“Here. Here is good,” Tullok chirped.
“OK. Well, I can’t see shizz,” said Cal. “So I hope you know the way back, or we’re completely…”
There was a sound like a number of babies sighing. A few hundred tiny pinpricks of blue light rose into the air, illuminating the forest floor beneath them. They drifted upwards from buttercup-sized purple flowers which budded into bloom below them.
Cal stepped back to get a better view of the flowers and their lights, and the sighing spread like gossip behind him. Thousands of the tiny flowers unfurled their purple petals, each one spitting a floating ball of light into the air.
“Whoa,” Cal whispered. “That is incredible.”
“Log,” said Tullok, pointing to a fallen tree which was now picked out in shimmering shades of blue. “Sit. We both sit. You. I. We sit.”
Cal lowered the old man onto the fallen tree’s trunk. He slid off Cal’s back, hobbled along the tree on his stumps for a few paces, then flopped into a seated position. Grinning, he tapped the trunk beside him. “Here. You sit with me.”
“What are these things?” Cal whispered, still watching the balls of light as he lowered himself onto the trunk. The glowing spheres had risen four to six feet off the ground, then all stopped. They hung there now, casting their glow, as the flowers beneath them closed their petals and went back to sleep.
“One of this world’s many wonders,” said Tullok. “Wonders that will be no more. Soon, I fear. Very soon.”
“Yeah, that last quake was pretty rough,” was all Cal could think to say. He shook his head and turned away from the lights. “You wanted to talk to me?” He was halfway through the sentence when his eyes widened. “Wait. You understood me! When I asked what they were, you understood me.”
“I understand many things,” said Tullok. “Not your words. Your words are a mystery. But their meaning? Yes. The way you talk. The way you look. The way you move.”
Cal frowned. “So… you do or you don’t understand what I’m saying?”
“I understand your pain,” Tullok said. “You have lost much, I think. Too much.”
Cal said nothing.
“So very much. This is why you will not lose your companion. Why you cannot. Yes?”
“I told him I wouldn’t leave him. I promised him,” said Cal. His voice became uncharacteristically quiet. “And he’s my friend.”
Tullok tapped Cal on the chest. “Good man. Young man.” He placed his hand against his own skinny torso. “Old man. Old enough.”
“Hey, you’re not that old,” said Cal, taking in Tullok’s wrinkled face and turkey-like neck. “I mean, you can’t be more than… what? Ninety? A hundred and ten, tops.”
“I am alone now,” said Tullok. “My tribe – my friends – are no more. Gone.”
“You don’t know that,” said Cal, having a stab at sounding positive. “Some of them might have survived. And there must be others out, you know, in the woods or whatever.”
“I am the last,” said Tullok, tapping his chest again. “I feel it. In here. And I do not wish to be alone.”
Cal slapped his hands on his thighs. “Well, OK, then. You can come with us. You can be, like, the ship’s doctor. Once we get a ship. We’ll have adventures. You’ll love it.”
“I would like to give myself to you,” said Tullok.
Cal hesitated. “Uh… OK. That’s, I mean, I’m flattered. Honestly. It’s just you’re not really my type.”
Tullok lunged for Cal, his long fingers splaying out as his hands clamped around his head.
“What the fonk? Are you trying to kiss--?” was as far as Cal got before his brain was filled with sweet, golden syrup. It swelled his skull and dribbled down his spine, filling him all the way. Cal’s arms and legs became heavy, so he couldn’t fight back, even if he wanted to.
“I am old. I am alone. You are not. You need not be,” Tullok said, his voice whispering like a winter’s breeze. “All that I have, I give to you. All that I am, is now yours.”
Cal was immobile now, his body refusing to respond to his brain’s commands. Not that his brain was commanding all that much. It was too busy savoring the sensation of pure liquid joy that currently flooded its nerve-endings and pathways.
Right at the edge of his eye line, he saw Tullok’s leg stumps darken and crumble. Layers of skin broke up like burnt paper, drifting into the air as flakes of ash.
“S-stop,” Cal managed to slur, the word coming out as a dribble of spit on his chin.
Tullok smiled, even as the blackness spread up over his hips and groin, burning him to cinders. Still the syrupy goodness bubbled inside Cal. He felt like he was being dragged down by the stuff now, frantically treading water as he fought to stay afloat.
“My life force is yours,” the old man wheezed, even as his chest became ash. “Use it. Save your friend.”
His mouth opened to say more, but his throat was now gone. The arms crumbled to dust, freeing Cal from their grip.
“MECH!” Cal bellowed, then his face twisted in an expression of terror as Tullok’s kindly-looking head landed in his lap. Instinctively, he tucked his hands beneath it and launched it across the clearing, then gasped in horror at what he’d done.
“Shizz! Sorry, Tullok. I am so sorry,” he babbled, scrambling through the grass to where the old man’s head had landed. He picked it up, realized it was upside-down, and turned it the right way. Tullok was still smiling, although his eyebrows suggested he was ever-so-slightly annoyed.
Mech shouldered aside a tree and crashed into the clearing, just as Tullok’s head crumbled to dust in Cal’s hands.
“What the fonk did you do?” Mech asked.
“Me? I didn’t do anything!” Cal protested. He stood up and brushed some of Tullok off his shirt. “I mean, I guess from your point of view it might have looked a little…”
“Like you’d cut off his head and then set it on fire?” said Mech. “Yeah, maybe a little. What the Hell happened?”
“I don’t know. One minute I thought he was coming onto me, the next… poof. Gone,” said Cal. “He said he was giving me his life force.”
Mech looked him up and down. “And what does that mean?”
“Fonked if I know.”
“You feel any different?”
Cal put his hands on his hips and flexed them from side to side. He squatted, stood up, arched his back then flexed his arms. “Not really. I mean, I feel good. Healthy. But that’s it.”
Mech about-turned. “OK. Then let’s get back to camp. We should probably tell the others.”
“I’m not going.”
Mech turned back. “Say what?”
“Like I said, I can’t just leave him. I promised.”
Mech let out a long, slow sigh. Which was impressive, considering he didn’t have lungs. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.”
Cal nodded. “Yeah. Maybe.”
“You ain’t gonna listen to me if I tell you not to go, are you?”
Cal shook his head. “Afraid not.”
“I could stop you,” Mech pointed out. “I could pick you up and haul you back to camp.”
Cal nodded. “You could. But you won’t,” he said. “Give me an hour, then tell them where I’ve gone. I’ll try to cause a distraction so you guys can get to the ships.”
“You want us to leave without you?”
“What? No!” Cal spluttered. “Jesus, you think I want to be stuck here? Wait for me, I’ll find you. And I’ll bring Splurt.”
Mech sucked air in through his metal teeth. “I don’t like this, man.”
“I’m not exactly dancing with joy here, either, but I have to do this,” said Cal. He backed into the woods. “One hour, then head to the ship.”
“I got it,” said Mech. He watched Cal turn and run a few paces into the forest. “You know that’s the wrong way, right?”
Cal stopped. He turned to his right.
“Nope.”
Cal turned another hundred and e
ighty degrees. Mech tutted, then raised an arm and pointed. “That way.”
“Gotcha,” said Cal. He fired off a salute. “Catch you later, Mech.”
“Yeah, man,” said Mech. “You’d better.”
* * *
Cal bounded from the forest, landed on a patch of rock, had a fleeting but all-too-vivid vision of a big monster snapping up at him from below, then frantically scrambled back to the safety of the trees.
After he’d left Mech, he’d spent the next several minutes picking his way through the darkness, occasionally stumbling upon patches of the illuminating flowers that helped light his path.
Gradually, Cal’s confidence had begun to grow. The next ten minutes had been spent jogging through the woods, dodging branches and leaping roots. He’d tripped twice in the first minute, once in the second, then hadn’t fallen again, even when he broke into a sprint, leaping and bounding through the trees, and occasionally swinging from branches he couldn’t even see.
He peered out past the forest’s edge now, panting from the exertion. But only panting – not rasping, wheezing, or wishing he were dead.
Which was nice.
The city-sized ship was a few hundred feet away, the pits a little closer. The whole area was bathed in the shimmering light of the vortex, and the faint glow of a slightly oblong-looking moon Cal hadn’t really paid much attention to before.
He couldn’t see anyone lurking around, but he could hear at least one of the robot tank things stomping around on patrol somewhere.
The terrain between the edge of the forest and the pits was the same featureless rock and sand that had been around the prison. There were none of the metal boxes here, though, much to Cal’s relief. Those were designed to stop anyone escaping the prison, not approaching from the tree line.
Hopefully that meant there were none of the big-mouthed monsters here, either. Cal rooted around in the grass until he found a rock, and tossed it onto the sand half a dozen feet away.
At first, nothing happened, but then Cal saw it – a snaking, heaving beneath the sand just twenty or so paces to the right.
Cal shrunk back as the tooth-filled head burst from below the sand, chomping the rock to pieces. Up close, the smell of the thing was choking. If Cal was forced to describe it, he’d probably settle on ‘burnt vomit,’ but not without running through a few alternatives first.
The monster sunk into the ground again, leaving a hole behind that was quickly filled in by the sand around it. Cal saw nothing to suggest the thing had moved off, and suspected it was lurking around down there, just waiting to pounce again.
“OK, so that’s not good,” he muttered. He crept as close as he dared to the edge of the forest and studied the ground. It was mostly sand, but with occasional outcrops of rock sprouting up from below.
Since the sand-things hadn’t eaten anyone in or around the pits, Cal guessed they couldn’t get through stone. Or not easily, at least.
He spent the next few minutes gathering up some stones and pebbles, and cramming them into his pockets.
Once he’d done that, he took one of the stones and tossed it onto a patch of sand over on his left. The ground in front of him churned as the sand-creature shot off. Seizing his chance, Cal leaped onto the first patch of solid rock, wobbled slightly, then froze.
The sand-monster exploded out of the ground twenty or thirty feet away, then sunk again. Cal stamped his foot on the rock. Once. Twice. The monster didn’t react.
“Well, alright then,” Cal said, grinning from ear to ear. He lined himself up with the next lump of rock, swung his arms, and jumped.
On the third jump, he stumbled and his heel slammed into the sand, just for a moment. Cal heard the ssssslisk of the monster cutting through the sand towards him. Frantically, he pulled a stone from his pocket, spun, and tossed it into the creature’s path.
A spray of sand spewed upwards as the thing exploded from the ground, rolling that wave of stink over Cal again. Moving quickly, he aimed himself at the next safe spot, then made three quick jumps, one after the other, hopping from rock to rock.
The next gap was wide. Too wide. Cal thought back to the rooftop where he and Loren had been chasing Narp, and how he’d barely scraped across it.
The space between this rock and the next safe area was wider than that by a couple of feet, if not more. Cal turned, looking for another route, but short of backtracking right back to the start, there was no obvious alternative. Even if he did turn back, there was no saying he’d find a better route.
He shuffled his toes right up to the edge of the stone platform, then fished in his pocket for another rock to throw. It landed thirty feet away. Cal heard the monster streak off, just as he dropped to his haunches and powered himself off the platform.
The world lurched. Cal’s arms flailed in the air as he soared cleanly over the next rock, somehow overshooting it by three or four feet. He landed awkwardly on the sand, and heard the unmistakable swish of the worm-thing changing direction.
Kicking and scrabbling on the soft ground, he threw himself up onto a jagged boulder, just as the spot where he’d landed exploded like a bomb blast of fury and teeth. Cal lay on his back, holding his breath and trying desperately to maintain bladder control as the monster thrashed hungrily at the air, then slowly retreated back below the surface.
Once he was sure it was safe, and confident he wasn’t about to soil himself, Cal got to his feet. He looked back to the rock he was supposed to have landed on, and the one he’d launched himself from. How could he have even made that jump, much less have overshot it?
Probably best not to question it too much, he decided. Not right now, at least.
He turned back towards the ship. The solid ground around the pits was close now – barely a stone’s throw away. Between Cal and it, though, lay nothing but flat, uninterrupted sand.
He looked back to the previous rock, the one he’d missed. Even if he somehow managed another super-jump, it was too far away to reach. He was stranded on this one narrow sliver of stone, adrift on a sea of monsters.
“Houston, we have a problem,” he announced to the world at large. The sand shifted behind him and he clamped a hand over his mouth.
Cal took stock of his situation. He was stranded on a rock, with a monster waiting to eat him the moment he stepped off it. He had a pocketful of stones which would distract the creature, but not for long. Would it buy him enough time to run all the way to the solid ground ahead? Probably not.
Was he going to try anyway? Hell, yes.
Taking aim, Cal threw one of the larger stones as fast and as far as he could behind him. It clacked off a boulder, skipped on, then landed in the sand with a faint paff. The ground churned as the monster snaked off in search of whatever had made the sound.
This time, Cal waited until the creature’s head had just broken the surface of the sand, then he ran. His feet pounded on the soft ground, which seemed determined to drag him down with each step. The sand slipped and slid beneath his boots. He stumbled, tripped, touched his fingertips to the ground then was off again, sprinting with everything he had for the safety of the ground ahead.
Cal felt the rumbling of the monster giving chase. He hurtled on, his legs a blur, his heart rattling like machine-gun fire in his chest. “Please don’t eat me, please don’t eat me, please don’t eat me,” he sobbed.
He risked a glance back over his shoulder. The thing was still a dozen feet away. He spluttered out a half-laugh. It would be close, but he was going to—
A second monster burst through the sand right at his heels, tossing him into the air. He flapped his arms frantically like a character in a cartoon, then sprawled face-first onto the desert floor.
Spinning onto his back, he saw the worm-thing flick its enormous head towards him. He saw the cavern of its mouth. He saw those absurdly human-looking teeth.
And then, right before the thing could strike, the first monster reared up behind it. The fresh on the scene worm-creature emitted a t
errible high-pitched screech as teeth sunk deep into its flesh.
Cal’s arms and legs all tried to do their own thing at the same time, but as their general consensus was, ‘Let’s get the fonk out of here,’ the result wasn’t pretty, but it was effective, as Cal beat a less than graceful backwards retreat across the sand.
He collapsed onto solid ground, patted it to make sure there were no monster-sized gaps around him, then sat up and watched the worm things bite lumps out of each other for a while, until they both sunk beneath the sand.
With that, Cal stood up, rolled up his sleeves and gave a single nod of his head.
“Right then,” he said. Then he put his hands in his pockets, hummed the opening bars to Inspector Gadget, and set off in search of Splurt.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Loren slung a blaster rifle over her shoulder and tucked a pistol into the back of her pants. “How could you just let him go?” she demanded. “He’s going to get himself killed.”
“I told him that,” said Mech. “That’s what I said, but he didn’t listen.”
“Then you should have made him listen!”
Mech shrugged. “Come on. What was I supposed to do? Throw him over my shoulder and carry him back?”
“Yes!” Loren snapped. “If that’s what it took.”
“Maybe you haven’t noticed, but he’s a grown man,” Mech pointed out. “The guy makes his own decisions, and his mind was made up. He was going for Splurt, and that was all there was to it.”
“Did he take the trolley?” asked Dronzen. “Because if he did…”
“He didn’t,” said Mech. “He went the direct route, to the edge of the forest then across the sand.”
“Then won’t he, like, get eaten by those worm things?” said Miz.
“Not if he’s careful,” said Dronzen.
“Maybe we can catch him,” said Loren. “Everyone ready to move?”
A few of the Zertex troops yawned and rubbed their eyes. They shuffled their feet, reluctant to travel through the night.
Space Team: The Search for Splurt Page 18