by Matt Snee
“That seems to be a common occurrence when I'm with you.” He laughed.
“It's not my fault, I swear.” She grinned.
They walked slowly through the eerie cave, which was huge around them: airy, echoing, and strangely peaceful. “These are old?” Captain asked.
“Very old. I don't know how old really. History …history is incomplete.”
Captain was hungry now. Real hungry. And lightheaded too as he walked along next to Jennifer.
“Let's rest,” Jennifer said.
“Okay,” Captain agreed.
They sat. Jennifer dug into her bag. “Here,” she said, handing Captain a sandwich. “Eat this.”
It was peanut butter and jelly and tasted delicious. He chewed it vigorously, happy. His eyes lit up and his soul lifted inside him.
“Thank you,” he mumbled through the bread.
Equally starved, she also ate and nodded. “You're welcome.”
When they finished, they laughed. “It's a good thing you brought that,” Captain told Jennifer.
“Yeah. I have more, but we're going to need them later. It's still a long way to the Devasthanam. I have water too,” Jennifer suggested. “Do you want some?”
“Sure.”
He took a long sip, reveling in the clear taste of the water.
“Are you tired?” she asked. “We can go to sleep …?”
“Okay,” said Captain. “Maybe that's a good idea. I'll keep watch. You can go first.”
Her eyes glowed in the strange darkness. “Thanks.” She smiled.
He let her fall asleep and kept watch. The tunnel was quiet, empty. He did his best to get his bearings. His life had been torn upside down, and he needed a couple hours of just silent thinking. He leaned back against the wall and looked up and down the tunnel. Nothing. He sighed. He still didn't feel safe. He held onto the owl knife tightly.
He thought of his mother. It almost seemed like his previous life hadn't really existed, that it had only been a dream, while this new life was all there had ever been. He wheeled his last moments with her through his head: eating breakfast with her in the morning and the sound of her TV shows drifting through the house as he had worked on his new book before he had taken his daily bike ride through the park and all of this had started. He and his mother had taken care of each other for a long time.
* * *
After some time, Jennifer awoke, startled. Soon enough she realized where she was and whom she was with. My God, she thought. Is all of this real? The axis mundi rippled around them, and the eye that was her mind struggled in the brightness of revelation. An old saying came to her, this one not from the Bhagavad Gita, but from the older Rig Veda, ancient Hindu Hymns preserved throughout time:
“You cannot find the one who has created you; another has come between you.”
She shuddered at the thought. Fangler, fate, chaos, or demiurge: an enemy awaited them. We must go! she thought. “Do you need to rest?” she asked him.
“I can't,” he said. “Not now. I'm too excited and crazy. Maybe soon.”
“Okay,” she said. “Good. But tell me when. Let's go.”
* * *
The strange light of the worm cave spawned stranger shadows around them, mismatched shapes that undulated in the darkness. Captain took each step carefully, as though at any moment, all of it could disintegrate and he could be lost in bare space or crushed by impossible rock.
Jennifer was more intent. Her heart beat vigorously, and she clenched her fists. She was more determined than ever. Their experience on Venus had taught her that anything could happen and that danger lurked where she least expected it. She reminded herself not to be fooled again.
They were silent for a long time. The worm caves were silent too, achingly so, evoking a terrible loneliness and timelessness that clawed at their hopes. Still, things seemed relatively safe, and they both calmed as they made their way through the madness.
Finally, Captain noticed a strange vibration under his feet, as though something liquid churned beneath the rock. He mentioned it to Jennifer, who nodded.
“There's a worm nearby,” she said.
“What are they?” he asked.
“No one is quite sure. But they are what carve these caves from between the atoms. In a way, it's almost accidental, but no one knows. They dig, imperiously, and these caves are what they leave behind. This rock we stand on …it's a kind of nothingness. The space that we exist in here, between the rock, that's what's been created.”
“What do they eat?”
“Something really small that we cannot see, a lot of it, like whales eat plankton,” she answered.
“Now that's nuts,” Captain replied.
“Yeah,” Jennifer agreed. “It's pretty nuts.”
“So we don't really know where we're going?”
“No, not really.” Jennifer laughed, nervously. “Have faith.”
Captain grunted.
They continued on the same path.
* * *
Finally, Captain had to rest. He slipped to the ground and motioned to Jennifer that he needed a drink. She pulled out her canteen and gave it to him. He drank, swallowing forcefully.
“Careful,” she said. “We don't have much.” She was thirsty too, but she decided not to drink.
Captain finished and inhaled loudly. He lay back onto the ground and turned onto his side.
“It's okay,” Jennifer told him, sinking to the ground. “We can rest.” Jennifer sighed silently. Had she pushed him too far? Soon enough he passed out and began snoring. It made her smile, though the act of doing so made her feel weak and brittle. A man burdened by his body cannot relinquish his actions, she thought, remembering the Bhagavad Gita.
She looked up and down the cave, catching a wisp of an odor on the air. It follows, she thought. The Fangler.
Jennifer had not told Captain about this fact. The monster that had pursued them on Earth pursued them still and was closing in. She reached for her necklace and wrapped her fingers around the wish jewel. But not yet, she whispered in her mind.
It was an heirloom from her mother, her most sacred item. It was also a curse though; in ways she had only begun to suspect.
Once she was sure Captain was deep in sleep, Jennifer lit a cigarette and exhaled blue smoke into the cave. Ah, she thought, happy for a moment. Life's little pleasures. Some enlightened Hindu I am, she scolded herself.
She wondered if they would ever reach the Devasthanam, her home, and where her alien foster parents waited for her. What could she do but hope? And what would happen once they arrived? What then?
She shivered and smoked the cigarette until there was nothing left.
* * *
Captain dreamt of his father. They walked along the beach, he playing with the sand with his feet and his father flicking the ashes of his cigarette. There were waves crashing but without noise. The water flooded across the sand, wrapped around their ankles, hesitated for a moment, and then pulled back out to the sea.
The sky was a merciless green-blue. Strikingly white clouds blew from horizon to horizon, only once in a while standing guard against their obverse, the sun, which in this dream had a warm but thorny stare, lingering over him, feasting on hydrogen.
There were bunches of children playing in the surf. Pretty girls lay with their sunglasses and their magazines. Athletic, young men jogged across the sand. Old couples sat with their backs to the sun.
His father did not speak. But his presence filled Captain with an unsustainable warmth. So it was a happy dream, sometimes. Other times he watched as his father sucked at his cigarette, staring back over the dunes toward the parking lot and the western sky. Captain could already feel that he was losing his father's attention, that there were other things on his mind, strange swampy things that children didn't understand. Captain reached out and took his father's hand. His father looked down at him and smiled.
Then a wind picked up the sand and blew it into their faces. They laughed.
Someone's umbrella popped out of the sand and tumbled down the beach.
He could smell something else now, something underneath the air, a certain seething that no man could tame.
And only one question: where was his mother?
* * *
Some hours later Captain woke with a start. He found himself in the peculiar darkness with Jennifer sitting beside him, reading through a leather-bound book. He looked up into her eyes and it dawned on him that he was still trapped in the same reality he had been in before he had gone to sleep.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hey,” he responded, a little bit moody.
“You ready?”
“Yeah.”
They got to their feet and started again.
* * *
They walked for some time, the monotony of the cave and the silence providing them with little comfort …until something pierced that quiet, and they wished things had been as they were. A rattling metallic sound could be heard coming from before them. Jennifer stopped, touching Captain's arm. “Do you hear that?”
“Yes. What is it?”
“I don't know.”
The racket came echoing down the corridor until they were met by a hooded figure pulling a small wagon. Jennifer reached into her bag and held onto the solid metal of her laser gun, prepared for the worst.
“Greetings, travelers,” the creature said, and indeed it was a creature with a fat, hooked nose and a chin too long and sharp to be human. It stood hunched, with long arms and short legs, and its eyes were covered by black sunglasses that were out of place in the darkness of the laser cave. Its voice was both playful and gruff. “Do not fear, my friends. I am but a humble merchant trying to earn a living amongst the stars.” He waved his arm, gesturing toward his cart. “Might you want to peruse my wares?”
Captain looked at Jennifer, lost. She was cautious; she had heard many stories of the things that lurked in these caves. But she had never heard of anything like this.
“Fate has brought us together, yes?” continued the merchant. “Would be a pity to waste opportunity.”
Jennifer frowned. Demon, jinn, or undiscovered alien, the creature had a point. Captain realized this too at the same time and peered behind the merchant at his wagon.
“What do you have, exactly?” he said.
“Mmmm, many things, many things,” snickered the creatures. “Things one needs and things one likes. Take a look, let's make a deal.”
They crept up to the cart and examined its contents. Captain barely recognized anything. There were weird plastics that blinked, strange geometric shapes, and the weirdest looking computers. But there were also unexplained sacks and bottles, and even a cage of little, blue lizards. He was afraid to touch anything.
Jennifer wasn't so shy. She lifted things up, weighing them in her hands, questioning their value. But there was nothing she wanted.
“We need food and water,” she admitted.
“That I have, yes I do,” agreed the merchant, licking his lips and scratching his belly. He opened up a sack. “Dried meat? Bread? And water of course. Always be prepared for anything, my father used to say.”
Captain doubted such a creature had been born so naturally. “We'll take as much as you can give us,” he told the merchant.
“And… how will you be paying? I do so love making deals,” mused the creature.
“With gold,” Jennifer said, reaching into her bag.
“That'll do, I suppose,” said the merchant, visibly disappointed. But he handed Captain a bag of food and two canteens of water, which Captain slung thankfully over his shoulder.
“Is this enough?” asked Jennifer, handing the creature a set of coins.
“Yes, yes,” the merchant said, counting them with his clawed hands. “That's just perfect.” He suddenly erupted into a coughing laughter, bending his head back and covering his mouth with one hand as he placed the coins in his pocket with another.
Jennifer bit her lip. They were in dire straits to rely on such a traveler, who could have emerged from untold planes far from here. Still, perhaps something had finally smiled upon them …something, or someone.
* * *
They bid goodbye to the merchant, who rattled his cart the opposite way, and continued their way through the cave.
After some time, Jennifer complained she needed to rest her legs, and they sat upon the cave floor having a snack and rubbing at their leg muscles. Instead of sleeping immediately, Jennifer instead pulled the leather-bound book she had earlier from her bag and opened it up and started reading.
“What is that?” Captain asked.
“It's one of my father's books,” she told him.
“What's it about?”
“The caves. My father had a lot of advice for exploring the solar system.”
“Your father's books are important to you, aren't they?”
“Yes. They're all I have left of him. I read his words and it's like he's talking right to me …”
“My father was a jerk,” Captain said.
“How so?” Jennifer asked. She already knew the answer.
“He was a criminal. He was sent to prison when I was very young. In my teens he was out for a little while, but then he got sent back in. He was pretty much gone my whole life. My mom and I had to fend for ourselves. My mom … she loved him until the end, but all I could ever do was hate him.”
“Our parents can really doom us, can't they?” Jennifer said. “Because of my parents, I didn't even grow up on Earth. But I forgive them now, I guess. I just wanted a normal life. And I always thought that eventually I would get one.”
“Me too,” sighed Captain. He felt a little down. “Earth can be pretty crappy.”
“It can also be wonderful,” Jennifer argued. “I would love to live on Earth.”
“What time do you think it is?” he asked her.
“It's two in the afternoon, your time,” Jennifer answered.
“Time is different out here,” Captain lamented.
“Time is different no matter where you are,” she corrected.
“How much longer, do you think?”
“Long,” she apologized.
“That thing is following us,” Captain told her.
“Yes. How can you tell?”
“I can smell it.”
“Me too. Only its prey can smell it. It's a bizarre creature.”
“What is it exactly?”
“An old thing, always evil. It is a master of illusions. A demon, maybe. Not an alien. More like a terrible Angel than a living being.”
“Can it be killed?”
“I don't know.”
“Why is it after us?”
Jennifer wondered. “There must be an enemy we do not know about. Someone trying to stop us. Someone who knows more than we know.”
“Who could it be?”
“A person? A god? It could be anybody.”
Captain did not reply. The Fangler had killed his mother. He had never understood the necessity for revenge until that moment. Now he was afire with it, hoping for his rage to be met.
“I'm going to sleep,” she said. “I need to rest.”
“Okay, I'll keep watch again.”
“Thank you.” Jennifer smiled weakly.
The cave was quiet. There was no wind. No sound. Thankfully there was light.
11.Pup
He was enthralled by the heavens. He was enthralled by the Earth. He was enthralled by the silence of the gods, the cacophony of the savage rain and wind, the laughter of bubbling creek beds, the songs of whistling birds. Still, he buried his son and daughter on a cool autumn day with a cannibalistic sadness in his heart. If this was life—and it undoubtedly was, for no dream could be so wrenched in such heavy minutes—then what was death?
Lewis Darby, “The Gray Sound of Love”
Finally she stirred after what seemed to be an interminable amount of time, opening her eyes and looking up at Captain.
“Hi,” she
said, drowsily.
“Hi,” he said. “Did you sleep okay?”
“I feel better. That's something. Do you want to sleep?”
“No.”
“We should go then.”
“Okay.”
They got up and walked. The cave curved for a long time and then was straight for a few miles. It all seemed endless.
It was hard not to be discouraged. Captain struggled to keep his spirits up, but a part of him still thought it was all an insane dream. He wondered how long he could keep up with such amazing surroundings.
A new wind blew through the cave, the strongest one yet, and when it stopped they could hear a metal rattling coming from the darkness in front of them. Jennifer took hold of her laser gun, and Captain took hold of his knife.
As the sound came closer, it was accompanied by the sound of soft footsteps and panting. Captain peered into the darkness and saw a dog wearing a collar and tags, coming toward them happily. It was a German Shepherd, brown and black, with big eyes and upright ears and …
He knew it.
But it couldn't be.
Jennifer watched as Captain lowered his knife and his mouth fell open in shock. The dog pattered toward them and then leapt into Captain's arms, licking his face and whining.
“Pup?” Captain gasped. “Is that you?”
It was the name of the dog he had had in his youth, Pup, a German Shepherd who had passed away when he had been only sixteen. He had known the dog his whole life, and the loss of her had crushed him as a teenager. The first real death he had faced.
“Pup!” he exclaimed as the dog continued to lick his face. He embraced her and smiled happily.
“Do you know this dog?” Jennifer's fingers tightened around her laser gun.
“Yes!” Captain told her. “Yes, it's my dog when I was a kid, Pup, I can't believe it, I haven't seen her in twenty-five years or so!”
“It has to be some kind of illusion or spirit,” Jennifer said. “It can't be real.”
“But feel her!” Captain argued, laughing as Pup barked playfully in his face. “She's real!”
Pup finally let go of Captain and stood on her four legs, looking toward Jennifer and sniffing. The dog wagged her tail and her tongue hung out of her mouth as she smiled a dog smile.