drop in of late,” he explains. “You folks make the count twenty-eight. Or”—he looks back at me—“twenty-seven and a half, at the least.”

  “And you’re all prisoners?” I ask, massaging Olivia’s back in little circles. “There are no guards at all?”

  “We are all guardians of our own souls, Miss . . . ?”

  “Elvie,” I say.

  “Well, Miss Elvie, if you’re asking why we stay here, each man would have his own story, I suppose. But the long and short of it is that we’ve all a reason to be put here, and that’s reason enough to stay.”

  Sigh . . . Almiri and their dang honor.

  “And you’re all Almiri?” I ask. “Everyone else but us humans, I mean?”

  Oates doesn’t answer until we reach the far door, where there is a faint sound of music. He raises his hand to the control switch but pauses to look down at Olivia, that same stoic look on his face. “Well, it’s a complicated world, now, isn’t it?”

  Ducky shoots me a look that clearly means, “Well, dur.”

  As soon as the door shushes open, the sound of more than a dozen macho voices bursts forth.

  Voices singing.

  There are a lot of ways I envisioned a group of Almiri prisoners spending their time (a few of them a little more X-rated than I care to share) . . . but this was not one of them. The room we find ourselves in, which appears to be some sort of dining area, has the same streamlined white metallic look of the hallway, only with a kitchenette along the right wall, and four long tables with built-in benches in the center. Around those tables are gathered two dozen handsome dudes, some sitting, some standing with a leg up on a bench. They are swinging giant mugs back and forth, slapping each other on the back, and singing. Even weirder, the tune they’re belting can only be described as jaunty. If I didn’t know any better, I’d guess that I had stepped into a flipping Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.

  “Gentlemen,” Oates calls out to the group. “Our new guests have arrived.”

  As if on cue, Olivia begins screaming. The warmth of the room seems to have roused her from her Arctic semicoma. At least having a crying baby will defuse the total weirdness of a meet-and-greet, right?

  Wrong.

  At the sound of Olivia’s wailing, the entire chorus of singers stops and turns. Every last man looks at me, completely silent. Suddenly all the air has left the room. And, okay, I realize they probably don’t get any women down here, but this gang looks absolutely stupefied.

  “Bloody hell,” comes a voice from the group.

  Only one man has the courtesy to stand up. He is tall, broad-chested, blond, and ruddy. Although as he saunters our way I get the sense—from the disgusted sneer plastered on his face, I suppose—that maybe he’s not standing out of courtesy after all.

  Oates clears his throat as the man approaches, as though in warning. “Jørgen,” he says quietly, almost in a growl. But whatever Oates thinks he’s communicating, the man Jørgen does not listen.

  “These are our newest additions?” Jørgen sneers. He has a hint of a Swedish accent, which would be slightly comical if not for the fact that he’s currently leering at my baby
like she’s a bug he found in his coffee. His eyes flick up to me, and I quickly get the feeling that I’m the mama bug. “Is the Council just dumping any old trash down here now?”

  “Manners, Jørgen,” Oates says.

  Jørgen scoffs dismissively. “Manners? I’ll show you manners. Manners would be kicking these worthless mules back out into the cold where you found—”

  Jørgen doesn’t see the punch that Cole lands on the side of his head, but I’m sure the little cartoon birds that are circling above him can describe it to him later in detail.

  “Cole!” I shriek. “What are you doing?” Olivia’s wails grow even louder as a slender fellow with sandy-brown hair leaps up from the table to jerk Cole back by the arms. “Have you completely lost your mind?” I ask Cole, backing away from the scuffle to try to comfort my wailing infant.

  Cole has a confused look on his face, like he can’t tell if he’s proud of what he’s just done, or embarrassed. The man pinning Cole’s arms behind him seems a little more with it, however. “Oates?” the man asks, clearly wondering what to do about Cole, who’s not even struggling against the restraint.

  Still on the floor, Jørgen rubs his jaw. “What are you waiting for?” he asks Mr. Sandy Hair, spitting out a tooth. “Take him out to the kennel.”

  “When he does something out of line, perhaps,” Oates replies. And without needing to hear another word, the sandy-haired fellow releases Cole.

  “Sorry,” the man whispers to Cole as he lets him go. “Just had to check with the boss.” And then, shockingly, he winks at him.

  “These are our guests,” Oates repeats, his voice loud enough for all the Almiri to hear. He extends a hand to help Jørgen off the floor, but the Swedish Bond villain—no shocker—refuses, pushing himself dizzily to his feet, muttering and growling. “You will treat them all with respect.” This, clearly, is directed at Jørgen.

  “You’re not in charge of anyone here, Titus, regardless of what you may think,” Jørgen snarls. But even I can see that this is wishful thinking on Jørgen’s part. All Oates has to do is take a single step in Jørgen’s direction, and suddenly Mr. Very Obviously in Charge seems to have grown about ten centimeters taller. He looks down at Jørgen and doesn’t say another word, merely fixes his eyes on him until the Swede finally crumbles.

  “Welcome to Cape Crozier,” Jørgen grumbles to me. He narrows his eyes at the top of Olivia’s head, then raises one thick blond Swedish eyebrow. “I hope you’ll both be very comfortable here.”

  Well.

  “What the heck was that?” I hiss at Cole as Jørgen stumbles furiously out of the room. “Are you high?”

  Ducky finally emerges from where I didn’t realize he was crouched behind my dad to ask, “What’s a mule, anyway?”

  Cole just shrugs. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But it didn’t sound very nice.”

  I puff out my cheeks, exasperated. Only my Coley would risk getting shivved on his first day in prison, and not even know why.

  Mr. Sandy Hair claps a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not nice,” he agrees. “But enough unpleasantries.” He offers Cole a glowing smile, and I stop to really take the man in for the first time. He’s, like, überbeautiful. I guess that that shouldn’t surprise me, but this guy’s hot even by Almiri standards. He looks fairly young, though with an Almiri that could mean that he’s “only” two hundred years old or so. “Rupert,” the dreamboat tells Cole brightly, offering his hand. “Welcome to the roost.”

  “Uh, Cole,” Cole replies as Rupert winks at him again.

  So, our new buddy is weird, but at least friendly. Although I notice he doesn’t bother to shake anybody else’s hand.

  Oates has moved on to unpacking supplies, and the rest of the Almiri prisoners have dispersed, either helping Oates or finishing up their lunch, so at first I think Rupert is the only guy out of the whole bunch who’s going to talk to us. But it seems there’s one more.

  “Care to introduce me to our new friends, Rupe?” booms out a cheery Boy Scout voice. I glance up just in time to see a man slap Rupert on the back jovially. He’s taller and broader than his friend, with a chiseled jaw and jet-black hair in a slicked-back hairdo that’s so archaic, it comes complete with a spit curl. “Finally some new blood. There haven’t been any new guests since I got here a hundred and forty-three years ago.” When it becomes clear that Rupert only has eyes for Cole, his buddy shifts gears, stretching out his arm to Ducky and shaking his hand vigorously. “Pleased to meet you . . . ?”

  “Ducky, er, Donald,” Ducky replies. He’s squinting at the guy, like he’s accessing old databanks for some sort of info.

  “Gosh, Ducky sounds just fine,” the human action figure says, beaming. “It’s good to meet you. I’m Clark.”

  And at that, for some reason, Ducky almost chokes on his own spit. He turns to me, eyes round as basketballs.

  “Are you having a stroke?” I whisper.

  “Well . . . hi there,” Clark says, turning to me. The presence of me and the baby clearly has him ruffled, although he’s dealing with it better than, say, the Swede.

  “I’m Elvie,” I tell him. “And this little screaming bundle of joy”—Olivia’s shrieking is reaching dog-frequency pitches now—“is Olivia.” Suddenly I feel flushed from the attention, the trip, everything, and I’m a bit woozy on my feet. “She’s hungry,” I say, as if it were an excuse.

  “Of course she is,” Clark replies, smiling. “It’s a long trek for a baby.” He reaches down and boops her on the nose. She keeps screaming. “Your little girl might be the first newborn to make it all the way to the South Pole.”

  “I’ll have her plant the baby flag outside later.” I rock Olivia, but she’s too worked up to be calmed.

  “Oates!” Clark calls over his shoulder. “What do we have in the way of baby food?” And Oates, to his credit, immediately heads our way, still limping slightly.

  “Sorry—” I start, but Oates stops me with a raised hand.

  “No need to apologize, child. It’s been a long day. A long several days, from what I gather.”

  “Try a few months,” I tell him. I’m pretty sure that crying your first day of prison is a no-no, even under these totally bonkers conditions, but I’m thinking of trying it out anyway, just for kicks.

  Oates puts an arm around me and shuffles me to a side door. “Gents,” he calls back toward the room as we walk, “get our new mates something hot to fill their bellies, will you? I’m going to show Elvie here to a little privacy.”

  “Thank you,” I whisper as we reach the door. I turn just long enough to see Rupert and Clark making room for Dad, Ducky, and Cole at the tables. The rest of the prisoners scooch far away from them, as though the marching band just invaded the football team’s lunch table. I can tell we’re gonna be real welcome here.

  • • •

  Oates sees me to an empty bunkroom, where I sit down on one of the impeccably made beds.

  “I’ll have them send down some food for you,” Oates tells me from where he lingers in the doorway. “Jules makes a rather serviceable ratatouille.”

  “Thank you,” I breathe. The exhaustion has practically engulfed me now. I’m so zonked that Olivia’s screams are blurring into one mind-numbing siren wail. Oates doesn’t reply but tips his head in a slight bow to me, then heads back toward the canteen.

  I take in my new digs. Pretty spartan but definitely cozier than my hospital room back with Byron and his lot. There are seriously bunk beds, six mattresses in total. There’s a couch and a table with a few chairs and a lamp. A few older lap-pads strewn on the table—probably without network access, I’d wager. And that’s it.

  “Okay, girl,” I tell my shrieking daughter. “Let’s get you to stop screaming. Um, inner calm, inner calm . . .”

  “ ’Cause I love you, a bushel and a peck . . .”

  (Tired tired anxious tired we have no plan worried

  freaked out Cole just PUNCHED a dude hungry tired so so tired . . .)
>
  “You bet your pretty neck I do.”

  Baby Olivia is having none of it. I sigh and try to placate her instead with the end of the last gel packet Cole gave me. I should have asked Oates for something for Olivia along with the ratatouille, although he’s probably ten steps ahead of me on that one. I really am turning out to be the world’s worst mother.

  Olivia, unfortunately, refuses to eat the damn gel.

  “I know you’re hungry,” I whine, suddenly totally understanding the phrase “at the end of one’s rope.” “And you like gel! You practically gobbled it on the trip here! Come on, now. You have to eat something.” Olivia swats the packet to the floor. At the sound of the splat she launches into a new series of wails, grabbing with her tiny little hands at the zip of my thermal suit. “No!” I shout as her tugs become more insistent. “You can’t have milk. My boobs don’t work, remember? We just tried that. I’m past the point of producing milk, silly girl.”

  But you try reasoning with an infant.

  “All right,” I sigh, resigned. Maybe just going through the motions and being near a boob will calm this Goober down enough to actually eat the gel. I unzip my thermal top and fiddle with my shirt. “Let’s hurry up, though, before someone comes with that food. You don’t want your mommy to get a reputation as an exhibitionist, now, do you?” I shift Olivia into position, but like before she just squirms all over the place, her baby feet ninja-kicking in every direction.

  “You are such a little spaz,” I moan. “I don’t know where you get that—”

  “Whoa, oops! Hello there!”

  I look up. Standing in the doorway is a man with an enormous bushy beard and long hair.

  “What the hell?” I squeak, doing my best to cover my half-exposed bosom.

  But the man seems not to even notice. He walks straight into the room and plops down on the bunk across from mine. “I heard there’d be new recruits today,” he answers. “But I never expected a baby.” He grins cheerfully, scratching his crazy-long, scraggly beard. “Man, this place is a trip, huh?”

  “Dude,” I say. “Seriously. What the hell?”