Enter the Core

by Peter Lerangis

  “You fool!” Alex raced to Brandon and pulled him back. Caught by surprise, he lost his balance. But this time, he wasn’t going to disobey.

  He, Max, and Alex ran toward Kristin, who was heading toward a cave opening farther up the beach. “Guys, over here!” she screamed.

  “How do you know it’s safe?” Brandon called out, but Kristin was already inside.

  A deafening CAWWWW! split the air behind them. Leathery flying creatures were swooping down from high above now.

  “I think, yeah, the cave,” Brandon said.

  But now Kristin was screaming. She ran out, followed by a slithery yellow reptile. And at the same time, Max felt a hand on his shoulder.

  No. It wasn’t a hand.

  It was a paw.

  “Ahhhh!” Max yelled in shock, twisting his body away, instinctively spinning and kicking. His right foot landed square in the face of a furry, monkey-like beast with wings. It fell to the ground, whimpering, and immediately ran away.

  “Whoa,” Max murmured, “did I do that?”

  “Max, help me!” came Alex’s voice.

  She was surrounded by three of the odd hairy humanoids. Max reached into his backpack and pulled out a squeeze bottle filled with raspberry Gatorade. “Forgot I had this,” he said. “Don’t say I never gave you anything!”

  As he squirted the liquid as close as he could to their eyes, they screamed in surprise and Alex crawled away.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Max saw Brandon fighting off two more of the creatures. They were bigger, but Brandon had better speed. Max and Alex both ran toward him, but they were stopped by a piercing scream from above.

  “No! No-o-o-o-o!”

  Max and Alex glanced up to see Kristin’s legs dangling as a flying reptile lifted her toward the sea.

  “That thing almost killed me . . .” Max murmured.

  He did the only thing he could think of, which was throw the Gatorade bottle toward the beast. He knew it was about the weakest thing ever. And it only grazed the reptile’s tail. But the impact was enough to throw the thing off-balance. It squawked, loosening its talons. With a scream of terror, Kristin hurtled downward. She landed in the soft green sand with a thud and rolled.

  As Alex ran after her, Max stopped short.

  To their left, another phalanx of the humanlike beasts was approaching from the opposite direction. Kristin was groaning and struggling to her feet with Alex’s help. Brandon was running toward them. “They’re not so tough!” he shouted.

  And just beyond Kristin, still floating in the sea, was the raft that had been left by Trickle Me Elmo. On it was one long pole; the other floated next to it. Beyond it was a wide-open sea with no signs of life. Now, in the clearer sky, Max spotted a dark lump near the horizon.

  An island.

  “Follow me!” Max shouted over his shoulder toward Brandon, who was already passing him by.

  “With you, dude,” the pilot said.

  Max urged Alex and Kristin toward the water. The sea seemed to have no current, so the raft had floated only about fifteen feet out. Together the four sloshed out in the shallows and climbed aboard.

  It was a tight fit, only about six feet square. Brandon lifted the floating pole out of the water. Max took the other pole and stood. Together he and Brandon thrust the planks into the water and pushed the raft farther out. Not daring to look up, Max poled as hard as he could. At any moment he expected a furry paw or slimy claw to grab him off the raft.

  But the creatures had gathered on the shore in a clump, staring out to them, grunting and babbling to each other.

  “Can you do the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus?” Brandon shouted.

  Kristin narrowed her eyes. “The jaw shape . . . the cranium . . . if I didn’t think it was such a crazy concept, I’d say they were Neanderthals.”

  “With a random pterodactyl, flying monkey, and walking hairball,” Max said.

  “Well, it’s a good thing no one taught them to swim,” Brandon said with a sigh.

  “It’s not much of a comfort,” Alex said. “We’re heading into the middle of a sea with no way out.”

  Max’s eyes were focused on the creatures. Their chattering didn’t seem so random to him. It seemed more like a discussion.

  And it looked like they had reached a decision.

  A squad of about a dozen was making its way into the water, following in the wake of the raft.

  “It looks to me,” Max said, “like we have some company.”

  36

  BRANDON stared down the approaching mob, lifting a pole over his head. “Yeeaarrgh!”

  “Chill, Brandon the Pirate,” Max said. He was watching the creatures closely. They were keeping their distance. “We’re not going that fast. If they wanted, they could swarm us. But they’re not.”

  “Why aren’t they?” Kristin asked.

  “Because I’m scaring them away?” Brandon replied.

  “Maybe,” Alex said, her eyes on the slow-moving mob. “But I’d try putting the pole down for a minute and helping Max move the boat.”

  Reluctantly Brandon lowered the pole and dipped it into the water again. The creatures kept their slow, silent pace. Now they were fanning out around the raft on both sides, keeping a safe distance.

  “So strange,” Kristin said. “It looks like some kind of escort.”

  “But they were attacking us a couple of minutes ago,” Brandon asserted.

  Max gave the pole a hard shove. “Maybe,” he said, “they weren’t.”

  From above, a crying screech broke the silence. Out of the green clouds, a prehistoric bird dropped like a missile.

  And another.

  And a third.

  Brandon lifted his pole out of the water again. This time so did Max. The animals around the raft were chattering again. The three birds circled above the raft like buzzards, and then one dropped like a dive-bomb. It was heading straight for Max, its saw-toothed beak hinging open.

  “Maaaax!” Alex screamed.

  Max swallowed hard, praying he could jam the pole into the creature’s beak. But now a second lizard-bird was dropping fast.

  And a third.

  Brandon was bracing himself for attack. But there were two of them and three attackers.

  “What are we supposed to—?” Max yelled.

  From his left, a black coil shot upward into the green sky. With a whiplike snnnap, it knocked the first lizard-bird out of the sky.

  Snnnap! The second screeched, its head jolting backward, and it plummeted to the sea.

  Snnnap! The third had come close to the tip of Max’s pole, but it never reached it, as a pink tentacle flicked it away like a fly.

  Three of the hairy creatures—just like the one who had poured the liquid over Brandon—were picking the birds out of the sky with their tentacles. “Dear Lord,” Kristin said, “those are like frog tongues! They just expand and expand.”

  Now a flock of the deadly birds was hovering warily above them. They squawked, crisscrossing each other in the sky. And a moment later, they were gone.

  Max smiled. He scanned the faces of all the creatures that surrounded them, although with some of them it was hard to tell where the faces were. “Thanks!” he called out.

  They responded with grunts and moans. Two of the hairy creatures clapped hands, crying out, “Aaaaannsa! Annsa annsa annsa!”

  “Same to you,” Brandon replied.

  “Sounds like they’re saying ‘answer,’” Alex remarked.

  “I don’t think they would actually know English,” Max said. “It’s probably Hairballer for ‘See what I did there?’”

  “What just happened?” Kristin said. “They’re our friends now? I’m so confused.”

  “I think they were trying to be friendly, but we didn’t understand,” Alex said. “The lizard-birds, I guess, are the real predators. This gang may have saved our lives.” She looked warily at their new allies. “Let’s go back to the shore. We can make nice with them. We know at least one of the
m has serum. Maybe they’ll give us some.”

  Max gave Brandon a look. He nodded, and together they jammed the poles into the bottom of the shallow sea and reversed course.

  BREEEEEEAAAAHHH!

  The hairy things started shrieking, wagging their tentacles threateningly at the raft. They, and the horde of Neanderthal-like creatures, started to crowd the area, blocking the path back.

  “I guess we’re not doing that,” Max said, as he and Brandon stopped the raft.

  “What’s up?” Brandon said. “They want us to float out to sea?”

  Max looked back over the water. They were closer to the island now, and he could see wisps of smoke rising from its midst. “Looks like that place is inhabited.”

  “Maybe that’s where they cook their dinners,” Kristin said. “And we’re tonight’s special guests.”

  “Or,” Alex added, “we’re the main course.”

  They were trapped, but Max tried not to think of it that way. The creatures seemed peace loving. He reminded himself that one of them had healed Brandon. They hadn’t attacked, really, when you thought about it. They had just approached. It was Max and his friends who had overreacted.

  He said those things to himself over and over.

  The island was drawing closer. Its surface was covered with rubbery-looking trees draped with moss. They sagged of their own weight, bent over from the top like elderly gardeners. In the distance, Max once again heard a deep whooshing noise. “What is that?” he asked. “I heard that all the way down here.”

  “Geysers,” Kristin said. “They go off regularly. You can time your clocks to them. Who knows where that one is, maybe many kilometers away.”

  Where the raft was headed, a green sandy path led up through the trees into the island’s interior. Animals were scurrying down that path now, emerging from farther inside the island. They gathered noisily on the shore. Most of them were smaller than the creatures around the raft—furry, rodent-like beings who reared back on two legs, jumping up and down. Out of their tiny mustached mouths came a song like the calls of tiny whales.

  Kristin winced. “Out of tune,” she said, “but fascinating.”

  “Annsa!” the winged monkeys shouted. “Annsa annsa annsa!”

  Kristin stood, staring at the commotion on the shore. “I am not feeling excited about this . . .”

  “I hate rats too,” Max said.

  As Max and Brandon poled the raft closer, the monkeys began impatiently gesturing toward the island. “Annsa annsa annsa annsaannsaannsaannsaannsa!”

  Max gulped. He gave his cousin a wan smile. “Let’s do this.”

  “Let’s do what?” Alex said. “Walk up to those little hungry-looking critters? They look way too eager.”

  The raft was beaching now, its front edge scraping against the soft sand. Max stepped off first, letting his boots sink into the muck. Brandon followed. The rodents were hopping excitedly, twirling around, keening little tuneless songs.

  “Hey, buddies! You guys are the cutest!” Brandon said.

  “They’re rats, Brandon!” Alex blasted.

  “More like lemmings,” Kristin said, her voice hushed and awestruck as she stepped out of the boat. “With a bit of pika mutated in there. And maybe fox. This area is an extraordinary evolutionary laboratory. Don’t you see, Alex? It’s like the island of Komodo!”

  Alex gave her a why-are-we-talking-about-some-place-I-never-heard-of look.

  “Explorers found a giant lizard there, which existed nowhere else on Earth,” Kristin explained. “It had been allowed to evolve, because in Komodo there were no predators for that sort of creature. And this is what we have here! Up on the Earth, millions of species have gone extinct by natural selection over the millennia. Entire branches of the developmental tree, snapped off because of predators. But here, in this unique biome . . .”

  Her voice trailed off as she gazed around.

  “Mutant madness,” Alex said.

  As Brandon pulled the raft up onto the sand, the rodent-like creatures began tugging at their hems and shoelaces, pulling all four of them forward. “Don’t bite me, don’t bite me, don’t bite me,” Alex said, shaking her leg.

  The animals didn’t seem fazed. Letting go, they led the way up the path, nudging ankles, singing, pointing with their tiny paws. The other beasts, dripping green water from their fur, hair, and scales, followed close behind.

  Together they all trudged up into the odd jungle. The path was winding and exactly the same width all the way, framed on each side by thick hedges of gray-green moss that were trimmed perfectly flat.

  After about five minutes, a house came into view. It was constructed of jagged lava rocks, irregularly shaped and different sizes. A couple of crude, glassless windows peeked out the long side. On the shorter side was an archway with no door, and Max thought he could see movement within.

  At the top of the path, they stopped short.

  “More Neanderthals,” Kristin murmured.

  A team of the hulking humanoids turned toward them. At the sight of Max and company, they backed away. Some shuddered, a couple of them screamed, and all began chattering excitedly.

  “This is extraordinary,” Kristin said. “They aren’t exactly what the fossil record shows. I believe they’re what the Neanderthals may have looked like if they’d survived extinction.”

  “I thought they developed into us,” Brandon said.

  Kristin shook her head. “Different species. They were thought to have died off.”

  Now the monkeys were shouting “Annsa!” again, and the rodents were back to leg-pulling, guiding Max and the others toward the open entrance to the building.

  On the slanted rooftop, which looked like it had been made of pasted-together shells, smoke puffed out of a crude rock chimney. The Neanderthals were slouching away, back to their work.

  Max stopped for a moment to watch them. A team of four was pushing against the arms of a huge horizontal wheel, turning it slowly. Others were lugging pails, stacking what looked like wood, trimming hedges with knives, talking to one another in what sounded like a real language. “Kristin,” Max called out, “is that Icelandic?”

  “Max, come!” hissed Alex.

  He spun around. Standing in the doorway was a grizzled old man, maybe five and half feet tall, dressed in a white robe. Skin hung on his facial bones like worn-out clothes, wrinkled and neglected and nearly transparent. His eyes were pure white, one higher than the other, but both were sunken in deep sockets. The skin around his mouth was so thin, you could practically see his teeth. Max couldn’t tell if he was smiling or frowning.

  The monkey-like creatures were bowing, throwing their arms to the ground in some strange kind of salute, squeaking “Annsa! Annsa! Annsa!” as if afraid the old guy would bonk them over the head.

  Outside, the Neanderthals were making noises again, grunting and snorting and squealing “Annsa!” in high-pitched voices.

  “Are they mocking these guys?” Max asked.

  “I guess there’s a pecking order everywhere,” Kristin said

  Now the old man was stepping forward onto the sand. His steps were mincing and light, and his robe made a swishing sound as he walked.

  It took Max a moment to realize the sound was not the robe’s material but actually the man’s speaking voice. It was a papery whisper, mostly clicks, whistles, and hisses.

  “Can anyone understand him?” Brandon asked.

  “Yes, it’s Icelandic,” Kristin said. “He’s welcoming us.”

  The old man stopped speaking. As his head cocked to the side, Max panicked for a moment that it might fall off.

  “Would you prefer English?” the old guy whispered.

  “I understood that,” Alex said.

  Max walked closer to hear more clearly. “Th-Thank you. I’m Max, and these are Alex, Kristin, and—”

  “Brandon Barker, pleased to meet you,” Brandon blurted, stepping forward with his hand outstretched. “And you are . . . ?”

&
nbsp; The old man’s mouth twitched. Ignoring the hand, he turned his eyes to Brandon. Where his pupils should have been was a grid of thin, lightning-like blood vessels. “They call me Annsa,” the old man said. His laugh was like the creak of an opening door, and it lasted a few nanoseconds too long. “So I suppose that is my name. Come.”

  Turning slowly into the house, he called out in his raspy whisper: “We have guests!”

  “There are more of him?” Alex asked, as she took Max’s hand.

  Shuddering, Max followed Kristin and Annsa into the house. It was dark and smelled a bit like seaweed, divided into two rooms by a wall in the middle. A stone fireplace was burning some dried green substance. Above the fire hung a stone pot of some not-bad-smelling stew.

  Annsa stopped at the opening into the next room. His mouth twitched again as he stepped back.

  Inside was another roaring fireplace, and a modest table made of carved stone. Sitting at the table were two figures in hooded sweatshirts, hunched over a table that contained two cups of a steaming green liquid and a plate of dry-looking seaweed snacks.

  “Humans, thank goodness,” Kristin sighed. She walked in first, extending her hand. “Hello, Kristin Zax-Ericksson.”

  As the smaller of the two looked up, her hood fell back to reveal her face. “Bitsy Bentham,” she said. “And this is my pa—”

  She never finished the word. As Max and Alex walked in, her jaw dropped open.

  “Surprise,” Max said.

  He could feel the heat of Spencer Niemand’s glance even before seeing his slate-gray eyes.

  “I hope,” Niemand said, “that one of you brought a Snickers bar.”

  37

  “GIVE me one good reason,” Alex hissed, staring at Niemand, “why I should not wring your neck.”

  Niemand smiled brightly. “My boyish good looks?”

  “Oh, Papa, please!” With a fluttery laugh, Bitsy gently elbowed her father and stood. “You know his unique sense of humor. It really is so lovely to see you all alive and well. Er . . . how did you get here?”

  She extended her hand, but Max and Alex stared at it like it was a dead fish. “Are you serious?” Max said. “I’m not shaking your hand, and it’s none of your business how we got here.”