The sun grew brighter and Sarah rolled over on her bed to face the other way. The demons can wait, she thought, and she relaxed her body to drift back into the comfort of mindless slumber.
♦
Time continued to pass in the Costa Rican wilderness, unhindered by the trials and tribulations of the residents living within its mellow realm. Sunrise had come and gone and Sarah let out a soft sigh as she awoke feeling tired and exhausted. Even the turmoil of her sleep was preferable to the reality of life; at least without cognitive thought she could be lost in another world without the feelings of continual torment and guilt that dogged her every waking moment.
She opened her eyes to stare out through the window of her log cabin at the forests beyond. Such beauty eased her spirit, from the darkness of the deep to the light of the surface; there was no better cure for the ache in her heart and the scars on her soul. Light streamed across the bed and a noise from the floor below alerted her to the presence of her friends.
A minute later a floorboard creaked outside her door and someone knocked with a feather-light touch.
‘Sarah, are you awake?’ Trish opened the door and Sarah closed her eyes. She didn’t want to speak. It was always easier to hide.
Muffled footsteps padded across the room to the window. A groan of wood on wood preceded a subtle wave of fresh air and the faint scents of flowering plants washed over Sarah’s senses. The sounds of the forest echoed into the room and despite what had gone before Sarah briefly remembered what it was like to feel safe.
‘I know you’re awake,’ Trish said, ‘I can see your eyelids moving.’
Sarah cracked open an eye to see Trish framed against a blaze of sunlight.
‘We’ve already eaten breakfast; do you want Jason to cook you something?’
Sarah gave a shake of her head and Trish left without another word, she knew better than to force her friend into conversation. Sometimes people just needed peace and quiet, to be alone with their thoughts, or lack thereof, and right now that was exactly what Sarah needed.
With Trish departed, Sarah rolled onto her back to stare up at the thick, untreated timbers of the ceiling, her thoughts dwelling on the recent past.
♦
After leaving the hospital and travelling south through Honduras, it had been decided that crossing over into Nicaragua was the best course of action. And once this had been accomplished, they’d continued down the Atlantic coast in search of a suitable place to regroup and recover from their collective injuries. Trish and Jason had helped tend to Sarah’s wounds which, apart from the one on her chest, had continued healing well.
Having stopped for a few days in a tiny fishing village, they’d resumed their journey only for the car to break down in the back of beyond. Fortunately the back of beyond in Nicaragua still enjoyed the benefits of a public transport system … of sorts. Abandoning the stricken vehicle in the midday heat for a bus full of locals, livestock and the stench that entailed, they’d travelled inland before alighting at a small town where they managed to procure another car, which, if anything, was more beat up than the one they’d just left behind.
Keeping their southerly route, they crossed into Costa Rica twenty-four hours later, once again avoiding the official border crossing in favour of an unbeaten track, which slowed their progress to a crawl. After reaching another village, one that enjoyed the luxury of a single internet connection, they decided to bypass the relative well-populated centre of the country and head west to the once popular eco-tourist destination of Monteverde and its spectacular cloud forest reserve – and the decision had been a good one. With the GMRC limiting world travel like never before, the village was all but abandoned save for a few dozen families that had remained to eke out an existence with little material wealth. Not that such a life had dulled their spirit – from what Sarah had witnessed they seemed far happier than anyone she’d seen in the so-called advanced cities and their fractious urban sprawl. That said, their excitement at the arrival of the three explorers and the heartfelt welcome they’d given them had been overwhelming, so much so it had brought a tear to Sarah’s eye, but it soon became apparent that such unbridled joy hadn’t been completely altruistic in origin. Trish learned that their arrival was seen as a sign that things were returning to normal and the time of the Cielos Oscuros, or ‘Dark Skies’, had finally ended. Not wanting to dash their hopes by explaining they weren’t the first wave of new tourists they believed them to be, they enjoyed the initial week of being treated like royalty before settling into a more frugal lifestyle as they conserved their funds for the weeks ahead. Despite the white lie, or rather an avoidance of the truth, Jason had pointed out it probably wouldn’t be long until real tourists did start arriving now that the dust cloud had receded. The GMRC couldn’t keep people locked up forever, he’d reasoned, and Sarah had to agree. With the worst of the impact winter already behind them the world would gradually return to normal and the rebuilding process would begin. She’d wondered what would happen to all the underground bases now that their primary purpose had not reached fruition. According to Jason, they’d carry on regardless; what else could they do with such an investment? And he had a point; Sanctuary notwithstanding, the other bases would not just be abandoned by their respective governments. And when the GMRC disbanded, they would revert to full autonomy, ready and waiting for when the human race needed them again.
And so, in their idyllic locale, the hours, days and weeks had passed and there they had stayed, living out a simple existence in remote isolation, cut off from the outside world, and surrounded by the perpetual beauty of the islands of forest in the clouds.
An itching sensation brought Sarah back to the here and now and she reached down to scratch beneath the bandage that still encircled her chest. Whether due to the pendant nestled beneath, or for another reason entirely, that particular wound had failed to heal like those on her hands, feet and head. The last time she’d summoned the courage to look at it was back in hospital and that was one time too many. Ever since she’d refused to acknowledge its existence, averting her gaze and denying the intense emotions that were inextricably linked to its creation.
A couple of days earlier, when Trish had redressed it for her, Sarah had been informed that there was only a small section of scab left and that the bandages were no longer necessary. Sarah, however, wanted the covering left on for as long as possible, even if it meant showers and baths continued to give way to irregular cleaning with a damp flannel. There were too many mirrors in the bathroom, too many ways to catch sight of that which she wished to avoid.
Unable to deny life any longer, Sarah sat up and rubbed her tired eyes. She hated the sensation of oversleeping, but it helped dull the pain inside and so she persisted. She just wished she could go back on the morphine she’d had back on the ward.
Movement made her glance up, startled.
She relaxed. Her friend was back. A ginger cat ambled across the floor before jumping up onto the bed. Sarah held out her hand and the animal pushed its face against it while purring in blissful satisfaction. She stroked the cat for a while longer before getting up and pulling on yesterday’s clothes. As she went to go downstairs a sudden pain in her chest made her pause. She grimaced and held up her hand to see it trembling. She clenched her fist and willed the sensation away. It will pass, she thought, it always does. She took a deep breath, and then another, deeper and slower than before, and the tremors subsided. Gathering herself, she opened the door to begin another day of numb distress.
♦
It was late afternoon by the time Sarah decided to eat. She returned after a long walk through the treetop boardwalks to join Trish and Jason at the kitchen table to tuck into a modest spread of bread, rice and beans.
The three friends ate in silence while the sound of distant laughter from the local children at play drifted through the open door. Sarah caught Trish giving Jason a look that suggested she wanted him to say something. The noiseless exchange continued back an
d forth with increasing intensity before Sarah could take it no longer.
‘If you have something to say, just say it.’
Jason gave her a guilty look, his mouth half full of food. He pointed at Trish who gave a tut of annoyance.
‘Well?’ Sarah said, turning to her.
‘We’ve been thinking—’
Jason cleared his throat.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Trish said, giving Jason a withering look, ‘that we need to start planning what to do next.’
‘Now that you’re better and everything,’ Jason said.
Sarah looked from Trish to Jason and back again. ‘What’s there to talk about?’
Trish frowned. ‘Err, quite a lot. Like where do we go from here? How do we get there? What do we do when we get there? Do we try to go home, or go some place else?’
Sarah tensed at the barrage of thoughts that such questions dredged up and instead of answering she concentrated on the piece of bread in her hand. She tore a lump off with her fingers and placed it in her mouth to chew.
‘We can’t avoid this forever,’ Trish said. ‘Sooner or later we’ll run out of money and then we won’t be able to go anywhere.’
‘So why not just stay here, then?’ Jason said. ‘That’s an option, isn’t it?’
Trish looked at Sarah, who shrugged and continued to immerse herself in the task of eating lunch.
‘If we tried to go home,’ Jason said, ‘they could be waiting for us, couldn’t they? I mean, even if we got through the GMRC checkpoints without any papers, we could wind up walking into a trap, don’t you think?’
‘Probably,’ Trish said. ‘The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to believe that there’s no way we could go anywhere that has any type of CCTV, traffic cameras or any device that has face recognition. As soon as we went through an airport or a checkpoint they’d be alerted to our presence. And if they thought we were dead and buried, images of us wandering around alive and kicking would soon tell them otherwise.’
‘Then we do stay here,’ Jason said, ‘there’s no cameras for miles around.’
Trish made a face. ‘As much as I like this place, I don’t think I can stand it forever. I’d go nuts and you probably would, too.’
He sipped at his drink of water, deep in thought. ‘We could wait until the GMRC gets broken up and the border crossings return to normal. Then we could sneak back home with no one the wiser.’
‘Maybe,’ Trish said, ‘anything will involve risk; it’s just how much we’re willing to take. The main problem will be funding any travel. Bypassing immigration into any country will be expensive, regardless of whether the GMRC are operational.’
‘We could sell some of the artefacts,’ Jason said. ‘What do we have left? Parchments, the Mayan tablet – what about our Deep Reach helmets? Even bashed up they must be worth something to the right dealer.’
‘It’s worth considering.’ Trish leaned back in her chair. ‘We don’t have much else to bargain with. Either that, or we try and get some work in one of the smaller towns.’
Sarah listened as her friends continued to discuss their options before talk turned to a more painful subject.
‘I’m telling you,’ Jason was saying, ‘there must be a link between the Sphinx in Sanctuary and the one in Egypt. The resemblance was uncanny.’
‘As I said before, it could be coincidence,’ Trish said, ‘and it wasn’t that similar. There were some big differences, the head for one, the headdress, and of course its size.’
‘I can’t stop wondering how old it was; those standing stones looked far older than Stonehenge.’
Trish nodded. ‘You could spend your entire life documenting the site and not even scratch the surface.’
‘Could have,’ Jason said. ‘There’s nothing left of it now.’
As the conversation continued, Sarah found herself listening with greater interest, the subject of archaeology pulling her in despite her desire to do otherwise.
‘We never did find out what it was all for,’ Jason said, ‘the device, the power it unleashed. What did it do? Where did it go?’
‘We’ve gone over this before,’ Trish said, ‘there’s no point going on about it again; we need to accept that we’ll never know.’
Sarah looked at the scars on the palms of her hands. ‘Sometimes I wonder if it ever happened.’
Trish looked at her in surprise, perhaps wondering why she’d decided to comment for the first time since they’d returned to the surface. Truth was, Sarah didn’t know either.
‘But it did happen, though, didn’t it?’ Jason said.
Trish waited for Sarah to continue, but when she didn’t she gave a shudder. ‘I still have nightmares about those creatures.’
‘You didn’t see it when it was right over you,’ Jason said. ‘I nearly crapped myself. Sometimes I wake up and think it’s in the room with me. I never really knew what it meant when people said they had night terrors. Now I do.’
‘I saw something,’ Sarah said, ‘when I was there.’
Trish leant forward when she failed to elaborate. ‘Something?’
Sarah stroked the top of her thigh, unconsciously comforting herself as she tried to tread between the fine lines of subjects she wished to avoid. ‘It was like a window into somewhere else.’ She looked up at them with haunted eyes. ‘Didn’t you see it?’
Trish shook her head.
‘Somewhere else?’ Jason said. ‘What, like a projection of the past?’
Sarah struggled to recall what she’d seen. A memory of fire made her wince and she squeezed her leg in anguish.
‘Perhaps we should talk about this another time,’ Trish said, concerned.
‘No, not a projection,’ Sarah said, feeling compelled to continue, ‘it was real; I could see it, beneath the spinning pentagram, like a—’ She stopped, knowing how it would sound if she said it.
Trish reached out to her. ‘Go on.’
‘It was like a portal … to another world.’
Jason looked doubtful. ‘I saw the pentagram, but I didn’t see anything like a portal.’ He turned to Trish. ‘What about you?’
‘No, but then we didn’t have that black slime all over us. Goodwin said it was hallucinogenic, or a neurotoxin, and the hospital said you had high toxicity levels, they thought you’d been poisoned.’
Jason snorted. ‘Which is why they didn’t trust us, they probably thought we did it.’
‘I did see things,’ Sarah said, recalling the horrific images and sounds she’d experienced as she’d worked her way towards the altar. She shut her eyes to dispel the fear that remained trapped inside. ‘But this was different,’ – she opened her eyes again – ‘more real.’
‘I did wonder where we’d end up after we transported,’ Jason said. ‘For all we knew we could have landed on another planet.’
Trish laughed.
‘What?’ Jason said, aggrieved. ‘We could have.’
‘You’ll be saying we’re in a parallel dimension next.’
Jason grumbled something that sounded like, ‘We might be.’
‘Whatever it was,’ Trish said, looking back at Sarah, ‘real or not, it doesn’t matter now.’
‘It does if she tries to go through any checkpoints,’ Jason said, trying to redeem himself.
Trish folded her arms. ‘How so?’
‘Metal detectors; with that thing in her chest they’ll go haywire.’ He looked at Sarah. ‘They’ll probably think you’re carrying a bomb or something.’
Sarah’s hand went to her chest.
‘Even if they did,’ Trish said, ‘there’s nothing we can do about that, either.’
‘What happened to the smaller pendant?’ Jason said. ‘Is that in there as well? The surgeon didn’t mention it.’
‘I guess so,’ Sarah said, not wanting to discuss it any further.
Trish gave him a look of reproach.
He touched Sarah’s arm. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to … you know.’
She gave him a tired smile and got up to retire to the living room of the two storey luxury cabin. As she sat in silence, the cat she’d befriended came up to sit on her lap while Trish and Jason continued to talk in low tones in the next room.
It was some time later, after Sarah had fallen asleep, that the sound of a TV broadcast woke her from a forgotten dream.
The cat no longer occupied her lap and Trish and Jason sat on the sofa to her right, watching the large display that had been built into the fabric of the wooden wall. She noticed her two friends held hands. Whether the action was romantic or out of an unconscious need for human contact, she didn’t know, but regardless of the intent, it was heartwarming to see.
Trish noticed she was awake and withdrew her hand from Jason’s as if embarrassed, or like she’d been caught committing a deadly sin.
Jason, feeling the movement, looked at Trish and then at Sarah. ‘Have you seen this?’ he said, gesturing to the screen. ‘This could work in our favour.’
Sarah focused on the image. It was the BBC’s worldwide news service, which was unusual as normally they only received local stations.
The news anchor was prattling on and it took a moment for Sarah to understand what she was saying. ‘Is this true?’ she said, looking at her friends.
‘Looks that way,’ Jason said. ‘They say he won it some months back in a landslide. An independent, can you imagine?’
Trish sat up straighter, excited. ‘The good news is, he wants to oust the GMRC, and not just their protocols, he wants to stop their operations in the whole of the United States, and not just there, he wants its allies to follow suit. Which means—’
‘The UK too,’ Sarah said.
Jason grinned. ‘Give it six months and we could be going home.’
Sarah stared at the newsfeed and the image of the next President of the United States. ‘John Harrison Henry,’ she murmured. Could he be our ticket to a new life? She wondered. Will he live up to his claims? Who knew, he was after all, still a politician and if the past forty years were anything to go by, the leaders of the world’s supposed greatest democracies said one thing and then did the total opposite. No wonder people become disaffected, she thought. But perhaps this man is the start of a new beginning, someone to stand up to the banks, corporations and elites that serve themselves over the people. Sarah shifted in her seat. Or will he turn out like all the rest? Kept in line by the hidden powers that remain regardless of who enters office. Her gut instinct favoured the latter, but like all things, only time would tell. It changed things though, that much she knew; it gave some semblance of hope in an otherwise bleak future, even if that hope wasn’t her own. She looked at her friends, who eyed her with wary optimism.
Ancient Origins: Books 4 - 6 (Ancient Origins Boxset Book 2) Page 39
