by Erik Hyrkas
“I’m not going to die here,” he said defiantly, and took a step forward, then vomited spectacularly on the wall.
Brit glanced around. “There’s a spot over here where you can sit.”
Together Brit and Marcy guided Michael to the spot in the sun.
“Hunter,” Michael said between labored breaths.
Both Brit and Marcy stared at Michael, afraid of what he might say.
“When I slipped into that tube, I got stuck,” Michael whispered. “I think Hunter said the creature was right there. I was disoriented because I had hit my head when I fell and…” Michael sobbed.
Brit looked away.
“The sound was…was terrible,” he whispered.
Brit didn’t want to imagine what had happened to Hunter in the dark. He was an ass, but not a complete ass. She thought of the sweater that Marcy was wearing.
“The last thing he said,” Michael managed between gasps for breath, “was that I need to protect you.”
“That chauvinistic bastard,” Brit said with tears in her eyes.
“Yeah,” Marcy said, “that jerk.”
All three of them cried.
A long time passed while they sat together, cold and shivering, trying not to think of Hunter’s fate but unable to think of anything else.
Eventually, Brit realized that it fell to her to keep the others safe. She hadn’t been aware until that moment that she had been counting on Hunter. Even if he had been an asshole, he was their unspoken leader. Now she saw that it was her turn.
“Can you sit with him while I make a fire?” Brit asked.
Marcy nodded and sat next to Michael.
Brit hadn’t been a girl scout or taken any survival training, but she had once seen a Tom Hanks movie where he was stranded on an island. If Tom could make a fire with a few sticks, then so could she.
Most of the rocky ground was carpeted in a thick, spongy moss. The basin they were in was completely surrounded on all sides by high cliff faces of red rock that looked impossible to climb. The rock wall in eternal shade was covered with splotches of yellowish fungi. The opposite, sun-bathed wall had a few saplings clinging on for life and one scraggly tree that had found firm footing. High above Brit could see green trees at the top, and many of them had branches suspended over the pit she was now trapped in.
As she circumnavigated the pit she found a few dead branches that had clearly fallen from the trees that were higher up. While picking up one of the sticks from the spongy moss floor, she noticed a red berry within the moss. She looked closer and realized that the moss was covered in small berries if you searched for them.
She tasted a berry and found it juicy and tart. She was hungry, and she imagined that both Michael and Marcy were as well, but before suggesting that they gorge themselves on the berries, she decided that making a fire would remain the first priority. If the one berry she had eaten didn’t make her sick, then they could try a few more and see how they felt.
Marcy’s voice startled Brit out of her contemplation about whether she had poisoned herself.
“Michael! Wake up!” Marcy shouted.
Brit turned and saw that Michael had listed to one side and his eyes were closed. She ran toward them, dropping the sticks she held.
Marcy shook Michael vigorously, still shouting his name. Brit glanced at the cave mouth they had escaped and hoped that the sounds of their distress didn’t call the creature to them.
When she reached them, she helped Marcy prop him back up.
“Michael?” Brit whispered. “You’ve got to stay awake.”
She placed a hand on his wrist trying to feel a pulse, and when she felt none, she searched for a pulse on his neck.
“I’m not going to die here,” said a defiant voice behind them.
Marcy and Brit both jumped and turned, seeing a different Michael taking a step toward them. He vanished and instantly reappeared at the cave mouth, crawling their direction.
Marcy backed away. “Michael, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean for you to die.”
“I’m not going to die here,” he repeated.
The body of the Michael that had died moments earlier slid back down to one side, and Brit gasped and then looked from the dead man to the man crawling out of the cave. He looked real and sounded real.
“I’m so sorry,” Marcy repeated, breaking down in a wave of sobs.
When the ghost Michael was crawling toward them for the fourth time, Brit saw something she hadn’t noticed before: on the ground was a small coin-shaped piece of black glass. She steadied herself and walked past the simulacrum and picked up the tiny disk.
She ran her finger over the surface in the same way she had the disk she found in the cave with the car, and Michael vanished.
“He’s just a recording,” she said, and she held up the small disk for Marcy to see. “I think this disk somehow projects him.”
Then she looked around at the ground to see if there were any more of the devices. If there was one for Michael, would there be one for her and Marcy. How did that disk find its way here and who made it? The idea that somebody had been watching them and then played back his death scared her even more than the morbid replay itself.
Marcy had sunk to the ground with her knees pulled in close and was sobbing uncontrollably. Brit made out little phrases: “I’m going to die here… Please save me… I promise…”
Brit hadn’t known Michael well. He had come to their poker get-togethers and was always polite and helpful, if not shy and reserved, and he was the constant target of Hunter’s berating. That he came to poker night despite Hunter only made her feel worse that he probably didn’t have anywhere else to be that was more fun. Now he was dead and Brit wondered if it was her fault. She didn’t know first aid and wondered whether that would have made a difference. If Hunter had been here, he might have saved Michael.
Brit looked from Marcy to Michael’s body to the cave and then to the firewood she had abandoned trying to decide what she needed to do. Finally she again decided that a fire was their first priority. Getting warm and dry followed by eating and drinking took priority over doing something with Michael’s body. And neither of them were in any condition to climb a sheer rock cliff to try to escape; and if they did manage to get out of this canyon, there was no guarantee that their situation would improve.
She slipped the disk in the same pocket as the other and started walking toward the fallen sticks, then paused and turned back to Marcy. Realizing that there was a greater priority than fire, she walked over and sat down next to Marcy. “Are you okay?”
Marcy continued to cry, and so Brit put an arm around her and the two sat there for over an hour. At last Marcy cleared her throat and looked up at the sky.
“He’s in a better place now,” Marcy said.
Brit looked at Michael’s body and thought that he was in the same place he had been for the last hour, but she knew that Marcy was talking about something more existential. Brit’s thoughts briefly flickered to Michael’s repeating hologram, which Marcy had called a ghost, and wondered if this was the place it would always be.
“I’m going to make a fire,” Brit said. “There are some berries in the moss that you could gather if you are up to it. I don’t think they are poisonous, and we should probably eat and drink if we can.”
Chapter Twelve
Brit spent hours attempting to make a fire with the few scraps of wood she had gathered and a bit of dried moss, but she conceded when the stick she had been rubbing against another stick finally broke. She hadn’t so much as made a wisp of smoke, but she did have a few blisters to show for her effort.
“I was never a girl scout,” Brit said as she threw a stick down and leaned against the cliff wall.
“I was, but the only thing I was good at was selling cookies,” Marcy said. “My mom said that I could sell a box of Caramel Delites to an anorexic vegan on a diet.”
Brit bit her lip to prevent herself from pointing out how littl
e she was impressed by Marcy’s mother’s pride and how little good that salesmanship was doing them right now.
“Do you want another berry?” Marcy asked.
There was still a fairly large pile remaining, even though they both had been eating the occasional handful for most of the last hour between attempts to make a fire. The berries were so plentiful that it had taken only minutes for Marcy to gather them.
“No thanks,” Brit said. “I’m starting to get a stomach ache.”
“My stomach doesn’t feel that great either,” Marcy said. “At least we aren’t going to starve, though.” She pointed at the sky. “The sky is just as light as it was when we arrived here, and that feels like it was more than a day ago.”
“Maybe it’s like northern Alaska where the sun doesn’t set for months,” Brit said.
“I’m really thirsty,” Marcy said.
Brit nodded. “So am I, but I didn’t really want to go back in there.” She pointed at the cave.
They both looked at the cave entrance where there was dry pool of Michael’s vomit. In that cave were glowing patches of lichen and plenty of water, but also possibly the creature that killed Hunter. As thirsty as she felt, Brit wasn’t ready to venture back into that place. Her eyes fell on Michael, who still lay where he died. He was more than twice her weight.
Vents, treacherously hiding in the moss-covered rocky ground, billowed occasional spurts of mist that drifted and then slowly dissipated only to be refreshed by a new release of fog.
“We should bury Michael before scavengers find him,” Brit said.
“We don’t have a shovel, and even if we did, the ground is solid rock,” Marcy said.
“We can just cover him with rocks and maybe put some moss on top of that,” Brit suggested.
Both women stood with effort. Brit’s stomach was seized with cramps, and she doubled over for a moment and panted.
“I think those berries might be poisonous,” Brit muttered.
Marcy moaned. “I think you are right.”
They both slowly lowered themselves back to the ground, rolled onto one side, and panted. Hours of cramps and labored breathing passed, and neither woman spoke their fear that this might be how they died. Brit knew it was a real possibility that they might be living their final hours. At some point, delirium became nightmares that stretched on until dreams gave way to groggy consciousness.
Brit sat up, realizing that she had been asleep an indeterminate amount of time. Marcy was lying nearby and breathing heavily. The sky still looked the same, but her debilitating cramps had passed and now Brit was even thirstier than before. Her lips were chapped and cracked and her eyes and throat felt scratchy.
She rose unsteadily and walked to the dark cave entrance, a ten-foot tall fissure in the cliff wall with massive boulders strewn about it. She stood there, glaring at the dark, daring any creature to jump out at her now that she had come close enough for any unseen predator to attack.
When no attack came, she stepped further into the darkness and waited for her eyes to adjust. The walls were coated with patches of lichen glowing softly green.
From the dark, the gentle burble of water falling down the slide that had taken Brit here was the only sound she heard. In the eerie green glow of the lichen, the water was placid along the shore, but that didn’t make her feel safer. She had seen too many horror movies not to fear the harmless appearance of the dark water. The azure creature might be lurking below the surface, waiting for her approach.
A remote splash drew her attention, but she saw nothing in the dark. She listened again, but the sound didn’t repeat.
Slowly she knelt, ready to leap away at the slightest sign of danger, and drank from the water that tasted bitter and was pungent. She immediately spat it out. The running water they had drank while in the cave had had a strong mineral flavor to it, but it had not been repugnant. This water tasted much like Brit imagined water from a dirty boot would taste—possibly a dirty boot with a dead fish in it.
She listened to the burbling and knew that, to drink fresh water, she would have to swim to it. The idea that the creature might be lurking in the water was enough to dissuade her, though. She was thirsty, but she didn’t think she’d die of thirst yet. That would take days, and maybe in the meanwhile they’d find a safer source of water.
Brit pulled a small piece of glowing lichen off the wall and smelled it. If it had an odor, she couldn’t detect it. She nibbled a bite and found the texture much like finely shredded paper. The taste wasn’t offensive, if it could even be said to have a taste. She was still recovering from the berries, however, and even if she found a box of chocolates she probably wouldn’t eat any. Survival was on her mind though, and they needed food and water. She was fairly sure they could drink the stagnant water, but it might make them sick. The running water was likely safer and probably tasted better, if they weren’t eaten while swimming to it.
A small splash somewhere beyond her vision made her freeze. Maybe water had dripped from the ceiling, or maybe there was something more in the pool. Brit silently backed away, keeping her eyes on the water’s edge. After a few steps toward the cave mouth, she broke into a run and didn’t look back until she was under the open sky.
Brit paused, her heart racing, as she looked around for Marcy. She wasn’t where Brit left her, and Brit scanned the rocky bowl that had become their prison. She spotted Marcy stooping over a vent that was billowing fog. With another glance back at the cave, she ran toward Marcy. In her haste, she tripped over a stick and fell painfully to the rocky ground. She moaned, and then, in the cave mouth, she saw glistening azure skin. Her fingers found a stick she had tossed after her attempts to make a fire failed. She picked it up and clambered to her feet, then backed away from the creature. It hissed, but then it paused when sunlight fell on it. The beast receded deeper into the shadows. She felt a tiny bit of satisfaction when she noticed the creature was bleeding from a gash on its cheek. Hunter must have gotten in one last good hit with a rock.
“What is it?” Marcy asked.
“The monster,” Brit panted. She picked her way across the uneven moss-carpeted ground. “I think it was swimming in the cave water.”
Marcy handed Brit a clump of moss. “Drink from this,” she said. “Hold it above your mouth and squeeze.”
Brit looked back to the dark cave and couldn’t see the creature. She wondered if it feared the sun or just preferred to stay near the water and ambush prey. Brit took the moss from Marcy in one hand but grasped the stick firmly in her other hand.
Holding the moss up and tilting her head back, she squeezed water into her open mouth. The flavor was slightly earthy but refreshing. Despite being heavy with moisture, squeezing the moss didn’t yield much water, but even the small trickle was better than nothing.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
Marcy carefully pulled up another clump of moss, picking out any berries and tossing them away. Then she held it over the softly billowing vent. After repeating the process of soaking the moss in the steam and then squeezing it into their mouths two more times, the vent stopped billowing. They looked around, found a different vent and ran to it. This continued for twenty minutes, drinking the few drops they could from one vent and then moving to the next when the current vent expired.
“We need to find something to eat,” Marcy said.
“Remember the glowing lichen on the wall in the cave?” Brit asked. “I wonder if it is edible,” she said.
“Ew,” Marcy said.
“I tasted a small bit. It didn’t taste much better than eating paper, but there was lots of it and I don’t think it was poisonous.”
“Well, I’m definitely not eating another berry,” Marcy said.
Brit nodded. “We need to do something with Michael’s body.”
Marcy looked horrified. “I am not eating him!”
“What? No! I mean we need to bury him. I think we can agree that starving would be preferable to eating him.”
Marcy frowned. “We should bury him, but I think it’ll take a long time to find enough rocks. Do you think we could bury him in moss?”
“We could, but a creature could easily dig him up,” Brit said.
“Fine,” Marcy said. She made her way to the edge of the rocky basin they were trapped in, set down her moss sponge, and began to gather rocks.
Both women gave the cave entrance a wide berth. Maybe the creature didn’t like light, but they didn’t want to tempt it to come out for a quick snack on the run. Two hours passed before they found enough rocks to cover Michael. Then Brit began pulling up moss and covering the rocks with it, and Marcy followed suit.
“We should say a prayer,” Marcy said.
Brit gave her a sideways glance. “You know that I’m not religious, right?”
Marcy sighed with exasperation. “Even after all of the ghosts and scary stuff?”
“Those aren’t ghosts. They’re holograms or something,” Brit said with an equal amount of exasperation.
“They are ghosts,” Marcy said. “That’s not my point, though. Even atheists still honor the dead with some words at a funeral.”
Marcy had a point, Brit realized, but then they both just stood there looking at Michael’s grave, neither woman speaking. Brit hadn’t known Michael that well. He worked on the same software development team as Jax, and she worked at the same company, but she didn’t really know him as well as Jax did.
Brit looked down at the mound and spoke to Michael’s body. “I don’t have words to express my sadness that you lost your life in this strange place. I didn’t know you well, but I will remember you.”
Marcy stepped closer. “I know you are in a better place now, but there is a reason for everything. His plan is not always easy to see or understand, but I trust Him and know that you are now happy.”
A hiss at the edge of cave made both women scream and run. They bolted over the uneven moss-covered ground as far as their natural prison would let them get, a full football field away. The women stared at the cave entrance through the patches of fog, and despite the mist being too dense to see the creature, they knew it lurked in the darkness.
