by Eddie Patin
Nothing happened. Again.
The rank smell of the cave made his desperate stomach flip-flop. Near the center of the cavern, where Jason stood among bones and blue-sparking crystals, there was a new body that was mostly ripped apart. Dark, glistening sections of grisly bones and joints and thick tendons still remained. The body was burnt and smelled like a mix of pungent meat starting to go bad.
The hint of barbeque in the air was making Jason crazy and—mixed with the overwhelming smell of snake shit throughout the cavern—made him want to puke.
Once when Jason was a boy, he caught a garter snake in his backyard. As the slender green snake tried to get away from him, it fouled his hands with feces that looked a lot like bird droppings. It was slick and oily and smelled terrible. There was a distinctly reptile odor to the snake shit in Jason's little hands back then, and that same odor was prevalent in the wyvern’s cave now. Whenever the man was in the darkness of this gross, rotting place—surrounded by charred bones and remains in various stages of decomposition—he remembered the smell from that garter snake.
Taking a quick sip from his bite valve, Jason tried to clear his head and thought of American dollars. His mind's eye drifted to the back of his house and the hill leading up from the ravine...
There was a loud flutter and a sudden snap like a .22 rifle shot, then the cavern lit up with the brilliance of another opening portal. Swirling orange fire erupted from a growing circular window into another world, roaring loudly as it spiraled outward and casting sputtering sparks and shadows all over the cave.
"Yes!" he cried, grinning and squinting against the brilliance.
The instant Jason’s eyes adjusted to the bright, swirling rim of the gateway, he could make out the back of his property gradually appearing in the center of the shimmering disc. The vision showed his property in the dark. The streetlight out front by Kestrel Drive flooded the front yard with yellow light, and Jason prepared himself to step through...
Then he noticed that there was no snow. The grass was dry and brown.
That wasn't right. Even if he’d been gone for a week here in this dinosaur world, there was no way that all of the snow would be gone—not in the shadowy areas, at least.
"Damn," he said, hesitating. That wasn’t his home. It was somewhere else...
The portal shuddered as if sensing Jason's uncertainty, then suddenly collapsed in on itself and disappeared with a pop.
Jason found himself in darkness again.
The man shook his head and tried another time, peering through the dark cave and focusing on the cash in his hand. He imagined the ravine area behind his backyard and standing there with his back to the thicket of scrub oak. He visualized looking up the slope toward his house...
That fluttering sound ripped through the air again like a huge flag waving violently in a strong wind. Another spinning portal snapped open with an orange flash; sparks sizzling and sputtering as it roared to life. When the window to the other world gradually appeared, Jason gasped as he looked into a vision of strange, bright colors that immediately hurt his eyes.
Everything was bold and painted. The man realized that he was seeing in some other weird spectrum of light—the glowing edges and glowing grass and sky and brilliant lines of his house were like ... old cartoons ... back when they first started adding color! The entire world shook and vibrated as if alive as the absurd colors burned into Jason’s wide eyes.
Jason touched the surface of the portal, drawn to make sure that it was real.
The shimmering membrane between the roaring, spinning rim of sparks rippled away from his finger like the surface of a pond.
He could make out immeasurably strange people slowly striding down the street. They were barely visible because they seemed to fade in and out between the shaking background as their stick-like arms and legs swung and curved back and forth.
Suddenly, Jason saw one of the same shimmering creatures right in front of him. He realized that the buzzing, hiding-in-between-the-lines form of one of those bizarre people was leaning in toward the portal. He caught a glimpse of three glowing orbs that reminded Jason of the spots he’d see behind his eyelids if he pressed his palms into his closed eyes...
"Oh shit! Close it!" Jason cried, pulling his hand of money back and shaking his head, his chest blooming with buzzing terror.
The portal with the crazy cartoon world shuddered and closed with a pop.
Darkness again.
Good God, Jason thought. He needed to figure out how to control this. Did that thing almost come through? He went through. Could things from other worlds come through to him as well? Is that how the big spider attacked Jason behind his house? Did it come through the portal in just a flicker of it opening that he didn’t notice?
"Come on now..." Jason muttered to himself, calming his breathing and trying to shake the wacky vision of the last world out of his mind. "Focus..."
He held out the cash again, visualizing Ridgeview: more cash just like it on his dresser, the slope behind his house, the back walls and roof of his home, the snow coating the ground...
Another portal fluttered and snapped open, its sparking and sputtering rim spinning wildly as the roaring sound came back in force. The gateway opened, and Jason saw exactly what he was hoping for: his house exactly as he remembered it. There was snow in the yard—even footprints evident in the same path he always took to walk down to the trail. He could see the marks he'd left with his boots through the snow. But now, it was daytime there—not night anymore.
Is this the place? he thought. Something inside Jason held tight to the vision and he watched as the swirling, spark-spitting rim stabilized in a smooth spin, throwing off heatless, orange fire all around the cavern...
"Okay," Jason said. His stomach growled. He could see the way to the fridge in his kitchen like a clear path laid out before him.
Taking firm hold of his cane, pushing the cash back into his pocket, Jason stepped up to the swirling portal to what looked like home and walked through, lifting his legs one at a time over its fiery, sputtering rim.
The heavy, humid air and stench of the wyvern’s cave was suddenly gone, replaced with crisp and cool outside of the Colorado outdoors.
Mountain air, Jason thought, stepping into the sunshine.
The portal still roared and spit behind him. His boots sank into shallow, sloppy snow, and Jason felt the sun and the chill air on his exposed skin.
He looked around—up and down the ridge, then behind him at the brilliant and loud gateway—then allowed himself to smile as he glanced up at his house. Jason could see his own tracks leading the way down from there, past him, and disappearing into the spot where he crossed through the woods to get to the hiking trail.
"Finally!" Jason exclaimed. His face hurt when he grinned from the bruises and raw skin.
With excited strides, Jason headed up the slope. When he was a few steps away from the spinning gateway, he heard the roaring, sputtering sound of it cease with a pop like the loud crack of a wet log spitting in a campfire. He hustled up into his backyard then straight toward the door.
Jason paused and looked down for a dog bowl. There was none.
His smile renewed, Jason pulled out his keys and slipped the right one into the lock. He opened the door without a problem.
"Yes!"
Stepping into his kitchen, Jason looked around. It still felt like a dream. Could it really be finished? Was he really home?
Then he frowned.
The stove was replaced with a stainless steel cube with a port of some kind in the center—a dark cylinder that reminded Jason of a front-loading washing machine. Jason had no freaking idea what it was for. The countertops were made of something like black glass and there was a glowing blue panel on the wall where his clock should have been.
The man ducked around into the hall and saw that his painting of the Dreadwraith was still there, but it didn’t matter. This was definitely not his house.
Jason’s stom
ach cramped and he groaned in pain.
"Food," he said simply and rushed to the refrigerator, which was still standing where it should have been, and still recognizable.
Opening the main door, Jason’s stomach rumbled loudly, and he felt desperate to eat. He started salivating immediately and longed for food in a way like he’d never experienced before...
Jason looked inside the fridge—which was lit up by the same sort of interior light—at shelves and shelves of strange, white ceramic cubes. There were dozens of them stacked neatly on every shelf, all the way from front to back.
"What?!"
He stared at the weird white boxes—all about the size of Chinese food containers—then heard a scuffle at the open back door...
Turning with a shock, Jason looked at ... himself ... sort of. There was a man standing in the doorway dressed in sweatpants and a jacket with a backpack a lot like his own with a bite valve line running down one shoulder. On the stranger's chest was a phone pouch a lot like Jason’s, and he even held a black, polypropylene cane in one hand. But his face! The other Jason’s face was different and twisted; pinched into a strange set of features running up the centerline as if his eyes, brow, and multiple weird flaps and bumps of skin were all pushed to the middle like a long, absurd nose from chin to forehead. Dark blonde hair just like Jason’s ran down around the sides of strange Jason's head, framing the bizarre blank face with the central line of facial parts like a fleshy abstract painting beyond bizarre...
Two vertically-stacked blue eyes blinked then widened. A flap of skin quivered.
Stark, raving terror washed over Jason and he felt himself gasp as he suddenly felt like he was looking down on himself from above. His body jerked uncontrollably toward the door, and Jason whimpered in horror as he felt himself crash through the other Jason and burst into the snowy backyard!
He thought of the fridge full of white boxes. The other Jason’s weird face hung in his mind, stuck in a mental loop as Jason felt the sun on his skin again, then wind, then the thud of him falling into the snow and frozen earth. The world spun around him for a moment, then he realized that he was tumbling, flailing—rolling and sliding down the hill...
Dizzy and not knowing which was way up, Jason watched the blue sky and the flash of the sun and the snow crystals smacking him in the face until he realized that he was tumbling and rolling; hurtling back toward the portal!
Growling with effort, Jason struggled to find his feet under him as he pitched and tossed end over end, sliding and propelling himself toward the portal back to the wyvern’s cave. He planted a heel into the ground, narrowly resisting tumbling over again. Jason felt himself push his own body up to his feet, following the strong pull of his gut. Was it he himself that pulled himself through the door like a thrown ragdoll?
Did his mind snap and force him to flee?
"Why?!" Jason cried, spitting out a mouthful of snow and dirt. "No, wait!"
He sprinted for the portal and heard the violent fluttering and snap of it ripping open again through space-time. Looking back up to the house, Jason saw the other version of him with the bizarre face standing in the doorway watching, stunned...
"Damn it!" he cried, leaping into the portal that led to darkness, surrounded by a sputtering and spinning ring of brilliant, orange sparks. It was like jumping into a swimming pool—crossing the line from cool and crisp clean air and sunshine to being thick in the fetid, humid black cave again.
This time, Jason tried not to crash into the bones and landed on his right foot, barely catching his balance. Stabbing pain shot through his bad knee.
"What the hell?!" he cried out to no one, landing on the chunky dried mud of the cavern floor, kicking a bone aside and setting off several cloudy, blue glowing crystals. The blazing, orange portal popped shut, plunging Jason once again into near-total darkness. He was left with nothing but the sounds of clattering bones and his own heavy breathing.
There was a hearty reptilian growl from somewhere in the cavern...
Jason felt a quick shot of white fear.
The wyvern!
Holding his breath and willing his heavy heartbeat to quiet, Jason stood in the darkness with wide eyes. He listened. His fingertips buzzed and his knees felt like jelly...
Another sound—a loud, vibrating grunt that had to be the wyvern—came from the dim area in blackness that made the tunnel to the mouth of the cave!
Shit!
Jason pulled off his backpack enough to fish out his light and flashed it around low at the floor as he slung the CamelBak back on. He frantically searched for somewhere to go without shining the LED in a direction where the wyvern might spot him...
There was the back of the cave—a dark place that turned around a corner. Jason hadn’t been there yet.
As quickly and quietly as he could, the man plunged through the bones and shredded carcasses toward the unknown side of the cavern, deeper into darkness. He ignored the twinge in his knee and prayed that the stench of the bodies wouldn’t make him gag. What if the wyvern came around the corner right now? he fretted. It was right there—right around the tunnel, near the exit. Was it leaving? Coming in? Dragging a dead dinosaur in its claws? Where in the hell could he go?
Jason made it to the far edge of the cave opposite the exit then followed a wall that led to a large, tapering tunnel that he had noticed before but never explored. The tunnel led further into the hillside—deeper underground. He grasped his cane tightly and shined the light ahead, desperately glancing backwards at where the wyvern would—
There was a sudden odd, bleating grunt directly in front of Jason. He felt something big and round touch his thigh. The unknown object separated into two halves, closing around his leg...
"Gah!" he cried, spinning. Jason pulled back from a dark, glistening creature that was trying to bite him. It raised its head—which was the size of a dog’s—and black, serpentine eyes glittered in the light of Jason’s flashlight as the creature opened its mouth and let out a little hiss. Rows of tiny, white teeth lined the inside of its jaws, and Jason’s wide eyes took in the little monster's nubby horns, long neck, and fat, snake-like body wrapped with small, wilted black wings. If the creature was a raptor, it would have stood somewhere between his knees and his waist. The beast raised itself up on the knuckles of those withered wings, shaking with the effort as it reached out to bite Jason again...
A baby wyvern? Jason thought. He felt his face twist into an expression of disgust. In the light of his flashlight, the little monster looked wet and slimy.
The little wyvern lashed out at him with gaping jaws and unexpected speed. Jason barely managed to block the attack with his cane. The repulsive and dangerous wyrmling recoiled with another hiss after struggling to raise its head with still-developing neck muscles...
Jason frowned down at it the vile creature, took a step back, then swung his cane hard onto its skull, where it impacted with a solid thwack. The baby wyvern’s head tilted to the side and its eyes lolled, but it bared its teeth again and somehow slithered forward like a fat python, seeking to bite him again.
Barely jumping aside of the creature’s clumsy strike, Jason raised his cane then struck it on the head again as hard as he could. He grimaced and hit it another time. Feeling heat and fierce energy bloom in his chest and behind his eyes, Jason smashed it again and again—the wet smacks echoing through the back of the cave—then stopped when the dreadful creature fell limp in the dirt.
There was a terrifying huff from the front of the cave—near the tunnel exit—and Jason suddenly remembered that he was trying to hide from the big wyvern! Apparently, the wicked, fire-breathing monster was a mother.
The man jumped over the body of the hideous dead creature and wondered why he didn’t feel anything. He’d just killed a baby. Sure—it was trying to eat him, but it was still just a baby! Maybe it had just hatched. Perhaps that was why it was so immobile. Jason flashed his light forward then stopped in his tracks when he saw two more glistening wyr
mlings staring back at him from where the cave ended directly ahead.
"Oh, shit!" he muttered, wincing when his words echoed.
In that instant, Jason noticed that there were also two eggs. They were smooth and leathery—about the size of elongated basketballs—near the other two young baby wyverns, who were now hissing and clumsily crawling toward him on wilted wings...
He couldn’t hide back here.
He was screwed.
Jason turned and hustled back toward the front of the cave. Maybe the wyvern was just leaving, he thought, panting and breathing in the nasty odor and humid air. He stumbled on a large bone still attached to other bones that caught up his foot.
Then he heard heavy scraping and large, huffing breaths coming from up ahead...
Adrenaline flooded Jason’s body, turning his joints to jelly and his guts to water.
The monster was coming...
Immediately abandoning his idea to head out through the tunnel, Jason crashed through the bones and carcasses back to the middle of the cavern, frantically pulling at the money in his pocket! He dropped one of the bills...
Stopping where he was pretty sure the portal had opened, Jason shook his head violently to clear it of his buzzing, frying fear. He took a huge breath of death and rot then stared at the cash in the darkness, willing a gateway to open. He heard the big wyvern pulling itself into the cavern behind him. He imagined his house, thought of snow. He tried not to think of the horrifying monster no doubt crawling up right behind him, all spikes and teeth and slick viciousness...
The fluttering came and there was the snap of the portal opening. As the sparks burst into existence, lighting up the cave with their sputtering, orange brilliance, the shimmering window in the center of the disc grew and smoothed...
Jason found himself staring at a crimson world that bathed his vision with blood.
He threw a quick glance backwards to see exactly what he thought he would—the wyvern rising up in the cavern, pausing on the clawed knuckles of its wings. Its smooth, serpentine curves were plated with scales and spikes, gleaming like hellfire in the orange light and the crimson glow of the world within the portal. The beast looked at him curiously, then furiously, its dark eyes almost burning in the blood-red glare...