by Dianna Love
I don’t know who he was trying to convince, but I heard the truth beneath his words. Jersey Jerk was scared.
Deep down scared.
Gabby coughed, but she’d started pounding the metal wall on her side of the container, working her way back closer to me.
I whirled around to Tony. “That.” I pointed to the pulsing blood-red light, now beating like a heart on overdrive. “Is going to kill us if we don’t get out of here. Now.”
“A light’s gonna kill us? You on crack? Tell ya what. You two do the woo-woo thing and I’ll use the computer in my phone.”
Giving up, I turned back to the wall. Missing something. But what? Think.
I came up blank. Too many holes in my memory. All I could do was pound palm then fist against the wall. A flat, smooth wall that was heating up. Not good. Not good at all.
“I got it,” Gabby said, excited, stopping to push flyaway hairs from her face. “Maybe we have to do what we did with the computer.”
“Meaning?”
“The two of us,” she nodded at Tony, who was busy punching his smart phone and cursing when nothing happened. “We need to touch you. Maybe that will make the door open?”
Tony paused. “Forget about that. I hold hands with girls I date, not two loonies tryin’ to get me killed.” He jammed the phone back in his pocket.
This wasn’t getting us anywhere.
The whine of machinery reached crescendo pitch. Nothing to lose.
“Let’s try it,” I shouted over the screeching metal.
Gabby moved past Tony where he stood close to the arched panel and stopped next to me. I latched my hand onto Gabby’s wrist, feeling static vibration beneath her skin even through her sleeve.
I picked up terror, but determination, too.
She actually growled a sound of frustration and lurched for Tony’s arm. The look on his face said he couldn’t decide whether to pull away or not, but he didn’t.
Nothing happened.
“Great,” Tony snapped in my direction. “What now?”
I was fresh out of ideas. And time.
A whirring scream split the room, tearing my brain apart, making all of us double over.
“Don’t let go!” I shouted, even as I wanted to jam both hands over my ears. “Think!”
Tony shouted, “Think? That’s all you’ve got? Think.”
If we did get out of this room, I was going to shut him up even if it meant using my foot to plug that yapping hole.
But right now I had nothing more than what Gabby suggested. I yelled, “Think getting out. Open. Something!”
The room started rocking, gyrating with the three of us.
Gabby tightened her grip. “Open up. Open sesame,” she shouted. “Time to go. Beam me up, Scotty.”
Tony grumbled something unintelligible.
I lowered my head, blocking out as much as I could of Gabby’s terror and Tony’s lack of faith, the stench, the vibrations. Out. Gotta get out.
I leaned my entire body against the closed doorway, tugging Gabby and Tony toward it at the same time. Lights flashed wildly and the noise hit ear-bleeding level.
We were going to die.
All at once, energy burst inside my chest.
The walls shimmered around us.
Then an opening appeared as all three of us tumbled face forward into the purple light.
CHAPTER 7
I lay sprawled on my back on shin-deep grass in a wide-open space...if this was really grass. At least it was softer than desert dirt. My fingers found a blade and tugged. It stretched. The rubbery stuff was an odd mix of brown and aqua with bumpy yellow specks. I inhaled a big lungful of warm, moist air, waiting for my racing heart to quiet.
That might not happen any time soon with me staring up into a purple sky with green streaks through it. Where was I now?
Green streaks and a big red ball that didn’t glow like a sun. It pulsed instead.
A chillingly eerie sight I had no reference for.
“I think we’ve just gone where no man has gone before,” Gabby crooned. “That looks like a moon. It’s got shadows...craters. . .or maybe it’s a face?”
“Okay, Sigourney Weaver and Princess Leia,” Tony groused, his voice coming from somewhere off to my left. “Where the freak have you two got us to now?”
Good question. Better question was why hadn’t we left Tony trapped in that metal room? A tempting idea. “Who’s Sigourney Weaver and Princess Leia?”
I got a look from both Tony and Gabby at that. Tony laughed. “You’re serious. Ever watch Alien or Star Wars?”
I shook my head.
Gabby sat up and smiled, unbothered by my answer.
Tony’s mouth dropped open, speechless.
Gabby swiveled her shoulders, a dazed look of wonder on her face as she took in her surroundings. “Check out the sick colors in this place.”
“Sick, as in unhealthy?” I asked.
“Ah, no, that means they’re gorgeous and amazing.” She smiled, framing a picture with her index fingers and thumbs, clearly someone who lived in the moment. Wildflowers of neon-pink and intense black, with sharp spikes and even square shapes sprouted here and there.
Tony speared Gabby with a hard look. “You happy ‘bout this?”
She muttered something to herself then said, “I’m not entirely sure I’m even conscious and will admit to feeling a bit out of my element right now–”
“A bit?” Tony chuckled sarcastically.
“–but you shouldn’t take life so seriously. It’s not permanent after all. And to be honest, I was looking for a change of scenery.”
I might not always understand the things she said, but Gabby had held up pretty well through this and wasn’t bawling her eyes out. As she was the one person not giving me a hard time for being here, I could better handle her strange ways than Tony’s abrasive attitude.
He was already reaching for his phone–did he sleep with that thing?–so that should keep him content for a moment.
Or so I thought.
He squinted at my leg. “What’re you wearin’? A cuff?”
Out of reflex, I looked down. I’d forgotten about my ankle bracelet. Had it stopped working? The thing was still locked on, but I hadn’t felt any electric shock, not even a tingle. Or maybe it just hadn’t activated yet.
When I didn’t answer, Tony muttered, “Suarez stuck me with a freakin’ criminal. This day just gets better.”
I rolled to my knees. Every muscle groaned in protest. Was being beaten and bruised my normal state?
And landing in strange places?
Scanning the terrain, all I found beyond the dry grassy area surrounding us and the metal contraption at my back was an encroaching jungle that loomed on all sides.
A deadly quiet jungle.
No sounds. No breath of a breeze. Nothing.
Tony stood and trudged over to the metal thing that had spit us out and sealed itself back to a solid metal cylinder again. He started smacking one palm against the structure over and over, his other hand still clutching his phone that he waved around.
“What the freak are you doing?” Gabby asked, mimicking Tony’s voice as she slid to her knees before standing. “Think your cell provider has coverage here?”
“Look. I’m just tryin’ to get back inside. I put more faith in technology than this–” he waved his hand to indicate the unreal world around them.
“But we just got out–”
“You two wanted out of this thing. Me?” Tony jerked his thumb toward himself. “Got dragged along. We came here in this pod thing. Logic dictates it’s the only way back. So you can hang aroun’ and sightsee, but I’m findin’ my way home.”
Just then the metal pod started spinning counterclockwise, causing Tony to stagger backwards. “What the-–”
His last words were swallowed in a bang and puff of red clay dust. When the air cleared, the pod had disappeared.
“Nooo!” Tony screamed, his hands thrown wide, hi
s eyes wider. “It can’t . . .”
But it could, and had.
I felt as sick to my stomach as Tony looked. Staying inside that thing had worried me, but that was the way we got here.
Gabby stared at the open spot for a moment, stunned silent.
I didn’t say a word. I’d heard something new beneath Tony’s cocky arrogance. Panic. The kind of panic when your whole world has spiraled out of control and you can’t stop it.
For the second time today, I knew how that felt, otherwise I might not be taking this so calmly myself.
Calm on the outside anyhow. If they could look deep inside me they’d see chaos swirling into a tornado, threatening to destroy me.
Tony gave his phone a longing look then dropped his arm and started circling where the pod had been, his movements getting more and more frantic. He ground out an oath and yelled, “Okay, fine. No 9-1-1 here. No 4-1-1. No cell tower. So what now? And what is this place?” He spat the last words at me.
As if I’ve got all the answers? I bit back my temper, determined to leave my senses tuned to our surroundings. “How should I know? I don’t know what happened back in that equipment room or where we are or how we’ll get out of here, but I do know our best chance at surviving is if we work together.”
Tony’s face said he supported no one’s plan but his own. Especially someone who didn’t know the Princess or Sigourney people. I saw his reaction as simple denial about what was going on and I even understood it to some degree.
I didn’t expect a complete change in Tony’s personality, but we couldn’t survive by fighting each other.
Strength in numbers.
Even if we were only three.
My instincts told me that, and I knew, somehow, that I should trust them, especially in this place.
Gabby stood to one side staring at the jungle then swung around looking from me to Tony. “She’s right, you know. We have no idea what kind of place we’ve just been dumped into. Unless you can teleport us with that smart phone we have no way out until we figure out how we got here. Can you counter that logic or is bitching and moaning your only plan?”
I took a long look at her. Was this the same girl we’d traveled here with? The one who hadn’t seemed to take much of anything seriously back at the school? She’d laid out Tony’s options in simple terms and managed to point out his abrasive attitude without sounding as if she’d attacked him.
After a moment of digesting that, Tony held up a hand. “Enough. I got your point. I’m just sayin’ logic dictates that the way back is the way we came. Until that pod returns, I agree. We find out as much as we can about this place and if there’s anyone else here. ‘Specially if they can help us.”
I’d been wondering the same thing. Were we alone, or not? If we found others here, would they be friend or enemy? And I had no idea why, but I was sure I’d encountered enemies before — enemies other than the beast-bird. Bad ones.
Tony added, “While I’m stuck here, I want no more touchin’ any electronics without clearin’ it through me first since neither one of you babes has a clue what you’re playin’ with. Agreed?”
Hard not to agree with that since computers seemed to be his passion. I didn’t care for his “babes” comment, but nodded anyhow.
Gabby grinned. “As long as you agree to be open to using our other senses here.”
“Sure, sweet cakes. Whatever you say.” Tony shook his head and made a snorting sound that indicated how little he thought of her suggestion.
She added, “If you want to return the way we came here, keep in mind that the computer screen reacted to Rayen’s touch and sucked in her hand.”
Let’s not keep pointing that out, okay?
Tony said nothing, but distrust stirred in his gaze.
I played the whole event back through my mind and had no more answers about what had happened than they did. I’d felt a surge of energy wick up my arm and into my body the minute my palm disappeared into the screen.
Pulling my hair away from my face and wiping perspiration off my neck, I rolled my shoulders, ready to talk about something else when I noticed Gabby cocking her head. Her yellow-and-lavender ponytails bobbed when she looked up, intent on something in the distant sky.
“What is it?” I asked, following the direction of her gaze across two hundred feet of open space that ended in a slashing dark line of massive trees. The beginning of the dense jungle vegetation.
“Can you hear that?” she asked, her voice soft, but no humor this time. Something had her entire focus.
I shook my head.
“Don’t know, but . . . ”
I didn’t have to ask her more as I started hearing what she did, a heavy whap, whap, whap sound. I glanced around but didn’t see anything.
Until Gabby inhaled a quick breath and pointed up.
“What the heck’s that?” Tony demanded, his gaze following her finger. “Sounds like—”
I shushed him with a raised hand then moved to stand next to Gabby, both of us facing the direction of the racket. My shoulder bumped hers and I got a jolt of an image. Not a clear image but a clear sense of danger.
She tensed the way she had back in the equipment room when she’d repeated my thought about Tony, but when I said nothing to expose her she continued quietly staring in the direction of the noise.
“Any idea what it looks like?” I’d realized that Gabby had gifts she kept hidden. Based on my reception since waking up in the desert, and Tony’s taunting just because I was different, I didn’t blame her for protecting her secrets.
She murmured, “I’m trying to see it in my mind...but it’s not like anything I can explain.”
Tony made a disgusted growl. “If you savants are done doin’ a mind meld thing, would someone please tell me what the heck is goin’ on?”
Gabby’s fingers twisted the skirt of her dress. “If you’d shut up long enough to hear and look up, you’d know.”
The warning in her tone must have worked. Tony froze then glanced in the direction where we stared. “I don’t–oh, crap.”
That summed up my feelings as the moving object started taking shape.
Not object but objects. A good dozen or so of the largest maroon-and-black bat-like creatures I’d ever seen.
I didn’t know where I’d seen bats before but bits and pieces of my thoughts were functioning at times, at least whenever my brain seemed pressed to figure a way out of trouble.
Like now. We had to get away from these big dark flying creatures.
First, I had to determine which direction they were headed.
They easily had wingspans of four to five feet across, blackening the sky as they swarmed nearer.
“Are those...bats?” Tony said to no one in particular as the swooping wings grew louder the nearer they came. “Aren’t bats nocturnal and only eat insects?”
Tony’s last words had been more hopeful than reassuring.
Gabby’s voice sounded squeezed from her lungs, getting higher by the second. “This could be nighttime in this place with that red moon, and we may look like insects to them.”
“Let’s not hang around to find out,” I shouted. “Run!”
I didn’t have to say it twice as all three of us took off toward the closest trees, which were across the field.
Tony yelled, “We’ll never make the trees in time!”
I checked to the left of us. The bats were still gaining altitude so they might not actually dive toward us, but we were going to intersect their path and end up running beneath them before we reached the tree line. I kept moving rather than risk a bad guess that they weren’t going to fold their wings and plummet toward us.
We’d almost made cover when tiny acidic pellets hit my face and arms, stinging my skin.
“Ouch!” Gabby swatted the air around her face.
Tony slapped his head. “They’re spittin’ at us.”
I thought it was obvious, but still shouted, “Keep your face turned away.”
/> After a hundred feet of running flat out, the grass gave way to thick, vine-strangled vegetation. Plate-sized leaves whacked my face. Gnarled roots, some knee-high, snagged my shins, and thorns raked the skin on my arms. Another hundred feet and we’d reached the tree canopy.
Panting and slowing once we’d plowed fifteen feet into the thick growth of trees, I stopped and squatted until I could peer through a break in the twisted limbs back toward the grassy field.
“Gone,” I whispered, catching my breath as I scanned the sky, or what I could see of it by moving back and forth until I found a sizeable opening in the towering trees. Deep purple ribbons appeared through gaps, but no green streaks that had been there when we’d first arrived. That throbbing red moon still mocked us though. Inside this forest, we’d entered a world of shiny copper and brown colors, red vines, dripping hollow sounds and shadows that shimmied.
Creepy, but safer than where we’d been. Away from oversized bats.
At least, I hoped we were safer.
That sprint had been no real effort for me, but Tony had his hands on his knees, dragging in deep breaths of the thick, damp air. He whistled. “What’s this place? Jurassic Park goes techno? That was close.”
Jurassic Park? I gave up trying to figure out the things Tony said.
“At least the bats didn’t come after us,” Gabby pointed out, just as winded as Tony, with hair falling loose from her ponytails.
Tony ignored Gabby, turning to me. “Now what, Touchy Feely?”
“How should I know?” I was getting tired of him expecting me to have answers, because he blamed me for this problem, then complaining about the answers he got. “What’s your great idea?”
Tony’s face screwed up in pure disgust. “Drop me in a city and I’ll find my way, but out here? Not my thing. My idea would’ve been not comin’ here in the first place. What did you do to that computer to make this happen?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I muttered, but not with any conviction.
“You musta hit a combination of keys.”
“You think we’re here because of a typo, genius?” Gabby chided. “Oh, yeah, that’s scientific.”