by Maggie Allen
"Tell me about it. Can you help me get out of here? We've got to get inside. I heard the siren go off." Mike adjusted the position of his feet, causing a shower of dirt and small rocks to clatter and skitter off the rocky wall below him.
"Yep, just hold on." Bee pulled her head back through the trees and scanned the area. Her eyes immediately went to the safety rope. "Well, you weren't much use as a warning,” she said to it. “Let's see if you can help us now."
"What?"
"Nothing!" Bee grabbed the rope and pulled it out from the branches. She tugged it a bit with both hands to test its strength. It seemed like it should hold Mike's weight—he was pretty small and light, fortunately. They didn't have any better options at present, so she folded it, wound the looped side around the base of one of the trees and threaded the ends through.
She poked her head back through the tree branches and looked down at her friend. “Mike, I'm dropping the safety rope towards you."
"Safety rope?"
Bee rolled her eyes as she played it out towards him. It figured he hadn't even noticed it. He'd probably chased a rock right over the edge.
"Got it!"
Bee got down on the ground and wiggled herself carefully through the trunks and lower branches of the trees until she was positioned on her stomach near the edge of the drop-off.
Mike had already shinnied most of the way up the rope and had thrown an arm up for her to grab. She was reaching out for him when the angry-looking clouds on the horizon caught her attention. It was already raining off in the distance. Sheets and sheets of rain, colored scarlet from dust the storm was collecting to the east. When the rain finally hit, it was going to look like a bloodbath out here. They could well be running out of time. A second blast of the klaxon served to emphasize the point. Bracing her legs against the trees, Bee gripped his arm and pulled.
"Iowa! Mike!" Alicia waved to them from the station's south entrance. The relief on her face at the sight of them was evident to Bee, even from their short distance away. "What took you so long?" she demanded when they ran, panting, up to her.
Bee gave Mike a pointed look before looking down at her own wristPAL and tapping a few buttons to make sure they were marked as checked in.
"It wasn't my fault..." Mike started to protest.
Just then, Alice, one of the teaching assistants stuck her head out the door. "Have any of you seen Kjell? He hasn't checked in yet." She pressed a few buttons on her own wrist, which pulled up a projection of the updated list of personnel staying at Loki Station. "Looks like you two are the last ones in. We're just missing Kjell." She scanned the horizon with troubled eyes. "He hasn't responded to any messages, and the weather will be coming in soon."
Bee exchanged a look with Alicia and Mike.
"You three had better come inside where it's safe. I'm going to do another check for him." With that, Alice disappeared back the way she came.
“We’d better get in…” Alicia was interrupted by a dismayed cry from Mike.
“My rock samples and tools!” Mike looked down at his empty hands, as if suddenly realizing they were missing. “Would I be in more trouble for going back to get them or for leaving them out during a storm, do you thi…?”
His words were cut off by a prolonged scream from somewhere behind them. A scream that sounded undeniably human.
Bee's head snapped around, her eyes searching for a sign of where the scream had come from. Kjell. If that was Kjell, he needed help and he needed it now. Her lizard brain was screaming at her to react. She found her feet moving beneath her, but she had only gotten a few yards from the station door before Alicia caught her shoulder.
"Iowa, stop! We can’t just go running off! We don’t know what on Earth that was!”
"That's just the problem—we're not on Earth, are we?" she said, meeting Alicia's wide eyes. Bee looked over at Mike, who was now standing with his back pressed firmly up against the station wall. “If Kjell’s in trouble, someone needs to do something!”
“We need to let Alice or someone inside know what’s going on.” Alicia firmly pulled Bee back towards the station.
Bee tapped her foot impatiently, waiting for Alicia to exhaust all the responsible possibilities.
Alicia poked her head inside the station door and then shook her head. “I don’t see her, she’s already gone.” Alicia tapped at her wristPAL. “And I can’t get a signal anymore. Must be magnetic interference from the storm.”
Bee looked down at her own device, which now displayed a spinning wheel. “Mine is hosed, too.” She frowned. “Look, if that was Kjell screaming, he might not have much time. And he’s likely unable to communicate.”
"We don't have much time," Mike reminded them.
"Five minutes ago, you were ready to go back for your rocks!”
“That was before the scream.”
“We can't leave Kjell out there," Bee insisted stubbornly. "Let's at least do a quick sweep outside until the rain starts and make sure he’s not somewhere we can easily get to him. Besides, nothing big should be able to get into the Safe Zone."
Alicia squinted up at the sky. "Well, it’s held off this long, maybe it’ll hold off a bit longer. Let's do it. Mike?"
He stepped forward. "Right behind you."
Another scream rent the air from somewhere deep in the woods.
Involuntarily he stepped back again. "Literally, I will be behind you."
"Oh, come on." Bee grabbed Mike's arm and pulled him after herself and Alicia.
Mike hesitated again after the fourth scream. They'd already followed the sound of the previous ones all the way back through Bee's purple-leaved orchard, Mike's rocked-ringed clearing, and they were nearly to the heavily-leafed blue foliage. "Did that sound like someone being torn to pieces? Or like someone who might have just fallen off the same cliff I did?"
Bee considered this for a moment. "I dunno, I think it sounded more like someone who is afraid rather than in pain."
"You fell off a cliff?" Alicia turned her head and cocked it at Mike, widening her eyes at him. "No, wait, of course you did." She shook her head and started walking again, though with an amused smile on her face.
"It could have happened to anyone," Mike protested. He paused to readjust the bag he’d retrieved near his excavation site and then jabbed his finger in Alicia’s direction as he broke into a jog to catch up. "It could have happened to Kjell."
Alicia considered his words for a moment. "Let's hope it's something as simple as that—we're not exactly armed."
"We have pepper spray," Mike tapped the can on his belt.
"You ever wonder why on Earth they think pepper spray is supposed to work here?" Alicia asked him, ducking under a thick branch covered in delicate red moss. “I did some literature searches, but I didn’t find a whole lot of actual studies that were that convincing. Sure, there are field reports, but those are hardly scientifically rigorous.”
Bee, following behind her, stifled an urge to grab a quick sample of moss to take back with them. "You mean 'why on Terra 5?’ And field data is better than no data, right?”
“Let’s just hope we won’t need to find out for ourselves,” Alicia grumbled.
By the time they heard the fifth scream, the wind was picking up steadily, and the three of them were coated with pink pollen and covered in scratches from the large blue leaves being gusted at them. They were nearly to the spot where Mike had gone over the edge when the sixth sounded, this time off to the west.
"Guess it wasn't the cliff." Bee grimaced.
"How far west does the cliff run?" Alicia asked.
"Not far," Mike replied. "It was more deep than wide. There was a sort of plateau on the western side of the drop-off. I couldn't exactly tell, because of the trees, but I think the meadow we've done fieldwork in is over in that direction.”
"That's outside of the Safe Zone. We're not going outside the Safe Zone," Alicia said firmly.
"Of course not," Bee reassured her.
"We'd never do that, we're not stupid," Mike added.
Ten minutes later, the three of them stood at the fence that marked the edge of the Safe Zone, staring at a scrap of red that lay on the ground beyond it.
"Does that jacket have a name patch that says "Kjell" on it?" Alicia pointed.
Mike squinted. “Yep, looks like.”
Bee looked over at the others. "We’re going to have to go outside the Safe Zone.”
Alicia opened her mouth to object, and Mike cut her off with a gesture. “Alicia, your face…”
Alicia swiped at her cheek. “What? What is it?” She looked at her hand, which had a red streak on it. “Blood?”
Bee felt something spatter on the back of her hand. “Nope, not blood. Rain.”
“We really need to get back inside. The rain… we’re not safe out here, and we’ve already left it too late.” Alicia heaved a sigh. “But I know we can’t just leave Kjell…” She wiped another drop off her jacket sleeve, leaving a red streak on the fabric.
“Don’t worry, we’ve got the pepper spray, remember?” Mike waved his canister aloft.
Alicia threw him a dirty look.
“Look, we know this meadow, we’ve been here before, let’s just check it out.” Bee wiped at her own cheek. “We haven't heard another scream, so let's just make sure he’s not lying unconscious somewhere. Clearly there isn’t anything big out there, or we’d be seeing it.” She scanned the meadow that stretched out in front of them towards the horizon before it disappeared into the clouds of pink mist that had come rolling in with the rain. The small canyon Mike had nearly fallen into was to their right, and more blue, shadowed forest was to their left.
Next to the gate in the fence was a small metal box. Bee flipped its cover up, and inside was a keypad and a light, which was currently glowing red, signifying the force field was activated.
“If we’re going to do this, we need to do it now,” Mike said, typing in the code to deactivate the force field.
Everyone at Loki Station knew the codes to turn the force field on and off. It was standard safety procedure, and it ensured no one could get trapped outside the Safe Zone. The fence and thirty foot high force field were never intended to imprison, just to offer a measure of safety. Classes and field groups were free to come and go. Students on their own, however, were honor-bound to respect the station’s safety rules. Bee was sure that there must be exceptions to those rules for special circumstances, and surely the possibility of a student being hurt and unable to get back to the Safe Zone qualified. She waited until the light turned green and then pushed the gate open.
“I know we could cover more ground if we split up, but let’s not, okay?” Mike called over to Bee and Alicia. The three of them were walking in a line, cautiously threading their way through the meadow while keeping their eyes peeled for indentations in the vegetation that might indicate a body. They were surrounded by waist high, weedy-looking wildflowers and plants, similar to what one might see in an Earth meadow, if one discounted the odd coloring of the vegetation… and the apparent rain of blood.
“I am all for sticking together,” Bee said. “No sense compounding our stupidity.”
“And we are pretty stupid!” Alicia managed a smile that was incongruous with the gory-looking tracks the raindrops were leaving on her face.
Just then, a low hum started sounding around them, which swelled in volume and then dropped just as suddenly as it had started.
“What was that?” Mike froze.
The humming sound rose again.
“Where is that coming from? I don’t see anything!” Alicia swiveled her head. “There aren’t any obvious life forms."
“Except for the plants.” Bee pointed to a tall stalk in front of her, upon which a beautiful orange and black striped bloom was opening, almost before their eyes. Its petals extended, and Bee watched them form a cup, catch a few bloody-looking raindrops and then siphon the rain from the cup with an audible slurp. Bee tapped her wristPAL to see if she could get its offline camera function operational. She had to record everything she could—she might never get another chance.
“Bee…”
“What?” Bee’s camera was successfully capturing the wondrous thing in front of her, and she could barely take her eyes off it.
“Bee!” Mike was insistent this time. "We're surrounded."
Bee looked up and realized that they were, in a sense. The entire meadow had suddenly bloomed into a riot of color. She could see ripples in the meadow in front of her, almost as if the plants were waking up in surges. She'd once seen something like it on the seashore in Florida, back on Earth, when the ocean’s receding had brought tiny coquina shells up out of their sandy burrows, creating the effect of a pastel-colored wave rolling down the entire beach.
Mike suddenly stumbled as the ground broke open beneath him. Alicia grabbed his arm and pulled him nearer to her. They stood huddled together on a mound of purple grass, now separated from Bee by a series of shallow pits.
Bee gaped as small protuberances poked up through the soil, giving the impression that the pits were filled with tentacles that writhed excitedly as they appeared to drink in the increasingly steady fall of red rain. "I think they're to help the plant roots collect the water." She let the holographic eye of her wristPAL drink in the roiling vegetation of the meadow and the thirsty pits all around them.
The hum built again, rising and falling in pitch. It got louder and louder until it culminated in an ear-piercing scream that came from somewhere off to the left. All three of them clamped their hands on their ears as they looked around in alarm.
"We gotta go, Bee," Mike begged. "It's not safe. And that wasn’t Kjell screaming.” His pale face was streaked red from the rain.
"You’re right,” Bee conceded. “Whatever is humming is also doing the screaming. But what happened to Kjell? His jacket…”
“Ow!”
Bee’s thought was interrupted by Mike’s cry of pain.
“Are you all right?” Alicia gripped Mike’s arm keeping him steady as he hopped up and down on one leg.
“Something bit me.”
“Let me see.” She crouched down quickly next to him and pulled up the leg of his jumpsuit. There was a large red welt on his calf. “How did whatever it was get you through your jumpsuit?”
“I don’t know!” Mike looked like he was on the verge of panic.
“The flowers!” Bee pointed at the tiger striped bloom she’d been recording. She focused her wristPAL in on a small creature, black with blue and red dots on its carapace, now sitting in the flower’s cup. It was maybe three centimeters long, and not so different from an insect one might see in an exotic jungle on Earth. The spiky head of the creature in front of her started to vibrate, joining the soft humming that was building from their immediate surrounds. The sound swelled, and then suddenly the creature’s head expanded three-fold in size. Its mouth opened, letting out a blood-curdling shriek. Bee reeled in shock, barely catching herself from tripping backwards into one of the root pits. Bugs were responsible for the cacophony of sounds around them, not the flowers!
“Iowa, now!”
Bee felt Alicia’s tug on her arm and she let herself be pulled away, just as the creature launched itself at her face. Bee waved her left hand wildly to deflect it. Alicia’s grip on her other side helped her to retain her balance as the two of them scrambled to get away.
“Go help Mike, I’m fine.” Bee gently pushed at Alicia, who still had a death grip on Bee’s upper arm.
Alicia nodded and then ran ahead to Mike, who was limping as fast as he could towards the Safe Zone, using his arms to help himself weave through the vegetation. Bee watched Alicia grab his bag, and then put her shoulder under his arm so he could lean on her. More creatures were flying off the blooms around them and circling overhead, reminding Bee of the time she’d experienced a brood of cicadas. This was way worse. The cicadas had buzzed, but they didn’t scream or bite.
Swatting the air in
front of her face, Bee turned to take in a last view of the meadow. Off in the distance, she saw another ripple starting to sweep through the meadow. Was it the flowers transforming themselves yet again? What would the meadow unleash next? An involuntary shudder ran through her, fear finally overcoming scientific curiosity. Bee turned and ran.
At last Bee spotted Kjell’s red jacket just ahead of them and paused long enough to grab it. She had just bent down to pick it up when Alicia’s voice rang out.
“Iowa, get down!”
Bee dropped to a crouch instantly at Alicia’s warning, and pushed Kjell’s jacket against her head protectively.
“Make sure your eyes are closed, Bee!” She obeyed Mike’s command, clamping her eyes shut as tightly as she could and mashing the damp fabric into her face.
Bee heard a loud humming noise zoom over her head.
“Eat pepper!” Mike yelled from somewhere in front of her.
This could not possibly end well.
Bee felt a tug on the jacket. “Okay, let’s go.”
She looked up to see Alicia, eyes streaming with tears, looking down at her.
She gasped and then coughed as the leftover pepper spray entered her nose and mouth.
“I know. It’s strong. But the good news is those things really don’t like it, either.”
“The field reports were right?”
“Apparently so.”
“Huh.”
Mike had the Safe Zone gate open, waiting for them, and he slammed it closed after Bee and Alicia ran through it. Bee watched him type in the four-digit code as fast as he could. The light turned red.
“We’re safe now, right?” Alicia asked.
A little creature flew at Mike’s head from behind, the sound of it sizzling against the force field making him jump.
“At least from those things,” Bee said. Who knew what the rainfall might bring out within the Safe Zone?
“It’s not going to stop the rain and the wind, though.” Alicia put her hand over her eyes as she surveyed the sky.
Bee considered it speculatively, too. The weather was not looking like it was going to let up anytime soon.
