Alone

by Holly Hook

  It's the best meal I've ever had. I have to eat with my hands. At last, I feel as if I've taken in a full meal and I stand and kick the water from the river over the fire. It goes out and after a minute, I use a stick to roll out the one stone. It's completely blackened now and probably not useful anymore, but I have more. A lot more. I go to work gathering my things and I kick the sticks into the river.

  The sun's hanging just over the cliffs now and it's dulled to a hazy yellow.

  I have maybe an hour to figure out what to do for the night.

  There's no time to gather more lumber and make another fire, or find a cave and barricade myself in. I put my damp backpack on and head into the forest, obeying the arrow. It's my best shot.

  Right ahead, there's a giant tree. It's sloped as if it's falling under the weight of the canopy it holds. The others stand straight up, strong guardians of this world. I study the slanted tree as I walk closer. Its branches are huge, wide enough for me to sit on and possibly even hide me from anything walking on the ground. Can I get up this tree for the night? If I can make it to the first branch, I'll be over twenty feet up. I'm not sure if Dwellers can climb or not. They're underground creatures. Maybe they aren't used to trees.

  I don't want to think about what'll happen.

  And I hate heights.

  I'll have to climb. I study the branch and the distance between it and the ground. No. I won't do it.

  You're going to die if you don't.

  The voice echoes through my mind. It's Ella from summer camp, egging me on for not going up that rock wall all over again.

  You have to.

  I can't. It's too high.

  Then she's gone and Shawn takes her place.

  I know you can do it, Elaine.

  I have to try. There are vines on this tree I can grab. The trunk's sloped so much that I can slide back down without dying if I need to. I hold my axe closer and go for it. I need to be able to see the river in the morning.

  The light's a dull green now and the butterflies are vanishing into the canopy above, thinning out like they fear what's going to come. I grab onto the vines of the crooked tree. This might be my death tonight, but I can't sit here and try nothing. Another one of those rabbit-dogs might come back.

  There's a scream, echoing through the air.

  It's the same one I heard last night. Is it closer?

  Maybe.

  And this sounds like something much bigger than the rabbit-dogs.

  I'm going up. I hate the thought of facing whatever that is even more than the tree.

  I grab onto the first vine and haul myself up the trunk. It's hard to stand. There are more of the white berries up here, hugging the trunk and hanging off a different type of vine. I accidentally step on some. They squish. My shoes slip. I have to hold on or I'm going down. I'm dizzy just looking up it. The first huge branch waits about twenty feet up. I keep my grip on the vine with one hand and the axe with the other, which gives me an idea.

  I take the axe and swing it down. It digs into the bark and anchors me in. I can climb with this. I have some help here.

  I haul myself up, one step at a time. My arm quivers. My legs burn with the strain.

  Another step.

  I'm doing it.

  Just don't look down.

  And then I do.

  The ground's about six feet below. It's not bad enough to send me into a panic, but it's close. I can still jump down and be fine.

  There's another scream, echoing over the land. What can even make that sound?

  And yes. It's louder tonight.

  Keep going.

  Another step. The large branch draws closer and I'm almost there. My hand burns with the effort of holding onto the vine. I lift the axe and my shoulder protests. Swing it down again and dig into the bark. Another step.

  And at last, I reach the first giant branch.

  It's perfect. Wide. Flat on top.

  I collapse onto it and shake out my hands. I drop the axe beside me as Ella applauds.

  I catch my breath.

  I've done it.

  The branch is dipped in the middle, as if it's carved out a space for me to lie down for the night. I sit up against the trunk. If I lie down, I won't even be able to see the ground from this branch, it's so wide. I could stand up and pace on this if I wanted to.

  But I won't.

  My heart pounds when I think of how high up I am. Maybe this is the night I conquer that fear.

  If I survive.

  At least, if I stay right in this spot I have no risk of falling. I stare straight ahead at the canopy of green that's getting darker and darker. There's a third scream. There's no way I'm standing up to check it out. Instead, I lie all the way down. I'll just stay flattened right here so nothing can see me. Unless whatever's doing the screaming enjoys a nice, high view of the landscape.

  And I still have a little bit of juice left in the phone. I get that out, too. I can't start a fire up here, but I can blind any Dwellers if they start coming up the trunk. I have the high ground here unlike last night.

  The light gets dimmer and dimmer. I try to relax, but it's no use. I'm in the open tonight without a roof over my head. I still haven't ruled out the fact that some things other than those butterflies might live in these trees.

  And then, at last, it's full dark.

  Twigs snap. Bugs chirp.

  And is that a soft glow all around me?

  I crane my neck. The berries hanging off the creeping vines are giving off green light, the ones that were plain white before the sun went down. It's just like the set of stars I had on my ceiling when I was little. I hold up my hands to see the pale green glow illuminating them. I have a little bit of light to see by. It's a very welcome sight.

  In fact, the whole area seems to be alive with the bioluminescence.

  I scoot over to the edge of the branch, holding onto the bark for dear life. There's a green light coming from some of the shrubs. At first I'm taken back, but then my eyes adjust. All the berries are glowing. They cast the grass around them with some light. That's good. It'll help me see if anything's right below me. And there's more bright spots on the trunks of all the trees. This won't be enough to repel any Dwellers, though. They seem to function in dull light just fine.

  I settle back on the branch. A cluster of the berries hang right over my head like some magical lamp. My limbs ache from walking all day. My knee pops. At least my stomach's not trying to tear me apart.

  Maybe I should write something. I still have the journal. I get it out. It's wrinkled with all the water that it's touched over the last couple of days, even though I've taken it out every time for fishing. I still have a pen. I can write something in it. I suppose it could be worse.

  I open it up. If I look close, I can make out the lines on the paper. Good enough.

  Something snaps not far away and I tense, but hear no footsteps.

  I scrawl a title across the first blank page, the one right behind an ordinary algebra assignment that I'm now never going to finish.

  New World. Haven't named it yet.

  Wow. Some title.

  And I jot down some notes.

  Don't eat the purple berries. Don't even touch them. They burn.

  A new page.

  The white berries glow. I don't know if they have a use yet.

  And a third page.

  The orange stone is good. If you find some, grab it. But be careful...it might burn. You'll need it to start fires.

  What am I writing this for? No one's going to come this way. No one who doesn't already know about this world, anyway. But it's making me sleepy, looking at the words on the page.

  And then I hear the dreaded sound.

  The thunder of thousands of little feet in the distance.

  I hold my breath and drop my notebook on my lap. I imagine a swarm of bugs on the horizon, a tsunami of insects on the march. The Dwellers have come out of their mines and caves and they're on the hunt for me again.

/>   Lie flat.

  Shawn's voice rises in my mind again. I flatten myself to the branch, squishing myself into the indent.

  Stay there. Stay still.

  The pen rolls off me. I don't dare grab for it or my phone. Where's my backpack? Next to me, lying over my thigh.

  Shawn, I'll get through this, I think. I'll come back for you.

  The stampede gets louder...and fades. They're searching somewhere else. Maybe the Dwellers are staying down by the river. They might have even smelled the remnants of my fire and gone farther down the bank. Or maybe they can't sense the vibrations I'm making since I'm not on the ground.

  The skittering vanishes. The Dwellers are gone.

  I let out a breath. I seem to be hidden from them tonight.

  Safe.

  Maybe. As long as whatever's screaming doesn't find me up here.

  I pick up my notebook again and open it. I can't think of anything else to write in there tonight. There's no one here to see it. To click the like button. There's no one who cares.

  And I'm getting tired. Exhausted.

  I have to try to sleep. My body's so heavy it almost sinks into the cool trunk. The air's getting chilly and I'm glad for the sweater. My eyelids burn. They've been waiting for me to stop moving in order to protest.

  No skittering returns.

  My pulse slows and I close my eyes.

  I've done something that the Dwellers don't expect.

  Crickets chirp. It's a soothing sound. I'm here among pretty butterflies and glowing plants and the Dwellers might be miles away by now, looking in the wrong place. I'll wake if they return.

  “Elaine, I have something to tell you.”

  Mom stands in the kitchen of the house when I return from summer camp. The bus rumbles away to go drop off the other kids. She moves to the couch and sits down, slowly, like she doesn't want to tell me after all. My stomach tightens. Is this bad? Where's Daddy? All the happiness I felt from getting away from camp is gone now.

  “Sit down,” she says.

  I walk the couch as slow as I can.

  “Now,” she says. “I don't want you telling any of the kids at school about this.”

  “Why?”

  She shakes her head. Her face is different since I went to horrible camp. Mom, I want to say. They made me do all these things that I hated. I never want to go back. I just want to read. But I know that I only want to say that because whatever she's going to tell me is much worse and maybe, just maybe, I can make her forget about it.

  “Your father is going to prison.”

  I sit there, silent for a long time, trying to roll the word inside my head. Prison. Isn't that the place where bad guys go? People who rob banks? Those horrible people on the news?

  “But why would Daddy go there?” I ask. “Why? He's a good daddy.” I think of those bad guys on TV, the ones who laugh evilly and get caught by the good guys every time. Daddy isn't like that. He always gives me hugs and pushes me on the swing outside. He's the one who taught me how to ride my bike whenever he was home from his work trips. He even made my birthday cake when Mom was sick last year.

  He's a good daddy.

  “Someone thinks that your father killed another man. Over in the next town. They say he broke into a house and stabbed the man with a knife.” She winces. Mom didn't want to say that. Her lip is shaking like she's ready to cry. I've never seen her do that before.

  I stand up from the couch and stare at Mom. What's she's saying can't be true. “Daddy would never do that!”

  But she shakes her head and stares at me. “I am not going to tell you the details because you're too young, and I don't want you to look for them, either. I don't want to believe that he did this, either. But he's gone, and he's not coming back here for a very long time. Don't worry, Elaine. I will take care of us.”

  Mom hugs me.

  And starts to cry.

  Skittering.

  I wake. A green canopy spreads over my head. It's brighter now, like day is breaking. I'm glad to leave that horrible moment behind me, but I'm not glad to be back here.

  Especially since the Dwellers are back.

  I blink the sleep from my eyes and sit straight up. Will I be able to see their eyes from here? I hope not, but I have to check and see where they are.

  I crawl over to the edge of the branch.

  There's a dark, seething mass scrambling over the riverbank and towards me. I make out thousands of little points but it’s still too dark to make out their eyes. I duck down, flattening myself. I wonder if they can see my body heat and if that was how they found us in the mine to begin with.

  The noise grows louder. They squeak to each other and I hold my breath, keeping my phone close. I feel like an idiot trying to defend myself with it. Does it have any power left?

  “Have you found her?” a voice calls out. It rattles and it’s coming from the river.

  It's Mr. Larconi.

  I don't dare move. The skittering slows as if they're waiting for him. There's a squeak, and another. If he can understand their language, I don't get how.

  “Keep looking,” he says. “She can't be far from this area. There’s a little bit more time.”

  And then they depart. The soft thunder erupts again and grows fainter. They've passed right under my tree. Getting above the ground was a good idea after all.

  “No!” Larconi shouts. He’s right under me. “Look at what happened to your friends. You want to get caught out here after sunrise? Keep looking. We have only minutes.”

  Minutes. I have to last that long.

  Mr. Larconi’s footsteps fade. He's walking towards that small cliff where I found the fiery stone.

  I prop up on my elbows. I can see over the branch and under the canopy.

  Mr. Larconi stands at the small cliff. His back is to me. He stares at the ore pocket and rubs his hand across it. The Dwellers stand there around him, eyeing the stuff. They're all facing away from me, standing in a ring of gray light. It's a sea of pointed red and yellow hats all around him. They look like spikes from here. If I were to fall on them, I might get impaled even before they have the chance to sicken me.

  Mr. Larconi turns and waves them away, further into the canopy. “There’s more underground!” They scramble away as if fearing the coming of the sun. Larconi turns and heads back towards the river.

  I flatten again. He walks under my hiding place and his footsteps fade away. My heart hammers. I keep my ears open for the Dwellers’ march, but it doesn’t return, either. There must be another entrance to the underground nearby.

  I wonder how the Dwellers are getting out so far from their mine. Maybe they have a whole underground network and it doesn't matter how far I go. How did someone as old as Larconi get way out here? I wonder if these Dwellers pushed him around in some mine cart underground until he got here. Maybe he even saw the smoke from my fire and it acted as a big beacon for him. He must have been the man on the cliff. I'll have to be careful.

  I lift my head. Larconi walks towards the river, muttering to himself. He walks with a limp, like one of his legs is bad. He couldn't have just walked that distance without help. I hope it's hurting him. How many injuries has Shawn sustained down in that mine? Travis? Talia?

  I should kill Larconi right here.

  The thought intrudes like an angry monster wanting release. He's right here and he hasn't pulled out his gun. I have this axe. One good swing and it's over for him. Or I can demand to know where my friends are.

  No.

  He'll call the Dwellers back.

  But I should. I have the high ground.

  Bad idea. He can still pull his gun, too. I’m sure he still has it.

  Larconi reaches the bank and pauses. He mutters something else and vanishes down into lower ground, heading right for where I had my little fire. Did I leave some remnants of it after all? Maybe the Dwellers could smell where I started one.

  I can't go back to the river.

  He expects me to use it
to travel.

  Today, I'm going to have to head deeper into the forest—at least for now. But the Dwellers have gone that way. It’s the way the arrow’s pointing. Maybe the arrow is a trap after all.

  And so is going down to the river.

  The light slowly increases, but it’s not fast enough. I hear one last round of skittering, like the little crowd is rushing somewhere, and then there's silence except for the first birds of the morning. I watch for Larconi and wait for him to come back up from the riverbank, but he never does. Maybe he's waiting for me to return to my fire pit.

  I should kill him.

  I should get revenge for what he's done to my friends.

  Like father, like...

  “Shut up,” I tell Melissa. I'm not like Dad. I'm not going to break into some man's house and kill him for the hell of it. Larconi is different. He's ruined lives and people have died down in those mines...people that he put down there. He deserves it.

  No. If I kill him, I’ll be no better than him.

  My stomach’s upset. I shouldn’t be having these thoughts. What would Shawn and Talia think? What would my mother think? Will I become another piece of dirt to wash away?

  I have to get down this tree.

  I can make out the blades of grass now and the glowberries have stopped giving off their light. I scan the green and see no sign of any rabbit-dogs. I should go check and at least see where Larconi’s headed. My life could depend on it.

  Climbing down is a lot easier than getting up. The axe marks are still there from the night before and I realize that if it wasn't for the curtain of vines, Larconi would have seen them and figured it out. I slide down the trunk, axe and backpack in tow. It's almost like that slide I went down in elementary school, only not as smooth. My feet reach the soft grass and I stick my backpack down in the shade of the tree, hidden by one of the glowberry bushes.

  Maybe I should only hurt Larconi.

  Then I can make him tell me how to get out of here.

  I head back to the river, axe raised. Melissa taunts me even louder and the Facebook messages swim behind my eyes. I'm not following in dad's footsteps. I'm just protecting myself. There's a difference—right?