Laura Morrison_ComeBackToTheSwamp_EbookFormatting Embedded Cover

by Come Back to the Swamp (retail) (epub)

  Captain Joe said, “Quick! Take cover! Over here!” He signaled her toward a tree.

  She ran after him.

  A woman yelled from behind them, “Captain! Wait up!”

  Captain Joe looked over his shoulder as he ran. Bernice looked, too. Infiniti, the ship’s cyborg, was running after them toting some sort of super huge gun thing over her shoulder as though it weighed nothing. While Infiniti ran and dodged tree branches, she shot the captain a smoldering, flirty look that was totally inappropriate considering that a Darra raider was skimming the treetops behind her, spraying bullets in her direction. She glanced over her shoulder at the raider, halted, swung the big gun into position, and shot the raider out of the sky with one resounding blast. As it sputtered and drifted off course, heading toward the ground, Infiniti turned back to them. The mischievous wink she shot the captain was perfectly choreographed with the fiery crash of the raider as it hit the ground in the near distance. The flames of the burning ship cast an orange glow on her perfectly sculpted blonde hair.

  Bernice gaped. Infiniti was so cool. She wondered if Captain Joe and the cyborg would ever go beyond flirting. They’d be such an awesome couple. But she doubted the captain would ever be able to get past the fact that Infiniti was not technically human.

  “Glad you could join the party,” Captain Joe said to the cyborg, flashing his crooked grin as a second raider sounded in the distance.

  Infiniti slung the gun back up onto her shoulder and was just opening her mouth to give him a response that was probably equal parts witty, flippant, and innuendo-riddled, but just then another blinding flash of light shot through Bernice’s skull.

  Bernice blinked. Captain Joe was gone. Infiniti was gone. It was daytime. Pouring rain. She was cold. Shivering. She coughed violently. Her stomach muscles had that sore feeling that indicated she’d been coughing for a while. Except she hadn’t. Her nose was runny and her head ached. She saw a flash of movement to her left. She looked. Rebecca. Another flash of light. She was huddling behind a tree trunk while Captain Joe shot his laser gun at a low-flying Darra raider. She was not soaking wet, not coughing, no headache.

  Infiniti was standing over her with the big gun at the ready, utterly fearless as only a cyborg could be in the face of an onslaught of bullets. It looked like she’d taken a few hits. A hole was blasted in Infiniti’s side. Exposed wires were hanging out of the hole. There was another hole in her lower right thigh that Bernice could see through clean to the other side. Looked like Marcus would have his work cut out for him patching her up.

  “Come on! Move! Move! Move!” Captain Joe yelled and signaled for them to move from the cover of the tree to another tree a bit farther north.

  Bernice swallowed nervously, took a deep breath, then ran, with Captain Joe close at her side, firing at the raider. Infiniti took up the rear.

  Once they were safe under the next willow tree, the captain muttered to Bernice, “Where’s your gun, anyway?”

  “The Darra raiders who took all my extra supplies took my weapons, too,” she explained. Thus far, Captain Joe was not questioning why the Darra hadn’t just killed her. It seemed like only a matter of time until it occurred to him.

  “Why didn’t they just kill you?” Captain Joe suddenly asked with a suspicious eyebrow raise.

  Shoot! “Uh, I ran away. Hid.”

  “Hmm.” Narrowing his eyes, he studied her. Oh, no. He was looking skeptical. He was catching her lying vibes and misinterpreting them. She was not his enemy! She was like his biggest fan!

  “Captain, I promise you―” The ringing in her ears intensified. She shook her head. Again, a bright flash of light. The half-light of early morning or late evening. She was trudging through the swamp. She was freezing cold. Snow was falling from the steel gray sky. Snow? How on earth was it snowing? It was the middle of the summer. Something yellow flapped by a leafless tree ahead of her. Her first thought was of a goldfinch, but this was winter. The yellow was not a bird. As her teeth chattered, she squinted at the yellow. It looked like … police tape? A bit of police tape hanging loose in a tree? She got closer, reached out―

  The bright flash of light brought her back to Captain Joe.

  She was on her back, staring up at the ceiling of a well-lit room.

  A voice across the room said, “Ah, you’re awake.”

  Bernice turned toward the voice. Dr. Angela was standing at a counter, drawing some medicine out of a bottle with a huge syringe. Bernice stared at the syringe. That had better not be for her. “What am I doing here?” she gasped. “How’d I get―”

  “You came with the captain. Don’t you remember?” Dr. Angela asked. She narrowed her eyes at Bernice, set down the bottle, and walked over with the syringe in her hand. She stopped by the bed Bernice was lying in and put a hand to her forehead. “Before you fell asleep, we had a conversation. Don’t you remember that?”

  Bernice shook her head slowly and swallowed. What was going on?

  “You were telling me about the Darra that attacked you and stole all your stuff. You remember none of that?” Dr. Angela asked as she held Bernice’s left eye open and examined it with a little penlight. She did the same to Bernice’s right eye, then sighed.

  Bernice said, “No. I don’t remember a thing.”

  Dr. Angela picked the syringe up and tapped the needle. “Okay. Interesting. Well, don’t worry. You’re in good hands.”

  Bernice barely heard her words. She was too busy staring in horror at the huge syringe. “What is that?” she whispered.

  “All-in-one vaccine,” Dr. Angela explained, giving her a quizzical look. “You’ve never had one? The captain said you were with Central.”

  Of course. The all-in-one. The doctor was always giving new people on the ship this vaccine. They traveled all over the galaxy getting exposed to all sorts of germs, and this vaccine was a cocktail of vaccines of as many of the diseases as Central was able to manage. People like Bernice who had not been exposed to many of them needed the vaccine in case the Mantis was carrying something weird from across the galaxy. “Of course,” Bernice said. “The vaccine. I … you see, the syringe is just so much bigger in real life―”

  “In real life?” Dr. Angela asked, grabbing Bernice’s arm and straightening it.

  “Uh … Bernice began to squirm. She hated needles. Her body began fighting Dr. Angela before her brain even realized she was doing it.

  “Hold still,” Dr. Angela snapped.

  “Wait.”

  “This is essential. You know it is,” Dr. Angela panted as she tried to hold Bernice down. “Geez, kid, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you’d never had one before.”

  Bernice twisted her arm out of the doctor’s grip.

  Dr. Angela shot her a glare and hit the nearby intercom on the wall. “I need some muscle in the sick bay, Marcus.”

  Even through her needle-induced panic, Bernice’s heart leapt. Marcus! She looked at the sick bay door―the ringing in her head went crazy. No, not now! Not now

  A bright flash of light brought her to the swamp. She was lying on her back, staring at the starry night sky. She was chilly, but not the intense winter cold of before. It was almost soothing. Especially with the cool softness of the moss beneath her. She smiled contentedly. Everything was so peaceful. A bug crawled out of her hair and across her face. She held still so as not to startle it. Another bright flash brought her back to the Mantis. She was sitting on a cot in the brig, looking through the bars to the dark hall beyond. Oh no. What on earth? She was in the brig! What had happened?

  And the ship was moving. She glanced through the tiny sliver of a window on the wall behind her. Stars. She was in space. Where were they going? What was going on?

  Down the dark hall, a door opened and footsteps approached. She stood and walked to the bars. “Hey!” she yelled. “What’s going on!?”

  From the
shadows and into the dim light of the bulb outside her cell, Marcus appeared.

  Her heart fluttered. He was even more handsome in real life. He gave her a sparkly grin that conveyed a confusing degree of familiarity. Did he know her? “Hey sweetheart,” he said. “He’s not budging. I tried, but no dice.” He halted on the opposite side of the bars, reached through, and put a hand to the side of her face. “But don’t worry. He’ll see sense. The captain always sees sense in the end.” He brushed his thumb across her lips.

  Bernice stared at him with wide eyes. Oh. Oh wow. What? She and Marcus? Huh? Were they together? Why did she not have those memories? She needed those memories. “Uh.”

  “At the very least, once the baby comes there’s no way he’ll make you stay in here―”

  Bernice gaped at him, then looked down at her stomach. She screamed. She was pregnant. She screamed again. She looked wildly at Marcus, who was staring at her with utter confusion. She saw a tattoo on his hand. The swoopy tattoo that his people got when they got married. She glanced down at her hand. She had a matching tattoo. They were married and she was pregnant and what on earth was going on?

  “Honey!” Marcus gasped. “Bernice! Calm down―”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down!” she screeched. “I―”

  The ever-present ringing got loud. Louder. Louder. She doubled over, fell to the ground, put her hands to her ears. It hurt. It was too loud. Her head was going to explode. The brightest flash yet exploded before her eyes.

  Silence.

  Well, not silence, but a blessed absence of ringing. Birdsong. A swamp sparrow, a red-winged blackbird, and some sort of warbler. She’d never been great at warblers. All over her body, she was aware of tiny little pinpricks of pain. Not horrible by any means, but very present and very constant. She opened her eyes, blinked, and shut her eyes against the brightness. It felt like her eyes had been shut for ages. She was lying on the ground in the swamp. It was hot. She felt the ground on either side of her. Moss, covered in an inch or so of water. She was soaking wet. Her hand flew to her stomach. No baby. Phew. Weird. Very weird. As her hand moved to her stomach, she brushed against some plants. She felt them. Grasses and vines were bent over her body. She opened her eyes a crack and looked down. They were not just bent over her body. Vines were actually growing over her body. Trailing plants had crept over her, and her clothing was muddy. Filthy. Unrecognizable.

  She sat bolt upright and convulsively fought free of the plants that had grown over her. Her breath came in short gasps as she jumped to her feet. Her legs gave way beneath her and she splashed into the mud. Her muscles felt weak, unable to support her body. Her gaze bounced wildly around the swamp. She couldn’t breathe. Was she having a panic attack? Very likely, all things considered. Very, very likely. She let out an incoherent scream because it felt like the best possible way to express her emotion at that moment, and her voice came out in a hoarse rasp.

  A few yards away, there was movement from the grasses. The old woman―Rebecca―sat up from where she’d apparently been lying in the mud. As Bernice gaped in horror at her and tried to get to her feet, Rebecca smiled and said, “At last. You’ve awoken. How do you feel?”

  Bernice rasped, “What is going on?”

  Rebecca held her hands up before her soothingly. “You are confused. You need to lie down. Rest. I will explain―”

  Bernice managed to stand. She staggered backward, tripped on a root, and nearly fell again. “No!”

  “You will harm yourself if you move too much after emerging―”

  “Shut up!” Bernice screeched.

  “You need to sit down.”

  “No! No, I do not! I need to get out of here!”

  The old woman sighed and nodded. “Do what you must. I will be here when you return. I will find you.”

  “Whatever,” Bernice mumbled. “You crazy old freak. Whatever. I am out of here. I am never setting foot in this place again.” Bernice wobbled away. She had no idea which direction was which and she didn’t care. If she kept on walking, she’d eventually reach the edge of the swamp, and that was all that mattered. She was done. This was insane. She was dropping her plans to get a master’s in ecology. She was going to get a job at the gas station by her apartment and she was never looking back. As she tripped away, she glanced back at Rebecca. The old woman was sitting in the mud watching her with a knowing sort of expression.

  Bernice ran her hands through her hair. Or tried to. Her fingers got stuck in the mass of knots and plant matter. So tangled she couldn’t move her fingers through it.

  Her hands started to shake. Her legs started to shake. Her whole body started to shake as her panic totally enveloped her.

  How long had she been in the swamp?

  What had happened to her?

  CHAPTER EIGHT:

  EVERYTHING IS FINE. EVERYTHING IS FINE. EVERYTHING IS FINE.

  Bernice stared out the hospital window at the view of the park three floors down. As she stared, she listened to her doctor and a police officer talking low in the hallway. They’d been going back and forth for a few minutes. She was glad she had their conversation to listen to since it took her mind off the nagging feeling in her mind that she had to get back to the swamp. Since the moment she’d woken in the hospital bed, she had been aware of an irritating voice in the back of her mind insisting that she needed to return. She was trying to chalk it up to irrational anxiety―knowing that she’d lost a year of her life and a year of her work, and that her plans of getting a master’s were probably derailed and that her life was in shambles. Yes. That was it. That explained the nagging voice in the back of her head. Just anxiety about a lost year of life.

  Never mind that this voice in the back of her head was not at all the form of anxiety she was used to. Her usual anxiety was borderline-obsessive feelings of stress and worry, not an actual voice whispering repeatedly, Come back to the swamp, come back to the swamp.

  So, yes, she was glad she was able to focus on the conversation in the hall. Anything that kept her mind off the voice was welcome.

  The doctor was saying, “I’m telling you, I don’t think she’s up to visitors yet, Officer.”

  “But the sooner we get information from her, the sooner we can get back into that swamp and―”

  “I’m afraid I must insist,” the doctor stated in a very firm voice.

  The cop grumbled, “Fine. Fine. You give me a call the minute she’s able to talk.”

  Bernice sighed, and called, “I can talk to you, Officer!” Talking to the cop would be an even better way of blocking out the voice.

  Come back to the swamp, come back to the swamp.

  The men stopped short, and a moment later they both appeared in the doorway. While the officer strode in with an expression of concern on his face, the doctor hung back, frowning disapprovingly.

  The officer halted beside Bernice’s bed and said, “Thank you, Ms. Martin. You sure you’re up to talking?”

  “Yep,” Bernice said, keeping it short since talking felt weird. Her vocal cords hadn’t been used much the past year. One year. She’d been missing in the swamp almost an entire year, wandering around hallucinating about the crew of the Space Mantis. It had felt like an hour at most. But a year of her life was gone, lost to temporary insanity brought on by whatever that horrible old woman had done to her. Her mind wouldn’t quite let her think about it too much. Every time she wondered too hard about it, her mind put up a wall. She didn’t push too hard. Her mind knew what it was doing.

  The officer smiled and nodded. “Great. I gotta say, I’m thrilled you were found. I’ve been on this case since day one. It’s so nice when these missing persons cases end well. Do you have any idea where you were kept? The doctor says you don’t remember anything. We searched every inch of that swamp multiple times. Do you have any idea whether you were there the whole time?”

  “I d
unno,” Bernice answered with a shrug. She cleared her throat. “I mean, I remember bits and pieces. But that’s it. Walking around in the night. Walking around in the rain. And in the snow. Lying in some moss. That’s about it.”

  “Every one of your memories is in the swamp? Never anywhere else?”

  “Never anywhere else.” Come back to the swamp, come back to the swamp. Bernice gave her head a sharp shake.

  He nodded, wrote some stuff in his notebook, and tapped his pen against his chin, thinking. “Uh, this old lady. The cops who responded to the call from the person who found you by the roadside, they mentioned you’d said something about an old lady.”

  Bernice nodded. She whispered in a rush, “Yes. Rebecca Hallett. I asked her if she was and she said yes. Or, rather, she said she had been Rebecca Hallett but that now she is the swamp. Because she’s insane. She’s totally insane.” Bernice’s throat felt so weird. Tired from all this talking. But now that she’d started she couldn’t stop. She had too much to say. And talking helped drown out the voice. Come back to the swamp, come back to the swamp. “She ranted about being the swamp and she blew drugs in my face and then everything went crazy and that’s when I lost a year of my life and― Oh! Hey! Kevin James! What happened to him? Is he alive? Did she kill him? Please tell me Kevin’s alive.”

  “Kevin James …” murmured the cop, tapping his pen against his chin again as he gave Bernice a funny look. “Uh, yeah, he was the one who first reported you missing.”

  Bernice exhaled a relieved breath. She had been fairly convinced he was dead. “Was he missing long himself?” she asked. Come back to the swamp, come back to the swamp.

  “Uh, no …” the cop said, for some reason confused by the question. “No, he called us the morning after you disappeared. Called from the swamp. On your phone.”

  “Wait. He was okay? The old lady blew the same drugs in his face that she did mine …” Why had she lost an entire year and Kevin had only been out a night? Had the old lady been dosing her over and over, day after day? The thought made her sick and scared―her wandering around out of her senses and lost, with horrible old Rebecca Hallett continually drugging her.