Force

Keep On Keepin’ On

  Dawn is disguised by a hovering fog that dampens everything.

  It’s late when I wake and the fire is low. I work at it until it’s blazing and warm myself before going to fetch water. Tired of fish and berries, my last ration of beans makes breakfast.

  It’s getting harder not to think about how long I’ve been here; how much longer I might have to stay. I can’t let myself sit for too long or the bad thoughts try to overtake me.

  Today is day nine and I’m no closer to finding the other set of stones or my way home. I’ve tried to soak more energy from the waterfall, but there’s no guarantee how long it’ll take, or if it will ever be enough for the stones to amplify.

  I feel the claws of depression trying to take hold and beat them back with thoughts of Abi. I imagine her face—how she’ll look when I get back, how surprised and happy she’ll be when I show up at her door with flowers. I’ve never given her a bouquet. I’ve picked some and bought her one or two roses, but never an actual bouquet.

  I wonder, would she believe me if I told her everything?

  My hope is that two sets of stones are better than one—assuming, of course, that there is a duplicate set in this plane. I can’t imagine those dead rings in the forest were made by anything other than the Threestone.

  I’ve chased that damned dead patch for days, but can’t get to it. I’ve tried several times to get over into the area where I see green turning to brown, but keep running into impassable obstacles. High, spiny shrubs, rock walls that seem to grow from the forest floor, deep ravines with thickets of thorny briars.

  Yesterday, I gave up on a head-on approach and hiked down river. Camp is on the opposite side. The forest I’ve explored on the same side as the rings I can’t get to is too damned dense to make camp. The tangled brambles grow along the forest edge that traces the bank of the pool below the falls. It took an entire day to get past them. I had to find and cut long branches to lay them on top, walk across, and take them up again. About fifty feet in, I came to a ravine that I couldn’t find my way around and the poles I cut to get over the brambles were too thin to support my weight.

  I wish I’d packed a machete.

  It’s a trek downstream until the waterway thins and slows. I’m hoping to keep my feet dry today. Following a bend in the river, I come upon a makeshift bridge in the form of a beaver damn. The beavers don’t appreciate the intrusion and my feet still get wet. I take the time to change into a pair of dry socks before heading back down stream to get the poles I cut for the next patch of briars.

  Once they’re laid, I charge into the woodland.

  My fishing spear doubles as a walking stick to help fight through broad patches of undergrowth. Some trees are so tightly packed it makes me feel claustrophobic. Parts of this place look like a damned Hawaiian jungle.

  As I struggle through twisted greenery, dashing through the less dense patches—they’re small but are more frequent the further in I go—I hear a dull echo reeling through the trees. It’s not a creaking like the trees make when the wind blows. It’s rhythmic.

  Excitement makes me clumsy. It takes longer than it should to slip the length of rope through the handle of the mesh bag after slipping the Threestone into their rubber pouch and then dropping them inside. Once the mesh bag is secured shut, the rope goes through the straps of my backpack, then looped through once more and knotted. On the opposite end of the rope, I tie a short stick. Next, I climb up a dead tree that’s fallen between two enormous pines. It’s wedged in the perfect spot that makes an easy climb to a high spot near a huge, adjacent pine.

  Once I’m as high as I can safely get on the rotting log, I toss the rope up and over until it catches on a high branch of the nearest Sequoia. Using the rope like a pulley, I hoist my gear up and out of sight before tying off the end and hiding it among the foliage.

  Climbing back down, I begin my search for the source of the odd noise I heard.

  The closer I get, the more the ruckus sounds like clanging metal. Hastily, I mark my tracks on the trees with the Swiss Army knife to ensure I find my way back to where I stowed my gear.

  When the noise suddenly stops I keep going, even though fear ripples through me. Whatever it was that made the odd noises had to be close by.

  Suddenly, the trees break apart and I find myself in a vast field of waist high grass, eyeballing graded ground that has two clear, continuous lines running through it. Tire tracks?

  I follow the lines up the slope and then stop.

  A good distance away is a dip in the hillside. In the small slope, there sets an old covered wagon. The kind they used in old-ass TV shows starring Michael Landon. Strapped to the front of the pioneer-like wagon is a team of horses. One solid brown, the other splotched with white. They’re struggling; neighing and kicking like they’re scared.

  Waving my arms and calling out, I fight my way through the damp grass toward the path laid by the wagon. A man’s voice answers though it’s too far off to understand.

  Hope propels me forward.

  Life is full of unexpected moments. Situations that no one can prepare for—like the bus accident, finding myself in another version of 1996, losing my dad, and chasing Daemon—because there’s no way to prepare for the impossible.

  Without warning, the wagon goes airborne—first the top, then the whole wagon—shoots straight into the air. The horses’ eyes are saucer-wide as they struggle against the reigns. But they can’t run.

  My feet aren’t moving, either. I’m glued in place, hands clutching at the tall stalks of grass at my waist.

  A chilling moment passes as the canvas rides the wind and the wooden wagon breaks apart. The boxed bottom of the wagon smashes down, splintering into pieces. The blast sends the horses into frenzy. They break from their yokes and disappear into the forest, lost.

  All the while, I’m wondering what the hell is happening. There was no sound, no one else around, no movement or explosion—nothing to explain what caused... whatever I’m seeing.

  The crashing sounds settle, but then there are voices rising in the shocked air. One clearly sounds like someone in pain. It sends my stilled feet running again. The second comes through clearly. It’s rough, guttural, casting a broken cadence.

  I dive off the path made by the horse-drawn wagon and into the high grass. And wait.

  The field echoes deathly quiet.

  “The thing I fear most is, not knowing.” Eli once said as he stood in his office, slumping over his desk. “Were anything to happen to you, G, I’d never know. You simply wouldn’t come back and I’d be left to wonder if it was something I did or didn’t do.”

  We were arguing over what supplies I should take. I was convinced I only needed money and the Boom Packs. He wanted me to rethink my choices.

  I should’ve asked for invisibility spray. Surely, in a world where simple rocks can open wormholes into other dimensions, invisibility spray shouldn’t be so tough to find.

  I want to get close enough to see if anyone was in that wagon. Maybe the sounds I heard were someone groaning. And I want to see the thing responsible for this soundless explosion without the risk of being affected by it.

  The screams start as I crawl towards the security of the trees. Once I’m back in the denser areas and sure I can’t be spotted, I’m running.

  Back at the spot where I left my supplies, I climb up as high as I can, use the dangling rope to help balance as I stretch up for the higher branches.

  From this vantage point another, larger steppe is visible. But the tree line blocks all traces of the grassland and the wagon.

  I scan the forest nearest to where the horses disappeared but see nothing. What I do find is a nasty-looking cluster of dark gray clouds a few miles out. A storm. Maybe there’ll be lightning.

  My new objective.

  I spy the direction of the wind, watching for trace movements to guess the clouds path.

  Trudging as quick and quie
t as I can, it isn’t long before I reach another impassable point of undergrowth that reminds me why I had to leave the protection of the trees to begin with.

  The stones are inside the mesh bag, tied around my belt, hanging at my waist. Having them out might be a risk, but if I need them, I’ll need to have them handy.

  The bottoms of the stalks are wet. Before long, everything from the knees down is itchy and cold. The promising cloud bank is over the far steppe, looming like a dark promise. Lightning would do it. I’d be home in a heartbeat.

  Though I intended to avoid the open, the terrain makes me swerve around spiny plants and thorny thickets. Before long the trees at my right are too far away. I’m slowly heading toward the spot of the overturned wagon. I get low and cling to clumps of tall grass to help belly crawl up the slope. I stop several times to listen. Hearing nothing, I move a little more and then wait again, listening.

  It isn’t long before I come upon the wreck. A quick post-mortem at the scene reveals the wagon wood is splintered away from the boxed bottom. One wheel eerily squeaks, moved by the gusting wind. I focus further up the steppe, searching for a sign of what might have caused this. Was there an earthquake or volcanic eruption? IED?

  Surely, I would know by now if there are dinosaurs in this place. A giant turd or footprints would give it away, but the only prints I spot belong to horses.

  Covered wagons and dinosaurs aren’t a probable grouping, I imagine Eli saying. But, he also said the other worlds could be very different from ours. And considering the things I’ve seen; I believe more than ever that anything is possible.

  The storm clouds are closing in. I stop and watch them for a moment as they drift in tufted billows, spreading and retracting with the wind. The fanning plumes are small, but violent—a luminous black against radiant blue.

  I hold the stones out in front to ensure that if anything happens, if anyone tries to come at me, they’ll meet the stones first. They are my only means of protection. I should’ve packed a crossbow. In an ancient place like this, they’re practically useless unless electricity is involved. No, that’s wrong, I think. They’ve protected me; been there for me when no one else was and saved my life more times than I can count. I make a silent apology to my rocks, knowing they’ve brought me this far, they’ll take me further.

  It’s awkward; hiking through the grassy plain, trying to see past the tops of the stalks while still keeping below the grass line. My foot hits something and my eyes fall. The air races from my lungs as my gaze lands on a human leg. The unmoving flesh is flanked by an adjacent buttock.

  Shock jolts me to one side. Losing my balance, my elbow smacks on a length of straight dark hair.

  My whole body springs away, each muscle retracting from the tainted ground. In one, fluid move I’m back on my feet, crouching, gasping, trying not to make a sound while I shake the feel of plague and rotting carcass from my skin.

  Of course, the man—and I can tell it is a man by the broad, exposed shoulders, despite the long, neat braid that extends down his back—doesn’t look like he’s been here long enough to rot.

  But as I stare, from a safe distance, something seems... odd.

  The hand-sewn leather pants covering the lower half of the body indicate some type of Native American, but his skin color is all wrong. Indigenous tribes of North America have always had darker complexions. Then again, I’m no authority on native cultures.

  What I know comes mostly from John Wayne movies and glancing at history lessons as we were unceremoniously taught about the first Thanksgiving in elementary school. The body is white. Not chalky, like the blood has settled or been drained, just eerily white. And the disassociation throws me.

  There’s a tattoo on the body’s shoulder. Most of its guarded by the grass line, but the top of the figure forms and X, or something like it.

  Other than that, I don’t see any marks. No gashes or cuts. No injuries at all, actually. When I work up the nerve to check, he still feels warm. But there’s no rise of his rib cage and the hand I set near his sidled nostrils reveal no shift of air. He’s stock-still. I search for a pulse, but it’s hard to tell with his head turned to one side. The half of his face I can see is sallow, dark circles around the eye and white lips. With my foot, I push at the shoulder until he shifts onto his back.

  Wide golden bracelets cover each forearm. Heavy golden rings crudely jut through the flesh of his nose and ears.

  There are no visible wounds on this side either. No blood on the head or grass. A long leather sheath sets at his waist, tied by a leather string. It’s empty. No weapon. Keeping my distance, I watch for the telltale rise and fall of his chest. But there’s nothing. So, he either holds the world record for longest breath ever held or he’s dead.

  Since no Guinness reps are present, and the pale of his skin could match any fluorescent bulb, I have to assume he’s a goner.

  Toeing one of the wide bracelets on the man’s forearm, I notice shallow indentions in the luminous metal. There are three on each broad bracelet, each touching the other two in a familiar triad. Lightly carved into the bottom of each golden indention is a symbol. One shows a triangle, another, a spiral, and the third, a lazy eight. Sign of infinity.

  Eli called it the Singularity.

  In the movie Castaway, Tom Hanks took a dead man’s shoes and who could judge him? He was in dire need. I’ve stripped a dead man of his treasure because it bears the same symbols as the Threestone and that has to mean something.

  Everyone deserves some dignity, even in death. As I’m wondering how long it’ll take to dig a hole for the Native man, a glance up at the sky stops me. The clouds are no bigger than they were ten minutes ago. Matter of fact, they’re smaller; moving the wrong direction. After observing a moment of silence, I plod up the hill with hopes of thunder and lightning swirling in my head.

  At the top of the steppe, I come out of the trees and my heart pounds wildly as I take in the sights.

  Off in the distance, within a mesh of dark cloud lies a single pointed plume of white among the dark. The shape of it snakes down from the sky, reaching for the earth. Just below the accumulating funnel, resting at the crest of another hilltop within the small valley is a large square, out of place in this natural world. Manmade from some kind of beige stone, it looks like one of those half pyramids they’ve got in Egypt, a ziggurat. And dancing on top of it is another native.

  He is clearly alive and, from this distance, he appears to be alone and dressed similar to the dead man. He’s got the same porcelain white complexion, and he’s half-naked. Jumping and shaking as he shouts at the sky, gesturing toward the budding cone shape in the dark clouds. Light glimmers from the large plates of gold covering his forearms. He also wears a headdress of bright pluming feathers, shooting color in every direction which gives him a look of importance. It makes me think of the mural of Montezuma in downtown LA.

  Aztec? Mayan?

  To avoid discovery I slink back into the trees. Of course, now, I’ve blocked my view of the approaching storm and the native. There’s a wide rock jutting from in between trees near the edge of the hillside, I post myself behind it and peak around the mossy side. Watching, I think I understand the convulsing motions. It looks like he’s doing some kind of ritual or dance.

  I’ve never asked any Native Americans but have readily assumed a rain dance was done whenever rain was needed. The vegetation in this place is lush. Half the time, humidity has me sweating in my sleep. So, what is he doing?

  I hunker down, making myself more comfortable to watch.

  Another figure appears low on the far hillside and climbs up to the steps at the side of the stone foundation.

  A little boy.

  When the dancing chief sees him on the flat top he halts.

  I reach into my pack for the binoculars.

  The young native is dressed in the same type of animal skin pants with no shirt. He has long, crow black hair that touches his shoulder. The
re is no braid, headdress, or gold on the boy. He smiles up at the leader, who answers with unheard words and large hand motions. The boys’ lips move. The man who I’ve decided is the tribes’ chief makes more large motions, as if he’s describing something.

  That covered wagons sudden take off, perhaps?

  The boys smile disappears as he hangs his head and walks back the way he came, down the set of steps built into the side of the ziggurat and disappearing into the trees. Chief goes right back into his dance, this time accompanying his fancy footwork with loud, hooting noises that sound like an odd combination of joy and wailing.

  The day wears on while I watch. These are the first live people I’ve seen since I got here and since I don’t want to end up like the man in the wagon, I need to know more about them.

  The storm clouds begin to spread—louder, closer, and much, much, darker. The funnel cloud stays oddly light against the dark and doesn’t move from its position over the chief, but lightening is looking more promising and so are my chances of missing out on it. The lowland in this area is wide open and the Native has the high ground.

  My legs have started cramping. When I move to stretch, very near deciding whether to stay put and watch or make a break for the nearest clouds, I hear it.

  A distinct snapping noise that jolts me, kicks my senses onto high alert.

  The Indian is still on the ziggurat on the hill, his rain dance going strong—must be dancing for monsoons. But there are others. I want to hightail it.

  Realistically, it isn’t smart to run unless you know what you’re running from. Besides, where can I go? There’s no place to hide when you’re homeless and in unfamiliar territory. Up a tree is my only hope and anything I come across here can most certainly run and climb faster than me.

  So I do the only thing I can; grab the stones and listen.