On the ground was a pile of clothing. Perfect. I climbed back inside and picked up the clothes that were left for me, or any other Traveler who paid a visit. I first picked up a long-sleeved, bright red shirt. There were no buttons or zippers. No collar either. It was like a long-sleeved T-shirt, but the material was heavier and a little bit stretchy. The only design was a series of five black stripes that ran diagonally across the front from the left shoulder down to the right side of the waist. It reminded me a little bit of a rugby shirt. There was also a pair of pants. Simple, black, made from the same stretchy material. I was psyched when I saw the shoes. They were like my running shoes from Second Earth. They were black and didn’t look fancy, but they definitely looked comfortable. On my travels I had worn leather sandals and rotten rags and leather dress shoes and swim boots and pretty much anything else that was designed specifically to be uncomfortable. Here, I couldn’t wait to get them on. I quickly took off my Rokador clothes and slipped into the local attire. I kept on my boxers. That’s where I drew the line. If the future of all humanity was going to be decided on whether or not I wore boxers from Second Earth, there was no hope of saving it. The clothes fit perfectly, as usual. Even the sneakers. For the first time in forever I actually liked wearing my clothes.
I then noticed there was something else on the floor. It looked like a silver bracelet. It was a thick oval ring with a single groove etched deeply all the way around. It wasn’t fancy or anything. Nor did it look like it had any function. It was kind of clunky and felt heavier than it looked. But I figured if it was at the flume with the local clothing, I was meant to have it. So I jammed it in the back pocket of my new pants, along with the paper that had the strange rhyming invitation from Veego and LaBerge.
That’s when I heard the chattering again. Whatever was making the sound, this time there were more of them. Many more. The clicking and crunching sounds grew. I waited a second, expecting the sound to disappear again. It didn’t. Whatever it was, their numbers were growing. I slowly turned around. What I saw shouldn’t have surprised me. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it right away, but I didn’t. Bad move. What I saw in the darkness on the far side of the flume were dozens of tiny little eyes peering at me. That’s all I saw. The eyes. Yellow eyes.
Quig eyes.
My adrenaline spiked. A nanosecond later I was in the air, head first, diving for the square doorway out of the gate. I sailed through the opening, hit the ground, rolled, then popped back up and turned to see if I was being followed. I stared at the opened door, waiting for something to come out. It didn’t. That’s because it was already out. I felt a little tickle on my shoulder. Before I could react, something bit me. Hard.
“Owwww!”
I threw myself against a tall crate, hoping to crush whatever had attacked me. I slammed my shoulder, but I didn’t care. I wanted whatever had chomped me to be gone. I heard a crunching sound, and a squeal. Throwing myself away from the crate, I looked down as the vicious little hitchhiker fell to the ground.
It was a spider. A big spider. No, a HUGE spider. It looked like a tarantula on steroids. The beastie had to be the size of a kitten, but there was nothing cute or cuddly about it. Its thick body and multiple legs were bloodred; it had pincers in front that snapped like an angry lobster’s, and its head was so black that its yellow quig eyes looked as if they were glowing. I wasn’t sure if it had snagged me with one of its pincers or bitten me with its mouth. Either way, I hoped it wasn’t poisonous, or I would be done before I even got started on Quillan.
When I slammed the quig-spider into the crate, I rattled it, but didn’t kill it. The thing was on its back with its legs scrambling in the air. I was about to go over and step on it, when it suddenly flipped back onto its feet, and looked at me. I swear, guys, this little monster looked at me. It had intelligence. But as vicious as this little beastie looked, there was worse news.
It wasn’t alone.
I heard the scratching sound again and shot a look toward the hatch to the flume. What I saw made my stomach drop. Out came hundreds, no, thousands of the little quig monsters. They cascaded out of the hatchway and down onto the floor like a living, evil waterfall. I could hear their sharp little claws clicking against the cement floor like nails. Sharp nails.
Was I scared? What do you think? But as I watched those vicious little beasties stream out of the gate, I actually had a fleeting thought that snuck through the terror: I was in the right place. Saint Dane had brought quigs to the flume. This territory was hot. Things were going to happen. But it wasn’t more than a flash of a thought that was immediately replaced by another.
These monsters were coming for me. It was time to be someplace else.
Journal #24
(Continued)
Quillan
I’m not afraid of spiders.
A lot of people are terrified of the little critters, but I never understood that. They’re bugs. They’re tiny. Even if they bite you, which is rare, it’s not all that painful. What’s to be scared of?
On Quillan, plenty. At least at the flume, anyway. These quig-charged little monsters weren’t anything like the spiders on Second Earth. They were the size of small hams and bit like angry dogs. If that weren’t bad enough, there must have been eight-freakin’-thousand of them, all with one thing on their evil little minds: Get Bobby Pendragon.
I was now officially afraid of spiders.
I did the first thing that any brave Traveler would do under the circumstances: I turned and ran like hell. But I had no idea where to go. I was caught in a maze of wooden crates. My only thought was to weave my way through and find the door out of that musty old tomb of a warehouse. The crates were stacked up all over the place, some towering almost to the forty-foot-high ceiling. Whatever they were storing in there, there was a lot of it. I didn’t turn around to see if the spiders were following. I didn’t need to. I could hear them. Thousands of little spider claws clattered against the cement floor as they scrambled to get me. They all gave off this odd high-pitched squeak that sounded like a juiced-up war cry. A single one of these would sound creepy. Multiplied by many thousands made the hair go up on the back of my neck. They were fast, too. It was hard to outrun them. Worse, I couldn’t break into a full-on sprint because the aisles were so narrow and windy. Every so often I’d hit an intersection and make a quick decision which way to go. Left, right, left, left. I had no idea where I was going, but it didn’t matter so long as it was away from that attacking army of bugs.
I didn’t know how long I could stay ahead of them. My fear was that I’d hit a dead end and be trapped. Quigs took different forms on each territory, but the vicious killing machines that Saint Dane created to guard the flumes all had one thing in common: They were bloodthirsty. Remember the quig-bears on Denduron? The smell of blood made them eat their own. The quig-sharks on Cloral nearly tore themselves apart to get under the rock overhang where Uncle Press and I were hiding in fear. At least I was hiding in fear. Uncle Press was pretty cool about the whole thing, if I remember. But whatever. Bottom line was, here on Quillan I didn’t want to get trapped in a dead end with these yellow-eyed fiends.
I hoped that if I got far enough away from the gate, the quigs would lose interest. A quick look over my shoulder told me I was wrong. If anything, there were more of them rolling toward me like a dark, demonic wave. I looked around to get my bearings and realized I was in the middle of a sea of crates, with no exit to be seen. Anywhere. I was getting tired, fast, and I was no closer to escape than when I started. But stopping wasn’t an option.
I made one turn and pulled up short when I saw that up ahead of me a swarm of spiders had rounded the corner and were charging right for me. These weren’t mindless bugs; the little creeps were using tactics! I saw more proof of that when I realized that they were being led by a single spider. At least I thought it was in the lead. It’s not like it was carrying a big flag and shouting “Charge!” or anything. But it was obviously bigger than the rest. I
t had more red in it, and its yellow eyes were bigger too. The multitude fanned out behind it as if this big fatty were the point of an arrow. This was no cute group of insects from some animated Pixar movie where the boss bug shouted out clever wisecracks. No, when this bad boy opened its mouth, it would be to rip into flesh. My flesh.
I wheeled to run the other way, but froze when I saw that the rest of the sea of spiders was behind me. They had split up and circled me. Smart bugs. Good for them. Bad for me. I was trapped. The only way I could go was up. I was next to a stack of wooden crates that towered a few feet over my head. I leaped straight up, grabbed the top of the crate, and pulled myself up. It’s amazing what adrenaline will do. In seconds I was throwing my leg up over the top and looking back down to see the two groups of spiders converge. I was safely out of harm’s way…
For about ten seconds. The two groups of bugs joined together and, without missing a beat, began climbing up the side of the wooden crate toward me, with the not-so-itsy-bitsy spider in the lead. I quickly rolled onto my feet and ran. I was on a whole new playing field. Looking forward, I saw that I was on top of a sea of crates that rose up on multiple levels. I couldn’t run there. One wrong step and I’d fall to the floor, break my leg, and become bug chow. No, I had to be careful. It was more about leaping from crate to crate than actually running. No sooner did I get to the end of one big crate than I’d have to climb up to another, or jump down a level. This didn’t seem to bother the spiders, though. They reached the tops of the crates and swarmed forward, rolling over the terrain like a creeping shadow. They were definitely going to catch me unless I thought of something, fast.
I bounded across one crate and had to stop short, or I would have fallen down into an aisle that stretched out to either side. I looked back to see the spiders were nearly on me. Their screeching grew louder, as if they knew the end was near. Or the beginning, if you were talking about their lunch. I had no choice but to leap across the chasm between the crates. I took a few steps back, held my breath, sprinted for the end, and leaped through space.
I made it to the far side with a few feet to spare. Again, thank you, adrenaline. I soon got more good news. Bugs couldn’t jump. At least they couldn’t jump far enough to make it across the aisle. The bugs had to climb down one side of the wall of crates, scramble across the floor, then crawl back up on the other side of the aisle. My side. I was kind of hoping they wouldn’t make it across at all, but the extra time it took for them to go down and across and up gave me the chance to get some distance from them. I jogged forward, looking for more aisles to leap across and get even farther away. I leaped across one, two, three more aisles. With each crossing my confidence grew. I was buying enough time to find my way out of this not-so-fun house. As I traveled farther away from the bugs, their squeaking and chattering grew faint. I figured I had survived yet another brush with Saint Dane’s quigs without a scratch.
I was wrong.
I decided to leap across one more aisle to make sure the bugs were far enough back that I could climb down and find the exit. But when I launched myself across and landed on the crate on the far side, the top edge cracked under my weight. If I had been prepared, I probably could have landed safely. But I was getting cocky. I should have jumped farther. Oops. The surprise was what got me. The wood of the crate must have been old and rotten, because before I realized what was happening, I crashed down to the floor in a shower of splinters and dust. I must have conked my head, because I was knocked loopy. All I remember of those few moments was the dust and debris raining down on me from the fractured crate. I didn’t know if I was hurt or stunned or simply confused. I remember sitting there for a while, though I’m not sure for how long. It could have been a few seconds, or more than a few minutes. What finally snapped me back to reality were the familiar sounds.
Screech. Chatter.
The bugs were back.
I was in no shape to get up and start running. I was too dizzy for that. But I still had enough sense to realize they would be on me any second. I looked around for something to defend myself with. At my back was the splintered crate. It was made from long slats of inch-thick wood. The one side had cracked open and I was able to yank off a long piece of wood. It was about four feet long and a few inches wide. More importantly, it was solid. I tested it against my knee. The rotten boards must have all been on top. This side piece was intact. It wasn’t exactly a wooden stave like the one Loor had taught me to use on Zadaa, but it would have to do.
I got weakly to my feet, with my eyes looking up at the top of the crate I had just fallen from. If the bugs were coming, they’d come from there. I gripped the rough piece of wood, turned my body sideways to make a smaller target as Loor had instructed, and lifted my weapon. I was ready…or at least as ready as I was able to get.
So were the spiders. They attacked by flinging themselves from the edge of the crate above. These devilish bugs couldn’t jump up, but they could definitely jump down. I briefly thought how it was incredible that these bugs could be so focused. So smart. There was definitely intelligence going on here. They were smarter than any quig I had faced so far. The thought quickly flashed through my head that all the inhabitants of Quillan might be bugs, like the cat klees of Eelong. But that gruesome thought only distracted me from my mission, which was to survive. If I was going to have to fight a race of intelligent, vicious bug people, the battle for Quillan was under way.
They came at me, flying through the air, screaming. I batted them with my makeshift wood-plank weapon, knocking them away like, well, like bugs. These guys may have been smart, but they weren’t very strong. The first bug I hit screamed and flew back across the aisle. It smashed against a crate on the far side, and fell to the ground. It looked dead. Of course, I wasn’t going to go and check its pulse. I had a few thousand other things to deal with at the time. But seeing this gave me hope. These spiders were fragile. They had the numbers, but I had the power. The question was, would I burn out before they ran out of reinforcements?
They flew at me from above; I swatted at them quickly. Whap! Crack! It was like high-speed batting practice. Good thing I knew how to switch-hit. It wasn’t much different from fending off Loor’s attacks when we sparred in the training camp of Mooraj. I was on fire. The dizziness was long gone. Thanks again, adrenaline. I cracked the attacking bugs as fast as they came at me, sending them crashing against the hard wooden crates.
But the bugs weren’t done. They were leaping in ones and twos. That’s how I was able to smack them all away. I feared that once they realized my defenses were limited, they’d send more than a few at a time and I’d be in trouble.
“Ouch!” I felt something bite my leg. I didn’t need to look down. I knew that a spider had made it to the floor and was on my ankle. I shook it off, only to feel another stinging bite on my other ankle. I knew I couldn’t stand my ground anymore. There were too many of them. I had to get out. While still swinging away at the leaping kamikaze bugs, I started to back out of that aisle. The bugs countered. I could see them above me, gathering on top of the crates across the aisle, getting into a new position to attack. As I backed off, I could feel the bodies of the beaten spiders crack under my feet. If I weren’t so charged up, I probably would have been grossed out. But that was the least of my worries. I was losing. I had to retreat.
With one last swing of my wooden plank, I knocked another spider into next week, then turned and ran. I rounded the corner of another aisle, hoping to see a straightaway where I could turn on the jets and sprint out of there. What I saw was the straightaway I hoped for…but it was filled with more spiders. At the front of the pack (do spiders come in packs?) was the fatboy. Its bright yellow eyes were trained on me. It was a showdown. No, worse. It was over. I had nothing left. The big spider reared back on its legs, like a cat ready to pounce…and charged. The others were right behind it, screaming and scrambling.
I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t go forward. All I could do was climb again. I looked
up and saw that the crates here were stacked just as high but were smaller in size. The top crates were about two-feet square. I got an idea that sprang from pure desperation. I jumped up and hooked my finger on top of one of the smaller crates. But rather than pull myself up…
I pulled the crate down. It was heavy, but I wasn’t about to let that stop me. For what I wanted to do, heavy was good, and timing was everything. I pulled the crate down so hard I felt the muscles of my arms burn. But it toppled. The spiders were nearly on me. I dove out of the way. The crate came down and smashed on the cement floor…right on top of the fat leader. I heard it scream. It sounded almost human. But I didn’t have time to be grossed out. I hoped this move would buy me the few seconds I needed to escape, so I jumped onto the broken crate and launched myself up to where it had been. I was about to continue my escape across the carton tops, when I glanced back to see something impossible: The spiders were retreating. Fast. I stopped to watch as the wave of black little demons slipped back like the receding tide. They kept chattering and screeching, but there screams sounded more scared than angry. It was like the queen bee of a hive had been destroyed, and none of the other bees had a clue what to do, so they scattered. Psych! I didn’t even mean to crush the fat little monster. All I wanted was a few extra seconds to escape. But hey, I’d rather be lucky than good anytime. I sat on a crate to catch my breath, and watched the spiders disappear to who-knows-where. I didn’t care. All that mattered was that they weren’t after me anymore.