An Island in the Stars

by Susan Laine

  Marcus had managed to escape by the seat of his pants. Ripped pants. Next time they might not get so lucky. And at that exact moment, Marcus couldn’t think of a worse way to die than being incrementally digested by a plant.

  “Fine. I can take a hint. Enough exploring on my own.”

  Brushing off dried leaves, dirt, and flower pollen from his clothes, he headed back to Sam and the safety of the library.

  Chapter 6

  “OH, THIS is hopeless.”

  Sam tossed a scroll to the table and reached for another. In the past half an hour, he must have gone through a hundred scrolls or more.

  Thus far, he’d only found two that seemed to be of any use. One of them described the temple complex they were in. That much Sam could tell because the scroll contained detailed floor plans. The other scroll had artistic renderings of the razor beast they’d encountered, as well as other creatures, so Sam kept that close. Learning about the food chain was their only chance of not ending up in said food chain.

  The rest of the vast literary collection… well, Sam had no idea if he was reading a unique, brilliant classic or a recipe for homemade cookies. Without any pictures or recognizable symbols, Sam was at a loss.

  For the umpteenth time, he growled at Marcus leaving him alone to this task.

  And then there were the carvings, reliefs, and statues around him. Over and over, they kept drawing his gaze, distracting him from his mission.

  For one thing, since the images were monochromatic—mostly anyway, as the outside of the building had no colors left, but in here scattered traces were occasionally visible—he had no idea what these lizzies were like in real life. Were they black or white or gray, red or green or blue? Did they have skin, scales, armor, or fur? The scientist in Sam was fascinated.

  He hazarded a guess that the lizzies had green skin, like frogs, because if they were anything like the reptiles back on Earth, they would be exothermic. Tropical environments, therefore, would suit them. Continuous sunlight year-round and green skin to absorb the maximum amount of heat. Of course, frogs and other reptiles that appeared green actually weren’t. Their cells filtered out other colors besides green. So… perhaps the lizzies weren’t green either.

  Sam pursed his lips in annoyance. His own deductive reasoning led him down a path that refuted his initial assumptions. But that was how science worked. First people had theories, and then they set out to find evidence that either proved or disproved said theory. Regardless of the findings, knowledge took a leap forward once the scientific community verified the facts.

  With all these alien wonders around him, Sam felt compelled to document everything he saw. Who knew if anyone else would ever get to witness these stunning ruins again before the jungle claimed them forever.

  So he fished out his iPhone from his jeans pocket and started taking pictures of all the amazing artwork. The wall reliefs and murals had to be hundreds or thousands of years old, but the sculptures, their shapes and few remaining hints of colors, jumped out at the onlooker, still vibrant. The carvings were astonishingly lifelike, practically three-dimensional.

  But the statues sprawled throughout the complex were magnificent and imposing with their realistic depictions, each muscle and tendon in its proper place. Their jeweled eyes glimmered eerily as they stood on stone plinths and raised daises, carefully observing Sam wandering about.

  Their positions appeared far from threatening, though. Each and every mural, fresco, relief, carving, and statue depicted sex in some form.

  The images appeared shameless, lifelike, and graphic, nothing held back. At any minute Sam half expected the shapes to come to life and step out of the walls and stone bases as living, breathing beings. He wondered what they might have thought of humans, who were smaller, weaker, and weird-looking. Would they wish to engage in love or war with Sam and Marcus?

  Love certainly seemed to be their predominant pastime on the island. He saw singles, couples, threesomes, foursomes, and more, all the way to wild orgies. He saw things he had zero experience with and no name for.

  Male members were accentuated to the levels of hyperbole. Surely they couldn’t have been that big in real life. Penises jutted outward, hard and proud and impossible to miss. Blushing, Sam couldn’t look away from the most prominent features depicted as they stretched out, almost as if trying to reach the viewer. What Sam needed was a measuring tape so he could verify for himself that the penises he saw averaged about nineteen or twenty inches!

  Holy hell. No wonder these lizzies were taller than humans if that was the size of their reproductive organs. How did the females handle that?

  The creators of the artwork had been ingenious, able to capture fleeting moments of time and space, managing to show not only anticipation, temptation, lust, and love, but distinctive features as well so that every model was their own person. Sam guessed he might actually be able to recognize individuals if they walked up to him in real life. Alien lizards or not.

  Sam bore witness to ancient, alien marvels and understood he was privileged to see them. He snapped shots on his iPhone. If they ever got back home, they’d have a pictorial journal of the wonders they’d seen.

  Delicious details abounded, their bounty rich and rewarding. A hint of a quirky smile, a handsome or beautiful profile half in shadows, hands touching and fingers interlacing, lips parted in gasps, screams, and moans, luscious curves of breasts and cocks, backs arching, tails rising, heads thrown back, taut muscles, sweat droplets on flesh, hands gripping hard bodies, fingers digging into soft skin, kisses on intimate places.

  From simple sensual and sexual acts to wild reckless debauchery with groups, animals, even what looked like fruit. Nothing was apparently forbidden or too unseemly to show. Despite Sam’s squeamish, shy attitude toward most matters of the sensual variety, he was still pleased to learn that these aliens, these previous occupants on the island, hadn’t viewed sex as sinful or a vice, something to be condemned or censured. Perhaps only humans disapproved or reproached their own kind for a completely natural act and equally natural behavior. The lizzies sure weren’t shy.

  Sam felt out of breath and hot in his skin. He longed to run his fingertips across the carvings and statues, to touch lips, to trace curves, to find a detail too small to see but one that could be felt, tangible and undeniable. And yes, perhaps even to feel the stony rigidity of a rock-hard cock against his palm, to follow the length of the shaft from root to tip, to examine the manhood of these alien beings. A tempting thought.

  In the end, though, Sam didn’t dare. So he settled for looking and taking photos.

  A female with her mouth open accepted a cock while another female on all fours was being taken from behind by a male. Rough stuff, Sam thought, shuddering. She sucked on another cock while handling two others with her hands, while another female beneath her sucked on one of her nipples while twisting the other into a hardened peak.

  The image was far more graphic than anything Sam had seen so far. He wasn’t into porn, gay or otherwise. A flustered sweat made him uncomfortable, and he yearned to rip off all his clothes and simply be buck naked in the humid heat. He’d undoubtedly feel better and less close to having a heatstroke.

  Sam wondered if the images were actual people caught in the middle of sex acts by the artists or if they were the products of a fertile, dirty mind.

  If they had once been real people, then seeing these images was tantamount to peeping into intimate moments, sharing hours of private passion with them, and reliving their affectionate touches, sweet smiles, loving gazes. Perhaps the artists and sculptors had known these individuals personally rather than as mere subjects of the art. The artists had certainly been able to capture their models’ personalities, emotional quirks, physical pleasure, and facial features with such detail and flourish.

  Maybe they were… lovers.

  After all, these depictions weren’t crude renderings of violations. They seemed more like… lovemaking. Perhaps these artists loved all their
models.

  Surely no one person could have done all these reliefs? It would have taken centuries.

  Sam realized suddenly that because this place had been abandoned, he’d likely never know the answer. It would forever remain an unsolved mystery.

  Faint traces of minute mistakes and tiny flaws appeared here and there. Lips intended to smile that rose in a flirtatious sneer instead; hands that gripped with intensity but appeared unfinished and crude; cocks where the veins curved oddly, as if the sculptor’s hands had slipped. Little details that showed that no one, not even an alien lizard artist, was perfect.

  The presence of so much sexual imagery left Sam turned on to the point of horniness. He briefly contemplated rubbing a nut to get off quickly, no fuss, no muss. But…. Marcus could come back at any moment and witness Sam masturbating over sculptures, and he’d never be able to live down that embarrassment.

  An instinct to get up close and personal grew inside Sam, however. His senses longed to learn all the secrets of these sculptures, wall reliefs, and murals, their hidden vows of love, their forbidden language of pleasure. Would hands and fingers be enough to satisfy his needs? Could he use… his body? Could he wrap himself around these images and those gigantic stone cocks, like an animal clinging to a vine? The impulse was crazy, more insane than any thought he’d ever had.

  He closed his eyes and prayed for patience and endurance—and an ice-cold shower. But images of cavorting nudes flashed before Sam’s closed eyelids anyway, like a salacious movie he couldn’t stop playing over and over, exciting him without any hope of a climax. Worst of all, the male hotties started to look like Marcus. Dammit.

  Shaking his head, angry at himself for getting distracted while they continued to be in dire straits, Sam stomped back to the table and the stacks of scrolls, pocketed his iPhone, and went back to work.

  Time flew by without him being consciously aware of it.

  When Marcus stumbled in through the door, clothes torn and skin scraped, Sam started and jumped about a meter in the air.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, you scared the shit out of—oh my God, what the hell happened to you?”

  Sam rushed over to Marcus, wrapped an arm around his waist, and helped him down onto a stone chair by the table, a chair so big Marcus looked like a Lilliputian sitting on it.

  Marcus groaned, grimaced, and then gave Sam a full account of what had happened to him, the animals and plants he’d encountered, and why he was so roughed up. Sam made soothing circles over his upper back as a means of consolation while mulling over the details of a tale fraught with danger.

  “I guess we know now there are more of those razzies on the island, even if that one was so small,” Marcus said, cringing no doubt at the aches and pains of his ordeal.

  Sam half shrugged, half nodded. “Must have been a cub. Maybe the gray color of the horn turns black when it’s fully grown into maturity.”

  Marcus harrumphed, squaring his shoulders. Then he handed his partner his phone and showed Sam the pictures he’d taken of the animals and the flower.

  Sam let out a yelp. “Wow. That’s one bigass plant.”

  “Yeah.” Marcus sighed, apparently unwinding at last. “That razzie isn’t our only threat on the island. And this flower thing, it’s insidious. I didn’t even see how bad the situation was until I was almost consumed. Oh, and by the way? That’s now officially the worst possible way to go.”

  “I believe you.” Sam frowned, shivering as he stared at the image of beauty and death in one shot. “And you said the vines on the ground were a part of the flower?”

  Marcus nodded, closing his eyes and leaning back. “Sure seemed like it. I mean, they did try to drag me toward the flower, and all the blossoms turned toward me.” He shook his head, as if pissed off. “I just wish I knew what the fuck I did to attract the thing’s attention. I mean, on Earth the carnivorous plants, they eat insects and small animals, right? They don’t attack big animals or large prey, right?”

  “Yes. But everything’s bigger here, so….”

  Marcus grunted, sounding displeased and rubbing his wounded arm. “Well, that damn thing’s as big as a house. We better not get in its way again.” Suddenly his eyes flew open and, wide-eyed, he gazed at Sam in alarm. “Could there be more of those plants on the island?”

  Sam had no clue. But he said, “Probably not. Too many of them about, and there’d not be enough food. I mean, this isn’t that big of an island. Competition is bad for predator species like the flower and that razzie. In fact, I doubt there are many of those beasts here either.”

  Marcus let out a relieved breath and visibly relaxed again. “Good. ’Cause I doubt we would be able to combat more than one of either.”

  Sam studied the images on the phone. “That squizzie’s fascinating.”

  “Yeah, its tail… wow.” Marcus rubbed his sore arms and thighs. “Maybe every one of these animals has some sort of bioelectrical—”

  “That’s weird.” Sam frowned, perplexed. “I mean, photons are the quantum particles of light and other electromagnetic energies but… they have no electrical charge themselves. Hmm, maybe the light emitted by this animal’s tail is a… a byproduct of whatever bioelectric or chemical process creates the charge?”

  “Uh-huh.” Marcus regarded Sam with curiosity. “Did you find anything useful?”

  “Oh. Yes.” Sam cleared his throat and rushed over to the table, picked up one of the scrolls, and gave it to Marcus for inspection. “That one’s about the animals on the island, I think. It has some sketches.”

  Marcus’s eyebrows rose up to his hairline. He nodded with enthusiasm and started to go over the scroll. “You’re right, Sammy. This is a catalog of indigenous flora and fauna.” Then he cocked his head and frowned in bafflement. “Yeah, I can’t pronounce that. Too many Ms and Rs for my tongue.”

  Sam stared, confused, unable to see anything but weird squiggles. “What’s too hard to pronounce?”

  “The humzies. The real name for them in here? Impossible.”

  Sam glanced at Marcus, amused. “How come you didn’t call them hummers?”

  Marcus harrumphed in obvious distaste. “’Cause hummers are big dumbass cars that are too fucking noisy, take up too much space whether parked or mobile, and pollute. And those little critters were way too cute for that association.”

  Sam snickered. “You take this naming business too seriously.”

  Marcus snorted. “Untrue. I don’t take it seriously at all. It’s all fun and games—till I get eaten by a giant plant I named wrong and it took offense.”

  “Okay, smartass.” Sam gestured at the scroll. “Is there anything useful in there? Forget the pronunciation.”

  Marcus exhaled heavily as he went through the written and drawn catalog. “Actually, yeah. I think this describes the animals in relation to each other.” He gave Sam a knowing look. “In the food chain, that is.” Sam waved his hand in a rush to get him to hurry up. Marcus chuckled, seemingly undeterred by Sam’s haste. “Okay. Anyway, on the bottom rung are the humzies and… another little thing I didn’t see while I was out there.”

  Sam leaned over Marcus’s shoulder to see a sketch depicting a small, round creature. Its skin resembled wood bark, tiny mushrooms grew on its head, and big round eyes and a darling smile gave it a cute childlike look. Its petite paws and furry tail intensified the doll-like impression. Its size was in the mouse department, so it could hardly pose much of a threat.

  “Aww. It’s so adorable. It’s like a Beanie Baby.” Sam sighed, loving the sight of the little animal. “What’s it called?”

  Marcus hesitated. “Lots of Bs and… letters I can’t identify. I guess the translation bug inside me isn’t foolproof. I’m gonna call it… a barkzie.”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “I swear, Marcus, you’re trying to drive me mad.” Then he sighed in resignation. “Fine. Barkzie it is.”

  Marcus chuckled in obvious victory. “It kinda looks like a… a human, doesn’t it? Tiny hands
and feet, pink and fuzzy and cute as a button.”

  “Anthropomorphic,” Sam added automatically. When Marcus laughed, Sam huffed in exasperation. “Shut up. I’m so tired of using single syllable words or dumbing myself down so that jocks won’t kick my ass or the cheerleaders won’t laugh at me or—”

  “I’d never do that,” Marcus cut in, his eyes narrowing. “Besides, most of the time no one gives a flying fuck what anyone else does. Maybe they did in high school, where everyone was put on the spot. But not in college. Everyone’s got their own shit to deal with.” Then his eyes softened. “But if anyone gives you a hard time when we get back home, I’ll kick their ass.”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “Thanks, but I can take care of myself.” That was a bold-faced lie. But Marcus’s protective instinct made Sam feel like a weakling. He decided to steer the discussion away from himself. “So that’s the bottom rung of animals. The humzies drink nectar from flowers and these barkzies… well, who knows what they consume at the end of the day. But they all seem to be at the docile herbivore end of the spectrum.”

  Marcus frowned. “That means they’re… food for predators.”

  “That’s usually how it works.” Sam kept his tone light, but he could tell Marcus didn’t like the idea of these animals getting devoured. He quickly raced ahead. “What’s on the next rung?”

  Marcus flipped forward. “The ozzies and the squizzies.”

  Sam rubbed his forehead, pensive. “On Earth, animals like chimpanzees and squirrels are omnivores. They can eat anything, same as humans. These ozzies and squizzies could very well be similar. That could be what the next level is about.”

  “You mean, like, scavengers?”

  “No, that’s not the same thing.” Marcus shrugged, so Sam went on. “What’s next?”