“What does it mean for our odds of survival?”
“No, what do those words together actually mean? What’s a perception field?”
“It’s a neural filter that—”
Cal placed his thumb and index finger close together. “Smaller words.” He gestured to one of the hovering cameras that continued to follow them. “For the people watching at home.”
Floora blinked a few times, then tried again.
“It’s a machine that affects our brains. It makes us think we’re seeing, hearing, and even feeling things that aren’t there. It can also hide things that are there,” she explained.
“So, what are you saying? None of this is real?” Cal asked, gesturing around.
“Not necessarily. Some of it could be,” Floora replied. “Maybe all of this is real and the forest wasn’t.”
“The forest felt pretty real,” Cal said, rubbing his jaw.
He could still feel the aches from where the trees had punched him. That, coupled with the burning sensation in his shoulder, told him he had a big problem on the healing-factor front.
“The fact of it is, we don’t know what’s real and what isn’t,” said Floora.
Cal eyed her suspiciously. “Are you real?”
“Yes. I’m real.”
Cal frowned. “Am—"
“Yes. You’re also real,” said Floora, who was getting a handle on Cal quite quickly. “We’re both real. Beyond that? It’s anyone’s guess.”
They both looked in opposite directions at the same mountain.
“Fifty-seven paces in any direction,” Cal said. He flexed his fingers in and out, creaking the gloves of the bodysuit. “You ready?”
Floora shrugged. Her little wings twitched anxiously. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“OK. Let’s try this way,” Cal said, deliberately picking a direction that hadn’t been suggested by Perko.
They set off down the hill, Cal counting each step below his breath.
They were five paces in when darks clouds drifted in overhead, five more when the warm summer breeze became cold and biting.
By the time they’d gone thirty steps, the grass had died beneath their feet, and the sky was a broiling morass of black and gray. The light was sickly and tepid, painting a pale yellow wash across the now desolate terrain.
Every so often, a buzzerfly would flutter past, a blue luminescence in each wing now clearly visible in the gloom. Cal continued to watch them warily, but it was becoming clear that insect-based electrocution was not necessarily the worst of his problems.
“Fifty-six,” said Cal, stopping.
The ground beneath his feet was dry and dusty now, the icy wind howling little vortexes of grit into the air all around them. Floora coughed and shielded her eyes from what, from her angle, must’ve looked like a raging sandstorm.
“Should’ve stayed in the bag,” Cal told her. He started to bend, then thought better of it and took a step back first.
Once he was sure he wasn’t accidentally going to bob his head beyond the fifty-seven pace mark, he crouched and motioned for Floora to climb up onto his back.
“Here. Get on.”
Floora looked unsure, but only for a moment. She fluttered her wings and caught a strap of Cal’s backpack with both hands. Swinging herself up, she used the bag’s clasps as footholds, and clung to the single thin carry-strap on top of the backpack as if it were a set of reins.
“I’m on.”
Cal straightened. He took another pace forward and stopped again. “OK. One more makes fifty-seven.”
He took a series of deep breaths, then shot a look to the cameras hovering overhead. Behind him, the whole world was a desolate wasteland, with the buzzerflies the only reminder of the paradise it had once been.
“Here goes nothing.”
Cal took a step forward.
Sure enough… nothing.
He and Floora both braced themselves, waiting for something to happen.
Still nothing.
“Should something be happening?” Cal whispered.
“I don’t know. I think so,” Floora replied.
Reluctantly, Cal fished in his front pocket and retrieved the Preypad.
“Don’t say anything!” he warned it, before Perko could open his animated mouth. “I thought you said fifty-seven paces in any direction?”
“That’s right!” Perko chirped.
“There’s nothing here,” Cal said, holding the device so the animated assistant could get a good look around. “See? Nothing.”
“You’ve only taken fifty-six paces,” Perko told him.
“No, I took fifty-seven,” Cal insisted.
“I have to beg to differ, good pal!” said Perko. “Eighteen and forty-two were technically half paces.”
“Oh,” said Cal.
Replacing Perko in his pocket, Cal took another step forward.
And with that, the whole world changed.
Twenty-Nine
The change was invisible. The actual process of it, at least.
One moment, Cal was standing on a wasteland with nothing for miles in any direction, the next he was standing on a wasteland with an enormous junkyard of giant decaying corpses looming in front of him.
The sky, which had been a palette of grays, was now a fiery red ridged with angry black clouds. Ash rained from it, drifting as a sulfurous charcoal fog that snagged at the back of Cal’s throat and nipped at his eyes.
“Well, this has rapidly taken a turn for the worse,” he muttered, rubbing the back of a gloved hand across his eyes as he tried to clear them.
He took a backward step. Then another. The world steadfastly refused to return to the way it had been just a moment before.
“Do you think this is the Boneyard?” Cal asked.
“I think there’s a pretty good chance, yes,” said Floora. “You know, what with all the bones, and everything.”
“That’s definitely an indicator,” Cal agreed.
He’d been expecting a place called ‘The Boneyard’ to be well stocked with bones, but he hadn’t been prepared for anything like this. They were gathered in long stacks, each dozens of feet high and several times as long.
Together, they formed a rectangular… not building, exactly, but something close.
“A yard,” he realized. “It’s a literal yard built out of bones.”
There was one way in, as far as Cal could tell—through a set of giant shark-like jaws that led into a passageway formed by two walls of rotting remains.
“I guess we go that way,” he said, trying to disguise the shake in his voice.
“There might be a Hunter in there,” Floora whispered.
Cal sighed. “Yeah. Figures. But I don’t think they’re going to let us just walk around it.”
“No,” Floora agreed.
“Unless they haven’t thought of that,” said Cal.
“They’ll have thought of that.”
“Unless they haven’t!”
“They’ll definitely have thought of that,” Floora insisted.
“I’m going to try,” said Cal. He pointed himself away from the entrance and walked half a dozen paces.
The world shifted around him, so the toothy archway loomed dead ahead.
Cal tried again, about-turning and walking away from the entrance.
A moment later, he found himself back there.
“See?” said Floora. “Told you.”
“Fine. Fine.”
Cal glared up at the cameras. “Fine. I’m going in. You happy? Oh, and by the way…”
He turned to show Floora to the cameras. “I’m helping a Floomfle. Doesn’t that prove I’m not who you think I am?”
“They probably think you’ve kidnapped me,” Floora pointed out. “It probably made them hate you even more.”
“Son of a…” Cal groaned. “Some days, I just can’t win.”
He straightened and addressed the camera again. “But not today, you voyeuristic shizzholes. Today, I’m taking the
victory. I’m getting out, I’m getting the money, and then I’m kicking the asses of everyone involved in this whole—”
Somewhere not too far behind him, a Sloorg howled.
“Fonk, fonk,” Cal whimpered, instantly forgoing his speech in favor of running as fast as he could in through the Boneyard entrance.
The wind whistled through the gaps in the giant jaws as he passed through, then the whole thing snapped shut a half-inch behind him, cutting off his escape and shaving a good two-to-six years off his life expectancy.
“Jesus!” he gasped, clutching as his chest. “I thought it had us.”
He craned his neck back. “Are you still there?”
“Just,” Floora answered. “It nearly cut my wings off.”
“Be a damn shame to lose those,” said Cal. “They’ve proven so useful up till now.”
With the jaws closed, there was only one route available to them—dead ahead. And there were dead ahead. Lots of dead. The walls of the passageway stretched on for forty feet or more, before ending in a T-shaped junction at the end.
There was no roof to the yard, so the bones, carcasses, and other organic detritus were bathed in a red glow that conjured up images of Hell and damnation. Most of the corpses that made up the walls were long-dead, reduced to nothing but their skeletons. A few had died more recently, though, and dried flesh clung to them like leather on an old sofa that should’ve been dumped on some random sidewalk years ago.
One or two of the fresher bodies even seemed to be moving. Cal looked at them long enough to be sure they weren’t about to jump out and grab him, then took great pleasure in turning away and not looking at them any longer.
“This place is horrible,” he remarked.
“It is,” Floora agreed, her voice somehow even smaller than the rest of her.
Cal crept on along the passageway, his head tick-tocking for danger, drawn to any movement in the walls.
“I mean, it’s got everything. Ominous atmosphere, scary lighting, a billion dead bodies. Could it get any worse?”
A buzzerfly landed on his arm. Cal screamed and swatted it beneath a gloved hand. He felt the thing discharge its electricity, but the suit and the glove reduced it to a prickling sensation that quickly passed.
“OK, now could it get any worse?” he asked.
“It will. It’s bound to,” Floora told him. Her voice was shrinking fast, and cracking around the edges. He could feel her shaking on his back.
“So, tell me about yourself,” said Cal.
Floora frowned. “Huh?”
“What brings a nice Floomfle like you to a place like this?”
“It’s… Like I said, it’s an honor to be chosen. My people take their place in the Hunt very seriously. We are trained from a young age to be Sloorg feed.”
“Right. Right,” said Cal. He wasn’t sure what sort of training would be involved, beyond run at the Sloorg and jump, but he decided not to press her for more information. “But you didn’t fancy it?”
“Not really, no,” Floora admitted.
“What did you want to do?”
“Is this really the time to be discussing this?” Floora whispered.
Cal shrugged, forcing her to cling to the backpack more tightly. “Good a time as any. We might not have much left. So, what did you want to do? Besides not be eaten by Sloorgs, I mean, which from now on let’s just take as a given.”
“I… I don’t know,” said Floora.
“Yeah, you do. Come on, tell me,” Cal said.
“Science,” said Floora. “I mean, I suppose, if I had to choose. Science.”
“There you go!” Cal said, turning his head and beaming encouragement back at her. “Science. Is that how you know about the…”
He gestured vaguely around them.
“The mind’s eye thing?”
“Perception field,” Floora corrected. “And yes. Sort of. I read what I can.”
“Good for you,” said Cal. “With your brains, and… uh, everything I bring to the table, we can’t fail to get out of here.”
“You think so?”
“I know so,” said Cal. “It’s a Cal Carver Guarantee. And those are rock-solid.”
He shot her another smile. “Stick with me, kid, and everything’s going to be just fine,” he said, then he let out a hysterical scream as a hand grabbed at him from the wall.
“Let’s pretend that didn’t happen,” he said, once he’d successfully avoided the zombie-like grasp.
They reached the end of the passageway and stopped. The corridor split in two directions—one leading left, the other leading right. The one on the left came to an end just a few feet away, then doubled back the way they’d come.
The corridor on the right stretched out for much longer, with two other passageways running off from it at irregular intervals.
“Ah, shizz, I think I know what this is,” Cal said. He took the Preypad from his pocket and shouted over Perko before he could speak. “Is this a maze?”
“You’re right on the money, old chum!” Perko confirmed. “This is—”
Cal stuffed it back into his pocket.
“Fonking mazes. I hate mazes. You think it’s too late to turn back?”
He turned back. The corridor they had just walked down was gone, replaced by a wall of bones and corpses.
“Yes, I’d say it’s too late,” Floora confirmed. “Perko might know which way to go.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to give the bamston the satisfaction,” Cal said. “Let’s go this way.”
He went left and took the next left turn almost immediately. The corridor stretched out into what appeared to be infinity. Hundreds of hands reached out through bleached ribcages and the eye sockets of giant skulls, their withered fingers twisting and clawing at the air.
“On second thoughts, let’s try the other way,” Cal decided, turning around and heading in the opposite direction.
They reached one of the side-passages after thirty seconds or so of walking. Cal peered down it, but saw only more corners and yet further corridors branching off.
He ignored that turning and continued on to where the next one branched off.
“You know what I hate mazes?” he said.
“No, why?”
“Because they’re terrible,” Cal said. “Also, because when I was five, we went to visit some of my dad’s family in Kansas. Earth Kansas, I mean. I don’t know if there’s a Space Kansas.”
Floora’s expression suggested that she had no idea, either.
“Anyway, they had this, like, I don’t know, country fair on, or whatever. There was a big maze made out of haystacks or, I don’t know, corn. Some farm shizz. My old’s brother—my uncle—he thought it’d be funny to lead me into it, then run off,” Cal said. “Just run off, leaving me to find my own way out. Said it’d be good for me. Said it’d be a fun challenge.”
Cal’s lips drew tight.
“Took me four days to find my way out.”
“Seriously?” asked Floora.
Cal nodded. “Yep. Well, not four whole days. More like, I don’t know, forty minutes. But it felt like longer, is my point.”
Floora nodded in understanding. “Must’ve been scary.”
“Terrying,” Cal confirmed. “There was this scarecrow that kept chasing me. Pumpkin for a head. Eyes that were just these black holes. These… voids, trying to suck me in.”
He shrugged. “I mean, that part was only in my head, but it felt real at the time. That’s what I’m getting at. And that’s why I hate mazes.”
“I can see it had an effect,” said Floora. “How did you find your way out?”
“Hmm? Oh, I cheated,” said Cal. “I climbed up on the stacks and looked across until…”
He stopped walking and considered the walls around them. They were far too tall to see over, but the ‘bundle of bones’ construction meant climbing was a real possibility.
“Hold that thought,” he said.
Picking a likely
spot, Cal reached up, found a handhold, and was immediately grabbed by the throat by a rotting arm. For a dead guy, the thing’s grip was incredible, and Cal’s face turned a shade of bruise-purple almost immediately.
The head appeared next, a mosaic of empty eye sockets, exposed teeth, and straggly clumps of filthy hair. It squirmed and struggled, trying to force itself through the ribcage of some giant whatever-the-fonk that had it pinned in place.
Cal slammed his hand against the zombie’s elbow joint. Once. Twice. Bone splintered and cracked, but the grip didn’t lessen.
Grabbing it by the forearm, he twisted, pulled, wrenched with all his strength. Darkness crept in at the corners of his eyes as his brain came to the conclusion that it wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Cal put a foot on a cow-sized skull at the base of the wall and kicked back, putting everything he had into one last escape attempt.
Rrrip.
The last of the arm’s ragged flesh tore away. Cal stumbled backward, prising the now-limp fingers from around his throat. The undead thing in the wall glared at him with contempt, then slowly slid back into the recesses of the bone mound.
Cal tossed the arm away and rubbed his throat. He could still feel the thing’s grip, still smell its fetid stink loitering around in his nostrils, still see the horror story of its face.
“Are you OK?” asked Floora from his back.
“I’m fine. But fonk the climbing idea,” he decided. “I’m not risking getting grabbed by another of those things.”
“I guess we just have to do it the old-fashioned way,” said Floora.
Cal nodded reluctantly. “Yeah.”
He looked along the maze’s long passageway and winced.
He looked up at the top of the wall, maybe twenty feet in the air. So near, and yet…
And yet…
Slowly, as innocently as he could, Cal turned his gaze on the little winged figure holding onto his back.
“What?” asked Floora.
Cal smiled.
Floora shifted uncomfortably. “What is it?”
“I have an idea,” Cal told her.
Floora’s wings twitched with excitement. “Great! That’s fantastic!”
“Yeah,” said Cal, making a weighing motion with his hands. “You might want to reserve judgement on that.”
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