The One

by J. K. Accinni

  Before long, they arrived in the main cavern; the cavern of hellos and goodbyes, wedding and funerals, joy and sadness. Setting down her burden, she complained, “I need a rest, Hud. This thing is killing my arm.”

  The men halted, Peter moving over to Ginger Mae to examine the twine wrapped around her wrist. “Too tight?” he asked.

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to redo it now. Let’s just get out of here.” She bent to pick up the metal rods again. The beam of her flashlight moved with her, now focused on the cavern wall near the portal.

  “Wait,” Hud commanded. Setting down his heavy box, he walked to the wall. “Ginger Mae, can you train the light back over here?” With her free hand she removed the flashlight from her pocket to illuminate the wall.

  Hud ran his hand over the wall. The membrane was gone.

  “It looks like the portal has closed too.” Peter’s voice trembled.

  “Wow, we really are alone now. Hud? Come on. I just want to get out of here.’ Ginger Mae sniffed while Hud turned his back to the wall and hoisted his box.

  “Okay, babe. I hear you. Let’s go see what Dezi’s cooking up for lun—”

  With a terrific rendering, the wall exploded and the Kreyven burst into the cavern, lighting it up with its flashing iridescent streaks of illumination. It descended down on Hud, crashing his box to the rock floor. Ginger Mae screamed as her husband was sucked into the gelatinous mass without a sound.

  Before she had a second to finish her scream, the Kreyven was on her, wrapping its sinuous mass around her, metal burden and all.

  As Ginger Mae fought with the shock and surprise, she heard Peter scream and felt the beast move, carrying them along with it.

  Hud, where’s Hud? She found she was unable to speak as she felt an unfamiliar constriction at the same time as her light dropped from her hand and she was engulfed in a moving darkness.

  ***

  Johno and Crystal ran through the woods. If Crystal stumbled, he simply yanked her back on her feet and ignored her protests. The heat from the sun intensified, drenching them thoroughly with their sweat. The urgency of their run forced them to look ahead and miss the dynamics of the solar flares headed to Earth and illuminating the gargantuan metal chunk of meteor that engulfed the sky from the west.

  The comforting granite rock that marked the entrance to their salvation loomed in his eyesight, but he didn’t slow down. The safety of the Hive lay yards away. Finally, plunging into the cooler darkness, he let Crystal catch her breath, his anxiety slowly abating.

  “We made it, my love.” He held his wife close, searching for moisture to loosen his parched and gummy tongue from the roof of his mouth. For once in her life, Crystal kept her smart mouth closed; only gently begging him to explain.

  “Johnny . . . please. What in tarnation’s going on?” Her brows knitted into a furrow.

  “Not now, Crystal.” He held her tightly in his arms, averting his terror-filled face. The viper in his stomach uncurled as his senses shrieked that his ordeal was not over. “I think . . . I think we need to keep moving.”

  They stumbled on, the darkness their friend as its slight coolness revived them. Johno moved on, the cavern of the portal dead ahead.

  As they plunged into the cavern, they heard a muffled scream. Staring ahead, they were greeted by the stunning sight of the Kreyven in all its iridescent glory. Before they had a chance to call out, it plummeted into the rock wall to disappear, plunging them back into darkness.

  Like zombies in a frenzy, the pair rushed to the cavern wall. Crystal tripped over Hud’s fallen box, dumping the scavenged treasures. She bent down, her searching fingers discovering the tiny penlights. When she clicked one on, she was met with the sight of her husband pounding on the solid rock wall; there was no membrane, no portal . . . just unbroken rock. Tears flowed down his ebony face, freezing her to the spot.

  “Quick, woman. Bring that light here.” His fingers moved more frantically, nails splitting and bleeding. “We need to find it, Crystal. Help me.”

  She rushed to her husband’s side in a daze. Her stalwart rock, her love, the calmest man she had ever known . . . was ungluing in front of her eyes.

  It was their good fortune that, when the blast came, the shockwave swept through the tunnels of the Hive, blowing them apart with such force that Johno and Crystal never knew what hit them.

  ***

  Ginger Mae felt herself surrounded and compressed by the undulating mass of the Kreyven; the motion much like the beating of a giant heart. She tried to remove the twine from her hand but it now dug painfully into her skin and she couldn’t locate the end that Peter had so carefully tucked away.

  Instead, she wrapped herself around her metal bundle, hoping to stabilize herself. Her senses registered a strange pull exerting pressure on her body.

  She tried to scream but to no avail. Where were Hud and Peter? Please save me now, Hud, I need you so. She felt herself moving through the mass of the Kreyven, its constrictions slowing her movement but not stopping it. She felt safe with the Kreyven, absorbing a calmness from the beast yet unable to negate her growing panic from her slipping-away sensation. She scrambled to hold on to something; her hands and feet unable to find purchase. Instinctively she knew she must stay with the Kreyven. It would take her to Hud. It’s in the service of the Womb, isn’t it? Perhaps it’s been sent by Netty or Daisy to take us somewhere.

  The darkness burst suddenly with agonizing light as she was pulled free of the comforting embrace of the Kreyven. She clung tightly to her metal bundle as she felt herself in a freefall, the pulling sensation growing stronger. She landed with a hard crash after what felt like an eternity, the light still blinding and her captive wrist now in pain so intense that she fainted.

  Oolaha

  Day One AE (After Earth)

  Chapter 3

  The survivors stared as Kenya marched up to Kane and ripped the Good Book from his hands. Shaking it in her fists, her fingers trembling with anger, she lashed out.

  “This book . . . of all books? Why are you even reading it? It should be called The Great Lie. If we’d known the truth, we would still be on Earth.” Bitter tears flowed from her desolate eyes as she threw imploring looks to them all.

  “I don’t want to be here. I want my baby to have a home. I want to be part of my community. I want Kane to go to work and come home to help me change diapers and eat my lousy dinner and tell me he loves it. I want a normal life. No more monsters, no more things that fly and read my mind, no more secrets and surprises. If I find out someone is holding out on us again . . . believe me, chickey, you ain’t never seen the kind of hell I’m gonna raise . . .” Kenya’s voice tailed off into a pitiful squeak. She tossed the offending Bible to the side where it landed in a heap, forlornly discarded.

  Kane took her in his arms and her sobbing increased. “I just want to go home,” she blubbered. “They don’t really want us here anyway. We’re nothing to this Womb thing. I don’t want to be an accommodation.”

  Abby piped up, Chloe’s strength beginning to flag. “It’ll be okay, Kenya. Just hold on until we get settled in before you freak out. We need to get Chloe some care and check on the babies. At least we’re alive and safe. I’m sure we’d all like to have a breakdown, but I don’t think any of us have that kind of energy to waste. I know I don’t. We can deal with our past later. Right now we’d better concentrate on the here and now.” She panned the crowd with her golden eyes, assessing their blood-drained complexions, heavy with deeply etched loss and grief.

  “Please . . . Netty . . . can you just get us to where we need to go . . . ?”

  Netty opened her mouth to speak when the Kreyven suddenly burst from the dome and portal where it had disappeared. The survivors shrank back as the Kreyven moved toward them, its mass sending its telltale stench of ozone before it.

  Kenya clenched Kane in a death grip. “Oh no . . . not more, please . . .”

  The Kreyven stopped before them, the gelatinous mass r
ippling with striating flashes of light and a bulge deep in what appeared to be its throat. From high up, it lowered its head, the bulge moving forward to be vomited onto the ground.

  A collective gasp from the crowd failed to wake an unconscious Hud. Seconds ticked by as the Kreyven hovered over the survivors, then hastened off to the distant dwellings, their fairy-tale colors advertising the survivors’ eventual destination.

  Bonnie was the first to break the silence, her face radiant with hope. Excited, she rushed to Hud’s side, announcing to the crowd, “We’re all saved. The Kreyven came to the rescue again.” Her head swiveled back to follow the path of the Kreyven’s retreat as she knelt on the ground to take Hud’s hand. “Where’s it going? Where’s Peter? Where’s my husband?” she shrieked.

  Revolting sounds of vomiting drew their attention back to Hud, and Daisy knelt to join Bonnie. Hud threw off their hands as he rolled to the side, vomiting again.

  A tiny robot cleaner emerged from the dome, this one on flat legs that slid over the grass on which Hud lay. He stared bleary-eyed at the strange sight of the creature as it cleaned the mess he’d left in the grass. As if sensing Hud’s scrutiny, the creature cocked its head and leaned forward toward Hud. It gave him a thorough once-over with its minion-like eyes before retreating back into the dome.

  Hud coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Daisy slipped her small hand back into Hud’s, her voice betraying her emotion. “Where’s Mom, Hud?”

  “And Peter? Did he come with you?” asked Bonnie’s quavering voice.

  Wil stepped forward to pull the women away. He whispered gently into their confused and hopeful faces. “Give him a few minutes, ladies . . . please.”

  Hud gratefully nodded his head in Wil’s direction and cleared his throat. “I sure am happy to see you guys.” He looked around. “Peter and Ginger Mae aren’t here. Where are we?” He looked through the legs crowded around him to catch glimpses of the milling wildlife and the thousands of minions that vibrated in the air above their heads like an upside-down sea of golden shimmering waves. He tore his eyes from the improbable sight above and looked back to Wil, a dawning of truth written all over him.

  “Oolaha? We’re on Oolaha?”

  Wil carefully nodded his head. “Yes, Hud. The others were warned by Baby and Echo in time to save themselves. We have no idea how many were saved. You’re the only one we’ve seen emerge from a portal since Cobby arrived with Chloe, Kenya, Kane, Dezi and Bonnie. And the babies.” He pointed to the now closed portal in their dome. “The Kreyven sealed this portal off a while ago. We thought we were the last ones. How did you wind up in the portal over there?” He pointed to the other dome in the distance.

  “I . . . I don’t know,” he said haltingly. “We were in the storage room and heading back to the settlement with a few things when the Kreyven burst through the wall and grabbed us.”

  “Us? Who is us, Hud? Tell me . . . tell me,” Bonnie beseeched.

  His fingers to the bridge of his nose, Hud massaged slowly. “Ah . . . well . . . Ginger Mae of course. And Peter.”

  Grateful tears slid down Bonnie’s face. She threw herself at Hud, clasping him in a desperate embrace. “Oh Lord. Thank you, Hud. Thank you . . .”

  Hud extricated himself from her grasp. “But where are they?” he demanded.

  Bonnie sat up with a startled blink. “You don’t know?” she asked.

  Wil shook his head, his wings drooping in sympathy. “They aren’t here, Hud.”

  Silence hung over the crowd. The only sounds were the fluttering of wings, the restless milling of elephants, and the collective sobbing heartbreak of the survivors as they realized their unrelenting pain had no limits.

  ***

  It wasn’t the pain that woke Ginger Mae. It was the cold and the smell. Even though she could feel herself shiver, her nose told her something burned nearby.

  She had no idea how long she’d been out, but the hot-poker pain and swelling from her wrist told her it was broken.

  Glancing out of the corner of her eye, she was confronted with a filmy image of an empty room. How can this be? She shook her head to clear her eyes, setting off a firestorm in her head. Her eyes squinted and blinked but she was unable to clear her vision. A burning sensation in her eyes told her something was wrong.

  “Ugh.” Ginger Mae stopped moving to assess her situation and relieve her headache. Even if she couldn’t see clearly, she knew she lay on her back on a hard floor. She slowly scrunched her body together into a fetal position as her stomach boiled, threatening to erupt. “Ugh.” Her mouth tasted like metal and a sensation of grease clung to the air, further exacerbating her rebelling stomach.

  A new sound pierced her consciousness. A buzzing. Like a thousand crickets firing over one another.

  Vomiting onto the floor, she heard a different sound. A prickling gave her hope she wasn’t alone.

  Choking through the vomit she called out, “Hello? Hello? Anybody there?”

  Suddenly, the burning smell intensified. Wiping her hand across her mouth, she shrank back as two shapes materialized and weaved their way toward her. Ginger Mae blinked hard, her vision stubbornly refusing to clear.

  “Hello? Who are you? Where am I?” The figures hovered over her. She felt something on her neck and all went black.

  ***

  Ginger Mae awoke strapped to a hard surface. No matter how hard she twisted, she felt trapped. She could feel her metal burden had been removed, but her broken wrist felt weighed down with a brick. At least the pain had abated.

  Blinking furiously, she tried desperately to clear her sight. As she gave up, her eyes were finally able to make out a shadowy object that appeared to be throwing off sparks, the tiny lights rising and falling like a delicate waterfall . . . disappearing with the limitations of her vision. She had no way to gauge how close it was; her vision was now almost useless.

  She sniffed the air, redolent of the same hot burning smell from her room. Rocking her head back and forth, she felt obstacles on each side of her head. Softly rubbing her head against one, she discovered hard metal with only a tiny clearance between it and her body. Her fight or flight reflex paralyzed her with fear. The sound of her rushing blood flooded her ears.

  The burning smell became more intense. Ginger Mae started with panic as strange, nebulous figures hovered over her helpless body, the sparkling waterfalls becoming clearer. Her terror rocketed through the roof as the metal alongside her head snapped and clamped down on her forehead. She was fully immobile, only her eyelids dancing with anxiety as she continued to try to clear her sight.

  Thankfully for Ginger Mae, as one of the hovering figures reached behind her neck, the dark came rushing in like a long-lost lover, embracing her with its own benign anesthetic to which she gratefully surrendered.

  ***

  Ginger Mae regained consciousness slowly, the darkness threatening to overwhelm her with its perilous mystery. She realized the hard floor of her enclosure had been softened by a pad of some sort on which she lay. Trying to reach up to her face, she found the weight on her wrist still oppressed her. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, swollen and dry along with her throat. She knew she must have water soon. Her stomach growled with a fervor that caused her to question how long she’d been out.

  She fumbled around, raising her good arm to her face and discovered an obstruction covering her eyes.

  “Oh . . . erm . . .” Her tongue floundered; a feeble lump in her mouth. She patted the obstruction down then tried to find some slack to gain purchase with which to rip it off. The material clung to her like plastic; there wasn’t a single seam or slack spot to give her a chance to slip a finger under. Her fright increased as she realized she must be a captive somewhere and was clearly not alone. But where was she? And where were Hud and Peter?

  Her fear so paralyzed her that she couldn’t call out, even if she’d been able to make her useless tongue function. She tried to swallow; her mouth
was parched and her throat raw and abused.

  The helplessness of her situation hit her like a locomotive. Who had put the infernal blockage over her eyes and why? What didn’t they want her to see? I need information and now. Rocking her body to and fro, she found no aches and pains. The nausea she remembered upon her first awakening was gone, thank the Womb. Womb . . . now where the heck did that come from?

  Reaching out with her good arm, she felt around the floor of her enclosure, smashing her hand against something hard that tipped over and leaked moisture over her arm. She raised her arm to her nose and sniffed. She tentatively brought it to her mouth and sucked. Water. At least she thought it was water but then realized it had a chalky aftertaste.

  Scrambling as best as she could, she maneuvered her body over to the spot where the spilt water lay on the floor. She powered through a wave of dizziness and managed to lower her mouth to the floor to lap up the remaining moisture.

  Convulsively, she searched for the container with her good arm. In her scramble to get to the water, it must have rolled away. The longer her questing hand roamed over the floor, the more frightened she became. Locating the water container had become a representation of control. She must regain a semblance of control if she was going to survive this. She tried to push away the thought of breaking down completely. She could feel tears slipping from her bound eyes.

  Suddenly exhausted, she rolled back to her pad and huddled, her tears now coming in sobs that soaked into the obstruction across her eyes.

  Not being able to tell if her eyelids were open or closed was maddening. Overwhelmed with worry about Hud and Peter, she fell into an exhausted sleep, only to be awakened by a pervasive burning smell that signaled terror.

  She feigned sleep as the smell became stronger. She thought she heard a yelp but, as she strained to hear more, the only sound she identified was the sound of bees buzzing; louder then softer, rising in pitch then fading.