by Erik Hyrkas
Chapter 20. Max
“Hey, Miranda. I have good news!” I said over my com link.
“You found the tritiated water?” She sounded happy.
“Yes, and lots of it.”
“Great! We’ll be down to get you in two minutes.”
“Hold on. I don’t technically have it yet.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it is owned by porcupines, and they need me to bring them some toxic baby snakes.”
“The who need you to do what?” she stammered.
“It’s a long story. Let it suffice to say I’m delayed and will call when I have the Tritium.”
“All right, but we’re running low on oxygen, food, and fuel.”
“Then there’s no time to waste. Max out.”
“Miranda out.”
The Magnoculous had shown me to a narrow exit I had to crawl through that led to a rock shelf thirty feet above a pile of very sharp boulders. I would have asked how they expected me to get down, but none of the little cowards followed me into the light.
I could make out the crumbling remains of an ancient road under the jungle vines. The plan was that I would follow this road to the giant toxic snakes armed with my wits, a towel, and a fairly sharp rock. All-in-all, I was doing better than I did on most missions. I usually didn’t have a rock. According to the Magnoculous, the Wendigo preferred to be out when the largest of the suns was set, and so I chose to leave in the morning as the larger of the two suns was rising.
I felt hungry as I worked my way down the steep cliff wall. I hadn’t eaten since Miranda fed me the Bar-E bars. The Magnoculous had offered me some fungus, but I wasn’t quite that hungry yet.
I slipped and fell the remaining ten feet, breaking my ankle, and limped along as it healed. Without the metabolism boost pills, it would take a few minutes to really feel better. The jungle of vines was thick, but I found I could walk under most of the foliage. The small vines weren’t difficult to push through, but they obscured my vision and made me a little worried that I was going to walk headlong into something with a large enough bite to swallow me whole.
I eventually came to some large black lumps, roughly the same size as me, that really stunk. There were bits of green shells in them, and when I poked one these misshapen lumps with a stick, I discovered it was soft and even smellier after I poked it. The smell reminded me of methane. I didn’t know what the lumps were, though.
I followed the road for miles. Clicking and crunching sounds emanated from the jungle on all sides, but I didn’t see any creatures. The wind was damp and carried the smell of decay.
A snort much too close to me made me turn around. All four of my hearts skipped a beat at the sight of a giant green chitinous bear-like creature sniffing the air a few feet away. Then he lifted his head high and let out a deafening roar. Other roars echoed from nearby.
I didn’t bother with my sharp rock. I ran, climbed, and jumped through the jungle, trying to follow the road as best I could, but the primary objective was to keep away from the monster chasing me. I came to a bridge that had collapsed into a chasm and swung over it on a vine, realizing too late that I had missed my opportunity to do a Tarzan call.
When I landed triumphantly on the other side, I looked back at the bears, which weren’t even slowing down. They leapt the distance I had swung over and were at my heels as I bounced from branch to branch above them in the vines. One grabbed my pant leg and tore a chunk of cloth loose, but I didn’t so much as stumble. I knew to fall would be to die.
I reached another chasm with a fallen bridge, this one small enough to leap across. When I landed on a smooth stone, I realized I was standing on top of a broken building of some sort. I knew I had made it to the Magnoculous’ nearest village. There was an arrangement of other small, broken buildings made of stone with ornate carvings along the crumbling doorways.
A force struck me from behind just after I landed and threw me forward. I landed hard on the paved ground several feet below and rolled to my side as a bear crashed to the ground next to me. I scrambled backward, trying to regain my feet. The bear roared, showing black fangs and white saliva, before charging.
I didn’t have time to regain my feet, and so I prepared to use my legs in a hopeless attempt to push back its massive body, but a shadow passed over us and the bear faltered. The beast looked up and snarled. In a massive swipe, a four-fingered, bone-white hand came down and pummeled the bear against the building, and then the hand picked up the broken body. I followed the arm to a Wendigo, who was biting into the bear like a plated sandwich. I scrambled away and into the jungle. I heard the yelps and howls of other bears as I ran.
I realized that, in my panic, I had lost the village and the road. I hadn’t seen snakes in the village anyway, and so I would have to continue to the Magnoculous’ next ancient village, which the Poobah had said was larger and my best hope of finding snakes. I weaved my way through the jungle, trying to veer toward where I believed the road to be.
I had traveled miles when I came to a river. I stopped to drink from it, but then I saw eel-like fish the size of city busses swimming about in its depths. I didn’t think much of the idea of swimming, and the idea of swimming with those things was out of the question. I’d take my chances with the bears first. I followed the riverbank hoping to find the road again. The suns were now high in the sky.
As I fumbled my way through rocks and vines along the shore of the river, I noticed small chitinous animals scurrying about carrying strands of thin vines. They were roughly the size and shape of squirrels, but these creatures were covered in mottled green armor. I deemed these the toughest squirrels I had ever seen. Clearly, this planet was a rough neighborhood.
One thing I hadn’t seen since coming to this planet was any form of flying creature. Maybe needing to be so armored made it unlikely that anything on this planet would ever evolve to fly, the armor simply too heavy to get off the ground.
When I finally came to the road, I almost passed it because the stones had been shattered and strewn about. I could make out parts of the bridge scattered on the ground near the river’s edge. The road I needed to follow was now on the other side of the river, but the bridge was long gone. The river was narrow but deep. Over the millennia, it had cut deep into softer rock and left the harder rock on its shores smooth. I wasn’t going to have to swim very far, but if there were any of those massive eels lurking in the depths, I would be fish food. I pondered for a moment whether drowning beat being eaten, but then I noticed that the current looked fast here. I worried I’d be swept downstream before I could make it halfway across.
I tossed a few large rocks into the water to see if I could disturb anything in the depths. I wanted to know what hid in the murk, but nothing moved or stirred that I could see. After several tense moments of staring into the water, I steeled myself, took a running start, and jumped as far as I could into the river. When I hit the cold, dark water, I kicked as hard as I could. Five minutes of abject terror passed as I crossed the remaining distance.
I hauled myself onto the shore and collapsed. When I was more cold than tired, I pulled the microfiber towel from my back pocket, wrung it out, and dried myself off. I felt invigorated, more because I survived than because of the cold swim.
I had to walk upstream a few hundred feet to find the road again because the current had carried me downstream. As I walked the road on this side of the river, the giant woody vines gave way to a light carpet of smaller vines. It was sort of like walking through a field but more difficult because my feet were constantly getting tangled in the weave of vines. Thankfully, cairns marked the road or it would have been excruciating to follow.
I reasoned that whatever threats I might encounter would either be small or I’d see coming from a long way off. On the flip side, there was nowhere to hide, and any predators would see me from a long way off too. I wondered if this world had anything like savanna lions.
As I walked, I pulled up a small vine a
nd smelled it. It smelled amazingly delicious, so I chewed on it. I was starving, and I wanted to see if it was edible. I liked the taste, which reminded me of mild cinnamon and sugar, but the texture left something to be desired. It was stringy and rather tough. I decided not to eat much in the event it was poisonous. My system could cope with most toxins, but I didn’t want to push my luck with unknown alien substances.
Hours passed as I walked over rolling hills and through valleys of the same vines. Still hungry, I ate another vine. This one’s flavor reminded me of chocolate and raspberries. Out of curiosity, I pulled another vine and took a bite, and it tasted like cookies and cream. Delicious. The next tasted like vanilla, and the following was exactly like spearmint. The more plants I tried, the more flavors I discovered. Eventually I came across really weird flavors like spaghetti and even gravy. I began feeling drowsy and very full.
I needed to sleep, but I knew that I had to finish my mission. Besides, the suns were still in the sky. Then I heard footsteps behind me. I turned and saw Tyler following behind me.
“You can’t win,” Tyler said.
“You’re dead,” was the closest to witty I could manage.
“Not as dead as you,” he replied.
I looked down at myself and saw that I was wearing white robes. That’s odd. I thought I had a T-shirt on. “I’m dead?”
“Sit for a little bit, and I’ll explain it to you,” Tyler suggested.
I wanted to be angry at him, but I was groggy and sitting sounded like a good idea. I rubbed my eyes, and when I opened them again, Miranda was sitting next to me.
“You did a really good job,” she said. Her brilliant smile was as dazzling as ever. “You can rest for a little bit now.”
“I can?” I asked. I shook my head to try to clear the fog.
“Please, lie down for a moment. I’ll keep watch. You’ve earned it,” she said.
I looked down at the vine in my hand, which I did not remember I was holding, and dropped it. I struggled to my feet and staggered. I blinked slowly, and when I reopened my eyes, John was standing in front of me.
“You’re going the wrong way,” he said. “You are supposed to go that way.” He pointed the way I thought I had come from.
“I am?” I asked. I looked at my hands and saw that I had vines in each of my hands but didn’t remember picking them up.
“Yes, you are going the wrong way. Turn around,” John urged.
I ignored John, and as I rose to my feet, I realized I didn’t remember sitting down again. I walked in the direction I believed was correct.
“Are you sure that’s the way?” John asked.
I stopped and looked at him. “John doesn’t ask questions. Questions are for pussies. Who are you?”
John blurred in my vision and I saw Miranda again. “I think you are just a little confused,” she said.
I needed my sharp rock. I went to reach into my pants pocket when I remembered I was wearing white robes instead. This wasn’t right.
I pretended to stand there confused for a moment while Miranda walked closer to me. “Don’t you want to sleep?” she asked.
I lunged and pounded my fist into her throat. She gagged for a moment and then blurred into a new form. Suddenly I was face-to-face with one of the green chitinous bears. I smashed it in the face with both hands, and it staggered. I kicked the bear in the chin, and it rolled backward. I pounced on it, and suddenly I was grappling with a Wendigo. I gave it a head-butt, and it swayed. I didn’t relent. I clobbered it in the face repeatedly with my fists.
I kept pounding until I realized my fists were bloody. I rubbed my eyes again and my vision seemed to clear. I was lying on a pile of rocks, and my fists really were covered with my own blood. The rocks had been a cairn. I had kicked the crap out of a pile of rocks.
I noticed that the suns had nearly set, and ahead of me was a desert that I didn’t remember being there.
