by Archer Swift
Chapter 21
The creature didn’t make a sound. Perhaps I was being delusional, but I was sure it could understand me. There was intelligence marked in its face, comprehension etched into its expression. The eyes were so telling, or at least that was how I was reading it.
I continued to speak quietly to it, appealing … inching my way slowly and unthreateningly towards the pit.
At one point I stopped, wondering whether I was being misled, lured in.
Perhaps the moment I stand in that hole, the other it … the one with the red-eyes and monster-face jumps me.
Knowing that Dixan and the others would rock up soon; I talked myself out of my paranoia and kept trudging forward. I stepped carefully into the trap, relieved that the only creature in the hole with me was the placid version. I had just dug up and removed the three spikes the creature did not land on; when I heard the others arrive.
“Oh, geez,” I muttered aloud without thinking. “No, no ... calm down,” I said when I saw the green of its eyes turn reddish purple. “If they see the red … you’ll be dead. Show them the green; they need to see the human-likeness in you.” I was surely talking for my benefit alone.
“What the heck are you doing, Villain?” yelled an out-of-breath Ruzzell keeping his distance.
“It’s in there … the monster … with him,” said a distraught Dixan, panting for air. He’d run to the camp on pure fear-induced adrenalin, and curiosity must have dragged him back.
“Stay away,” I said, having finally cleared a space in which I could work. “It’s not a monster, and it’s badly hurt … give me some time, and I can save—”
“What?” asked Ruzzell in utter bewilderment, his voice a pitch too high. “Save it?! You want to what?”
I turned around to face my clan for the first time. My eyes had been fixed on my enemy, not because I was afraid; rather, it needed my reassurance.
I must be completely mad!
Ruzzell, Shawz, Dixan, Gellica and Nadalie stood some twenty strides away, shuffling, fidgeting. Visibly restless. Their eyes wide and lips pressed tight. All they could see at this point was my head and shoulders.
“Rist!” Gellica broke the silence. “Rist, please get out the hole … can you get out?”
It was good to hear her voice. I was strangely relieved that Judd wasn’t around. He and the others, who had gone foraging, were not in sight; presumably, they were still somewhere in the jungle rummaging for food. Before this morning, I would have appreciated his presence in such a tense situation. After our confrontation though, I was glad he wasn’t here. There were already too many volatile dynamics in play.
“I’m fine … yes; I can get out … this thing … umm … creature is hurt. I want to help it—”
“Why? Just kill it already!” said Shawz as he agitatedly tugged on his chin fluff, his face strained by the exertion of the run and the crushing squeeze of the moment’s tension.
“Rist, is it really one of them?!” Nadalie’s voice was filled with perplexed confusion.
Of course! What would I think if I saw one of my clan mates in a Hog trap presumably trying to help our mortal enemy?
“Look!” said Dixan, pointing to the bow and quiver laying several strides from the hole. “He’s gone in without his bow!”
“Or his knife!” added Shawz, noting the handle of my blade sticking upright in the ground.
Dixan’s voice broke with strained incredulity: “Oh, gag! Rist?”
“Huh?” grunted a bemused Ruzzell. “You’re in there with that thing … without a weapon. What the hell is going on?”
“M-m-maybe it’s pulled him in,” said Shawz, becoming crazy with fear.
“No, it hasn’t,” I said sharply, trying to quell the qualm.
“Is there really one of them in there?” asked Nadalie, still in disbelief.
I looked my enemy in its purple-hued eyes. “I’m going to get out of the hole to show them I’m here on my own accord. Remember, show them green eyes.” The creature took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, registering my request. Either that or I was Hog-crap crazy.
I turned back to my terrified clan who, though they had all inched forward, were still too far off to see the creature. Taking in a chest full of air, I hauled myself out. “See!” I dusted my hands together. “I’m fine … just give me some time, so I can help this thing. It’s terrified—”
“It’s terrified?” asked Gellica aghast and trembling.
“Don’t get back in that hole!” ordered Ruzzell, now with an arrow on string, its deadly tip pointed at me.
“Ruzzell, please man … just—”
Oh, geez!
Ruzzell bolted towards the pit, Shawz right behind him, armed with an arrow-heavy bow, too. Dixan followed but stopped halfway. The girls didn’t move.
“Ruzzell … stay back!” I yelled.
He didn’t listen. But when he saw the creature in the hole, Ruzzell reeled backwards; his jaw slack with shock. “What the heck … what the freaking hell…?” Stumbling on his feet, unable to contain his distress, he must have thought that I was having him on. That Dixan and I had pulled a fast one. There was no way he actually expected to see one of them in that pit.
Following suit, Shawz squealed like a gutted Hog and lost grip of his arrow. It thudded into the ground two strides from me. “Oh, my gag, man! … Oh, my gag!” His head flayed from side to side; his voice tight and high-pitched, warbling with fear. “It’s, it’s one of them … it’s really one of them … Oh, gag! What we gonna to do, Ruzz?” He fumbled and dropped two more arrows before he got the third on his bowstring, his whole body quaking.
I knew from Ruzzell’s expression that the creature would be dead if I didn’t do something fast. With Shawz’s panic distracting Ruzzell slightly, I leapt into the hole, grateful that I had removed the other spikes. I landed with a bone-jarring thud right in front of the creature, its eyes turning red despite its heavy breathing: in and out, in and out.
“Green, please! They must see green,” my voice an earnest entreaty—then I spun around to face Ruzzell, my body now between my deadly enemy and my clan leader.
“What are you…? Freak! Get out of my way, Villain,” Ruzzell said in a hiss; his arrow aimed at my chest. I saw his eyes flicker either side of me, looking to squeeze off a shot. I knew he wouldn’t think twice about giving me a flesh wound to achieve his goal in nailing the creature behind me. He’d proven his readiness to do so already.
I gripped the front edges of my shirt and stretched it out, making the biggest screen I could craft, blocking my foe from view … if it wanted to stab me; it had my entire, exposed back as a target. But at least I was now certain that Ruzzell couldn’t see any vital spots on the creature to shoot at.
“Ristan! What the hell?!” Ruzzell was beside himself: sweat poured down his temples; his cheeks were blotched red, and a bead of perspiration formed on his snarling upper lip. “What you doing, man? You’re defending one of them!”
By now, Dixan and the girls could no longer take the suspense. They arrived at the hole, trundling up behind Ruzzell and Shawz.
Gellica gasped at the sight of me crouching in the pit desperately covering something behind my back. She could now possibly see the creature’s chimp-like feet and the dark-purple blood that soaked the ground around me.
“Rist, what are you doing? Geez, get out of there!” shrieked Nadalie, unable to take in the spectacle, throwing her head into her hands.
“Move out the way,” said Ruzzell as Shawz slowly inched around the side of the hole on my left side. I knew Shawz was looking for something to aim at, and I didn’t trust his ability with the bow. He would usually scud his arrow right of target, pushing his shot, trying too hard. I was as likely to be pierced through with one of his arrows as the creature behind me.
“Shawz, don’t do it. You’ll shoot me!” I bundled an appeal and a warning into one anxious breath.
“Then get out the way,” said Ruzzell. “Keep going, Shawzie. If you see a sh
ot, take it.”
I inhaled sharply, my chest burning. “Please Ruzz. It’s completely defenceless.”
Ruzzell’s eyes shook agitatedly in their sockets. “How do you know, Villain?”
“If it wanted to kill me, it would have.”
“What’s this?” Dixan clucked his tongue and looked down at where the spearhead lay.
“Don’t touch that!” I said, concerned that perhaps it might still contain poison. “Dix, don’t touch it.”
“Why? Is it from that … that thing?” asked Ruzzell, his forearm trembled with the tension of his bow.
“Just don’t touch it.” I said to Dixan, watching Shawz out of the corner of my eye as he continued to worm his way closer to get sight of the creature I shielded.
“Is it from the creature?” asked Dixan panicking. “Did it try to kill you?”
“Hey, everyone!” I said trying to snuff the volcanic tension about to erupt. “Just back off … back off and let’s talk about this!”
“Keep going, Shawz,” Ruzzell coaxed him on; his arrow trained on me. I knew by the strain of his bow that he could spear me and the enemy I foolishly protected.
There was only one more thing I could do. Unable to look behind me and take my eyes off Ruzzell or Shawz, I slowly leaned back against the creature.
“Green eyes, green eyes,” I said softly as I leaned back, resting my weight onto the creature, completely covering its small body with my splayed frame. Grateful that my shirt was so stretched already; it made a broad sail, concealing my foe.
“What, what’s he saying?” asked Shawz, his teeth chattering in his mouth. “Gr-green something?”
Then I felt the creature touch me; two large but strong hands in the small of my back.
I’m dead. How dumb can I possibly be!
However, the firm hands didn’t harm me; they supported my frame. And cupped, they made a back rest; I was as comfortable as I could be … given the absolutely ludicrous ordeal I was in. I gulped down a nervy giggle happy in the knowledge that now; I blocked all sight of the creature, from every angle.
Utterly frustrated by my inexplicable antics, Ruzzell snorted so wildly with rage a snot bubble ballooned on his bulbous snout. “You … you … freaking idiot!” he snapped, wiping his schnozzle on his shoulder. “I guess I’ll just shoot through you then.”
“No!! Ruzzell, please,” said Gellica. Nadalie joined Gellica, pleading for my life. The entire scene was absurd, farcical … nonsensical.
This must be my dumbest move ever!
I closed my eyes and prayed. I hadn’t prayed from my heart since Dad died, other than mouthing off at the morning prayer time Victor had led us in. I don’t know how my father found God on a planet like this, but his real, robust faith had sustained my fledgling, feeble one. It croaked the moment Dad died.
Now, ready to be killed at the hands of my own clan, protecting a mortal enemy, a creature I hated, the only thing I could do was pray.
