The crescent shaped moon was accompanied by an even larger half purple moon and to the right another full moon weighed down on us.
“How is that possible?” Trip asked. “More than one moon?”
“Does this mean we are on another planet?” Tara asked.
We all stared at the moons, trying to comprehend the impossibility.
“Couldn’t they have waited until after the cheeseburgers?” Trip grumbled.
ROOOOAAARRRRR!!!! An enormous beast sounded from the trees.
SEEEERRRRKKK! Another beast called from the plain.
We huddled together not knowing which way to go.
“We’ve got to get off this ridge,” Tara whispered.
“Listen!” Donnie held up a hand.
We heard it. A whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, getting closer with each whoosh. Then a massive bird like creature screeched behind us as it flew up from the beach.
We scattered like jacks thrown down a ramp. I didn’t even think. I just ran for the cover of the trees, propelled to break-neck speeds by the decline of the hill. I pierced the darkness of the forest and skidded to a stop. I whirled around when I heard feet behind me.
“Don’t stop!” Mel ordered and grabbed me as she ran by.
“Wait! Mel, where are the others?”
“No time, run. Find cover.” She yanked me into her wake.
We ran until we could no longer see the moonlights through the dense canopy, then we stopped to breathe. Mel pressed her back to one of the trees and I hunkered down in front of her. The eerie green mist swirled around us.
“We are separated! We have to go back and find them.” I gasped in the foul air.
“They are fine. Donnie followed them. I followed you.”
“Okay, but we still need to find them.”
“No, we need to concentrate on not becoming some nocturnal snack.”
Well. When she put it that way…
“This is either Tara’s jump or yours, so we need to try to figure out what our next move should be.”
“I thought Tara already had her jump, with the sea serpent.” I shifted to my other foot.
“Maybe, that could have been Kail’s. We weren’t really sure.”
I did not want to think about what horrors we could encounter if this was Tara’s jump. Xena Warrior Princess had some pretty atrocious battles in her Scriptorium preparation. Her jump would only be a nightmare. Me however? Suffering kittens would send me over the edge so our chances of survival were better if it were my jump. That wasn’t much of a comfort at the moment.
I heard a snuffling noise to the right. Mel and I stood, poised for a breaking escape. The snuffling noise stopped and a guttural growl erupted through the bracken. We turned to run, but I glanced back.
Fear trickled down my spine and my heart thumped an angry staccato as I watched the enormous beast crash through the thicket behind me. “Run!” I commanded my feet, but they seemed to be growing roots into the mossy forest floor.
“RUN!” Mel screamed and yanked on my arm so hard I thought she had wrenched it right out of my shoulder, but it worked. I was running. We were both running for our lives.
“Is it yours?” she yelled at me.
“I don’t…I don’t…” I looked back over my shoulder and saw the beast pause and throw his nose into the air, sniffing. He stood up on his hind legs and I saw it. It was wearing a long yellow leash of sorts around its neck, but the ends were frayed, as though he had gnawed himself free.
I stumbled and went crashing into the thicket, thorns snagging my clothes and hair. Mel was next to me in an instant. “Get up!”
She saw the look of panic on my face. “It is yours,” she said and ancient sadness crossed her features. “What is it?” she slashed at the vine tangled around my feet and stole quick glances over her shoulder.
“It…It…it’s my….” I croaked out in despair.
ROOOAAARRR! The beast bellowed when he caught our scent.
“Get up! Go!” Mel urged.
I scrambled to my feet just as the beast crashed through the wall of branches and vines. We froze, staring at the hideous creature as long talons scraped the ground at his sides and black gunk oozed from his mouth and eyes. Pointed fangs pressed into the matted fur of his face. His eyes held deadly intent and seething malice. His breath rose in green fumes around him.
“What is it?” Mel’s voice whimpered.
“It’s my,” I shuddered. “It’s my daddy!”
The beast crouched low to spring at us and my legs turned into Jello. I crouched down, cradled my head in my arms and waited for the inevitable pain.
“Back! You get back monster!” Tara and Trip brandished their weapons and jumped in front of us.
“NO!” I screamed at them. “You can’t hurt him. He is my daddy!”
They cut strained eyes at one another. Corey skidded to a halt at my side. “Come on Kate. Let’s get out of here.”
He pulled me up and we followed Donnie and Mel into the woods while Tara and Trip distracted the beast.
“They can’t kill him! He’s my dad!” I wailed.
“Just keep running, Kate,” Corey coaxed.
We broke free of the forest and skirted the shadows. Tara and Trip were right on our heels.
“Is it coming?” Donnie called to them.
“No, he’s confused. He turned and ran the other way,” Tara answered.
We came to a river that sliced across the forest and on into the plain. The green mist hovered over the surface of the river, giving it the illusion of smoky water.
We stopped to catch our breath and decide where to go next. The odor was stronger here by the water and my tongue felt numb.
Tara kept her vigil on the sky and Trip scanned the land around us while Donnie and Mel decided what to do next.
Corey pulled me into an embrace and spoke soft words into my ear until I settled down.
“Why do you think that was your dad?” he asked.
“His tie. He had on my dad’s favorite tie.”
“Tie?” Tara glanced at me. “That yellow thing around his neck?”
I nodded then rested my head on Corey’s chest, while he rubbed my back.
“What’s the plan?” he asked Donnie and Mel.
They stared at each other, confusion sketched expressions.
“We…we…keep moving until we find shelter.” Donnie hesitantly said, “come on.”
We marched along the river, heading away from the forest out toward the vast plain. Donnie led us and Trip brought up the rear. Keeping a steady pace through the night, with the river to our right, we covered a great distance. When dawn broke we gazed toward the east in awe.
The first sunrise came in pulses and waves, as lights and colors slithered across the sky. Interconnecting and breaking apart, light fractals danced through the sky lighting it to varied shades of green and blue. The second sunrise cast a fuchsia and purple glow over everything. Watching the competing suns splash their hues over the landscape and our faces was peculiar. For a world with two suns, you would expect a bright landscape, but an eerie glow was as bright as it got.
Behind us the forest was a tiny lump on the horizon. In front of us miles and miles and miles of knee high grasses, midnight blue in color, swayed over our feet and clung to our shins. The green mist slowly dissipated with the sunsrise except for a few stubborn tendrils left wafting along the river.
“Listen!” I hissed.
Sizzling and cracking sounds came from the direction of the suns and we turned our heads to peer into the breaking dawn. The grasses were quivering and seizing.
“To the river!” Donnie shouted.
We ran down the bank and jumped into the green fogged water just as a stampede of pangolin-type rodents skittered by us covering every inch of the ground. One of them stopped and looked at me and I swear it was Bobby McIntosh, the biggest bully in the third grade. His features were clearly discernible in the face of the pangolin. He hissed at me then continued
on with the millions of others.
I screamed and climbed up Corey’s back. Faces of people over the years that had wronged me or hurt me in some way passed by in a frenzy of scales and tails. I couldn’t stop screaming. I knew I was being ridiculous, but the screams seemed to come from some well of pain deep inside of me and had a mind of their own. They tore from my throat in waves of horror. Trip peeled me off of Corey’s back, and I clung to him like Velcro with all my strength.
“Kate!” Corey grabbed my face between his hands. “Kate. It’s okay. They’re gone.”
His voice pierced my panic and I focused in on his eyes, deep as the lover’s sea. Sucking in deep draughts of air, I began to calm. I released my lock hold on Trip and he set me down. I collapsed into Corey’s arms and began to weep.
Mel moved next to me and they sat me down on the river bank. Mel offered me water from her pack. I took it into my trembling hands.
“Kate, what is going on? We can’t help you unless you are open with us.”
I struggled with the bottle until Corey cracked the seal for me. I took a long swig and placed the cap back on before speaking.
“They were people I had known in my past. People who…who…were mean to me or had hurt me.”
“Katie, girl, they were just rats,” Trip said softly, squatting at eye level in front of me. He touched my hair.
“Not rats, pangolin,” Donnie stated.
“Pangowhat?” Mel asked.
“It’s not important.” Corey waved his hand to silence them. “Kate, what do you mean? Did you see people just now?”
I closed my eyes and shook my head. “No, I saw pangolin, but their faces…” I shook my head in disbelief. “They had people faces.”
Mel and Donnie locked knowing eyes. “This is your jump, Kate. You need to address any unfinished business.”
“I don’t understand. There’s nothing unfinished. I haven’t thought of them in years.” I hedged and frowned defiantly, daring them to gainsay me.
Donnie sighed heavily. “Okay, well, let’s keep moving.”
“Moving where, exactly? There is nothing but miles and miles of plain, and obviously there is as much danger in front of us as there is behind us,” Trip argued.
“We need to find shelter,” Tara urged.
“Something feels wrong about this jump,” Mel muttered as she looked around the landscape.
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Donnie answered and scrubbed a hand across his eyes.
“What? What is wrong?”
“I don’t know, I can’t put my finger on it. I just feel foggy headed.”
Donnie nodded in agreement.
“Let’s get moving,” Tara interjected. She seemed least affected by the jump.
We stood and began to climb out of the river bed when a screeching sounded and a large bird flew overhead. “Get down!” Tara shouted.
She jabbed her spear at the monster and it jutted to the side, dangled its talons lower, and snatched her. Her spear thudded on the ground and the bird lifted her high and carried her away.
“Tara!” Trip shouted and ran after them.
We all followed in his trail trying to keep the bird in line of sight. It flew into the smaller sun, and we lost it.
Trip bellowed a stream of obscenities after the bird and kicked up dirt.
“Trip!” Corey caught up with him. “We’ll get her back.”
“How? That bird could have flown anywhere.”
“I have an idea where it lives.”
“Speak it out, Corey! Where does it live?”
“The cliffs,” Corey gestured back the way we had come, where the daddy monster lived.
I whimpered.
“Let’s go, then,” Trip tromped off at a quick pace.
We fell in line, I hesitantly followed behind them. I wished Tara was safely back with us.
Tara screamed and we all adjusted our course in the direction of her scream. Only we all adjusted differently. Trip surged straight ahead. Corey drifted to the right. Mel and Donnie drifted to the left, and I heard the scream behind us. Since I was running in back of everyone else, I was able to see the odd course adjustments. Just as I was about to yell out, the strangest thing happened. Circles began to form on the plain around us. One formed in front of Trip and he stepped into it and vanished. I skidded to a halt and watched Mel and Donnie fall into a circle and Corey vanish into one.
I froze watching the ellipsis appear and disappear all around me. Trip ran up behind me and stopped next to me.
“What the…how did you get in front of me?”
“Be very still and watch,” I whispered. The circles appeared as pricks of light on the landscape and grew to about four feet in diameter before blinking out. We stared straight ahead and saw Donnie and Mel appear, run a straight line across from us then disappear into another circle.
“What is this place?” Trip murmured.
I shook my head. A circle appeared ten feet in front of us and Corey appeared, running straight at us. He drew up sharply and frowned. I reached out for him and he walked forward slowly and took my hand.
“What is happening?” He gaped at the Swiss cheese landscape.
We watched Donnie and Mel reappear from one circle and then Mel disappear into another circle, leaving Donnie frozen in a running stance, gaping at us.
“Don’t move, Donnie,” I yelled. He was about a hundred feet away from us. He turned to look at us, took one step toward us and fell into a hole. He dropped to the ground six feet from us. Mel appeared again, still running, but in the opposite direction. She turned her head to look at us, registered a perplexed expression, then vanished into another circle. She ran smack into the back of Trip five seconds later and landed on her back side.
“What…?” We helped her stand and we all watched the circles form, grow, and blink out.
“I don’t understand. They all lead back here to this spot, eventually.” Corey turned a full circle. “Why?”
“Maybe we should test your theory,” Trip announced, then ran twenty yards away and jumped into a circle. Five seconds later he dropped down on top of Donnie with a thud.
“Ow! You big oaf, get off me!” Donnie complained in muted tones from beneath Trip.
I couldn’t keep myself from laughing, but pressed my hand to my mouth and looked away.
Trip jumped up and took off running again, landed in a circle and came out on our right side running toward us. “Looks like you’re right Corey. They all lead back here.”
“I want to try it,” I said and started to move forward.
Corey grabbed my hand. “Together, then,” he said with a pointed expression.
We took off running, hand in hand, and passed into a circle and we exited three hundred yards from the prior site. “Maybe it was a fluke, let’s try it again.”
We ran into the next circle and it dropped us off even further from the prior point. “I guess my theory was wrong. We seem to be getting further away from them.”
Mel stepped into a circle and materialized right beside me. Trip and Donnie walked into opposite directions and materialized mere feet from us, walking toward us.
Corey and Mel turned slowly to look at me. “It’s you, Kate. You are the base point. They all come back to you.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, what were you thinking about when they first started materializing?”
“I don’t know…about Tara…wishing she were right beside me…” My mouth fell open. “You think somehow I did this?”
“Do you think this place creates reality from your thoughts?” Donnie asked.
“That would explain the whole, Daddy as a monster thing,” I said. I wished Corey would hold me.
Corey reached out his arms and pulled me into an embrace. Did I just do that? I wondered. The timing was too perfect. I decided to try something else. I wished Trip would touch my face. He did. I frowned.
“Guys, something weird is happening. Don’t move, okay. No matter what prompts
you feel, just don’t move.” I closed my eyes and wished Donnie would kiss Mel. I opened my eyes and he leaned over and pecked Mel on the cheek.
“Why did you do that?” I asked him. “I told you to stand still.”
Donnie looked nonplussed. “I don’t know, I just had the impulse and went with it. Why?”
“Well, I wished that Corey would hold me, then he did. I tested it again to see if Trip would touch my face. He did. Then I wished that you would kiss Mel. You did.”
“Coincidence?” Mel asked.
“Maybe,” Trip answered, and then turned to me. “Wish something that one of us would never in a million years do.”
“Okay.” I thought about something that would never happen and wished it. Trip whirled around, grabbed Donnie around the waist and they began to waltz.
We laughed and they dropped their hands and glared at me momentarily before they burst into laughter.
“It’s just Kate. I have made about five wishes and none of them have happened.” Corey stated.
“Yeah, me too,” Mel added.
“I don’t get it. If she wished for Tara to be beside her and she didn’t come…” Trip observed.
“Maybe that was the wish that created this place,” Donnie deduced.
“Try again, Kate. Wish Tara back.”
“Wait! We don’t know how this thing works,” Corey interjected. “She could kill her…just wishing her back could cause all kinds of problems, it needs to be controlled and contained. Parameters set up.”
It was too late, my mind had already formed the picture of Tara standing beside me hale and whole. “I can’t…” I pressed my hands to my head.
Tara appeared beside me.
“How did I?” She staggered for a moment, looked at us all warily, then moved to stand beside Trip.
“Way to go, Kate,” Trip said taking Tara’s hand.
Cheeseburgers appeared on a table beside us with large bottles of Dr. Pepper. An enormous cheesecake with raspberry topping appeared next to it.
“I can’t cut it off.” I looked at Corey, fear mounting.
“We need to distract her,” Corey said.
The Torn, Book One of the Holding Kate Series Page 22
