“Speak only when spoken to,” he said. He rubbed his protruding jaw. “Your hands are small enough, but your brother’s are perfect. I’ll be sending you along to keep him in line. Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, nodding as she lied. She didn’t think anyone could keep Ryan in line, but they had to stay together.
“Very good.” He pointed toward the truck. “Go join him.”
As she walked away, a man she hadn’t seen before approached Simon. He too had hairy palms.
“Find what you’re looking for?”
“Four will fit my needs,” Simon said.
“Excellent. I’ll prepare the lease agreements.”
Lease agreements?
She guessed those guy in the jumpsuits hadn’t been kidding. They really were someone’s property. They’d just been rented out!
As soon as she climbed into the back of the odd-looking truck, joining her brother and the two Chinese women, Ergel closed the rear gate. He’d topped his already huge head with something that looked like a Bengal Lancers pith helmet with tinted goggles sitting on the narrow peak.
“You ever see a truck like this before in your life?” Ryan whispered.
Emma looked around. It had odd fins and all sorts of exposed rivets. “I don’t think so.”
Ryan made a face. “You don’t think so? Did you see the name of the manufacturer on the rear bumper?”
She shook her head. “No.” She didn’t pay attention to those kinds of things. “Does it matter?”
“It says ‘Nevre,’ Emma. You ever hear of the Nevre auto company?”
“Must be foreign.”
Ryan only rolled his eyes.
She nudged him. “Never mind the make of the truck – you had to hurl on his shoes?”
He looked embarrassed, but only a little. “Did you smell that? And right after that Simon guy touched me with those furry hands. All I could think of was toilets and how hairy palms could get all–”
Emma held up a hand, both to stop the image and his chatter. “TMI! Way TMI! And then you had to correct his English?”
He looked away. “Cool it, okay? The filter slipped.”
Emma was tempted to ask What filter? but was distracted by Ergel using what looked like a garden hose to pour a clear fluid into the pickup’s fuel tank. Emma sniffed.
Steeling herself, she said, “That doesn’t smell like gas.”
“Gas?” Ergel said with a laugh. “I wouldn’t let that near me truck. It explodes, it does.”
“Well, isn’t that the whole idea?” Ryan said.
Ergel narrowed his already beady eyes and jabbed a finger at him. “I ain’t talkin’ to you.”
Emma gave Ryan a shut-up look – he’d seen that enough to obey this time – and said, “Well, if it’s not gas, what is it?”
“Don’t be havin’ me on, girl. You knows exactly what it is.”
“No, I don’t. I really–”
He sprayed her with the liquid. She screamed until she realized what it was.
“You’re putting water in the tank?”
He shook his head, as if her question was too stupid to answer, turned off the hose, and hauled himself into the driver’s seat.
The truck engine hissed and coughed and a cloud of mist roiled up from somewhere below the truck bed.
Ryan gaped at it. “Steam?”
“Never mind that,” Emma said as the truck began to vibrate. “Do you realize we’ve just been sold?”
“I heard somebody say ‘lease’… so actually, I think the correct term would be ‘rented.’
“You’re impossible! What’s the difference?”
“Yeah, in our case – I guess you’re right. But rented for for what? I’m kind of worried about that ‘little hands’ thing. Just plain creepy, don’t you think? I mean, what do they expect us to do with our ‘little hands’?”
Emma nodded, hiding the sick feeling in her stomach. “I can’t imagine, so I’m trying not to think about it.”
Just then a shadow swooped over the truck. Emma looked up and gasped as she grabbed her brother’s arm. She didn’t have to tell him to look. He’d already seen Mr. Simon gliding overhead in a contraption that looked like a bicycle suspended from a miniature zeppelin.
“Oh, we’re definitely not in Kansas anymore,” Ryan muttered.
Part Three
Out of the Frying Pan
8
Ergel’s truck hissed into gear with a cloud of steam and they began moving. As they rolled out of the driveway, Ryan grabbed Emma’s arm and pointed back toward the buildings.
“Look!”
Emma turned but didn’t know what he was pointing to. “Look at what?”
He shook his head. “Gone now. For a second I could have sworn – never mind.”
“What?”
“I thought I saw Telly.”
Emma practically jumped on him. “You did?! Where?”
“Couldn’t have been him. He was wearing one of those jumpsuits.”
Emma’s heart slowed. No…that couldn’t have been Telly. Just wishful thinking. How could he be connected to these weird, hairy-handed people?
Ryan pointed at the passing landscape. “I’ve been trying to place where we are. Too many trees for the Midwest, don’t you think?”
Emma sighed. “If you say so…”
“No, I’m serious,” said Ryan. “This looks like the Mid-Atlantic to me.”
“You mean, as in States?”
He gave her a look. “Well, not the ocean.”
She wondered how he’d know the Mid-Atlantic from the Northeast – he’d never been out of the Midwest – but said nothing. She wanted to talk to the two Asian girls, but neither was the one she’d spoken to earlier. The pair huddled in the corner of the truck bed near the rear wall of the cab, clutching each other with expressions of abject fear as they whispered softly in Chinese.
The farm tuck trundled onward with resolute but not overpowering speed. When it slowed to negotiate curves or sweeping banks in the road, the vehicle felt just barely adequate to the task. Looking beyond the roof of the cab, Emma could see they were headed into a densely wooded expanse that sloped gradually upward.
As they turned this way and that, an idea began to grow. She inched her way across the load bed until she was sidled up against Ryan.
“Okay, just listen – I know what I’m going to say is kinda crazy, so… just listen.”
The truck jounced and rocked over a rough rutted section of roadway. Her little brother looked at her. “Okay. What?”
“You see the way this thing takes the curves? It’s got to slow way down or it’ll tip over.”
He shrugged. “So?”
“So that’s when we can jump.”
Ryan’s eyes widened. “Jump? Jump where?”
“Out!”
Simon had wanted her to keep her brother in line. He hadn’t said anything about keeping herself in line.
“Aren’t we in a bad enough situation as it is?” he said.
She nudged him. “Can it get much worse? Look, you keep saying this isn’t Kansas anymore, but it isn’t Oz either. I’m sure if we get free and keep traveling, eventually we’ll come to civilization – real civilization – and then we can call the cops on these people and have them put in a loony bin where they belong.”
Ryan shook his head. “You’re not thinking. These people can open a hole in the air and snatch you from a tornado or a sinking ship. Something very strange is going on here.”
“So they’ve got some new technology–”
“Technology?” His voice jumped in pitch. “Some of these people have hair on their palms, and some of them look dead, and did you happen to notice that the guy driving this truck looks like some sort of troll?”
“It’s a crazy commune or maybe they’re a bunch of carnival freaks. Who cares, Ryan? I’m for getting out. We jump on the next turn, okay?”
She had to get him to go along. They couldn’t let all this just happen to t
hem. They had to do something, and who knew when they’d get another chance?
Finally Ryan grinned his imp-grin, the one she’d known since he was learning to walk.
“Okay. Let’s do it!”
She leaned out to look ahead. “Curve coming up. Get ready. Make sure you get clear of the road – aim for the soft shoulder.”
As the truck slowed into the turn, they both climbed over the side panel on the right, clung for a heartbeat, then flung themselves as far as possible from the moving vehicle. She felt her stomach heave as she plummeted out and down, farther than she imagined. Even though she collapsed into spongy verge, the impact sent a shockwave up through her knees.
They stumbled/dove into the roadside brush, then crouched and watched. She held her breath as they waited to see if the truck stopped. But it kept on rolling away.
“We did it!” Ryan said, his voice vibrating with excitement. “You’re a genius!”
Was she? Emma swallowed. Yeah, they did it. But what did they really do? She had an awful feeling that the truck had been a frying pan and they’d just jumped into the fire.
9
“Now what?” Emma said.
“Seriously? You’re asking me? Jumping was your idea.”
She nodded. “Right. I got us out of the truck. Now let’s see you get us back to civilization.”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. You’re the Cub Scout, you’re the science guy. You know all the flora and fauna and the constellations. Find us some sane people. Please?”
Ryan was a little taken aback. His older sister was asking him to decide for them. Of all the weirdness in the last twenty-four-plus hours, this was perhaps the weirdest. Usually they went their own ways. He had his friends, she had hers. She’d was two years ahead of him in school – a huge gulf in middle school – and come September she’d be starting high school, putting her in a whole different universe.
He paused as that last thought seized up like a motor burning out a cylinder. September? High School? How could he be thinking like that when they were just about as far from anything so normal as they could possibly be? After being claimed by some guy named Falzon and leased out like farm animals, Ryan had a feeling that his sister wouldn’t be getting the combination for her high school locker any time soon.
The truth of the matter was that he had no idea what lay ahead for them. If they could get word to the outside world… well, then maybe things would work out. But then there was the whole question of their house being destroyed and the fate of their parents…
He shook his head, blinked as though trying to clear his vision.
Way too much to think about right now. Better to focus on smaller, more looming issues – like getting as far away from those creeps Simon and Ergel.
But which way?
“Okay,” he said, thinking out loud. “First things first: Obviously we can’t stay here. Sooner or later that Ergel weirdo will notice us gone and come looking, so let’s see what’s on the other side of these bushes.”
He pushed through, struggling with the tangled branches for maybe a half a dozen feet until he emerged onto the top of a broad grassy slope ringed by trees. Emma came through behind him.
“At least we’re hidden from the road,” she said. “I feel better already.”
Ryan looked around. “Now we pick a direction – like, north – and start walking. And we keep on walking until we reach civilization.”
Emma raised her eyebrows. “Fine. But we don’t have a compass.”
“Don’t need one.” He pointed toward the sun where it was setting behind the trees along the far edge of the field. “That’s west.”
“Thanks for the newsflash. But when the sun’s gone–”
“We’ve got a clear sky. All I have to do is find the Big Dipper and I can find the North Star.”
She smiled. “See? I knew you’d know.”
He wished.
He looked around again. Pausing to look at the surroundings more closely, he realized the trees and bushes looked… different. Then it came to him. So obvious…
“Hey, you know what? I think we were teleported.”
“What?” Emma said. “Oh, please… aren’t you the guy Gram calls ‘Doubting Ryan.’ You can’t believe that. There’s no such thing!”
He stared at her. “Really? Next you’ll be telling me there’s no such thing as a burning hole in the air you can get yanked through.”
Emma opened her mouth, then closed it without saying anything.
Ryan smiled. “See what I mean?”
“Okay, but really – teleported? That’s Stargate stuff.”
“Think about it. This place looks different, feels different. I told you – it looks more like the East Coast, not the Midwest. Like… New Jersey or Delaware or someplace like that.”
“Delaware?” Emma gave him a look. “Why not really go for it? How about England?”
Ryan wasn’t sure if she was serious or trying to one-up him. He went with it.
“They’ve got a song about ‘Werewolves of London,’ so maybe it is.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Ryan wasn’t sure himself. Wasn’t sure he wanted to know what he was noodling about. “Don’t worry about it. Listen, we’re wasting what little light we have left. Let’s get moving. We don’t want to be stuck in the woods when it gets dark. Pick a direction.”
She shrugged. “Okay. You said north, before… let’s go with it.”
“North it is.” The sun was gone but its orange glow remained. He faced it and pointed to his right. “That way.”
As they began walking, Emma said, “I get this weird feeling we should be skipping along and singing ‘We’re Off to See the Wizard.’”
“Let’s not, although I wouldn’t mind a yellow-brick–”
A howl split the air – a piercing animal sound, full of menace. The silence that followed seemed fragile, as if ready to be shattered by another horrifying cry.
“What was that?” Emma was looking wildly about, her calm shattered.
Ryan felt shaken himself. He pointed to a stand of trees maybe a hundred yards to their right. “It seemed to come from over there. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was a wolf.”
Emma looked at him. “I know you know all sorts of weird stuff, but when’s the last time you heard a wolf close up?”
Another howl, this one from somewhere to the left of the first. And then the first answered, ripping the fabric of the coming night.
“Okay,” he said, feeling a shiver ripple through him. “So I’ve never heard one in real life, but plenty on TV and in movies. Those are wolves, Em.”
“Oh, God,” she said, her voice shaky. “We’re out in the open. We need cover.”
Right. He looked around for a climbable tree. That would be their best bet since wolves weren’t supposed to be good at climbing. But the only tree of any size nearby – an oak that wasn’t quite an oak – had no branches within reach. The tall roadside thicket crowned the rise behind them, but they needed to stay away from the road. He pointed to a large clump of flowering bushes nearby.
“How about that? Maybe we could hide in the middle?”
“Looks good to me,” Emma said and led the way.
They slipped among the blossoms and branches that formed a kind of natural canopy under which they could crouch together. The air here was filled with an aroma that reminded Ryan of honeysuckle, but subtly different. A notion struck him. If wolves were really roaming around, the fragrance from these blossoms could help mask their scent. He hoped.
“Where are we?” Emma whispered. “New Jersey doesn’t have wolves running wild, does it? Or England… or wherever we are.”
Ryan held a finger up to his pursed lips. His sister needed to stop talking.
Another howl – closer.
Ryan flinched at the sound. Oh, crap!
“Maybe we’ve fallen into some sort of wildlife preserve,” Emma said. “If so, there’s gotta be
some sort of – ow!”
Emma jerked her hand back from the encroaching flora, then held it up. Ryan saw one of the white flowers from the bush sticking to her skin. She shook her hand to knock it free, but it held on. She shook harder but –
“What is that?” said Ryan as he realized something was wrong with the blossom attached to the end of his sister’s hand. Very wrong.
And then he was slapping at his neck, just above his shirt collar. “Hey! What the–?”
Without any signal or agreement, they tumbled from the bushes, brushing at their limbs like hikers who’d passed through a nest of chiggers… although these were not chiggers.
The flowers had attached themselves to their skin. Ryan yanked the one off his neck, then one off the back of his hand where it left a bloody patch. He gave it a close look in the fading light and saw tiny teeth rimming the edges of the blossom.
Are you kidding me?
“They’re like triffids! Mini-triffids!”
“What’s a ‘triffid’?” Emma tugged at a flower attached to her upper arm.
Without answering, Ryan pulled the flowery leeches off his sister. “Stay away from that bush!”
Emma was brushing herself repeatedly, even though he’d cleared her of the weird carnivorous flowers. Things were getting too weird way too fast.
Another howl, closer now, causing both of them to tense.
“What’re we gonna do?” Emma said. “You’re the Boy Scout.”
His big sister was looking at him for advice again. Why? Actually, he wasn’t a Boy Scout yet. – just a Webelos. But because of that, he was supposed to know about the outdoors and wild animals and how to hide from them? Hey, he was just a kid from Skelton Springs, Kansas who knew nada about wolves – and was just as scared as she was. But someone had to decide.
Sounding lots more confident than he felt, Ryan pointed to the big tree. “We can hide behind that trunk. Maybe I can push you up high enough to reach the lowest branch. Then you can help pull me up.”
“Me and what army?”
“Hey, Sis, it’s all I got. Let’s go.”
Lousy cover, he knew, but either that or get eaten alive by that weird bush.
He led Emma to the base of the big tree. As they reached the trunk, he could see it was way beyond their reach. His idea of boosting her high enough to grab the lowest branch wasn't going to work, so they arranged themselves flat on the grass with the thick trunk between them and the direction of the wolf howls.
Definitely Not Kansas (Nocturnia Book 1) Page 6
