Other Dangers: Slipped Through

by Amanda M. Lyons

  “They want to check you as well.”

  He followed her into the light and soon found himself in front of a heavily armed woman, apparently the guard. She squinted at him, searching for signs of harmful intent and jerking his face up into the light to study his features. “Open your eyes wider. Wider, I said!”

  He pushed his eyes to their limits and stood motionless as the guard held each eyelid open with her fingers, the salt on them stinging his eyes. She turned toward Abby, looking unsettled. “He doesn’t seem like one of us. I certainly haven’t seen him before. Is he another of your wanderers?”

  “Yes. He’s fine; I’ve been traveling with him for a little over a week now.”

  The guard didn’t look very reassured, but released his eyelids nonetheless, stepping back and keeping a watchful eye on him just in case.

  Abby took it in stride, clearly used to the woman’s habits. For all Henry knew this was the way that all villages were this close to the hybrid villages. Ohh, she was making sure I wasn’t one of them, I should’ve known.

  “Is Gabrielle here? Or Matt and Erin?” Must be some of her friends. I’ll have to remember those names and see if they have any major importance down the road.

  The guard’s eyes drifted to Abby for only a moment, the look of apology clear as she opened her mouth to respond. Something was wrong, something that meant bad news. After all the stern looks and watchful stares she’d given him, he noted the absence of her weighty gaze with a relieved breath. Her eyes on the ground now, she was struggling to put whatever it was into words. Henry hated to find out just what it was if it gave this woman pause.

  “It’s been a while since we saw you last, Abby.” Another woman had spoken from the shadow of an open tent. In a moment a body joined the voice. Deep and naturally husky, the voice matched the rich tone and shapely form that went with it. This was the voice of a huntress, commanding and clear, but seasoned with the seductive qualities inherent with a powerful woman. She was a redhead, he saw, not much different in age than Abby herself, and tall. I suppose it only makes sense that this world would be populated by Amazons.

  “I haven’t had reason to come through, Gabrielle. I go where I’m needed, or wherever I happen to wander. It’s been that way for a very long time now.” There was an edge of rebuke there; Gabrielle was not one to mince words for Abby’s benefit, but Abby was never going to give more than she had to with anyone. The more he heard her speak to others, the more that Henry got she had been, and remained, a leader among these people. While she seemed to take on the role reluctantly in many ways, there were times where she also seemed to rely on it to maintain her independence and push for action where needed.

  Gabrielle gave her a firm look in return. “Too long. And it wasn’t always the case, nor does it have to be forever. You’re the only one of us that hasn’t settled anywhere, and you’ve got the biggest reasons to do it. Even if you don’t settle, you should stop here and there to live if nowhere else than within.” She said, putting a hand over Abby’s heart and forehead.

  “There’s too much to be made up for, and I don’t know how long I have to make it right.”

  “And what if you already have?” Gabrielle said, meeting Abby’s eyes with that same teaching weight. Here was a woman who saw straight through Abby’s bullshit and called her on it without pause.

  “No.” Abby’s face had gone cold and closed, her eyes daring the other woman to keep pushing now that she’d made her firmer point.

  “What if it’s just you who’s dragging yourself on, and you that’s throwing the few dreams and the life you have left away for the past?”

  “You know I don’t believe that.” Ahh, so this is an old ax they grind together.

  “And you know I don’t believe that. You don’t have that much of a penance left to pay, and you’re not the only one, Abby. It’s A-Alex.” Gabrielle bowed her head, conveying some deeply seated sense of loss. I wonder what’s up with that. “And it’s your daughter, and so many others who need you in their lives! You’ve spent so much time in mourning and denial I wonder if you see how happy you could be if you let it happen! How lucky you are that it’s all still there to claim after all this time.”

  The cold drifting off of Abby in that moment was palpable. “I need a place for the night, for myself and Henry, my companion here.” Her annoyance was clear on her face and even more so in the clipped way she spoke, evading the subject.

  Gabrielle knew that she had pushed but she wasn’t ready to let it go, to give into Abby’s chill. “Abby-”

  Abby raised her hand in a gesture for her to stop. “We’ll stay the night and leave at dawn. We won’t trouble you further.”

  “Abby-” Gabrielle’s posture softened, her face pulled down in a frown of frustration and reluctant withdrawal from the issue. The look of warning in Abby’s face stopped her from saying anything more about it and she sighed. Resigned to silence on that topic at least. “Stay as long as you like. You know you’re always welcome.”

  “Some food and some sleep and then we go.” Her voice made it clear there would be no negotiation now, just what Abby wanted to have done on her own terms.

  “All right,” Gabrielle sighed. “Brianna, get them something to eat and a fresh pack with food for them,” she said to the guard. “Take them to their quarters when they’re ready. I’ll have someone else take over for the rest of the night.”

  Henry’s impression of Gabrielle had been proven right. She was in charge here and often remained in charge wherever she went because she saw people for who they were and pushed them toward the path she knew was to their benefit. She had given in to Abby’s whims because she also knew where she was fighting a losing battle, still pushing regardless largely to get that little edge of consideration through to the woman in hopes that things would change. Abby was clearly a warrior to her people and maintained the role of leader despite her stubborn reluctance to divert from her own path. Henry noted everything he saw with the knowledge their shared pasts held secrets he had yet to uncover. Where was her guilt grounded, and why? Just how long had she carried it? What brought such unquestioning loyalty and friendship to such an unlikely hero? The very world seemed to spin on her existence. Secrets had begun to unravel, even if they were in small bits and pieces, and it only egged his curiosity on.

  It didn’t take long for Brianna to get moving. In some ways she seemed happy to have something she could do rather than tackle whatever it was she’d narrowly avoided tackling with Abby earlier. Focused on her task, she walked at a brisk pace through the encampment, snagging two others to tell them what she wanted and then gesturing for Abby and Henry to follow her toward whatever place the village had for them to rest. As they set out after her, Henry looked back to see what had come of Gabrielle. She was watching them walk away, her face curled into a frown of frustration colored by worry. Yes, Abby was a hero to her people, but she also made them worry about her future.

  For now he let it go, turning back to follow Brianna and Abby, trusting in the moment and needing the sleep.

  ***

  He woke to the sound of Abby’s voice.

  “Get up! It’s time to go.” He’d gotten used to a smoother wakeup call; the old Abby was back and clearly not any more willing to negotiate than she had been the night before. By the sound she might even want to get started before Gabrielle had a chance to pester her any more about how she handled her life.

  “What sort of problem do you have with this Gabrielle woman anyway? Why are we leaving so soon?” Not the best way to start the day with her, but oh well.

  “You want to get back to your daughter as soon as possible, right?” Ooh a hefty dose of avoidance and distraction.

  “Yeah, but-Well, she kind of seems to have the right idea about things. Maybe-”

  She sighed, a great rasp of frustration that also involved her rubbing her hand over her face and an attempt to gather her thoughts with another breath. “Look, you don’t know a damn thing about
me or anyone else here, be glad for that and don’t bother me about my personal life. I want to be gone by the time she wakes.”

  “Fine,” He’d known it was a likely response, and to be fair she had been calmer about it than she might have been, but that didn’t stop him from gathering his things with a little more force than he really needed. Henry threw his things together and followed Abby out without another word. Outside of the tent stood another pack which contained food, some camping supplies, and fresh clothes.

  Abby gave it a look and turned her eyes to Henry. “Grab it and let’s go.”

  The sun had barely woken let alone anything else. Henry listened for whatever creatures might be wandering around at this hour. There was little movement, but enough to make him wary.

  “So how much farther is it?”

  She was calmer now that they were starting out. “To the next gate? A while yet. It might take as much as a month or two if all these delays keep happening. It’s a matter of speed, weather, and other dangers.”

  Henry took a breath, letting his frustration go. He was going to give it another go. “What happened, Abby? Why has everything changed here? Why do you act like refugees from some war? Why are you the only one that’s still roaming around after everyone else has stopped? Why-what makes you so careful-so distant? And why did those things happen the night of the storm? What was that thing? The sound we heard? You acted as if you knew it, as if you were afraid of it. You can’t hold everything back!”

  She gave him a cold glare and turned away. Abby walked on in silence and for a while he thought she wouldn’t answer. He’d been walking along after her in the beginning and now he had speeded up to keep on her trail; her pace had picked up as they got closer to the edge of the village and stayed steady once they’d left it. By the time she came to anything like a stop, they were a mile from the village and a fair way into a wooded and overgrown area of the highway.

  There, she turned.

  Rage and embarrassment glimmered in her eyes, making them wet and shining in the early light. She threw him to the ground, kicking a fan of dust at his face. “I’m fucking sorry, all right? I don’t know what happened that night, that wasn’t me, and it never will be. I scared myself, Henry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, and I’m sorry! Sorry for your wife, sorry for your kid, and sorry for the shitty state of affairs for the past week. This isn’t your world. This isn’t your time and…I’m just sorry, okay?”

  “I’m not going to tell you all the details just because of all that. I think I’d be cheating you if I did and I think it’d just make matters worse for everyone in the end. I am who I am and just who I am is really none of your business. I’m just the woman who’s getting you home the only way I know how and with as little damage as I can do. I don’t care if you understand because the plan is just to get you home in one piece.” Frustrated tears gleamed at the corners of her eyes and she was breathing hard, trying to hold back her anger.

  “Just get up and walk. Don’t talk. Don’t ask questions. Just walk and I’ll try to get you home. Is that all right with you?”

  Henry nodded and stood, thrown. He’d lost a good ten pounds from the exercise and sparing portions he’d gotten since coming here, but he was still a weighty man. Abby was much stronger than she let on, the force of her strike had thrown him to the ground with enough force to leave him breathless. His breathing was still a little ragged as he got up and brushed himself off, making it hard for him to get back in step with her as she made ready to get back on the road.

  Abby started walking without another word, and Henry followed in kind, unsure what the day’s travel might bring and just how likely it was that he’d ever get home. There was no doubt he was following someone that was plausibly insane and he found he had no doubt there was a certain amount of mental frailty in her if nothing else.

  The bright blue of curiosity still lay there at the floor of his mind, sputtering, jagged and causing irregular bursts of speculation as he went further along with Abby. Trying to muddle out the reasons for all of this emotional turmoil and her violent survivor’s mood swings, he failed to catch what little was revealed in the things she had said that could offer him more than a glimmer of the things he sought to know.

  As the sun passed up and over the sky, Henry took in the sounds of the woods, realizing that in among the terrors there were softer, more familiar things; sparrows and crows, squirrels and the soft patter of rabbits. Though they might be quite different from those same creatures in his world, they were comforting all the same.

  He supposed the same could be said of the survivors. They’d changed to suit their environment, but at their heart they were the same sort of people Henry had spoken to every day. They wanted the same things that anyone else wanted: Security, safety, love, understanding, and a place to raise their children. This was a place with heroes as well as villains, normalcy even among the aberrations, and sweet along with the bitter. They wanted life; it was all they wanted under these trappings of misery and violence. They were making their way in the world the only way they knew how.

  A few weeks in this place had changed him a great deal, humbled him, and gained him a new perspective. If such a short time here could change him this much, what must have happened to the villagers? How much time had really passed if these ways were so ingrained? Maybe the changes had occurred over time or maybe it had varied over the course of generations, of decades or only a handful of years.

  The question of time also brought questions about age. If Abby were now in her late thirties or very early forties, would she have been edging on twenty-five when all this occurred, or in the event of several decades, was she in fact older than she appeared? She must have been directly involved in these events that was obvious. Otherwise, there would be no guilt, no penance for her to shackle herself to and carry around like a weight on her heart. And what about her friends? Her lover, Pereneaux? There weren’t enough clues to reach any answers and Henry was beginning to wonder if he’d ever get them. So his thoughts returned to home and all the seemingly trivial things he’d left behind.

  The matter of his failed marriage had come as near to a close as it ever would. His wife of seventeen years was dead; worse than that, she was undead and monstrous. Henry might never recover her body and she might never be put out of her misery, he was forced to accept both of these things. Without his wife that didn’t leave him a great deal to return home for. What was there really? A job he hated, a house and car he just barely owned? Could he really claim to have any friends in that life? The truth was that the only real reason he had left to go home was his daughter, and that seemed the most distant thing of all. How could he go back and risk ruining her life with all of the change he had experienced? How would he explain it all and how would it come to change both of their lives? Might she be better off if she were left there to live her life without both of them? Was that the real answer?

  No fresh answers came to these questions either.

  ***

  By late afternoon they’d made about twenty-five miles. They’d stopped for a quick meal of jerky at about two (this after Abby was sure they were well out of Gabrielle’s reach) and been walking since. The walk was twice as rigorous as their previous pace, and as a result, Henry was once again winded and sweaty.

  The temperature changed little. If anything, the humidity had risen, baking the dirt and oil of the road into his skin, irritating it. Rashes and friction burns broke out in several places, making him hiss little sounds of pain as he moved on. He was annoyed and wanted a bath almost as much as he wanted to sit underwater until the heat evaporated. It had only been a few days since the rain shower and he already felt like it had been months. He was ill with the choking swelter of the place.

  There had been no thought going through his mind as he walked, only the whir and buzz of an overheated mind. The swirl of nauseous delusion spun the already illusory world before him. He felt as if he’d pass out soon, the weight of humidity and past events
chasing away his air.

  Abby turned to look at him and noted something that sent a look of concern over her face. In a moment she had covered the feet between them and pulled him into a shadowed space off to the side of the road. Once there, she reached toward her side, took off her pack, and brought out a water skin. She held it to his lips and guided him to sit as he drank, settling beside him. The heat began to form in swirls of multicolored air like oil in a parking lot, his left eye twitching, almost as if it was confused by what was happening, and then his vision began to fade.

  Unconsciousness overtook him as she struggled to cool him down; her voice chattered away to him as he slipped into the dark, trying to make a connection he didn’t have the energy to make and the last thing he saw before he faded out was the look of concern on her face.

  ***

  At first he wasn’t aware that he’d woken up, the darkness was as deep as it had been in his mind, close and unyielding, but then there was a spark a few feet away, and shortly after, a blaze as Abby lit a fire. The connection between his mind and body still seemed to be catching up as he took it all in, no real feeling touching him as he watched the flames ignite and build, a few feet away.

  In a moment he felt his mouth move and words come out, barely seeming to be his own. “How long was I out?”

  Her eyes flicked to him from the fire, shifting back and forth as she assessed his condition, and then she spoke with a soft, clear voice. “About five or six hours. Are you feeling any better?”

  The heat had gone down a little, enough that he could think at least. Other than a sharp headache and stiffness in his joints he seemed all right, well enough anyway. “I suppose I’m all right. I’m sorry.”