Cry For Tomorrow

by Dianna Hunter

  “What’s making the walls glow like this and what are they made of?” Kelly queried as she pushed the dog from the shelf and into my waiting arms.

  “I don’t know.” I turned in a slow circle, studying the curved walls of the chamber we’d entered. It felt like we were walking through a giant bubble that had been trapped within walls of wet sand. Glowing veins of green and gold swirled through the curving walls in psychedelic patterns that lit the whole cavern with their phosphorescent light.

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” Rainor told us reassuringly as he suddenly appeared behind us. “We’re just getting closer to the barrier. This section of the tunnel has been formed by trails of glass globes which are emitted by creatures we call glow-worms as they tunnel through the ground.”

  When he heard our concerned intakes of breath he went on, “Don’t worry, even if we were to encounter one of the worms, they’re totally harmless—in fact they’re actually quite beneficial. Basically a glow-worm is a just a big caterpillar that eats dirt and evacuates its intestinal residue in the form of phosphorescent silicate globes filled with air.”

  “Great—we’re breathing worm farts!” grumbled Kelly.

  “But they’re glass?” Jennie asked incredulously. “Won’t they break from the pressure?”

  “No, like an egg, they are unbelievably strong under the right circumstances.” He laughed. “Now, I want you all to be aware that we’ll be leaving your world behind very soon and, unfortunately, I am not the only one using this rift to move between worlds. There is a fair amount of phantom traffic in the region, so just take it easy and don’t let anything take you by surprise. Remember, they won’t harm you.”

  As if on cue, a sudden rush of wind swept into the passageway and degenerated into a dozen individual phantoms of various types. Swooping about the confined space like captured moths in a jar, they bombarded us, urgently pushing and prodding at our bodies. Rainor chanted a few short phrases and the wind died and the phantoms slowed and moved away, giving us clear passage.

  Mine was not the only sigh of relief whispering in the darkness when the phantoms backed off and we were able to continue.

  “Okay folks, I know things seem a bit strange now, but everything is fine,” Rainor tried to reassure us again when we reached the apparent end of the passageway. “We’re going to leave the tunnel here and will pass through the curtain into the under-world.” He placed one hand against the faintly glowing surface. “You only need to lean into this wall like this—” The pressure of his hand revealed a slight pulsing of the wall, as if it were a beating heart.

  “The curtain acts like a filter and removes and destroys most of the bacteria clinging to the phantoms and maybe even to humans. I’m afraid I’ve never had the opportunity to study the effect with normal humans before, only the freaks.” In the pale light we could see his uncertain smile. “But don’t worry, I haven’t heard of it actually hurting any of the agents that have passed through to converse with the Source in the past, so it’s probably okay.”

  “Now, you’re going to feel a slight pressure.” Before anyone could question him, Rainor took a step into the wall and was gone. A moment later his head and one arm reappeared. “Halie?” Reaching, he caught my hand and jerked, drawing it through with him.

  For a moment I resisted, staring at the place where my arm appeared to end against the pulsing surface. Taking a deep breath, I tightened the grip of my other hand on Dusty’s collar and stepped into the wall.

  A soft pressure, not unlike that you might experience when diving to the bottom of a deep pool, surrounded me. and I was gasping for breath in the cool, dusky air. The startled dog slid through on her backside and yipped in surprise. All around me, my friends began appearing, gasping just as I had.

  Stepping away from the wall, I took a deep breath of the sharp sea air. The rhythmic crash of waves drew my eyes to a gap in the barrier of large purple rocks and boulders where waves of silver washed over a beach of pearl-colored sand. A gull screaming overheaddrew attention to a dusky gold sky filled with puffy lavender clouds. I wasn’t sure why, but I was pretty sure that this was what passed for daytime in this world.

  Dusty walked ahead, snuffling at the bushes and other vegetation surrounding the small clearing. She woofed curiously at a flock of birds fluttering about in the midst of the sharp-angled limbs of a cluster of purple-leafed trees, but they totally ignored her. Not so for the small herd of six-legged phantom-animals flushed from their hiding place in the rocks. Snorting in alarm, they leaped away into a tangle of bushes. Their peach and cream spotted coats merged with the soft brown and grey of the brush and they quickly disappeared from sight.

  “Well, what do you think of my world now?” whispered Rainor from behind my shoulder. “Now can you see that it is so much more than just a place of ghostly creatures and stark shadows?”

  Startled by his sudden proximity, I jumped, but I didn’t move away. I was beginning to get used to his sudden appearances. “Yes, this is truly special,” I answered softly.

  Taking a step away from him, I continued to study our surroundings, noting many other things that I’d failed to perceive on first look, like the pink and pearl waves of wild flowers peeking from between the rocks and the tree limbs that no longer appeared barren but were in fact covered with boughs of trumpet-shaped flowers that sparkled like frozen drops of sunshine in the golden light. When I turned back to check on our guide, the look in Rainor’s eyes told me better than any words that this man loved his world as much as I loved my own.

  I was so absorbed in the landscape that I hadn’t noticed the dog returning to my side until she disturbed the quiet with a deep growl of warning.

  “Hey girl, what’s up,” I whispered. Putting a hand on her collar, I carefully scanned the area.

  The dog’s growl was all the warning we got.

  Howling like banshees, the phantoms erupted from the shadows. Charging into our scattered ranks, they brushed roughly against us, pushing and shoving. I tried to remain calm but when I felt teeth on my ankle, I kicked the skulking thing creeping along the ground in the head and drew my sword.

  “Kelly! Are you okay?” I shouted as I tried to locate my sister. The loud crack of a stick striking against something solid was followed by Kelly’s exuberate shout, “Take that, Mush Face!”

  Warned by a stir of the air behind me I spun around, swinging my blade up and into the face of a slug-shaped creature the size of a bat flying at my head. The blade cracked into a very solid mouth full of jagged teeth and knocked the creature to the ground, where Dusty gleefully pounced upon it and began tearing at the soft, rubbery flesh. These so-called phantoms were most definitely not the vacuous, harmless creatures we’d been accustomed to in the over-world.

  A pathetic scream ripped the heavy air and drew everyone’s attention to the pair of freaks crouching against the wall of rock we’d just emerged from; they must have followed us through the passageway. One of the phantoms had driven the dark-haired one back against the rocks and seemed to be holding him there. The reason was immediately apparent when a large, humanoid phantom emerged from the shadows of the trees.

  “Hey, that is most definitely not any kind of phantom we’ve ever seen before,” gasped Jake.

  “Yeah, that’s looking more like one of those ghouls we’ve been hearing rumors about, except it’s more substantial than the usual phantom, and much larger,” added Jennie.

  We gathered together, watching anxiously as the seven foot tall ghoul converged on the captive freak. Covered in rough grey scales, the creature had a thick, leathery fringe of blood-red framing a face that was a sickening caricature of human with large bulging, red-rimmed eyes, thin black lips and a big bulbous nose covered with warts.

  The ghoul lunged the last several feet, pouncing on the freak like a starving dog on raw meat, driving him to the ground with the weight of its body. The ghoul’s gelatinous body began vibrating and the man began screaming.

  Exchanging ho
rrified looks, we drew our swords and started moving toward the pair floundering about in the sand.

  “No, wait!” ordered Rainor as he intercepted us. “It’s too late! If you try to separate them now they’ll both die.”

  Since the attack had begun, the blonde-haired freak had remained motionless, clinging to the rock wall as if in shock but when his companion’s form began to meld with that of the giant ghoul he began stumbling away, sobbing. His fear came to an abrupt end when a second ghoul exploded from the ground nearly beside him. Opening a great slavering maw, it engulfed the terrified man.

  This creature was not even vaguely humanoid but was more like a giant mottled slug with a tooth-lined mouth that encompassed two-thirds of its length. As the man disappeared down its gullet, the slug began moaning and quivering as if it were having a seizure.

  “Damn! How did they get wind of our arrival so soon?” Rainor pulled a taser weapon from under his jacket and pointed it at the slug.

  “What are you waiting for? Shoot the damned things!” shouted Jake.

  “Not yet. We’ve got to wait to see what they are!” returned Rainor. “If they’re ghouls, we kill them, if they’re humanoid, they live.” But even as he spoke the slug stopped quivering and its jaws began chewing. There was the sound of bones crunching as the thing slowly turned its thick head section in our direction. Opening its great mouth full of bloody teeth, the slug mewed hungrily at us.

  “What’s happening here, Rainor?” demanded Ben. Pulling a weapon easily recognized as a projectile-style police revolver from under his shirt, he aimed it as he took a step forward.

  Rainor also raised his weapon and fired. The thin red beam erupting from the tip of the weapon struck the gorging slug square in the middle of its forehead. The head exploded in a spray of green goop.

  The decapitated body swayed dizzily for several moments before it collapsed.

  Rainor spun about and aimed the weapon at the first ghoul but did not fire, waiting for the transformation to be complete.

  I felt Dusty’s fur brush against my leg as she crept forward to place herself between me and the massive ghoul. “Easy, girl, not yet,” I whispered to her as I wrapped both of my hands around the hilt of my sword and waited.

  Shuddering and gasping, the ghoul dragged its thick legs under it and staggered to its feet. Moaning pathetically, it gave another convulsive quiver, sending the shreds of the freak’s clothing fluttering to the ground, and began to turn towards us.

  To the surprise of all except Rainor, it now wore the face of the freak and even bore scattered locks of dark hair sprouting from its head. The eyes had lost their large, bulbous look, but they were closed tight, as if to shut out the pain of the surrounding world. The creature’s body was no longer as misshapen, but it was also more than twice the mass of the freak’s body.

  “This is why I don’t like it when the freaks insist on following me through the barrier,” Rainor said with a sad shake of his head. “I try to understand the pain they’re in but they don’t have any idea what kind of danger they’re facing when they try to meld.” He nodded at the thing toddling toward us with its eyes still closed. “Some of the meldings are successful but others—” he paused and his face took on a sick cast, “well, some are not. You have to understand that this variety of ghoul, the empty ones as we call them, have no souls, and we have no way of knowing if the freak making the attempt has a soul strong enough to take control. When they do, well, then everything is good.”

  “What happens when they don’t?” Jake dared to ask.

  The ghoul suddenly stopped moving forward, its head shot up and eyes flew open, and what I saw in the depths of those eyes was like a glimpse into hell.

  “When they only find hell in their melding, then we put them out of their misery,” Rainor stated flatly as he fired his weapon.

  The red beam struck between the ghoul’s bloodshot eyes and burned through the skull, and to my relief, the head did not explode this time. Its legs quivered and knees buckled as it slowly slid to the ground, where it lay silent and unmoving.

  “Wow!” gasped Jake. “Tell me this isn’t going to happen to anyone else, that only the freaks are going to be taken like this,” he demanded as he stepped into Rainor’s path.

  Obviously upset, Rainor shook his head and tried to compose himself. “I-I don’t know.” He threw up his hands in helpless confusion. “It didn’t used to be like this. In the past only the half-mindless, soul-damaged freaks from your cities were targeted like this, but things have gotten stranger and stranger as the Time has drawn closer. The last time I came through I encountered a whole band of ghouls like these prowling through the tunnels in over-world. I’ve never seen them so mindless and violent before. We tracked them back to tunnel thirteen at Karol’s retreat. There seems to be an unexplainable tear in the Curtain deep in the tunnel which allowed them to enter the over-world without passing through the filter. I have never seen phantoms or even the ghouls behave so aggressively before.” He looked around him as if checking for more intruders before going on.

  “I’ve got to admit that too many things have changed lately. The Source has gotten more and more remote and her orders are erratic and contradictory. I’ve repeatedly demanded an audience so that I might speak with her directly about my concerns, yet She continues to refuse to grant one. I truly don’t know what to think. I can only hope that what my superiors are telling me is right and that everything will be better when our mission has been accomplished.”

  “And what if you’re wrong, pal? What if this Council and their leader have just been telling you whatever it takes to get your help?” demanded Ben as he studied the bloody mess on the ground. “I’ve got to tell you, I’ve been hearing some totally different scenarios,” he growled. “Rumor has it that your leader, the Source, as you call her, and her legion of phantoms intend to take possession of the humans on the over-world, willing or not, and take what remains of our civilization into chaos and hell.”

  “No! That can’t be true, I would have known. Even when the dimensions finally touch, the Curtain should remain intact long enough to filter the ghouls as they pass through.” Rainor shook his head and stumbled over to lean against one of the big boulders.

  After several moments of silence he raised his head and faced the group of people waiting for him to come to terms with the situation.

  “I think we need to make a few changes in our plans here,” he nodded his head at me. “Halie, you and your friends have been gracious and concerned enough to come with me and I know that with your help we will be able to affect the merging but,” he looked from one face to the next, “we are going to do a little investigating before we take any further steps toward that goal.”

  His demeanor was very somber as he rejoined us. “I will present you to the Source only as a group sent by your government to investigate the probabilities of bringing a team of psis into Tereus. No one needs to know of your actual abilities until the time comes.” His face had a cold, hard look on it that hadn’t been there before. “If I have been deceived, then we will take steps to bring a stop to the Source’s plans, no matter the consequences.”

  “Uh, Rainor,” Jake interrupted, “I realize it’s a little late in the game to bring this up and all, but I was wondering if there will be any kind of language problem when we do encounter the locals.”

  Rainor’s face looked a little surprised at the question. “Hey, I’ve been going back and forth for so long that I’d forgotten the whole issue of language.” He smiled in relief. “This one is easy—there isn’t one, an issue I mean. Crossing through the curtain seems to affect the language centers of our brains, you’ll never even be aware of a change in languages.”

  There were murmurs of relief from everyone as we moved apart and returned to studying the surrounding landscape.

  “Hey, sis,” Kelly greeted me as she joined me on a large flat rock at the edge of the water. “This sure is a scary place, isn’t it?” She shivered as sh
e let her eyes wander across the alien landscape surrounding us. “Do you think we’ll be able to find someplace safe to stay for the night?”

  I studied my little sister’s face for a moment—she was trying to be brave but she looked pale and tired to me. A quick look around at the others confirmed that Kelly was not the only one who was worn out from our trek.

  “I don’t know just how safe it is anywhere in this place, Kelly, but I agree. We’re all tired and I think it’s definitely time we found somewhere to make camp for the night.” Getting to my feet, I called, “If the rest of you are as tired and hungry as we are, then I think it’s time we moved on a ways now,” I grimaced at the remains of the freak and phantoms strewn across the rocks, “away from here, and find a place to take a break. We need to have something to eat and drink and maybe get our bearings.”

  The others murmured their consent and tiredly began collecting their packs.

  When everyone was ready, Rainor started walking in the direction of a large outcrop of rocks anchored at the edge of the water. Beyond the outcrop lay a beach of silver sand that ran off into a horizon dotted with dozens of small islands.

  “If anyone else is still wearing their shoes or boots I recommend that you remove them unless, of course, you relish the feel of wet feet for the next few days,” he suggested as he settled on one of the smaller rocks and began removing his own boots. “And stay close to the shore.” Knocking the sand from the black leather boots he’d been wearing, he stuffed them into the top of his backpack before stepping into the shallow waves. “There are things in these waters that you really do not want to encounter.”

  Ignoring the fact that she was effectively soaking her clothes to the waist, Kelly held her pack high over her head with one hand as she enthusiastically splashed ahead. “Wow! This water is so beautiful, Halie. Do you think we can go for a swim later?”