Cry For Tomorrow

by Dianna Hunter

“Well, at least some of those poor people are out of reach of the agents, but how is this going to help us?” Jennie asked him.

  “Because we need them to complete our mission,” Rainor told her. Seeing our worried looks he went on, “I have friends on the Council who, fortunately for us, are not all loyal to Selena. When we first heard the rumors about the super-crystal we decided that the prudent thing would be to make an alternate plan just in case she became uncontrollable and I was forced to take it from her.”

  “We determined that if we could have the crystal energized by a psi, then we would be able to break it into smaller gems that can be controlled by a collection of the freaks. This would allow them to dampen the effect as the two worlds draw together, slowly releasing the gases that will neutralize the ghouls and allow a gentle merging rather than a collision that will rupture the curtain and result in massive earthquakes—”

  Whatever else he was going to say was forgotten when the flitter suddenly lurched sideways and dropped toward the waves lapping at the shores of the island.

  “Everybody hold on. We’re under attack!” Rainor jerked the nose of the small ship up and angled away from the pair of flitters closing in from our right. Keeping the flitter flying low over the waves, he hastily began tapping in a code on the communicator.

  “It’s not much further now,” he assured us as he swerved to avoid another blast of fire from the pursuing ships. The nose of the ship came close enough to the water to cover the windows in salt-spray before he threw his whole body into bringing the ship around to the left and nearly in reverse.

  The water beside us exploded and, like a miniature tsunami, it rose above the flitter. Too terrified to even scream, I grabbed hold of my sister and held on as the tower of water resolved into a horde of ghouls.

  The walls of the flitter vibrated with the sounds of laughing and delighted howling as the ghouls ignored it and pounced upon the two pursuit vessels. The largest and surely the ugliest of the ghouls leaned over our flitter, placing its one great eye close to the windshield and winked at Rainor.

  With their prize wrapped in watery limbs, the horde sank back into the ocean.

  “Friends of yours?” gulped Jake.

  “Yes.” Rainor laughed. “The specters owed me a favor.”

  Returning to a higher altitude, we continued our flight over the ocean and the dozens of small cays scattered in the wake of the big island for nearly an hour. The sun had dropped below the horizon before Rainor brought the flitter to a lower altitude and returned to skimming the waves.

  “Okay, everybody hang on, we are about to make a major change in direction,” he warned. Spinning the steering wheel hard, he brought the flitter about in a right angle to the direction we’d been traveling.

  I was trying really hard to remain calm when I leaned against the side of the flitter and stared down. “The water looks really shallow down there,” I noted. Even in the pale glimmer of moonlight, I could see the shimmer of white sand under the shallow waves, and the very solid white of the coral reef suddenly thrusting into the air before us.

  I nearly choked, trying not to scream, when I realized that Rainor was aiming the flitter at a glowing shadow deep under the reef. I remembered to breathe again when the nose of the little ship slid effortlessly under the wall of coral and into the glowing mouth of a cave.

  “We’re flying all the way this time,” Rainor told us belatedly. “This tunnel will take us to the village on the coast where Karol will be meeting us.”

  There was a concert of relieved sighs as we all released the breaths we’d been holding.

  Everyone was trying to relax a little, but I noticed that no one had taken their eyes off the windows. The water surrounding us was glowing from the millions of tiny phosphorescent creatures living in the nutrient-rich water, and it was alive with swimming phantoms and fish-like ghouls of so many different varieties that I quickly lost count. Some bumped against the windows or sides of the slow moving vessel, but most continued on with whatever business they were about without taking notice of us.

  “Why are there so many phantoms gathered here?” Jennie asked our pilot as she returned the stare of the bug-eyed phantom plastered against her window.

  “There’s a strong magnetic current in the area that is attracting them. They can sense that the time is near.” Rainor steered around an especially large cluster of ghouls. “But they don’t really understand what’s happening, or why, they’re just reacting.”

  The water suddenly changed color, becoming a rich, golden color, and a shimmering wall of dark water rose to block the channel.

  “Okay, folks, this is our exit,” Rainor warned us as he aimed the nose of the flitter directly at the wall.

  I know that I was not the only one who grabbed hold of something, just in case. But the frame of the little flitter barely shivered when it struck the wall. There was a resistance as if we were flowing through thick mud, but the sensation was short-lived.

  My ears popped with the sudden change in air-pressure and I was thrown forward in my seat as the ship emerged into a channel of deep blue water on the other side.

  I was relieved when I saw Rainor pull back on the steering wheel and aim the nose of the flitter into the bright water overhead.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The flitter erupted in a foaming wave of water and squirming phantoms and came to a stop, gently bobbing on the quiet water just beyond the surf line. Like moths to a flame, our escort of phantoms fluttered into the light, their shimmering bodies dripping rainbows across the horizon. We all let out a sigh of relief when Rainor cut the engines to a soft purr.

  The mass of our ship bobbing gently on the water was creating small wakes that washed shoreward, only to be shattered in a froth of morning sunshine and white water against the rotted hull of a half-sunken ship. Blackened with age and rot, her hull still bore remnants of peeling paint and the name, Southern Belle, in faded letters along the side that now lay facing the sun. Not to be halted by this talisman of the past, the waves parted and rolled on, expiring on the gleaming white sand beach beyond.

  We humans may have been overwhelmed by the scene that greeted us, but the phantoms that had escaped from under-world in our wake were not. Delighted to be free in the sunlight and a fresh morning breeze, they frolicked like children on the first day of summer vacation. Swooping from sky to wave, they disappeared, only to reappear a moment later dripping with water and sand and rainbows. Their acrobatics lightened the mood and brought smiles to our faces.

  Rainor nudged the throttle and let the ship drift until it was parallel with the shore. In minutes, we’d floated clear of the wreckage and were in sight of the beach and a line of sand dunes rising pristine as new-fallen snow. The scene was marred only by the wind-blasted walls of concrete that jutted from the waves of sand, solitary survivors of a half-century of wind and storms.

  Silenced by these markers of death and loss, none of the passengers of our small flying machine spoke when Rainor aimed the nose of the craft into a narrow inlet at the north end of the beach. The only signs of recent habitation we could see were the small fishing boats anchored in the inlet that we passed as we drifted toward a short pier jutting from the shore a hundred yards into the channel. A small flitter similar to our own bobbed on the far side of the pier, but Rainor ignored it and let ours slide in beside a small skiff with cracked and peeling paint of red and blue.

  “That was some ride,” Jake said with a groan as he pushed his shoulder against the hatch door. The vacuum seal broke with a soft sigh as it swung open. Leaning out the door, he caught hold of a dangling rope swinging from the pier and tugged on it. A soft thump warned of our proximity when the flitter touched the side of the dock.

  Jake jumped clear of the hatch and turned to grab the frame, holding it as steady as was possible while the rest of us climbed out. Even the dog and frogg jumped without hesitating this time.

  “Wow, I would be just as happy if I never have to ride in one of thes
e things ever again,” gasped Kelly. Shivering, she stopped long enough to take her jacket from the pack she was dragging behind her. She shrugged into it as she resumed following the animals along the dock.

  I was as glad as my sister to be on solid ground again, but our arrival also meant that we were just that much closer to the conclusion of this mission. Frowning, I shook back my hair, mildly annoyed by the long locks being tossed about my head by the light wind that was sweeping down on us. There were so many things I had to work out still. This whole trip had been taken with the intention of gathering facts, but nothing had been what was expected. It seemed to me that the more I’d learned about this whole merging business and the two factions involved, the more doubts I had.

  “Hey sis, where do you think we are?” Kelly asked as she slowed to a walk at my side.

  “It’s hard to say,” I said as I studied the landscape surrounding us. The pier and some of the closer buildings appeared to be in use by the fishermen, but everything not immediately in the vicinity of the dock had the look of abandonment. Rows of small cottages and even three stories of a ruined condominium had been tumbled from their foundations by a jagged ledge of earth that looked like it had been ripped up and folded back again. Years of wind and rain had softened the edges and melted the earth and rocks, but the scars left behind by the earthquakes that had ravaged this coastline would never completely heal.

  “Do you know what I think?” I asked Kelly as I turned in place, studying the area again. “I think we really aren’t all that far from home.” I pointed to the tops of the high rises of ‘Vanta’s old city, visible on the western horizon.

  “Great,” Kelly said in relief. “That means we can always hike home if we don’t like what’s going on here.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I tried to get a look at her face to see what she was really thinking, but Kelly had wandered off to the edge of the path to collect a couple of stray sea shells from the sand. I heard the murmur of the men’s voices behind us and decided that it might be a good idea to keep an eye on those two. I did not like all these secret little talks they’d begun having when they thought no one was paying attention. “Hey, Kelly, why don’t you go on ahead with Jake and Jennie? I’ll catch up to you in a bit.”

  Ben was already on shore, leaning against the side of a boathouse at the junction of the dock and land. He had a small cell phone jammed against his ear and was obviously deep in conversation with someone. Rainor was likewise occupied, grasping a phone with one hand while securing the nose of the flitter to the dock with the other. Deciding to join Rainor, I took up a line at the rear of the flitter and secured it as well.

  “Thanks, that should take care of it,” he said as he dropped the phone into his pack. “That was Pete, he and Karol are expecting us.” He fell in beside me as we headed for shore.

  “Great.” I noted the tenseness in the lines of his face and that the muscles in his shoulders were bunched and tight. “How much time do you think we have before the two worlds begin the final stages of merging?”

  “Not long.” He held out his hand, offering to help me walk across the swaying dock. I hesitated for a moment, half wondering if he thought I’d somehow become physically incompetent in the last couple of days, but decided that he was just being gallant.

  “There have already been a lot of changes just in the last couple of days that most people probably aren’t aware of,” he said when I took his offered hand. He nodded at the horizon and the odd silver and gold hues seeping around the thick cloud layer. “Those color changes in the sky are being caused by the increased seepage of heavy metals into your atmosphere and—”

  Whatever he was going to say was forgotten when the world around us suddenly lurched and the air was filled with the snap of electrical current.

  “Quake!” someone shouted.

  Racing ahead of the waves sloshing over the planks, Rainor and I hit the ground running. We joined the rest of our party where they had gathered between a pair of large dunes. Dusty eagerly greeted me, wiggling and licking my face as I worked my way into the middle of the humans huddled close together for protection against the leaves and small debris blowing on the wind.

  This time we were lucky and the tremors lasted only minutes. I looked back to the docks where the flitter and assorted boats were rocking on the churning water but neither they nor the surrounding buildings seemed to have been damaged.

  “We need to get moving, we’re running out of time.” Hefting his pack to one shoulder, Rainor made his way back to the narrow lane. We were nearly to the end of the row of warehouses when we heard a loud ruckus of screaming gulls and a terrified shrieking that seemed to be coming from the flock of phantoms that had remained to frolic along the beachfront.

  I couldn’t remember having ever heard the phantoms scream like that before. Something must be terribly wrong! Exchanging worried glances with Jennie and Jake, I dropped my pack to the ground and drew the sword I was still wearing strapped across my back. I didn’t have to look back to know that my friends had done the same.

  “Kelly, stay behind me,” I called to my sister when her long-legged stride brought her even with me. She didn’t answer but I could hear her breathing behind my back as we raced towards the beachfront.

  Determined to get there faster than the rambling path through the dunes had been taking us, I followed Jake’s lead, cutting around the sand-scoured nose of a half-submerged automobile and between two towering sand dunes. I couldn’t see the cause of the ruckus until we’d cleared the dunes.

  “Oh, gods,” I moaned. My feet seemed to sink into the sand and my knees felt so weak that I could hardly make my legs move. A pair of the pretty sea-serpents like the ones Rainor and I had watched dancing in the channel on our first night of this trek were frolicking in the shallow water directly in the path of the gar-shark cruising through the shallow water only a few yards from shore.

  Like the one that had attacked us on under-world, this ghoul had raised its upper body clear of the waves to better stalk its prey. Sensing the imminent danger, the sea-gulls screamed continuously as they darted at the intruder’s head, trying to distract it. Even the school of phantoms that had followed the flitter into over-world remained, swooping in circles, moaning pathetically in an attempt to drive the shark back into the deep. Through all of this, the shark’s intended prey remained oblivious.

  “Oh, Sissy, it’s going to kill them,” wailed Kelly.

  “We’ll never get there in time,” gasped Jake as I caught up to him and stretched my legs to pass him. Running in sand like this felt like I was trapped in some horrible slow-motion movie. I could see Ben and Rainor—they were racing along the beach several yards ahead of us, but none of us were close enough to get the attention of the love-struck sea creatures.

  Realizing that they were not going to reach the serpents in time, the two men stopped running and aimed weapons.

  The taser blast fell short and sizzled into the waves. The bullet skimmed the surface and missed its target completely.

  “Oh damn!” Out of breath and gasping, I lurched to a stop. Dropping the useless sword, I grabbed for Dusty’s collar as she tried to duck past me, afraid that she would leap into the water to reach the serpents. The weapons fire and commotion on the beach had finally penetrated their simple minds, but their long slender bodies and limbs were tangled together.

  “Easy, girl, I’ve got them,” I whispered distractedly to the dog. Pointing the fingers of my free hand, I tried to concentrate, but the shark was closing in on its prey. A moment later the water surrounding the gar-shark responded to the heat of my strike, bubbling like a boiling cauldron.

  Startled, the shark reared up above the low waves, trying to twist away from the heat of the water, but its dull black eyes remained focused on the helpless creatures trapped in the shallow water.

  Tears were flowing down my cheeks and my arm was shaking from holding it rigid for so long, but I held on until I felt the heat radiating through my arm
and out my hand recede and fade away. Sobbing, I dropped to my knees in the wet sand and let my hand fall to my side. Maybe it had been enough. No, the gar-shark was too hungry and the prey was too easy.

  Ignoring the heat of the water, the shark dropped back into the waves and lunged toward the serpents that were still splashing and fluttering about in confusion. There was a mad thrashing of water and screams from shore and from the spray of water a tangle of gossamer fins and lavender scales fluttered into the air, and the waves washing ashore were red with blood.

  Gulls shrieked madly as they converged on the foaming froth of water and blood, seizing bits and pieces of flesh from the waves. A lone serpent flapped wings, twisting and turning in the wind on the tip of its tail-fin, and the cry sounding on the wind broke the hearts of all who heard.

  I wasn’t aware that I was sobbing until Ben’s arms were around me and my tears were soaking the soft fabric of his shirt.

  “I’m sorry, baby, you did what you could,” he whispered in my ear. Ignoring the wavelets washing around our knees, he held me tight against him. When the sand finally washed away from under us, threatening to topple us into the water, Ben helped me to my feet.

  “Here, let’s see if we can dry your eyes now.” He gently dabbed at the tears and salt spray on my face with a damp handkerchief he’d pulled from his pocket and began leading me back along the beach toward the others.

  Tears were still running down Kelly’s cheeks when she threw her arms around me. “I don’t think I can stand it if our world is going to be as brutal as the under-world,” she hiccupped in my ear.

  “Me, either,” I whispered back.

  Even the dog left chasing gulls and quietly fell in behind us as we headed back to the lane. No one dared look into Rainor’s eyes when he joined us.

  When we reached the end of the lane and the top of a small rise, we all paused to catch our breath and stare at the small community laid out before us. The village was comprised of a ramshackle collection of pre-disaster homes and cottages in various stages of repair as well as rows of huts and tents that appeared to have been constructed in haste. In direct contrast to the abandoned harbor, the village square was an ant hill of activity. Everywhere we looked, we saw adults in the bright, colorful costumes favored by the inner-city freaks, running children, and swirling clusters of phantoms.