I took that moment to escape her mother’s clutches and approached the bed with my hand held out. Crickett reached out and took my hand as she then leaned toward me with her other arm out clearly expecting a hug. I took her into my arms, hoping we’d be giving the media less of a show than what her mother put on. Sure, I’d love to get a kiss from Crickett, but not in front of the entire world.
“Thank you, Vastian,” she said, “Would you please do us the honor of coming home with us?”
“What?” I sort of sputtered.
Astrid approached to the left of me as Crickett and I broke free from our embrace.
“Patient Welfare won’t release you unless you have a home to go to,” Astrid stated, “I think we all know your situation based on those familiar arm-rings.”
“Is it true, Vastian? Do you not have a home?” Crickett asked, gazing at me with those painfully beautiful brown eyes.
And they truly were painful. She looked at me in such a way that no one ever looked at me. Those eyes spoke of love, desire, and care. And they were so huge, round, and sweet that it literally caused a painful tug in the center of my chest.
“We don’t have a spare room, but we have a comfortable couch and some pillows,” I heard her brother add.
“Please,” I muttered.
“What’s that?” her mother asked.
I turned to her, “Please, can I borrow your couch until I figure this all out?”
“You heard the man!” Astrid turned to the nurses, “I want these releases signed and stamped immediately! Let me take my daughter home!”
“And Vastian?” someone added.
“Yes, whatever! Stop dilly dallying!”
ELEVEN
I got my clothing back and was permitted to take the comfortable pajamas with me after I’d gotten dressed. Astrid had become a frightening force of nature in regards to our discharges. It was very clear that the staff of doctors and nurses had wanted us to remain at the hospital, so it was no easy task to get the two of us out of there. We might as well have been trying to break out of one of those VidFilm high-security prisons.
Outside of the hospital, I got my first real view of vehicular traffic in this mysterious world. Sure, I’d seen the ambulance from behind as Crickett and I were taken from the woods, but that wasn’t enough to get a real idea of what the vehicles truly looked like.
Astrid had led us down a long cement walkway toward a small parking lot where there were about a dozen vehicles unlike anything I’d ever seen before. All the vehicles in that lot were identical four-door sedans, or perhaps they had been identical back when they were new. They all appeared to be made of plastic or maybe fiberglass and the majority of them looked to be quite old and damaged in some aspects. The only major differences in these vehicles were the variety of colors.
The vehicle that Astrid had led us to was a hazy, dull red one with an adulterated back end. It appeared as though someone had removed the lid of the trunk and then somehow built a rugged wooden platform with sturdy railings around it, effectively turning it into one of those old-fashioned pick-up trucks. It was now perhaps the ugliest vehicle in the entire lot and I had to wonder if I could trust its ability to even function.
Crickett’s younger brother ran to the vehicle ahead of us and took a seat in the front on the vehicle. Astrid opened the back door and gestured for Crickett and me to share the tattered leather bench seat in the back. Everything I’d seen so far about this vehicle suggested it was probably at least fifty years old and the interior was clearly no younger.
Crickett crawled in ahead of me and then I followed. Her mother closed the door, then rounded the back of the vehicle and took her position in the front seat next to Harrion. Moments later, the vehicle started up and we were moving quite rapidly out of the lot and onto a busy street.
I gaped out the window beside me as the alien world rushed by. We passed a variety of three and four story buildings in all shapes and sizes. I looked up toward the blue sky wondering just how high that ceiling was, assuming that this had been the fake world and mine was real. As I looked back down again at the blur of the nearby buildings, I felt a sudden urge to throw up.
I gasped and backed away from the window, covering my eyes with my hands. I felt myself collide with Crickett behind me as I blindly scooted away from the side of the vehicle.
“Are you alright, Vastian?” she asked, patting me on the shoulder.
I turned to her as I carefully uncovered my eyes, “I feel so dizzy and weird inside. It’s almost like a sort of vertigo.”
“Yeah, Mom’s driving can make anyone carsick. Don’t look out the windows,” she gazed upon me sympathetically.
“He’s probably never been in a car before,” Astrid offered.
It was probably best not to reply to that comment. It seemed that they knew far more about me than they should anyway. That confused me being that no one in my world knew anything about these people living in the mystical world above them.
My thoughts wandered back to my arrival here at the waterfall, then those same thoughts naturally shifted back to the violence that had been taking place in the pond beneath that rocky shelf. Nothing in my life could have ever haunted me more than the terrifying question I’d asked myself a dozen times already. And that question had continually been “What if I had arrived in this world merely five minutes later?” I closed my eyes momentarily to shut out the horror that my heart and mind couldn’t appropriately process.
“Crickett, what… why did…what did that horrible man do to you? Should I have killed him?” I asked, opening my eyes again to look at her.
She held my gaze for a moment, then shook her head, “He kept me tied up most of the time in his locked shed. Sometimes he’d come in and sit with me while I ate the food he brought, pretending the whole time that I was somehow his friend and that we were eating a normal dinner together. If I cried, he’d hit me pretty hard. He really was insane.”
“I’m so sorry for all you’d been through, honey,” Astrid choked out a sob, “And I’m sorry that the nosey media hasn’t given you a moment’s peace.”
“Mom, I’m okay now. And he never… well, he never violated me. He only talked about what he was going to do to me once I…” she shook her head as she looked down at the hands in her lap, “…once I was dead. He was very graphic about how he’d make love to those he’d killed before and he was going to do that to me.”
She swiped a tear from her eye as she then looked up at me. I reached out and took her hand in mine, then I pulled her toward me and put an arm around her.
“Is it okay that I do this?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t inappropriate, “You held me when I’d been hurting inside back at the pond.”
No one said anything. Crickett lay her head on my shoulder while I closed my eyes to shut out the dizzying movements of the vehicle.
“You should have killed him, Vastian,” Harrion said.
“Don’t talk like that, Harrion,” Astrid reprimanded him.
“He hit my sister. He abused her and hurt her. He was going to kill her for no other reason than so he could rape her dead body!” he snapped back at her, “He doesn’t deserve to live!”
“Well that’s for the courts to decide now. The only thing we get to decide is how we will protect our family from this day forward,” she argued.
The entire vehicle was vibrating now with a deep rumble emanating from all around us. It took me a moment to understand that we were now driving on a rough gravel path through a shady grove of trees. A minute later, I realized that we were pulling up alongside a quaint little one-story gray house that looked to be laid out in an “L” shape.
Astrid drove around the back of the house where I then noticed something that could either be defined as a miniature weathered barn or a very large barn-shaped shed. It was next to that shed/barn that the vehicle finally came to a stop.
“Welcome to our humble abode. Our home is your home, Vastian,” Astrid said as she quickly exited
the vehicle.
Crickett opened her door and exited just as quickly. I slid across the bench and exited the vehicle right next to their little familial huddle.
“I can’t thank you enough for allowing me to stay here for a little while. But I have to wonder,” I paused as I looked at these wonderful people. “Why would you trust a stranger like me though?”
Astrid stopped her progress toward the house and turned to me, “Should we not trust you?”
“Dude, could you teach me to break people’s arms with my bare hands?” Harrion interrupted as he began throwing air-punches at imaginary villains.
“I’m not sure your mom would appreciate that,” I patted his shoulder, then I turned to Astrid, “And yes, you most certainly can trust me. But the problem is, I’ve been in your world for… wait… I meant to say that… well…”
“Please don’t guard your words, Vastian,” Crickett said, taking my hand in hers as though she were my girlfriend or something.
I was suddenly concerned over the fact that Astrid didn’t seem to mind the fact that her precious daughter was holding a stranger’s hand. They knew nothing about me, yet in my world, such intimacies were only shared by those who’d already spent a lot of time together – days, weeks, months. I looked over at Crickett and sighed, feeling that I probably really had nothing to say that would surprise them.
“I’ve only been in your world since that important moment when I landed in that pool next to that horrible man. In such a short period of time, I’ve learned that maybe half to one-third of all the men I’ve spoken to are villainous or spiteful,” I said, “I honestly worry that you guys might be too kind and accepting of those around you. I don’t want to see you get hurt again, Crickett.”
“Who else talked to you that made you think that our men are villains?” Crickett asked.
I looked over at Astrid and Harrion. The four of us had found ourselves standing in the gravel driveway halfway between the car and the gray house. Everyone seemed to be focused on me at the moment.
“Idris was the name he gave me,” I began, just before I noticed Astrid throwing her arms up in the air and rolling her eyes.
“Idris is an idiot who believes that we’re all living inside a snow globe on some giant mad scientist’s desk,” Astrid said, approaching me quickly as she took my other hand in hers, “Did he ask about some magical doorway into our world? I bet he even asked you for Kapteyn’s personal phone number.”
“Kapteyn?” I breathed.
“Idris is an eccentric who believes we not only exist inside the borders of a science experiment, but he also believes our future is at the mercy of a man or place called Kapteyn,” Crickett explained.
“His angelic father told him as much, supposedly,” Astrid said, “Listen, Vastian. Our farm is surrounded by iron fencing and secure gates. It’s the same reason why there’s no media waiting around here with cameras in spite of the fact that Crickett was recently rescued by a very handsome angel while the serial killer who held us all captive in fear has finally been caught. Crickett is safe, Vastian. So are we.”
I sighed, then finally nodded to both of them, “Then I guess I’m at your mercy and I can only thank you immensely for taking me in.”
To my eternal shock, both Crickett and Astrid leaned in and kissed me at the same time on opposite cheeks. Life in this curious world was not going to be the slightest bit easy for me.
TWELVE
During the span of the next hour, I learned that this fenced-in farm was solely devoted to the growth and harvest of various apples. This farm produced a hundred percent of the world’s apples, apple juice, applesauce, apple cider, and ultimately, hard apple cider. I also learned that Crickett’s father, Astrid’s husband, had been a fairly elderly man who had died shortly after Harrion was born. I chose not to explore the details of his age or why the fairly attractive Astrid would have even chosen to marry someone clearly twice her age. Instead I asked what came to my own curious mind.
“How can one farm supply all the…” I paused, realizing that I’d almost used the word ‘ship’ instead of world, “How can you be responsible for all the apples in the world? How big is this farm?”
We were currently seated at the dining room table sharing a delicious meal of a hearty beef stew and some hot buttered dinner rolls. Astrid explained that this was actually a meal of leftovers. She had often made her soups and stews in the same giant pot so that it would free her up from having to truly cook for two to three days. With the family in mourning up until today, she hadn’t been in the mood to cook recently.
The mistake that I’d almost made in reference to calling this world around me a ship revealed the true direction of my current beliefs and understanding. If Idris believed that all of this were merely nothing more than a ‘snow globe’, then that meant my world down below was the real one. That meant that I had really been a navigator on the Endeavor and I’d been partially responsible for the safe arrival of not just 106 people, but maybe thousands or perhaps millions.
And that thought reminded me of the unusual numbers I had stumbled across while hacking into the computer mainframe before it had booted me out. Those numbers spoke of a larger ship than I had known about and I definitely saw a population that suggested anywhere from sixty thousand to upwards of a hundred thousand.
“We manage an orchard of ninety-two trees which really isn’t all that large. We have five different varieties of apples and due to their staggered growth cycles, we’re always in a state of harvest,” Astrid said, offering me another warm roll.
I took the proffered bread with a ‘thank you’, then started to butter it, “I can’t really thank you enough for not just taking me in, but for also allowing me to share in this amazing feast. Is there some way that I can help you on this farm?”
“Mom has six employees who take care of everything,” Crickett inserted, “We mostly just manage the paperwork and deliveries.”
“Yeah, that’s why our car looks so silly from the back,” Harrion added.
“Be grateful for what we have, Harrion,” his mother said, “We never want or need for anything thanks to the blessings of the Great Harvester.”
I looked over at Astrid as I ate another spoonful of that salty broth, shredded beef, and diced potatoes. She looked up at me just then and must have witnessed the confusion in my expression.
“The Great Harvester is the One who sees to our needs. We give to Him just a small percentage of our harvest every five days and when we do this, He blesses us with a day of rain for the soil,” she explained, “Granted it rains every other night anyway, but the only time it rains during the day is after we submit our offerings.”
“I see,” I replied, unsure of what else to say about their religious beliefs.
We finished our meal in silence, then I helped to clear off the table. Crickett was filling the kitchen sink with soapy water while Harrion hurried off to unknown places beyond the living room.
“Crickett, honey,” her mother nudged her away from the sink, “You haven’t been home in a week and you’ve been through quite an ordeal. Please let me take care of you for a little while.”
“I just want my life to get back to normal, Mom. Let me please just go back to how things always were,” she said.
I brought the stack of bowls and spoons to the sink, then Crickett took them and put them into the soapy water.
“Just this morning, someone had tried to kill you. It was this very day,” Astrid said, “Do you at least see my side of things.”
Crickett turned to her with suds on her forearms, “Yes, Mom. From yours and everyone else’s perspective, I was already dead and that had almost become true just this morning. But during all that time that I was in that horrible shed, I was imagining dinner with my family. I was imagining sleeping in my own bed. I missed all the normal, regular things from home. I fantasized about merely lounging on our sofa while watching my favorite VidFilms.”
I didn’t know why, but I was
sort of startled by the fact that they had VidFilms here. I tried to give them some privacy while I wiped down the table. Astrid hugged her daughter again, and then as near as I could tell, Crickett was permitted to go ahead and do the dishes. I quickly finished wiping down the table and then joined Crickett at the sink.
“Can I help?” I asked.
She nudged me with her hip, then handed me a sudsy glass, “Sure, you can rinse and then put these in the dish-drainer.”
Until I figured out what to do in this world or how to spend my time, Crickett was probably the only person I felt truly comfortable around. One could argue that it was merely due to a physical attraction, and I couldn’t deny that I’d love to just stare in awe at this beautiful big-eyed brunette. Or one could also argue that maybe it was because she had been in need of a rescue and since I had filled that need, it translated to ‘she needed me’. But then I would argue that after I heard that door at the waterfall slam shut and lock forever, I had become the one in need of a rescue and since she filled that need, I clearly needed her.
“Whatcha thinking?” Crickett startled me out of my moment of dazed wonder.
“Who rescued whom?” I felt myself grinning as she handed me a bubbly plate.
I could see her looking at me in my peripheral. After a moment, I turned to her wondering why she had stopped washing the dishes.
“You really want to compare what we’ve done for you to what you’ve done for me? You saved my life, Vastian,” she said, “No doubt, you saved my life.”
“And what did you do for me at the side of the pond when I lost all control of my emotions?” I asked, “You were still in the process of coughing that water out from your lungs. You weren’t even properly dressed, yet you rushed over to me and held me while I cried.”
“Well of course I’d do that! Who wouldn’t? You were sobbing like someone had literally torn your heart out,” she said.
“And it was right there that you rescued me just the same as I’d rescued you. We both were in dire need, and we both knew how to rescue the other,” I smiled at her.
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