The Forest Beyond the Earth

by Matthew S. Cox

  Falo laughed and scooted back in the seat.

  She stepped around him and lowered herself, aiming for the front edge of the seat.

  “Oof!” Falo grabbed her backpack after it hit him in the face. “Gotta put this thing in the back or we won’t fit.”

  “All right.”

  She jumped to the dirt and wriggled out of her pack before trotting around to stuff it in with Dad. Wisp also decided to leave the canteen belt in the storage compartment since it would probably be uncomfortable to wear while sitting so close to Falo. After securing the buckle over the flaps again, she hurried back and climbed up. Falo guided her to sit on the front edge of the seat between his knees. She curled up in a tight ball, rifle in front of her gripped in both hands, stock on the floor between her feet, barrel pointing straight up. He reached around her shoulders to hold the wheel, and though he wasn’t Dad, she tolerated the almost-hug.

  The walls of the driver’s compartment came up to her eye level, making her feel like she sat in a small, but deep, bathtub. She glanced down at the pedals at the front end of the compartment, not far in front of her toes. Falo again put his foot on the right-side one, and pushed it down. The engine’s low idle raced up to roar like an enraged cabin-sized bitey bug. She slid backward, pressed into Falo for a few seconds, wind blasting her in the face.

  Moving at such a speed, the sheer awe of it, kept her speechless. Riding up front instead of the storage compartment offered an entirely different experience―and fresh air. She prairie-dogged up to gaze around at scrub brush, cacti, and random pieces of broken machines. Falo steered toward the distant haze of the mountains without her prompting.

  The awe of driving lessened after a little while, leaving her to sink into a wallow of sadness. Wisp kept her head down, teetering on the edge of tears. She wouldn’t cry in front of Falo. People will try to hurt you, said Dad in her memory. If she appeared weak, this man might get the idea of sending her to the Other Place and taking all her stuff. Or maybe just taking all her stuff.

  After a few hours, he slowed to a stop and pushed the black button, cutting the engine off to silence.

  “Pee break, water, and food time.”

  “Pee?”

  “Umm.” Falo fidgeted. “You don’t know what peeing is?”

  She thought it over for a moment. “Maybe I do since you think I should, but I don’t know that word.”

  “Yellow liquid comes out of you?”

  “Oh. Yes. Letting out the bad water.”

  “Right. That. Do that. Then we drink and eat, walk around a little… rest, you know? If we spend too much time sitting in this cramped little space, our legs will hurt.”

  “Okay.”

  She climbed up out of the buggy and wandered a few steps away to let out the bad water. While she did that, Falo grabbed one of the red plastic jugs and poured about half of its contents into a pipe sticking out from the buggy’s side. She stared down at the bad water soaking into the sand, and said “Pee” a few times to test the word. Maybe she’d call it that, since it took less effort to say ‘pee’ than ‘let out the bad water.’

  When she walked back to the buggy, Falo handed her a skinned, roasted rat on a stick and a cup of water from one of the gallon bottles. As she ate, he wandered off to pee. At a shift in the wind, a stink washed over her, making her cough. It reminded her of the unpleasant odor within the Mother Shrine, but much stronger and without the pinesap.

  That’s the smell of the Other Place. Wanting to move away from the odor seemed rude to Dad, so she forced herself to keep eating.

  “Whoa…” Falo coughed. “We better hurry, huh?” He drank from one of the jugs without untying it from the frame, then grabbed another cooked rat from a cloth sack hanging on the side of the buggy. He hopped back in the driver’s seat with the rat held in his teeth.

  Wisp trudged over and got in again, stuffing herself down in front of him as she had been before.

  Once they resumed driving, the stiff breeze chased away the foul odor. She nibbled on rat meat while watching scrubland roll by.

  “So what’s that thing you keep carrying around?” asked Falo, a while later.

  Her hands tightened on the rifle. “It’s a seeing machine. If I hold it up and look through it, I can see far away. It’s Dad’s. I brought it for him because he likes it.”

  “Aww. Man. That’s rough. You know, we probably should bury him.”

  She jabbed her elbow into Falo’s gut. “Dad is not ngh!”

  “Oof.” He wheezed. “What?”

  “You bury ngh, not people.”

  “Why are you grunting?”

  Wisp scowled. It took a few seconds for her anger to subside enough to remember that other word. “Poop!”

  “You have to go?”

  She snarled. “No! I mean… you bury poop, not people!”

  Falo kept quiet for a moment. “Umm. What do you think happens to people when they die?”

  Wisp swiped her fingers across her forehead, pulling hair out of her eyes. “The people who love them make shrines for them.”

  “Make shrines? What do you mean?”

  “Like Mother. She’s home, in the shrine.” Wisp explained how Mother sat in a chair in the cabin’s third room, surrounded by sacred substances in cans and all the flower offerings she’d gathered over the years. “She watches us and protects us.”

  “Wow, kid. Just wow. You grew up with a dead person in the house? That’s umm…” He whistled.

  She peered back at him. “What?”

  “Oh, forget it.” He stared at her, his eyebrows about as high up as they could possibly go. “That’s… an unusual custom. I’ve never heard of it before. The people I know bury their dead.”

  “Well, that’s not what we do.” She faced forward again. “Dad does not treat people we love like poop.”

  They drove in silence for about an hour before the curiosity whirling around in her head grew too insistent to ignore.

  “Why would you bury people?” asked Wisp.

  “Well… it’s what we always do. Dead bodies smell bad. You can also get sick if you stay around them too much. A body out in the open attracts bugs. And, in the ground, they go back to the earth and help plants and stuff grow.”

  Helping plants sounded nice, but all the other stuff had to be wrong. Mother had been with her as long as she could remember and she never made anyone sick, though there had been some bugs. Those, they couldn’t eat since they had been charged with Mother’s energy. She decided not to ask this man anything more since he obviously didn’t know much.

  They drove for the rest of the daylight hours, with the occasional rest stop. For most of the trip, Wisp kept quiet, gazing out at the terrain, bouncing whenever the overly springy buggy hit a bump, and sometimes shuffling her feet back and forth over the sandy aluminum floor.

  At one point, she asked if she could try holding the wheel. He decided to show her how the machine worked, and even let her work the pedals. She thought about her books, and characters who drove cars. Images rearranged in her mind from the way she had previously imagined. After seeing the SUV, watching the marauder drive while hiding in the storage area, and now sitting up front holding the wheel, ‘driving’ turned out to be nothing like what had been in her thoughts from the books. The characters always seemed like they got in a car and vanished, reappearing wherever they wanted to go. After sitting in this seat for hours, she realized that driving took all darn day.

  Once the sun began its journey beyond the mountains up ahead, Falo steered toward a group of four small buildings. They drove off the dirt onto a scrap of old paving, rolling up to the largest, most intact of the structures. A row of three strange boxy machines stood in a line on a concrete island to the left of a big open room with a giant rolling door. Falo drove around in a circle so the back end of the buggy pointed at the opening, then killed the engine.

  “Gonna be dark soon. This thing ain’t got lights, so we’re gonna sleep here.”

 
She climbed up and jumped to the dirt. “Okay.”

  He got out as well, and pushed the buggy backward into the huge room. She trailed after him, looking around at the old cabins. Except for the cinder block one in front of them, the others had mostly collapsed. A sign on the wall inside the big room displayed, “Oil Change - $30.” Another shot-up sign outside read, “Regular, Premium, Super, Diesel” over empty black spaces. A few odd machines occupied a worktable in the back, and a shelf on the right contained three white cans.

  While Falo shoved the buggy into the building, she walked over and picked one of the cans up, examining the writing on the outside.

  “Oil filter?” asked Wisp. “What’s that?”

  “Umm. Something that filters oil, I’d guess.”

  She squinted at him. “What does that even mean?”

  He shrugged. “The ancients had things we can’t even think of.”

  “Can we let Dad out of the buggy? It’s not comfortable back there.”

  Falo glanced at her. He seemed to be thinking about something complicated, based on the faces he made. After a while, he nodded. “All right. You sure you don’t wanna bury him? It’s probably the best way to help him rest.”

  “I’m sure. Mother wants him home.”

  “You’re going to set him inside your house next to her?”

  “Yes.” She set the oil filter back on the shelf, having no use for it.

  He let out a low whistle, and walked around behind the buggy. “Ugh. Gah.”

  Wisp hurried over to help. They eased Dad out of the cargo compartment together and dragged him a little ways away, leaving him on the floor. His back still bent upward at a slight angle, as though he slumped against a wall. Dark patches had formed here and there on his skin, and he gave off a fairly pungent stink.

  “It’s hot, but at least it’s dry here,” said Falo.

  Wisp knelt beside Dad, fussing at his hair and beard with her fingers, trying to neaten them. “It’s all right, Dad. We’re going home now. Are you glad those people sent all the marauders to the Other Place? Can you see Mother yet?”

  Falo mumbled and walked off. He returned with a water bottle, which he put down beside her before pouring more from the red jug into the buggy. A metal pipe cap squeaked at an irritating pitch when he tightened it back in place. Whistling, he hung the red jug on the triangle frame again and unhooked the sack of food he’d taken from the marauder compound.

  “Come on over here, away from that smell.” Falo walked off, taking a seat on the floor by the open end of the room.

  Wisp lingered by Dad until Falo began eating without her. She begrudgingly stood and padded over the sand-swept concrete, into the breeze blowing by outside. Her hair fluttered around, strands crossing her face, but she kept staring angrily at him.

  He tossed her a potato, which she caught as a reflex, then held up another roasted rat.

  “This feels strange.” She sniffed the potato. “It’s soft.”

  “It’s been cooked.” Falo waved the rat-on-a-stick at her.

  “Oh.” Wisp sighed, sat, and bit the potato. The mashed from Zen’s tasted better, but she decided she would like this one, too. She reached out and took the rat stick.

  “So where do they bury people?”

  “In the ground, usually,” said Falo.

  She blinked. “No. I mean where do people live who they think something so rude is normal?” Dad taught her that whenever she had to make ngh in the woods, she should dig a hole, and then cover it afterward. Treating people like that after they’d gone to the Other Place made her sick to think about.

  “Heh. You’re one odd little kid.” Falo chuckled. “I’m from a little village far off to the west, up in the hills where there are trees and life. None of this desert crap.”

  “I’m from the forest, too. Did your home have a big green wall around it? I think maybe I saw it.”

  “Nah. If we had a wall, the marauders wouldn’t have got us.” He gazed down. “They took four of us. I’m the only one still alive. Was stuck in that place for months. Ain’t your fault though. Meryl, Rod, and Lew were dead before you showed up.”

  “Your friends are not dead. They went to the Other Place. Only monsters die.” She bit a chunk off the rat and chewed.

  “Marauders rolled in on us with their buggies, grabbed us.” He shook his head. “We didn’t have much warning.”

  “Why do they take people?”

  “They forced us to work on their farm. Sometimes they would make two people fight, bet coins on who’d win… sometimes they’d drag the women… never mind. I ain’t going to talk to you about that.”

  She hesitated with her teeth around the potato, pulled back, and asked, “Drag the women?” before biting it.

  “They did bad stuff to them.”

  Wisp hurried to chew the mouthful of potato and swallow. “Like what? Why won’t you talk to me about it?”

  “Because it’s bad stuff and I ain’t talkin’ to you about it. You’re too little.”

  Grumbling, she made a sour face and turned her gaze out at the sand outside, aglow in the moonlight. Dad had never refused to answer her questions about anything. When she’d asked him why they were alone, he’d told her of the Fire Dragons. When she asked why she had to sleep in the Haven, he’d told her of the Tree Walkers. When she’d asked if she could have a sister, he’d told her of the spirits, and how they’d sometimes collect a person who’d gone to the Other Place and wanted to come back, make them into a baby, and bring them to deserving people. Unfortunately, the spirits had laws, and they could not bring him another baby because Mother had gone away.

  A weak smile broke through her gloom. When she got older, maybe the spirits would bring her a baby to take care of… but she’d have to find someone to be the dad, or the spirits would never answer her request.

  “Mother sent me to find Dad, but she didn’t tell me he’d be in the Other Place.”

  Falo looked at her for a long while, staring into her eyes. The weight of his gaze made her uncomfortable, but not frightened he would hurt her.

  “Why are you making that face at me?” She tossed the rat skeleton aside.

  “What makes you think that man is your father?”

  Wisp’s jaw hung open. How dumb is this guy? “He’s Dad!”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course! He’s been Dad my whole life. Why are you asking such stupid things?”

  “Well… he looks like one of the Neva Da tribe. They live quite far away from here, and, according to some of the stories I’ve heard, have many things―machines―from before the war.”

  Jeeps. Guns? Magic? She thought about her Haven, and how Dad had gotten the metal rods to stick together so well, like they’d been one solid piece. Then again, the Marauders had done the same with their… cages, but those looked sloppy by comparison. Dad also had given her lots of books, which she hadn’t seen even one of since leaving home. Perhaps he had come from some tribe off in the distance. He’d told her that he and Mother had traveled for a long time before finding the trailer, which he’d built into their cabin.

  Falo leaned over and grasped her hand. “Look at yourself. You’re white as a ghost and have yellow hair… blue eyes. That man’s dark, black hair and brown eyes. If that man’s your father, I’m half goat.”

  She ripped her hand away from him, leapt to her feet, and shouted, “Take that back! You take that back or I’ll magic you!” Wisp grabbed her pistol, but didn’t pull it out.

  “Whoa!” Falo raised both hands. “Okay. Okay. Fine. He’s your father.”

  Wisp glared at him. She’d never been so furious with anyone before, except for the marauder who sent Dad to the Other Place, but she had no idea which one of them had done it. Her knuckles whitened on the pistol grip. How dare he say such mean things!

  Falo’s eyes widened. “Calm down, kid. I’m sorry. He’s your father.”

  She thought of the Fire Dragons.

  Anger will only destroy y
ou, said Dad’s voice in her memory.

  She let her hand slip off the pistol, arm limp at her side. Fury drained out of her, becoming defeat. “I won’t magic you. It’s bad to get angry.” I need to apologize. She walked over to the buggy, where the smell of decay hung heavy. Despite feeling rude to Dad, she held her breath while rummaging her backpack out of the storage compartment, then returned to sit by Falo. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He leaned back, uneasy.

  “Here.” She pulled a Twinkie out and offered it. “You can have this.”

  He gingerly reached over and grasped the cake. “What is this?”

  “It’s cake. For eating. It tastes like happiness.”

  Falo examined the Twinkie for a few seconds before raising its end to his mouth.

  “Wait,” said Wisp. “You should peel the skin off first. The see-through part, you don’t eat.”

  Crinkling plastic filled the silence as he unwrapped the treat. Both his eyes shot open when he bit off a piece.

  “See?” asked Wisp.

  “Yeah.” He nodded. “This is… wow. I’ve never had anything like this before. How did you make it?”

  “I didn’t make it. I found it.”

  He eyed the half-Twinkie. “This is from… before the war?”

  “War?” asked Wisp.

  “It’s from before the war.” He stared at it for a few more seconds, shrugged, and took another bite. “Still good.”

  “What is war?” She took the pot out of her backpack. “I still have some roaches. They’re not going to last much longer. Want one?”

  “Nah, you need the food more than I do.” Falo smiled, and tossed the last bit of Twinkie in his mouth.

  She plucked the legs from one of the roaches and bit the end off, testing the flavor. Still a bit like a greasy version of the bird meat. Not spoiled yet.

  “War is what happened to the planet. Used to be lots and lots of people, but they lived in different tribes. And those tribes didn’t all like each other. They had powerful weapons the likes of which we can’t even imagine. One day, they used them, and―boom―end of the world.”