by Susan Laine
That wasn’t a bad idea. Heck, it might even work. But they had an extremely small window of opportunity. “Okay. The plant’s that way, just a bit more uphill.” He pointed upward where the thick wall of vegetation hid the dangerous plant from view.
With swift efficiency born of necessity, they organized their attempt. Sam activated a song on his iPhone, set the volume as high as possible, and then dashed on tiptoe after Marcus who dived into the jungle’s lush abundance as though he’d been an adventurer his whole life.
They moved around the flower, careful to avoid the vines everywhere, and approached it from above. The music—Alan Walker’s “Sing Me To Sleep”—started out unassumingly sweet, but soon the melody took on an electronic beat that spread out all around them.
The vines and liana crept slowly at first but suddenly shot through the air in the direction where the music came from, beneath the boys’ vantage point above the iPhone, which Sam had placed on the stairs.
Marcus and Sam wasted no time. They used Marcus’s shirt as a makeshift sack to carry the buds they covered and nipped out. They grabbed three each, praying to whatever gods were in earshot that they wouldn’t either be burned by the stinging tongues or knocked out by the gas—and then they ran as fast as they could.
No vines or liana pursued them, so they stopped to rest and recuperate, both panting, Sam with his hurt ankle and Marcus with his bruised ribs, now sore enough to make it hard for him to breathe. No puffs of sleeping gas emerged from underneath the cloth, so Marcus had high hopes of success.
“We could’ve lost the gas, but I don’t think we did,” he said cautiously.
“Me neither. But….” Sam sounded hesitant and on edge. “If the gas won’t release without the bud being connected to the plant… then we’ve got a problem.”
“Let’s not go jumping off any bridges yet,” Marcus instructed wisely. “After all, those things could still be triggered by sound or proximity even when disconnected from the plant.”
“We should test it,” Sam suggested with a shrug, managing to look casual and concerned with a single expression.
They stood at the mountaintop with relatively unobstructed views in all directions. As they watched where they’d hustled from, no razzie emerged. But high in the foliage, the ozzies took to their wings and whizzed from one treetop to the next, mere flickers of colorful feathers.
“I don’t want them to get hurt,” Sam mumbled broodingly.
“They won’t.” Marcus resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, he stuck his hand inside the makeshift pouch, grabbed a bud, held the petals closed with his fist, and then tossed it toward the edge of forest.
On impact with the ground, the petals opened. A purple cloud rose high and wide, hissing as it spread, veiling the jungle behind it. After a while the mist evaporated, and only a broken blossom resting on the earth remained.
Marcus harrumphed, pleased. “Wow. Like a gas grenade. Looks like we’ve got means of self-defense. Moderate, but workable.”
“Yes. But we only have a handful, so we can’t waste any.” Sam’s needless advice made Marcus grin. Sometimes Sam thought he was smarter than everyone else. Marcus found that endearing, but also a tad annoying. Still, Sam made sense, so Marcus ignored the irritation. “Do we still need to construct a trap?” Sam asked, turning his attention to his boyfriend.
Marcus shook his head. “I don’t think so. If we can keep the razzie at bay long enough to get the vines where they need to be, then building a trap is unnecessary.”
Sam closed his eyes and sighed in relief, actually sagging a bit. “Oh, good. I was kind of worried about that.”
Marcus chuckled. “You’re the sweetest guy, I swear.”
Sam bit his bottom lip to suppress a smile, and his cheeks grew ruddy. Marcus wanted to kiss him. Or maybe make out with him. For a couple of hours or the whole night. But time wasn’t on their side.
“We don’t know how long the razzie will stay under, so let’s get those vines in place, okay?” Marcus suggested. Sam agreed with a curt nod, and they went to work.
MARCUS QUICKLY understood that only Sam had the composure to work with the vines. Marcus gritted his teeth the whole time, hating having to sit still and wait for Sam to finish. He did try to help, but the meticulous effort caused him to fidget and shake until Sam finally told him to move off and wait close by.
As much as Marcus hated doing nothing, he admired Sam’s ability to focus solely on the work, which required precision, patience, and time. Sam used his pocketknife to cut off sections of the excess vines and then cut them open. These he wrapped around each of the jagged ends of the longer vines and then tied thin strips of cloth he’d sliced from his and Marcus’s T-shirts around the liana. This way the fluid wouldn’t drip, the cut ends stayed in contact, and the charge they hoped would run in the liquid wouldn’t dissipate or get grounded along the way.
“Okay, I’m done.” Sam blew out a long breath and wiped beads of fresh sweat from his forehead. “We can attach these to the lightning rod.”
“Hopefully we won’t get either electrocuted or singed doing so,” Marcus murmured as he grabbed the now one really long vine and started hauling it out of their room toward the corner where the lightning rod was.
“Now who’s the pessimist?” Sam quipped, flicking his tongue at Marcus.
That single familiar, playful gesture was all Marcus needed to collect himself again. They could do this, and they would get home. He laughed because the sound and the emotion both bubbled inside him, and he had to let them out.
They knelt together side by side by the broken glass shielding that housed the lightning rod. The day they’d arrived on the island, the lightning bolts had frightened off the razzie, and the rod had lost its charge. Now, however, the metal spike retained much of the current it had accumulated during the storm the night before, blue cascades of energy flowing around the rod.
The base still glowed blue as well.
“Okay, Mr. Science Man, how do we do this without getting shocked?” Marcus asked.
Sam brought out one end of the vine, which was tied closed with narrow strips of makeshift string they’d torn from the T-shirt. “I guess we… try to wrap this around the rod?”
“You guess?” Marcus wasn’t thrilled about the uncertainty of their plan. “Shouldn’t we attach the other end first? I mean, the portal has no power, so we’re less likely to get zapped and die screaming horribly while we burn beyond recognition.”
Sam snorted. “Geesh. Way to stay motivated.” Then he smiled and nodded. “Yeah, it’s a better plan than mine at the moment.”
They uncoiled the vine-made cable as they jumped down from the balcony and made their way outside the temple, mindful of their surroundings, careful of each step. Sam unwound the vine while Marcus kept one fist around a gas-producing bud. The razzie must still be asleep since it didn’t appear out of the jungle to hinder their progress. They had no idea how long the effect of the gas lasted, but they kept their fingers and toes crossed.
The jungle was unusually silent. The quiet before the storm? Marcus scanned the boundaries between wide-open spaces and maze-like greenery. The ozzies flew from one branch to another, but unlike the chirping and singing they’d done earlier, they were now silent. Marcus had a bad feeling, but he kept a tight rein over his nerves.
Sam proceeded to the rundown stairs and headed inside the portal chamber. Once they were both safely inside, they let out simultaneous sighs of relief. The stress of the situation made for a tense atmosphere, as their sweating, heaving bodies proved.
“The chair wouldn’t work even if we got it back to an upright position,” Marcus noted.
“I figured.” Sam laid the vines to the base of the portal, ensuring that the end touched the metal framework. “I’m hoping the point of origin is stored in the database of this doorway, same as the chair.”
“We’ve done lots of makeshift rigging in the past couple of days.” Marcus smirked, and Sam gave a ghost
of a smile. Despite its lack of enthusiasm, the gesture was genuine.
“Should I untie the end now and hope the solution doesn’t flow out? I mean, once we get the other end attached to the lightning rod and a storm comes, we may only have a blink of an eye to get through.”
Marcus crouched, grabbed a few big pebbles, and built a small stack, pinning the vine in place against the metal frame. “There. Now all we need to do is untie it. I think that can wait until we make it back here during the storm.” Then he frowned, reminding himself that they were dealing with dangerous forces of nature. “Just out of curiosity… how many volts can there be in a lightning bolt?”
Sam shrugged. “Well, the average temperature in a lightning bolt can rise up to fifty thousand degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature in the sun’s photosphere, in comparison, is only ten thousand degrees.”
“Holy shit.” Marcus swallowed hard. “But how many—”
“An average lightning bolt can have anywhere between one hundred million and one billion volts at ten thousand amps.” Sam sounded vague again, his attention clearly wandering as he studied the mound of rocks Marcus had erected. “If and when we get here in time and untie the vine before it burns, we must be ready to do it without getting hit. We have to remove all items that might act as conductors. So our iPhones must be stashed inside my backpack beforehand.”
“Your phone’s still MIA,” Marcus reminded Sam. “We should go back and get it.”
Sam frowned as if ambivalent. “While I agree we shouldn’t leave a trace that we’ve been here in case the natives return… I don’t know if that’s smart. The plant might have, you know, devoured it in confusion.”
Marcus stifled a laugh. “We won’t know that until we check.”
Sam let out a long-suffering breath, looking miserable. “I do want it back, but I don’t want to put either of us in danger. Not when we can avoid it.”
“Let’s see what we can do once it’s dark again. Who knows? That plant might be off to dreamland, allowing us a window of opportunity.”
Though Marcus wasn’t sure if the idea of retrieving the device was smart, deep down he agreed with Sam that leaving evidence of advanced technology behind on what at first glance appeared to be a primitive world could go awry. Perhaps one day in the future these lizzies would come to Earth and destroy humanity with the very tech Sam and Marcus had left behind (’cause according to every sci-fi movie he’d ever seen with alien lizards, they tended to be dickwads hell-bent on annihilation).
“Fine. We’ll go and get my damn phone back.” Sam pouted, clearly still full of doubts, but he sure looked cute doing it.
Marcus would have kissed Sam’s reservations away, but Sam was already moving toward the cave entrance with a purposeful stride. Apparently Marcus didn’t need to explain his reasoning to his boyfriend, so he quietly followed, smiling.
ON TIPTOE, Marcus and Sam sneaked from the artificial cave down the steep stairs, keeping the gas buds at the ready. No razzies jumped on them from the bushes.
But each time they walked through a gap between two tree trunks, they received a jolt of electricity. The bolts weren’t painful per se, but they soon started to get annoying. Marcus figured in time they could and would do serious damage. He couldn’t wait to get back to safer ground.
The foliage rustled in the light breeze, a wet heat permeated through their clothes, and the jungle seemed alive with little sounds, small movements, and invisible life they couldn’t detect. Pungent odors of both wet and drying earth floated to Marcus’s nose, and he felt mildly queasy, the assault on his senses too potent for comfort.
Far too often he’d complained about the mountains. The long harsh winters, the cold winds, the dry air, the frequent power outages, the lack of trendy events, the absence of a personal life in a small town, etcetera, etcetera. So many things to bitch about.
Now all he wished was to make it back there alive so he could fall to his knees, kiss the ground, and thank his lucky stars for home and his old life.
Well, maybe not his old life, where he was always restless, on the go, seeking purpose and meaning but never finding it. The idea unnerved Marcus, but he quickly put it aside. His life had purpose and meaning now, now that he had an anchor to stabilize and ground him: Sam, his special bae.
Hot droplets shook loose from the leaves high above, and a couple landed on his neck and trickled down his spine. Marcus shivered and grimaced. Apparently it wasn’t enough he was sweating bullets, he had to get a natural shower too? The jungle hated him. No, the jungle didn’t really hate him. That line of thinking was irrational, ridiculous, and utterly pointless. Nature did her own thing, regardless of sentient life-forms dabbling within it.
“Shh.” Sam crouched and waved Marcus quiet—though he hadn’t said a word or made a sound—whispering, “There. See?” Sam pointed, and Marcus followed the gesture.
Under a tall tree, wrapped into a ball, the razzie still slept like a baby, a low rumble emerging from its throat as though it were snoring. The creature hadn’t awoken but merely shifted to a better position, big paws under its jaw.
Marcus observed its eyelids moving rapidly. Could the animal be… dreaming? The thought rattled his brain, disturbing his once firm grasp of the universe.
“We’re in luck,” Sam murmured. “The phone was lower on the steps.” He hurried on the balls of his feet, descending the stairs in a muted rush, trying to be swift but not to be noisy. As he stopped virtually midstep, Marcus held his breath, waiting for the worst. But Sam let out a long relieved breath. “I see it.”
The iPhone appeared undamaged, but clearly it had been moved from its original spot on the step. The song had changed to “Shatter Me” by Lindsey Stirling, featuring Lzzy Hale, so clearly the device had continued playing music all the time. Even now vines crept around it, every once in a while their tips touching or brushing against it, as dubstep melodies played on a violin and a female vocalist sang with a pure rock edge.
“Can you turn it off without making a commotion?” Marcus asked in a whisper.
Sam nodded frenetically, but he swallowed hard, and his skin had gone pale. If he said a prayer, it was silent. With extra care, Sam sneaked the last few steps until he was within reach of the phone. As he extended his hand, so slowly it seemed not to move at all, Marcus felt like punching a wall in frustration. He wasn’t skilled at the waiting game, and his fears grew.
Then Sam tapped on the iPhone’s screen. The electronic beat of the music ceased in an instant, and an eerie silence echoed inside Marcus’s head, making him cringe in discomfort. Every primitive instinct in him cried out to grab Sam, throw him over his shoulder, and make a run for it. He did his best to resist the caveman urge.
Leisurely, as if taking their time and adding to Marcus’s mental strain on purpose, the vines wormed farther away from the cooling device, receding back to the underbrush that hid the carnivorous flower behind a green wall.
Marcus refused to move or even breathe until all the vines had vanished from sight.
Sam closed his eyes and let out a sigh, actually slumping, his fear visibly alleviated. He picked up the phone, tucked it in his pocket, and retreated cautiously, keeping his gaze firmly on the thicket and each flicker of movement, no matter how minute.
When Sam reached him, Marcus pulled him into a fierce bear hug, holding on to his bae until they both stopped shaking. “Next time we fucking leave the phone.”
“Yes.” Sam chuckled into Marcus’s ear, his hot breath brushing Marcus’s hair, even tickling him a bit. “Now can we go?”
Marcus said nothing. He gripped Sam by the hand, interlacing their fingers, and started a rapid-fire ascent, hurrying back to the temple complex. He didn’t stop once until they stood safely under the entrance archway, both of them panting and leaning on their knees.
“Oh my God…. Can’t believe… we fucking… did that,” Sam managed to breathe out, supporting himself against the wall, his legs visibly shaking.
Marcus
burst out in laughter, bubbling with hope and joy at their success. “Man, you don’t know how ridiculously hot you are right now.”
Sam snorted as if hearing a joke, but the corners of his mouth lifted. “Yeah, I sure am, if you mean huffing like a beached whale, all red in the face.”
Marcus got up in Sam’s personal space and pinned him against the wall with his arms. “Fuck, bae, I want you so bad.”
Sam blushed, wrapped his arms around Marcus’s waist, and rested them over Marcus’s hips. He plastered their bodies together tight from head to toes. “Me too. Everything’s done, so all we can do is wait for another storm.”
“So I’m, what, nothing but time-filler?” Marcus teased softly.
“Shut up.” Then Sam shut Marcus up with his mouth. By wordless agreement, they parted their lips simultaneously, letting their tongues out to play.
But then Marcus remembered they still had things to do. He pulled away from Sam, and Sam stopped kissing Marcus abruptly, his lips twisting weirdly from being halted midkiss. The expression on his face was hilarious.
“Wait. Hold up. Shouldn’t we connect the other end of the vine to the lightning rod first before we get carried away?” Marcus asked.
“Oh. Uh-huh. You’re right.” Sam sounded disappointed.
They pushed off each other, as difficult as that was. Marcus noticed the bulge in Sam’s pants. He sported a similar boner. But needs must. Marcus took a mental cold shower so he could concentrate on survival and their escape plan. Sam coughed to clear his throat and looked flushed, fidgeting in place for a moment as though he’d forgotten how to walk.
Somehow they made it to the broken pillar that acted as their jumping board and vaulted up to the balcony. They proceeded to the lightning rod in the corner, and as in the chamber underground, Marcus stacked pieces of rubble in a mound and propped the vine between the rocks to keep it firmly in place. Sam attached the end of the vine to the sparkling blue base and untied it.
