by J. N. Chaney
“Atta boy,” I said, pointing to the spot on his left. “There should be a backpack of water and food by your seat. “I think there are flashlights and a knife under it.”
We spent the next few minutes taking stock of our supplies and preparing to leave the somewhat safety of our escape pod. Along with two bottles of water, there was a pack of energy bars, a knife, a flashlight, a blanket, a med kit, and a fire starter.
Ricky carried the same thing, minus the med kit.
“Whatever’s out there, we’ll figure this out,” I told Ricky, trying to give him the pep talk I needed now. Telling him the truth, that I was as scared as he was, wasn’t the right thing to do.
“Let’s do it,” Ricky said.
I leaned on the long lever that released the same hatch we used to climb into our escape pod. It opened with a popping noise. The first thing I realized as I stuck my head out of our escape pod was whatever this planet was, it wasn’t that different from Earth.
There were dark green grassy fields and thick, almost black tree trunks, showing off vibrant forms of leaves. The smell of smoke was in the air. I coughed for a second, then hopped out of the escape pod, letting Ricky do the same.
The twin suns loomed overhead, bringing a warmth to my face. There was an ever so slight breeze, gently blowing. If we weren’t on an alien planet, this place might even seem nice.
“Ummm, Dean?” Ricky said, grabbing my attention.
Chapter 24
A thin line of smoke rose from the other downed escape pod. Instead of landing on oversized airbags like ours, it had struck the ground like a crater.
As we got closer, the escape pod wasn’t just smoking, it was cracked in multiple places. The sphere wasn’t meant to take a fall like that without its boosters or landing bags to soften its touchdown.
Orange and red flames licked inside of it and the ground all around, hollowed with its impact.
Despite my gut churning, I looked inside the window. A single seat escape pod like ours only smaller, revealed a poor soul strapped to their seat, the fire having eaten away much of their body. The scent of burned hair and flesh was overwhelming, and I looked away quickly.
“Ricky, I’m not sure you want to do that,” I said as Ricky leaned in to look through the window.
He turned back a moment later, throwing up on the ground next to him. He fell down on hands and knees, vomiting everything his body contained.
I set my jaw, wondering how many more pods had failed to land properly and why. Was it a mechanical failure? Had a Disciple tampered with some of the pods?
All these answers would have to wait.
Ricky was gathering himself, and I decided to take the time to survey our surroundings. We were in a grass field with trees all around, making it hard to see anything out in the distance. The only thing I could see through the trees, was a mountain range to the east and the twin suns overhead.
I realized that there was no sound. No white noise of other people living, talking, or moving around. There were no birds or animal sounds either. There was only stillness and the sounds of Ricky spitting the last of his breakfast burrito into the dirt.
“You think, you think they went fast?” Ricky asked, pushing himself to his feet and joining me. “I mean the person in the pod. Do you think they died quickly?”
“I sure hope so,” I said. “The landing probably would have killed them instantly before the fire broke out.”
“Right, right,” Ricky said, nodding along with my theory. “They were already dead when the fire started. So, what now?”
“We can’t really see much down here in the trees,” I said, once again looking east. “There’s a mountain range over there, but I don’t think we need to go that far. Maybe we can find some high ground, even a tree to climb up and see where we’re going. We need to find other survivors.”
“Right, we can’t be the only ones…” Ricky’s voice trailed off as if it were a question. “Can we?”
“No way,” I said, shrugging against the straps of my pack. “I saw dozens of ships getting away before and during our escape. They’re out here, we just have to find them.”
“Right,” Ricky said, building up his courage. “I could really use a drink or twenty right now. Maybe a game of dice to relax.”
“You and me both, brother,” I said as we headed east, back toward our downed escape pod and the tree line beyond. After I spoke, I remembered all of Ricky’s promises to every deity he could think of about stopping his gambling ways. “Wait a minute. Didn’t you swear to give up gambling if we landed safely?”
“What?” Ricky looked at me like I was crazy. “I don’t remember that at all.”
“Yeah, that was you,” I said.
“Well, I can’t be held accountable for whatever I did or didn’t say when I thought I was going to die,” Ricky said, then shrugged. “That would never hold up in a court of law.”
The dark green grass crunched under my boots just like the grass on Earth. The only noticeable difference was the color, so dark it was almost black.
I took a better look at the trees as we passed our pod and entered the forest area. The trunks were much wider than anything I had seen on Earth. The bark was also a deep dark brown, and the leaves were vibrant, nearly neon green.
It was like they gave a kid a set of crayons and told him or her to go to town on the landscape.
“Is it weird that we don’t hear anything?” Ricky asked.
He had his knife out in his right hand. He held it close to his body as if he were ready to strike out at any moment.
“If you accidentally stab me with that thing, I’m going to be pissed,” I said, fighting the urge to unsheathe my own knife that sat in a carrier on the right side of my hip. I held the holo pad in my hands instead, hoping to pick up a signal from someone. “And yeah. It is weird. There are no animals, insects, or anything.”
We traveled through the dense forest, always listening for movement, but there was still nothing. We went on the same even ground, looking for a place where we could get a better view of the landscape. I was beginning to think we should abandon the search for a decent vantage point and just try to climb one of the trees, when we heard movement in the forest in front of us.
Ricky and I both slammed ourselves against the closest tree on our right. The wide trunk offered more than enough room for us to conceal ourselves. I grabbed the handle of my knife, sliding it free from its sheath.
The sounds grew closer.
I kneeled low and looked around the base of the trunk Ricky and I were using for cover. I felt hot, as a line of sweat crossed my brow. It was difficult to see through the massive line of trees, and I relied on my sense of hearing to point my eyes in the right direction.
“I don’t—I don’t see anything,” Ricky whispered. “Can you?”
“Not yet,” I answered.
The sound came closer, someone walked on the grass in the forest. I caught movement. Something white. Whatever it was, crossed our hiding space thirty yards to my left.
It was hard to tell for sure, but it had to be someone from our ship. Nothing else existed on alien planets. At least that’s what I was telling myself.
“What if it’s an alien?” Ricky whispered in my ear. “Remember the transmission we received?”
“No such thing as aliens,” I said. “I think it’s another survivor.”
I decided to take a chance.
“Hello?” I called out into the distance. “Hello, can you hear me?”
The steady noise of plodding stopped. Once again, the entire forest was quiet.
The noise came again, but this time it was the sound of running. Not just running, but the clear sound of galloping as something raced toward us. I was wrong. This wasn’t a person at all.
I rose to my feet as a surge of adrenaline quickened my heart rate. I clenched my knife tightly in my hand, preparing to see something crazy burst from between the trees.
“I knew aliens were rea
l!” Ricky exclaimed, gritting his teeth.
A whitish-grey creature sprinted from the forest. I had just enough time to register what I was seeing before it was on top of us. It was the same massive dog that I had seen in the cargo hold during my first run-in with the assassin Disciple known as Maksim.
It headed right for me, nearly grinning as its pink tongue lolled out the side of its mouth. I lowered my knife as it skidded to a stop in front of me. It sniffed at my pants, wagging its tail like a maniac, then went over to Ricky to do the same.
“What the hell?” Ricky asked as he sheathed his knife and went down to a knee to pet the mutt. “Is this one of the animals you said was in the cargo hold?”
“That’s right,” I said as my heart transitioned back to beating normally once more. “He must have survived the crash somehow, or maybe someone let them out.”
“Doesn’t look like he escaped unscathed,” Ricky said, eyeing blood splatter on the left side of the dog’s face. “He doesn’t seem to be limping, so that’s good.”
The dog whined again and nuzzled Ricky, then went over to me and sat down at my feet.
“I think you have an admirer,” Ricky grinned. “Maybe he remembers you from when you got beat up in the cargo hold.”
“Maybe,” I said, reaching a hand down to ruffle the dogs’ soft, pointed ears.
He looked up at me with a stupid grin.
“Man, I thought for sure we were about to see something wild,” Ricky said, shaking his head. “Like a mutated alien beast that was going to suck out our brains, or some kind of skeletal insect creature that was going to pump us full of bile.”
“That’s disgusting,” I said.
“I have a disturbing imagination,” Ricky said with a sigh. “It’s my burden to bear in this life.”
“What do you think about climbing a tree?” I asked. “I don’t see the terrain opening up any time soon. I think with a boost, I can grab one of these lower branches and pull myself up.”
“Worth a shot,” Ricky shrugged. He laced his fingers together and squatted down to give me a lift.
I shrugged off my pack and placed my right foot in his hands. With a heave, Ricky lifted me up, and I was able to grab a lower hanging branch on the tree in front of us.
The mutt barked once as if he were worried for me and telling me not to fall. The tree’s bark felt like any other tree I had ever climbed as a kid, rough but firm under my hands.
I pulled myself up, choosing branches that were sturdy and only placing my full weight on them once they were tested. The higher up I went, I started noticing dark purple fruit that reminded me of avocados. I had no idea if they were edible, and I sure wasn’t going to try them.
I ignored the allure of a possible food source for the time being and continued upward.
The tree was taller than I had first guessed, but after a few minutes of climbing, I poked my head out of the top of the canopy. What I saw took my breath away. It filled me with both hope and dread.
Chapter 25
My mouth went dry. I surveyed the landscape. To the north, there was smoke. If I squinted hard, I could make out some kind of dome rising from the ground—The Orion.
To the east, a red rock mountain range stood against the horizon—the same cliffs I had seen as we fell to the planet’s surface. To the west, I spied a large body of water, blue as the sky.
Glancing to the south, I blinked my eyes a few times rapidly. I shaded my vision as I leaned forward to get a better look. The forested area continued for about a kilometer before the landscape began to change into a swamp. A wall of mist prevented me from seeing any further.
The mist. The transmission we picked up before we lost contact was talking about a mist. I studied it longer, straining to see anything beyond the wall. There was nothing but the white, rolling waves of the mist as it ebbed and flowed like an ocean.
“Hey, hey, what do you see up there?” Ricky said in a loud whisper. “What’s going on?”
I turned back to The Orion one more time, making sure I had the bearing correct. I was horrible at measuring great distances, but it looked like we could make it in a day if we traveled hard.
Climbing back down to where Ricky and the mutt waited for me, I let myself fall the last few meters to the ground as I hung from the final branch.
“Some kind of ocean to the west. Mountains to the east and I can see The Orion, or at least what’s left of it. We need to head north,” I told Ricky.
“Great, great, and what did you see to the south?” Ricky asked, motioning behind us. “What’s down there? More forest?”
“It’s just a wall of mist, maybe a klick or two in that direction,” I explained.
“Sorry,” Ricky said, then wiggled a finger into his right ear. “It sounded like you calmly said a wall of mist is a kilometer away from us.”
“I did,” I repeated myself. “A klick or two.”
Ricky looked down at the mutt as if he were going to weigh in with an opinion. The dog looked back at him and opened his mouth with a grin.
“Well, let’s get the hell out of these woods,” Ricky said, looking behind him as if at any moment the trees were going to come alive and snatch him up. “You said The Orion was to the north? How fa—”
A scream ripped through the air like nails on a chalkboard.
I wheeled around, grabbing for my knife. Ricky did the same, fumbling for his own. The mutt growled, and the hackles rose on his back as he lowered himself to the ground.
Someone was racing from the south towards us, bleeding from a head wound. Her white lab coat was torn in half a dozen places.
Doctor Allbright caught sight of us and stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes were wide in panic. She was in shock, looking at me as if she didn’t know who I was.
“Doc!” I said, lowering my knife. “Doc, it’s okay! It’s me, Dean.”
Doctor Allbright blinked a few times. She licked at her cracked lips, then cast her eyes down to her hands. “I had them. I was about to pull them free, but it was too strong.”
I could tell something was wrong. She was dazed, maybe confused.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay. You’re safe now,” I coaxed as I elbowed Ricky in the side. “Put your knife away. She’s a friend of mine.”
“I don’t know, man,” Rick said, still pointing his blade at Doctor Allbright. “She doesn’t look right. What if a demon entered her body, or she breathed in some alien spores. You know, like in all those movies.”
“Rick,” I said with a growl.
“Okay, alright,” Ricky said, slowly lowering his knife. His eyes never left Doctor Allbright.
“Hey,” I said, making my way to her side. “Just take a few deep breaths and calm yourself. You’re safe now.”
I reached into my pack and handed her a water. She took it tentatively, and half fell, half sat down on the ground. She lifted the bottle with a shaky hand.
Whether it was the water or my words, when she removed the bottle from her lips, she looked a little better. This close to her, I got a better look at the wound on her head. It was a shallow cut that would probably be fine with a few stitches. Head wounds always looked worse than they were. I knew better than most. I’d had a few dozen of them in my day.
“Th-thank you,” Doctor Allbright managed to say. She handed the water back to me. “I-I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
“What did you see?” Ricky asked, coming up with the mutt.
The dog went to Doctor Allbright, sniffing at her legs and feet, then let off a low growl.
“Easy, hey, easy,” I told the dog, patting him on the head.
“It’s okay, he probably smells whatever is on me,” Doctor Allbright said, shaking her head from side-to-side, as if to clear the images from her mind. She took a deep breath. “I don’t know how to explain what I saw.”
“Well, figure it out and don’t take too long,” Ricky told her, then looked in the direction she had come from. “Mist can travel quick
ly, and I don’t want to get stuck in it.”
“We should get moving soon,” I said, slinging my pack from behind my back and opening it up to retrieve the med kit. “Can you tell us what happened to you?”
Doctor Allbright nodded. “I was in one of the larger ships when we disengaged from The Orion,” she said, looking past my shoulder, as if she were seeing the events as she spoke them out loud. “There had to be hundreds of us crammed inside the spacecraft, far too many if you go off the safety regulations. In the panic to get aboard, people were cramming themselves into whatever ships were closer, rather than follow proper procedure.” She shuddered, imagining the chaos of the evacuation. “There were so many people inside the craft as we took off. There simply weren’t enough seats or harnesses for everyone. I couldn’t even hear myself think. People were shouting and crying hysterically. It was horrifying.” The Doctor winced as I cleaned her cut, using a spray I’d found in the pack.
“Sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay,” she answered. “The automated pilot controls took us to the surface of the planet. We watched The Orion break apart in a dozen or more pieces. There were escape pods everywhere in the sky, both the smaller spheres and larger crafts. We landed on the planet maybe a few kilometers south of here. We couldn’t see anything through the windows, there was so much fog. Someone impatiently opened the main doors before we could receive the all-clear that the air out here was breathable. The mist rushed into our craft faster than I have ever seen before.”
Doctor Allbright paused. I did a decent job of cleaning out her cut, then placed a wrap of gauze around her head. Stitches would have to wait.
I looked over at Ricky. His mouth was hanging open. He was staring at Doctor Allbright as if mentally willing her to continue the story.
“I-I don’t know what happened from there,” Doctor Allbright swallowed hard. She licked her tongue around her lips. “People started—they started screaming and disappearing in the mist. The mist was so thick, I could only see a few meters in every direction. A panicked, herd mentality overcame us like when a wolf is in a sheep pen. We just started running. We ran out of the craft. There were hundreds of us, maybe more.”
