by Mark Tufo
I don’t see any whistlers, but that doesn’t mean they won’t spot me should I fully rise. The aliens trudging toward the pyramid are just darker blots, so I may not be spotted from that direction. After all, a single dark object may not be seen like a larger group would. I have to take the chance because I can’t crawl the entire distance.
“Fuck it,” I breathe, rising.
Like the journey to the pyramid, I won’t describe the tedious trip across the empty plain. It was one step after another, only interrupted twice by a food thermos making its appearance. Then they stopped coming. I figured I finally made it out of their range. The mountain that’s my target slowly grew larger, although there were times that I felt it was actually shrinking.
I wish I could count the number of days, but that’s damn near impossible with one or both of the suns always in the sky. I walked until I couldn’t take another step and collapsed in the unending grassy prairie.
The lack of food and water has taken its toll, my body and mind exhausted. So far, I haven’t run across a single whistler, which is a godsend. I doubt I’d be able to put up much of a fight at this point. It’s all I can do to lift my foot to take another step, yet the looming mountain is calling. If it weren’t for that in sight to carry me forward, I might have given up long ago.
I wonder if this isn’t punishment for bitching about not enjoying my retirement in my own world when the night runners emerged. This is the Creator going, “I’ll give you something to bitch about.”
The time crossing the flat prairie is mostly spent in my mind, which isn’t a great place to be for this extended period of time. There are moments when I wonder how Mike is getting along. At other times, the kids and Lynn surface. Those thoughts bring about the fight to push on along with the desire to just lay down and die. My entire goal is to survive to be with them, but I now often wonder if I’ll ever get to see them again, and that’s depressing as hell. Then there are the times when my mind is just blank, and I walk toward the steep dark mountain on autopilot.
I stumble across a stone, my mind pulling back from the empty blankness where it was residing. Looking around without truly realizing where I am or how I arrived here, I notice that there are more rocks lying around within the stalks of grass.
That’s something new, I think, staring at them without comprehension.
I notice something dark in my vision and look up from staring at my feet. The stones hidden away in the grass become larger rocks and then a few boulders. Past those, a dark rock wall lined with vertical fissures soars upward. Craning my neck, I see the sheer walls of the mountain towering into the sky, the walls fluted and creviced. The black stone of the mountain soars above the surface of the plain as if shoved through the crust without any surrounding hills that might normally accompany such an up thrusting. It’s just there.
The other thing that is missing is a clock…and the bustling concourse of Grand Central Station. I probably fucked this up by not returning to the pyramid structure. Well, I’m here and that’s that. Should I be thinking about climbing this thing? I hope not because there’s no way I could do that inside of a year with the amount of oxygen I can breathe in. And the nearly sheer walls don’t look like they allow for any places to rest.
I start walking around the side, searching for something that might make sense of Trip’s cryptic message. My mind is still fucked, foggy from the lack of food, water, and sleep. Wait, I think I slept some on the way, but can’t remember. Okay, food and water. Yeah, I’ll go with that. I know my thoughts are a bit crazed right now, but I also know there’s shit I can do about it. If this turns out to be a dead end, I’ll just be bleached bones lying on a plain under an alien sun. At least I’d be out of this miserable shit, though.
Somewhere in the recesses of my fog-filled brain, I notice a flash of light reflect off the glass-like surface of the mountain wall; it's there one second and gone the next.
“Yack, you made it!” a voice cries out behind me.
I’d love to say I reacted instantaneously, whipping my knife out for it to land point first in the attacker’s eye. However, what I actually do is nothing even remotely close. I glance over my shoulder to see Trip standing next to the sheer wall. I then turn around and stare at him, not fully certain that I’m not hallucinating. He doesn’t fade away.
Still not sure he isn’t a fabrication of my mind, I take a step back and look up the side of the mountain before turning back to him again.
“How in the hell is this the clock at Grand Central?”
“I didn’t say that,” Trip responds.
“You most certainly did. You said, and I quote: ‘Meet me at the clock in Grand Central Station…5pm.’”
Trip puffs on a lit joint, holding in his breath.
Releasing it, he replies through a cloud of smoke. “Hmmm, I guess I had my movies confused.”
“You’re confused about a lot more than that,” I say under my breath, thinking that it’s possible I’m having a conversation with myself, even if he is real.
“Well, you’re here now,” Trip says.
“What exactly does that mean?” I ask, my voice muffled behind the mask and distorted because of the tube down my throat.
“You’re going back,” he responds excitedly.
My heart jumps. “Going back home?”
Trip hangs his head down and shakes it. “No, unfortunately not. You’re going back to Valhalla.”
“Why couldn’t you have done that before when you stranded us?” I angrily ask.
“I couldn’t at the time.”
“Couldn’t…or wouldn’t.”
“The timing wasn’t right,” Trip replies.
“Fuck this pawn shit, Trip. I’m tired of moving about on your whim. I get that the whistlers need to be stopped. Maybe the Overseers as well. But I won’t be moved about like I’m on a fucking chessboard!” I exclaim.
It would probably have gone over better if I didn’t have to drop my hands to my knees and start panting. “And what about Mike? I can’t just leave him here, no matter what you said,” I continue after catching my breath.
“He has to remain here.”
I grumble. “Some kind of friend you are. Have you seen that place?”
A clarity returns to Trip’s expression. “I helped build it. It was supposed to be a prison, but they escaped it and turned it toward their own purposes.”
“So, you’re just going to leave him there?”
“No, you are,” Trip says.
Trip pulls out the relic and a thin thread of silver forms, ending several feet away. Slowly, a portal shimmers into existence.
“I suppose I’m supposed to go through that, right?!”
Trip nods.
“And what if I don’t?”
“Then you’ll die out here and never see your family or loved ones again,” Trip responds, his clarity leaving.
“So, again, I’m left with no choice.”
“I’m sorry, Yack,” Trip says sadly, but then brightens. “But I have this for you.”
He brandishes an MRE from within his jacket pocket.
“That doesn’t do me any good with this on,” I reply, pointing at my mask.
“It’s for when you’re on the other side,” Trip responds, creating a second portal.
“Fine!” I say, grabbing the package from his hand. “But if something happens to Mike, you had better know that I’ll hunt you down. So, what am I supposed to do once I cross back? And none of this cryptic bullshit.”
“You’re to save the world,” Trip says.
“Details, man,” I respond, but he’s already stepped through the portal, vanishing along with it.
I’m left alone at the base of the mountain that’s rising straight from the plain, the silver-lined portal emitting a faint hissing nearby. If it weren’t for that, I’d think I had imagined the entire encounter. My head is still in a fog as I stare up at the intimidating feature. It appears to be one huge block of obsidian. I hadn’t
really noticed that before, and I’m thankful that I wasn’t required to climb it. I’d have arrived at the top in shreds.
I turn to stare at the glimmering portal and then down at the MRE bag I’m holding. Somewhere in the depths of my fog-shrouded mind, I know that I’m going to have to remove the apparatus shoved down my throat. I’m not all that eager to venture down that road as I imagine it’ll be like trying to remove a catheter that’s still fully inflated. I’ve actually seen the aftermath of someone doing that and, believe me, it’s not pretty.
The portal looms. Walking through it means leaving Mike behind. While we’ve been separated numerous times in the past, this time I’d be leaving him in the grips of the whistlers. That’s something I’m not overly comfortable with. I look past the portal and across the plain in the direction of the structure. Mike’s a big boy and is able to handle himself well in any circumstance. On the other hand, were the situation reversed, he’d do anything in his power to see me freed.
The problem lies in what the best method for securing his release might be. Would stepping through the portal bring that about sooner? I wish Trip would just lay out the plan he has in mind, listing each step and why they’re necessary instead of playing these cryptic games. So, now my choice is to step through the portal and work from there or head back and attempt a rescue where both of us would flee in much the same manner as I did. But that’s a decision that should have been made long before. Even in my foggy state, I know that I won’t survive a journey back across the plain. As a matter of fact, I won’t survive without water for much longer.
So that really limits my choices back to one. If I was going to haul Mike out of there, against what Trip had advised, then I should have done that when I told him about the tunnels. I can stand here and debate the rights and wrongs of my choices until those two suns merge, but it won’t change a thing. Wearily, I stumble forward and enter the portal.
20
Jack Walker — Chapter Six
Unlike the portal going to the sector control points, where time seemed to last an eternity within a black void, I find myself in a world of white where time has no meaning. It’s like being in the midst of a vast expanse while also being compressed. I feel like a giant yet as small as an ant. I feel everything and nothing at all. It’s a world of opposites, and one that seems so confusing while making perfect sense at the same time. The only constant is the surrounding white, which probably should denote something…it means nothing and everything.
With a pop, the white vanishes and I’m left stumbling. I turn to find the portal gone. The abrupt change from one land to the next is startling. The heat is immediate. Looking up, I’m a little relieved to see one sun burning in the sky. That will mean, presumably, I won’t be in a land of eternal light. But that also means night, which may or may not bring night runners. It’s always something.
Even though my mind is still like a wad of cotton, I’m a little alarmed that I don’t feel beads of sweat forming. With the heat, I should feel beads of it on my brow. And the mask I’m still wearing is suffocating. Calming myself, I look around the area to get oriented to my new digs. Trip said he was sending me back to Valhalla, but that could mean just about anything with what I’ve experienced there. Did he mean the town or the land?
I’m on a smaller plateau of dirt and rocks, surrounded by desert. The sand is endless with the exception of a rise of mountains in one direction. Those sharp-edged peaks, dry and filled with deep ravines, dominate the landscape. They also look very familiar. As difficult as it is to comprehend much, I search through my mind for where I’ve seen this exact scene before.
The more I try to remember, the further the thought goes. I wonder why that is? It would seem that the more one attempts to recall something that is on the edge of memory, the further it seems to fade away. You would think that would be the opposite, but there it is.
Then, out of the blue, it comes to me. I’m back in the location where we battled the night runners and where Mike dragged us through the portal. Well, dragged isn’t exactly correct. Where he formed the portal that led us into one of the whistler worlds, perhaps their homeland. Sure enough, glancing around reveals a number of bodies, their skin blackened from the sun.
The corpses are grisly to look at, the charred skin cracked and formed like multiple overlying scabs. Dried blood that oozed out of the cracked skin caked. Rising from where I crouched near one of the bodies, I stumble and fall on my ass. Dehydration and lack of food is taking its toll. I glimpse the MRE package I’m still carrying. The main meal inside will have liquids in addition to a pouch of water, providing it’s the same as I’ve used before. Who the fuck knows? Trip handed this to me, so I’m just as likely to get a mix of Indicas and Sativas and a bottle of Orange Crush.
Seated and not overly concerned with any dangers that might be lurking nearby, I rip open the package. Sure enough, there’s a small amount of water and I’m hungry enough to eat the food, plastic and all. But, there’s still the matter of the mask and device stuck down my throat. I don’t know how far the feeding tube goes and I hope it isn’t attached in some manner. If that’s the case, then what I’m contemplating won’t feel too good.
I hesitate, but it’s not going to make things better if I wait. Nothing to it but to get to it. Still seated, I remove the helmet and look inside and out for any mechanism. The curved metal plate seems to run a number of functions, so I’m wondering if it doesn’t also control the placement and removal of the feeding tube. There’s nothing noticeable along its smooth surface except for the indention of lights on both sides, all of which are now unlit.
I still have the box thing I took from the whistler and fuck with it, but nothing happens. Perhaps with the removal from the attachment, the helmet lost more of its properties than just transmitting the painful electrical shocks. The calling of the feeding thermoses had worked, but perhaps that was just a signal emanating from the helmet and those feeding cylinders actually enacted the process. All of that aside, it seems like I may have to do this the old-fashioned way.
The mask, like the helmet, is attached in some manner that melds it with my body. There aren’t any seams to grip or straps to remove. However, when I pull on it, it comes a little free, along with a pulling deep within my throat. I stop pulling and start gagging, threatening to retch right then and there.
Okay, so the mask is attached to the tube. That’s great!
Releasing the mask, it then re-adheres, just like the metal plate did. I’d like to take a few deep breaths to steel myself for the next part, but that’s impossible.
Like a Band-Aid or piece of duct tape…better to just rip it off.
However, just ripping the thing free may pull out a lot more of me than I’m willing to sacrifice. I can see tearing it loose only to see that I’ve pulled out my stomach with it. While training to run ultra-marathons, I remember reading about some folks who threw up the lining of their stomachs after running for miles, and it wasn’t cool. Here, I’m likely to pull my entire digestive tract out. I imagine seeing my stomach on the end of the tube, dangling from my mouth inside out and choking on my intestines.
Why the fuck do I think about shit like that? Well, here goes nothing.
I grab the mask and pull it away from my face. All thoughts of just yanking the thing free go out the window. The things sliding up my throat just don't allow it. I keep pulling it, inch by inch, determined to get the thing off and out of me. I gag several times, but keep going. It’s like unswallowing an entire log of summer sausage. Yeah, there are other analogies, but that’s the one I’m going with.
The tube is about the same width as my throat and must go all of the way to the stomach. Letting the mask dangle, I grab hold of the tube and keep at it. Something slides down from my sinuses and pulls out from my lungs. There’s a moment of panic when I suddenly can’t breathe, but I fight that back and keep pulling. It’s like some alien emerging from my body after it hatches. The tube is slimed with saliva and who kn
ows what else. Not only can’t I breathe, but I’m constantly gagging, so this is fun.
The thing finally pulls clear. I take in a gulp of air but am then immediately gagging, which does nothing for my ability to gather any air. Leaning over, I dry heave without end and the panic again sets in as I need to breathe. I force the retching back and draw in my first clean breath to fill my lungs—the first time I’ve been able to do that in a long while. Hot as it is, I drink the sweetness into my body.
The apparatus looks like some kind of surgical replacement device with several tubes coming off the central tube. Inside is some mechanical mechanism that drives the feeding tube inside up and down. The branching tubes most likely went into my sinuses, allowing me to breathe through my nose, the other one going down my trachea. I ponder how individualized these things are. I mean, every creature I saw was so different; they must have required their own devices to be modeled to fit.
That must have meant a bunch of test cases before they were able to get it right. Then there’s the matter of making sure the air mix was right, and not all of them had lungs. Take Bob, for instance. They had no organs that I could determine at all, except for their eyes. Any limbs they had, they manufactured. But that’s neither here nor there. I’m rid of this thing and it’s time to clear out the fog hounding my mind.
I rip open the MRE. Sipping first on the pouch of water, I slowly eat the contents. The fog clears to a great extent, but I’m still left feeling thirsty. The small bag of water is refreshing, but doesn’t come close to sating my thirst or fending off dehydration. My head is pounding and I’ll have to do something about water soon or I’ll be right back where I started. Why in the fuck did Trip have to plant me in the middle of the desert? And back where we were when we left?
That thought rings a bell in my head.
Back where we started.
I scramble up from my seated position and look around.
Well, fuck me!
