Exile to the Stars (The Alarai Chronicles)

by Dale B. Mattheis

  Saliva pooled in his mouth and his body trembled with anticipation. Shortly he sensed the presence of a darker, slowly moving mass. Jeff raised the revolver to arm’s length. He had his finger on the flashlight button when something kicked a rock loose right behind him with a loud clatter.

  “Oh, God, don’t!”

  Jeff flopped around onto his back and flicked on the flashlight. No more then ten feet away, a large buck was staring at him with lowered head and setting a hoof down. Very slowly.

  “Jesus!”

  Nearly back to back, two orange spears of light pulsed followed by muzzle blasts that boomed and echoed in the narrow ravine. The buck shuddered at the first impact, his head snapped back at the second and he collapsed onto his side. Jeff heard crashing sounds and caught a brief glimpse of bodies hurtling by. He was breathing so hard he hyperventilated, and had to lie there to calm down.

  “What the hell was he up to? Something is not right. Oh bullshit! Something is fucking wrong!” Hunger took over and he grabbed the deer’s antlers.

  Dragging the buck back to camp, Jeff frequently stopped to flash the light around. The forest seemed empty of life. He arrived exhausted by the pull and deeply troubled by something he couldn’t put his finger on.

  Hastily building a fire, Jeff crudely skinned a rear leg, hacked out a piece of meat and held it over the flames on a stick. The smell of roasting venison and the hiss of fat flaring in the fire drove his hunger to the point of frenzy. Ripping the charred piece of venison from the stick, he tore off a mouthful. The meat burned his hands and mouth, his eyes teared up from the pain, but he crammed more in. Juice and blood ran down his chin and shirt without notice. Jeff stopped when he was on the verge of throwing up.

  With a full belly for the first time in what seemed to be months, Jeff dozed off repeatedly. After nearly toppling into the fire he decided it was time to turn in. He tried to get up but was so tired he collapsed. Giving in to exhaustion, he crawled to the tent.

  In the small hours of the morning when even night creatures had found their burrows, a line of ghostly shadows filed through camp. They stopped to sniff around the tent then faded into the night like a whisper that is not heard.

  The sun was well above the trees when Jeff crawled out of the tent. He felt such a sense of comfortable well being that he decided to lay over another day. Got to gather strength and save as much of that deer as I can, he reasoned. Now that I have food, what’s the hurry? What am I going to do? Lose my job?

  The ground was covered with a thick bed of pine needle duff. It was wet, but from long habit he had scraped duff well back from the fire pit. Passing the fire pit on his way to tackle butchering the deer, Jeff stopped abruptly to stare at the moist earth.

  “Oh, boy. This is not good.”

  Stooping, he spread his hand to cover a paw print. His hand was larger by only a small amount, and the impression was over an inch deep. Standing up, Jeff continued to stare at the print.

  “Maybe it could be a dog or wolf print, but whatever made it must be really big and heavy. With my luck it probably belongs to a mountain lion or small bear.” Suddenly, Jeff groaned. “Oh, shit! The deer! It must have been after the deer!”

  He ran to where he had left the carcass, maybe thirty yards upstream from camp. It was untouched, although he noted more prints.

  “Now this simply does not make sense. What carnivore is going to pass up a free meal?” Jeff reviewed his experience with the buck the former evening, as well as his observations while trekking down from the snowfields. “None of this makes any sense. Where the hell am I?”

  The day was getting on and he put his questions aside to attend to business. It was a great relief to tackle a practical task.

  Jeff had never butchered a large animal although he had seen his grandfather do it, and cussed under his breath while making a hash of it. His hands and clothing were caked with old blood by the time he remembered the system. He had no more than grabbed a rear leg to turn the deer over when he let go.

  “That’s odd. This is not a mule deer. I suppose it could be a white tail, but I didn’t think there were any in the Cascades.” Jeff examined the deer with an eye to detail. “No, not even close to the pictures I’ve seen. Ears look like a cat’s, muzzle’s too broad, and the antlers aren’t right.” Jeff felt the tip of a prong and let out a startled grunt. “That sucker is sharp!” He stepped back to get a better perspective.

  “Holy shit. Will you look at that?” Jeff stooped down and picked up a front leg. “That’s not even a hoof. Three toes plus one hell of a dew claw.” He noticed something sticking out of the deer’s mouth and dropped onto his heels so he could pry it open. “I don’t believe this,” Jeff breathed. “This is crazy!”

  He knelt and ran a finger over sharp, conical incisors and the tip of a long canine tooth. “That’s what I saw last night! That son of a bitch had his teeth bared!” He jumped to his feet and searched the woods. “He was stalking me. Maybe they all were!” There was no sign of motion or anything else in the woods that might suggest a threat, and he resumed butchering.

  Although the task became easier as he learned how to skin, Jeff took no pleasure in it. He muttered under his breath while searching for an explanation that would tie together all the discrepancies that had accumulated. As before, nothing came to mind. By the time he had removed all the venison he could pack, Jeff was feeling a bit foolish.

  “Here’s the intrepid voyager exploring a new planet!” He laughed at himself. “No such thing as a meat-eating deer. Got to be a mutation or something. Carl will really go nuts when I tell him about this critter.” He stuck the knife in a tree for later cleaning and carried a load of venison to the fire. “Just cure the meat and keep your shit together, boyo.”

  While the venison slow-roasted on a circle of spits, Jeff dragged the carcass a good distance from camp. On the way back he thought sourly, Some damn bear jumping on top of me in the middle of the night would really put the finishing touch to this day.

  “Bear? What manner of creature is this?”

  Jeff spun around. “Who said that?” No one was standing behind him as he half expected. “Get a grip, Friedrick. Now you’re hearing voices. Man, I think I’ve had enough for one day!”

  Frost covered the ground when he emerged next morning, but the sun was over the trees promising warmth. Wrapping the meat in plastic he had brought to cover his backpack in wet weather, Jeff hiked into the valley gnawing on a piece left from the prior evening.

  “Highway, here I come!”

  Over following days he worked his way down into more heavily forested land but saw no smoke, ran across no highways, and encountered none of the offal of civilization. However, he was packing a good supply of food and shrugged it off.

  “Sooner or later I’ll hit a highway.”

  Sitting by the fire one night thinking about nothing in general, Jeff noticed the glow of a moon about to rise. That really seems bright, he thought. Probably a full moon. He decided to go have a look but checked the Colt before leaving camp. Whatever made the big paw prints had visited his camp on several more occasions. Entering the valley, he climbed a hill to get a good view.

  “Son of a gun, those moons are beautiful. And they’re both full. What a night.” Jeff did an incredulous double take. “Two moons? There can’t be two moons!”

  Immobilized by shock, Jeff watched with jaw agape as the smaller moon rapidly caught up with the larger. All the discrepancies he had been collecting came together and out into the open with a mental shout that nearly brought Jeff to his knees.

  “This can’t be Earth! It isn’t Earth!”

  Some time later he glanced at his watch and realized he had been standing there for well over an hour. Turning every so often to view the moons, Jeff stumbled back to camp in a daze. He truly was lost.

  Badly needing the moral support of a good blaze, he stirred up the coals and threw on an armload of wood. Jeff thumped down by the fire and followed both moons as the
y moved higher in the sky. The smaller moon was quite bright and seemed to race by in front of the larger. He was tempted to pinch himself to see if it was all a dream. Instead, he drew aimless patterns in the dirt with a stick.

  A sci-fi addict in his youth, Jeff recalled a book by Heinlein. Okay, he thought, viciously attacking the dirt with his stick, so a nuclear blast blew this guy’s fallout shelter into an alternate future. Welcome to the club. Jeff jabbed the stick into the dirt and it broke with a dry snap.

  “Oh, bullshit! It’s probably no more than my imagination and just the Mars station.”

  The argument raged back and forth while he fed the fire. Frequent glances at the smaller moon revealed it was not his imagination, nor could it be the Mars station. It was far too large. Reason and emotion battled in a no-holds-barred match that covered the entire mental landscape.

  While there was no escaping the scalpel-sharp persuasion of higher logic honed by years of academic training, the power of ancient drives proved equal to the task. Reason concluded he was no longer on Earth. Emotion—fear—rallied anger and scorned such a conclusion. It was down and dirty. Hours passed without resolution.

  Jeff jumped to his feet, grabbed a rock, and heaved it at a tree. “This whole thing is a bunch of crap! Damn it, this is Earth! That goddamed earthquake has totally fucked me!”

  He threw more rocks and kicked the dirt, but all it did was make him want to cry from loneliness. The thought that there might not be anyone within thousands of miles proved so unsettling he sought escape in sleep. It was a restless night of unsettling dreams and Jeff got up before the sun. He paced and sat, paced and sat, the knowledge that he could not possibly be on Earth chipping away at doubt only to retreat in the face of angry denial. Hunger would not be denied and he spitted a piece of venison on a green stick.

  The smell of hot food, the warmth of the sun—both provided a pleasant timeout to put his head back together. It was also challenging to reheat the meat without burning it. When the venison was done to a turn, not charred black, Jeff took a cautious bite but burned his tongue anyway. For the first time he noticed how flat the meat tasted and sprinkled it with a light dusting of salt.

  “Not much left,” Jeff muttered, hefting the salt container. “Without salt this diet could really get old, quick.”

  That kicked off a chain of associations. Okay, he thought, let’s accept that at the very least you’re no longer in the Cascades. I’m here, wherever that is, and nothing is going to change the fact that I’m lost, but good. Until I can figure out what the score is or hike out, I’m going to have to conserve everything that can’t be replaced from what is at hand. I can only use the Colt for self-defense unless there is no alternative. A cluster of neurons in the memory cortex fired off.

  “Wait a minute!”

  Diving into the backpack, Jeff pulled out two boxes of ammunition. “I don’t remember packing these and should not have brought them. More importantly, why didn’t I notice them days ago?”

  He opened one of the boxes to make sure it wasn’t a dream. Holding a silver cartridge up to the sunlight, he gazed at an enigma.

  “Was I really that far gone?” Jeff pursed his lips and nodded. “Yep, I was. No other explanation.” He tossed the cartridge in the air and grinned. “Let’s hear it for confusion. Loaded for bear, not to mention cheeky deer!”

  Having arrived at a livable compromise, Jeff’s train of thought continued beyond the deer to include the paw prints. The animal that made them continued to be a mystery. Bear, mountain lion—there was no way of knowing. At least he had seen the deer and knew what to expect.

  Stowing the cartridge boxes, he chuckled. “Shoot, maybe it’s no more than a large coyote on the prowl. I’m probably spooked for nothing.”

  The instant an image of a coyote formed in his mind, Jeff was hit by such a blast of outrage that it was physically painful. He had been about to take a seat but sprang upright in alarm.

  “Now where did that come from? It couldn’t have come from me, could it? Shit, it feels like something is screwing with my head! Am I losing my mind?” Growling, “I have to get out of this damn wilderness before I go entirely over the edge,” he hurried to the task of breaking camp.

  Since the valley still offered the easiest path, Jeff continued to use it as a highway. While a part of his mind stubbornly refused to accept that he was no longer on Earth, he examined his surroundings with new eyes. At the same time, his thoughts kept drifting back to Seattle. Memories of familiar haunts came to mind. Mom and Dad, Carl, the fencing club—they all flowed through his thoughts leaving a deep sadness that threatened to drag him down. He was not going to run across a highway, catch a ride, and soon be back in Seattle.

  Days passed and acceptance made headway as Jeff cataloged more discrepancies. One day he stopped to run his hand over the bark of a giant evergreen.

  “Sure looks like a Douglas fir,” he mused, “but the bark’s way too smooth.”

  With the drop in elevation, clumps of aspens had made an appearance. A close examination revealed that the leaves were far too broad to be aspen. The rabbit he scared up looked for all the world like a snowshoe hare, its mottled white and brown spring fur clearly evident as it bounded away. Then he thought about the deer teeth.

  Jeff decided to stop for the night when he ran across a meadow carpeted with lush grass and bisected by a wide creek. He pitched tent inside a copse of the aspen-like trees and scouted the area for wood he could fashion a bow out of. Two boxes of ammo or not, something told him it was going to be a long hike.

  “Well,” he eventually said, looking down at the gnarled contraption in his hand, “I don’t know how long this thing will last, but it will have to do until I have time to cut and cure a better piece of wood.”

  Arrows, likewise, were makeshift. He would have to learn how to knapp arrowheads from flint or obsidian. Laying the arrows aside near dusk, Jeff decided he could afford to shoot another deer. He sneaked down near the creek and lay quietly until a large buck came to drink. Watching the deer graze, Jeff felt immense relief. At least they aren’t pure carnivores, he thought. Or at least this one isn’t.

  One shot did the trick. The pull back to camp was hard going, and he decided to dress out the deer after only a few steps. Just as he dropped the antlers, Jeff caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He was startled then alarmed when he saw gray, ghostlike shadows gliding through the woods at the border of the meadow.

  “If those mothers are coyotes, I’m a dwarf!”

  That comparison did nothing for his peace of mind. He grabbed the antlers, back peddled with all his might and brought the deer skidding along. The glow of the campfire seemed the most cheerful thing he had ever seen. Frequently peering into the circle of darkness, Jeff butchered the deer as fast as he could. His imagination did the rest.

  “I can’t leave the carcass here, but those things were big! Oh, shit!”

  He set an armload of venison on a handy boulder and took hold of the antlers. While the deer was much lighter to pull, it still seemed like an anchor. Although he had never been afraid of the dark, Jeff discovered foot by foot that he wasn’t too old to learn. He had not gone far when he couldn’t stand it and dropped the carcass.

  “I’m outta here!”

  Jogging back with pistol in hand, he fully expected something to take a crack at him. When he trotted into camp, Jeff already heard sounds of a commotion in the direction of the carcass. While it wasn’t loud like lions quarreling over position at a kill, Jeff knew without doubt that the deer carcass was being torn to shreds.

  Hurrying to gather extra firewood, he muttered, “Polite carnivores?” The idea was absurd. The commotion eventually settled down to an occasional loud pop that sounded like bones snapping. “No sleep tonight, that’s for sure.”

  Dropping a final armload of wood on the pile, Jeff occupied his time touching up the edge of his saber. The sword and pistol were very reassuring. Eventually all he heard was the creaking of i
nsects. The recorder filled more time, but his heart wasn’t in it. He knew that something was out there. Jeff threw more wood on the fire and imagined a big thermos of coffee. It didn’t help. Found out by the day’s stress, his head slowly drooped and he nodded off.

  A snapping in the fire awakened Jeff with a start. Horrified that he had fallen asleep and allowed the fire to burn down to coals, he grabbed a piece of firewood. Something moved on the other side of the fire, and he froze.

  “Oh my God! They’re here!”

  A number of inkblot shadows were grouped on the opposite side of the coals. Glowing orbs of green and red seemed to hang suspended in the shadows, giving the impression of monstrosity. Jeff tossed the piece of wood on the fire and moved back against the tent. It was a big piece of wood and a vortex of sparks shot into the air. Fighting a nearly irresistible urge to take off running, he yanked the saber free.

  Illuminated by the slowly growing firelight, six creatures that looked as big as Shetland ponies took shape. Sitting motionless, they stared at him with unblinking intensity. Another minute and they still had not moved. Jeff relaxed a fraction.

  “Okay, they haven’t jumped you yet. Maybe their bellies are full and they’re only curious. Let us hope!” The piece of wood was full of pitch and flared up. “Shit they’re big,” Jeff breathed. “They look like wolves, but I’ll bet they run at least 250 pounds and stand four feet.”

  Jeff figured his prospects in a free-for-all and knew he wouldn’t have a chance, pistol or no pistol. He tossed more wood on the fire, the wolves turning their heads as if linked together to follow his every move. Several let tongues loll out of partially open jaws that looked big enough to swallow a rabbit whole. That and they way they were looking at him really irritated Jeff.

  “Those bastards are enjoying this!”

  Easing tense muscles and grimly clamping his jaw, Jeff focused on the biggest of the lot. “All right, bucko, this seems to be your game. What’s it going to be?” He shifted the saber to his left hand and unsnapped the holster.