Lost in the Red Hills of Mars

by Jackie Hunter

  “Are you…Celine’s father?”

  The dirty man cautiously looked around at the walls and ceilings as if he expected something to jump on him. His bushy, unkempt facial hair and uncut fingernails made him look like some kind of wild animal.

  “You know Celine?”

  “Yes, she’s my friend.”

  “Liar! Celine doesn’t have any friends! You’re in my head again, aren’t you?”

  The dirty man cautiously walked over to Alex and twisted and pinched his cheek.

  “Let go of me! You old fool!” Alex snapped harshly.

  “Fool? Yes, I am a fool. I am a fool,” he sang as he skipped away.

  “Wait!” Alex shouted. “Let me explain.” This is not what Alex had envisioned when he set out to find Celine’s father.

  “Mr. Red Cloud, wait.”

  “He’s not home,” Mr. Red Cloud replied. “Get out of my head.” He vigorously rubbed his disheveled hair.

  CHAPTER 16

  Tastes Like Chicken

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Alex followed Mr. Red Cloud to his den and was surprised to see Mr. Red Cloud sitting on the ground between two helmets. The helmets were used like bowls. One contained the pink water, and the other was filled with what appeared to be laser-roasted glowworms.

  “Eat,” Mr. Red Cloud said. He smiled, revealing his grimy orange teeth. He cocked his head to the side and licked his lips as he rolled one worm between his fingers before popping it into his mouth.

  “See. Good. Tastes like chicken. When have you had fresh meat?” He patted the ground next to him. “Sit. Enjoy.”

  “I don’t want any,” Alex said. He backed away. “We need to find Celine.”

  “Celine is with her mother,” Mr. Red Cloud said. He slurped liquid from the helmet and belched.

  “No sir. She’s here. The flood separated us. We came to the surface to find you.”

  “Celine is here?” Mr. Red Cloud smiled and gazed upward as if being warmed by the sun. “That’s my girl. She’s a go-getter.”

  “Yes, she is, sir. Quite a girl.”

  Mr. Red Cloud jerked his head up and stared at Alex for a while. “You’re Alex Rittenhouse’s son. I’ve seen you on the news with your dad. Why are you out here?”

  “Celine and I came to look for you, sir.”

  Mr. Red Cloud’s lips turned downward as he fingered and rubbed his dirty beard. “What’s in it for you?”

  Alex smirked. The old fool isn’t such a fool after all. “The annual report, sir. It said you have coordinates for some minerals.”

  Mr. Red Cloud shrilled. The sound reminded Alex of a screaming chimpanzee. “You came for the coordinates?” He was overcome with laughter.

  “Yes, sir,” Alex said, confused as to what was so funny.

  “There are no coordinates. There are no precious minerals.”

  “But the report said…” Alex trailed off then felt an overwhelming rush of nausea.

  “What report? There is no report. Your dad was going to leave us here without food and supplies if we didn’t find something he wanted! So we dangled the ‘golden carrot’—the coordinates—and here you are.” Mr. Red Cloud leaned back and continued his wild laughter between coughing and spitting. Alex took a few steps away from him.

  “My dad wouldn’t do that!” Alex shouted. But even as he spoke, he realized that idea was not too far-fetched. “Look, this colony has drained my family since my grandfather started it; we’re almost bankrupt because of it!” Alex couldn’t believe he sounded so much like his father.

  “Bankrupt?” Mr. Red Cloud said. “You know of the Trail of Tears?”

  Alex nodded. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Your family ordered it and then stole my family’s land. I have a wife who hates it here, but we can’t leave because of your father’s life contract. I have a child who’s never seen much life outside of the can we live in. And I was left in this cave to die. I am bankrupt!” He screamed and ran toward Alex and shook his fist in Alex’s face.

  Alex backed away. He had never thought about his family’s history nor had he considered how much his family had benefitted from their lurid past. He had never known a Cherokee. He assumed they were all dead. He did not expect such rage and had no idea how to respond to it. “We have to find Celine, sir.”

  Mr. Red Cloud face softened when he heard his daughter’s name.

  “Celine is missing, Mr. Red Cloud. Can you help me?” Alex reiterated.

  Mr. Red Cloud rubbed his beard and smiled as if fondly reminiscing.

  “We were separated in the flood.” Noticing how calm Mr. Red Cloud was upon hearing about Celine, Alex decided to continue. “Celine is very special. She’s different.”

  “What do you mean?” Mr. Red Cloud raised an eyebrow.

  Alex wasn’t sure if he should say more. After all, Celine had confided in him with her secret.

  “What do you know about Celine?” Mr. Red Cloud sounded threatening. “Tell me what you know.”

  “Celine said it was a secret, but she can see auras around living things,” Alex blurted.

  Mr. Red Cloud looked as if he had been slapped in the face. His cheeks were red, and his teeth clenched. He dropped to the ground as if his legs had given way. “She knows.” Mr. Red Cloud looked down at his hands in his lap. Alex thought he looked defeated. “We didn’t want her to know.”

  “She’s probably looking for me now, sir…Do you have your miner’s light?”

  “It’s the Eugenics Project,” Mr. Red Cloud mumbled. “I came here to get away from it. My family has been a part of this project for over three hundred years. Why can’t they just let us be?” he whined.

  “Sir, you must be mistaken. That kind of stuff is illegal.”

  Mr. Red Cloud laced his fingers tightly in prayer and held them in his lap. With his head bowed and his eyes closed, he exhaled softly.

  “I see you still have your backpack and your assistant’s,” Alex said, referring to the bags on the floor against the cave wall.

  “The soldiers killed him. They tried to kill me too. I cut my chip out and hid in the mud pond.” Mr. Red Cloud looked down at the scar on his forearm.

  “Celine and I saw the soldiers, but they’ve left. They blocked the front entrance with a boulder, but we found another way out.”

  Mr. Red Cloud crawled over to his assistant’s backpack. He sat next to it and stared. He had tears in his eyes. “He was a good man.”

  “I am sure he was, sir…OK, I really need your miner’s lamp,” Alex repeated with an increasing sense of urgency. “Do you have any idea where it might be?”

  Mr. Red Cloud didn’t answer.

  Alex rolled his eyes and headed for Mr. Red Cloud’s backpack.

  Mr. Red Cloud looked up in anguish.

  “Mr. Red Cloud, we need your miner’s light to find Celine,” Alex said, attempting to remain claim.

  “That’s my stuff!” Mr. Red Cloud ran toward Alex with the miner’s light in his hand and tried to clobber Alex over the head with it. Alex ducked in time to avoid Mr. Red Cloud’s swing.

  “Give me that,” Alex said. He snatched the light from Mr. Red Cloud and began backing out of the den. Mr. Red Cloud ran toward his two helmets of water and roasted worms. He held one helmet in each arm. Then he wrapped his arms around them as if they were dear to him. “Mine,” he said. “Mine.”

  Alex backed out of the cave with the miner’s light cradled in his arms. He couldn’t believe he had traveled this far to meet a lunatic. And damn it! No precious minerals!

  “What a day,” he muttered under his breath. “What a day.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Celine wondered how the water could have possibly disappeared so quickly. The only sign that the water had been in the cave was the dry waterline on the cave’s walls. She headed toward the tube that had brought her into the cave, passing the wall where the paintings had washed away. Some indistinguishable colors remained, but they blended much too
well with the walls’ natural colors.

  She looked into the tube and noticed that the glowworms were back; the lava tube was now as bright as a Martian day. Celine also noticed that the worms were humming. It reminded her of the hum she heard when the florescent lights in the Compound were on the verge of burning out.

  There are so many glowworms. I don’t remember seeing this many. She looked backward into the cave in hopes of spotting another way out. Nothing. Why are they so noisy now? She looked for red auras around them but saw no colors. This is one time I wish I could see auras. A few dead-looking glowworms lay on the floor of the lava tube. When Celine actually entered the tube, the worms gave no response. She made her way through the tube, maneuvering around the dead ones on the floor.

  “Where now?” she said out loud.

  The water had changed the caves. A rush of relief came over her when she realized she had reached what she considered the entrance. She quickly made her way to the den where she and Alex had rested before the flood. There were no signs of Alex.

  When stepping into the entry cave, she heard low voices coming from the tube she thought Alex had been swept into. Concentrate. Focus. After a moment, she concluded that the voices were familiar.

  “That’s Alex! He’s talking to someone…Dad! He’s talking to Dad!”

  Celine started to run, but she decided walking quickly would be a much safer option considering how slick the cave floors were. She found herself in a cavern large enough for the entire colony. The ceiling was tall, and rocks of all sizes hung from it like icicles. There were cream-colored columns that extended so high from the ground that they almost touched the ceiling. She could see the columns reflected in ponds of clear water. Trickling water could be heard in the distance. The voices, however, had ceased.

  Upon investigating, she found three streams of water that cascaded over three large boulders before joining and becoming one small waterfall. Though the water looked inviting, she was not thirsty enough to try it. Where is all of the water coming from? Why is it so warm in here? She wondered if she was near an active volcano. I don’t have time to find out. I’ve got to find Alex and Dad!

  She had no idea that nearly thirteen kilometers into the cavern, the beautiful smiling lady in the green dress had literally sung calmness into the raging waters and watched patiently as a trickle of lava had wormed its way down to patch up an exploded hole.

  After walking for what appeared to be three kilometers, with no end in sight, she noticed a clear structure hidden in the shadows.

  “Our tent!” Alex had draped the tent floor across two tall rocks, and it was now covered in dust and dead glowworms.

  “Alex,” she called, but he was nowhere in sight. She was horrified by what she saw in the middle of the dirt floor—her and Alex’s helmets set up like bowls. Hers, the smaller one, was full of pink water, and Alex’s was full of what appeared to be laser-roasted glowworms. What’s this? What’s going on?

  CHAPTER 17

  Live Here Forever

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  “Alex!” She yelled as she backed out from under the tent. Little did she know that Alex was peering out from behind a stalagmite, watching her. Celine was too disturbed by what she saw to notice Alex’s body heat radiating from behind the pillow of limestone. After a moment of dazed frustration, she returned to the den. The den served as a safe space for some reason; perhaps because it was where Celine and Alex had had their first actual rest since leaving the Compound.

  Something didn’t feel right. The tent seemed old and dusty. And why would Alex put up the tent as if he wanted to “live here forever?” Celine asked herself as she recalled Alex’s statement. She sat in the den and pondered. She couldn’t believe Alex would be so silly as to drink or eat what she saw in those grimy helmets. Alex wouldn’t dare drink that water or eat those disgusting glowworms unless he was out of his right mind. She remembered how he had acted before the flood and shuddered. The idea that Alex might, in fact, be insane was frightening.

  Celine decided to return once again to the cavern. This time she would ignore its beauty and enormity and, instead, utilize her senses to find Alex and her father. Upon entering the cavern, she noticed the scent of unwashed bodies in the air. How could I have missed this before? She saw a fresh set of large footprints behind a tower of limestone, still warm and glowing. The thing that intrigued her most, however, was the strange sloshing sound she could hear coming from a mud pond across the river.

  Her hair and clothing were nearly dry from the soaking she had received during the flood. She was not eager to get back into the water, but she knew that she had to in order to reach the mud pond. Quietly, she waded into the water across the shallow end. It was warm and rather soothing unlike the rough handling she had received from the roaring waters of the flood. She probably would have enjoyed it, had she had felt safe. But she didn’t feel safe in the slightest. She just wanted to find Alex and her dad and head back home.

  It didn’t take long for her to reach the other side of the river and to walk onto the shore. As she looked back across the river, she saw a boy sprint into the tent she had searched. He reminded her of Alex, but something about him was different…maybe taller?

  Before she could call out to him, a dirty wild creature arose from out of the mud. Wet soil dripped from its unkempt hair. It appeared to be wearing Compound-issued outdoor wear, but it was caked with so much dirt and mud she could not tell for sure. Something about the creature looked familiar, but before she could manage a second glance, it slung her over its shoulder and carried her off like a sack of supplies.

  “Alex!” She screamed.

  Alex ran from the tent, looked across the river, and stood there, rolling his eyes at the creature.

  “Put me down!” she screamed and began clawing at the creature’s head. It began swatting at her as if she was some kind of pest. She fell from its shoulder onto the ground, but it continued swatting at the air. As she watched the bizarre thing dance, she realized she was looking at her dad.

  “Daddy? Is that you, Daddy?”

  Mr. Red Cloud stopped his jerky movements and looked upon her face with confused eyes. Then he pointed to Alex and said, “Thief!” He reached down and grabbed her by the hand. “I found you,” he said.

  She allowed him to lead her, almost dragging her. He seemed eager to show her something.

  “Home,” he said as he presented the cave he had lived in for months. She looked around the den-like area, his makeshift home. He had folded his body-heat tent, much smaller than the one she and Alex had used, into a sleeping palette. He was using both his and his assistant’s helmets as bowls, like what she had seen in the other tent. In a corner on the ground sat two dust-covered backpacks. A pile of small rocks was built in a corner; his microscope sat on top of them.

  He stood there smiling yet uneasy as if uncertain about his next move. His teeth were unclean, orange instead of their natural pearly white. His nails were so long that they curled under. He smelled awful; she found it difficult to imagine anyone could produce such an odor.

  Tears swelled up in Celine’s eyes—both tears of joy and tears of sorrow. Thoughts of her father as he had been in the Compound flashed through her mind. She remembered how he had always been so neat and organized…So much for that! She also remembered how he would occasionally let her help him with work. They would sit at his station outside the Compound examining buckets of rocks and minerals. He had taught her how to classify them. He would examine the rocks through his electron microscope. Then she would record the entries into a chart on his computer. She’d enter data regarding the rocks’ colors, shapes, and hardness. They’d also shine different types of lights on the rocks to see how the lights would reflect. Dad said he used the lights to determine the rock’s luster, she reminisced. He’d streak the rocks across a ceramic tile, creating rock powder; she had found it fascinating that the “streak” or rock powder color of a mineral never changed despite the fluctuation in color of t
he rock itself. They would study buckets full of rocks for hours, but not once did Celine ever see her father get dirty or sweaty, let alone produce any kind of foul odor. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes. He seemed so confused, nothing like the man she had called her dad. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “Oh no. Oh no,” he said nervously. He looked back and forth from her face to the doorway of his den.

  She ran to him and wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tightly.

  “Daddy,” she cried. The tears flowed like a limitless waterfall. She sobbed shamelessly.

  Alex stood outside of the den watching. “Girls, so emotional,” he mumbled.

  “I am taking you home, Dad,” she cried.

  “I can’t go back,” he replied.

  “Yes, you can. I’ll get help.”

  “No. He wants to kill me. You can’t go back.” He seemed terrified.

  Celine had never seen fear in her father’s eyes before. She wondered for a moment if it was legitimate fear she saw or insanity.

  Speaking with her dad was getting nowhere. He would not back down from impending doom. She hoped she’d get better results from a talk with Alex.

  She stepped out of her father’s den and found Alex standing nearby.

  Her father followed. When he saw Alex, he began shouting, “Thief! He’s a thief! He’s a thief! He’s a thief!” The words went around and around and played on his tongue as if he was going into a seizure.

  “Dad. Dad. Dad.” After hearing Celine call him a third time, he was finally able to stop his rant.

  “Celine.” He smiled and looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. All of the anger had left his face. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “Wait here, Dad. I need to go with Alex and get my things. Don’t worry. I know how to take care of myself.”

  Mr. Red Cloud shook his fist at Alex before going into his den.

  Alex turned up his lips and rolled his eyes.