by Geoff North
“—ou alright? Rebecca! Are you okay?”
The itching pain was gone. Rebecca stood on legs that felt like rubber and looked back the way they’d come, back towards the poplar trees. They hadn’t run through wheat as she believed. They were in a clearing of grey dirt ringed in a rolling field of grass almost four feet high. There were trees beyond that, but they weren’t poplars. Rebecca had never seen trees like that before, at least not in person.
“Becky, did you hurt yourself?”
“Where are we?”
Abraham took her hand and started for the strange trees. “You can see where we came through.” He pointed to the twin trails of collapsed grass and Rebecca pulled him back.
“I’m not going in there… I’m not going anywhere until I know where the hell we are. And I’m definitely not going back towards that… thing.”
“But Allan and Sheila are back there. We shouldn’t have run off like that.”
He was still holding her hand. They both noticed and he let go. Rebecca studied her finger. It no longer burned. She scratched at the tip with her thumb. It was hard as rock and white like chalk. There was no feeling in it at all. “I’m not going back there.”
Abraham hesitated and ran his fingers through his dark hair. He took in their surroundings fully for the first time. There was the tall grass and forest to the east. In the west a blood-red sun hovered over a distant range of purple hills. But they weren’t prairie-sized hills. These were immense, a low mountain range over twenty miles away. That’s where Birdtail’s supposed to be, he thought. Beyond that and all around them in every direction should’ve been flat lands of organized crops and farms. There should’ve been roads.
This wasn’t their home.
“Oh God… what’re we gonna do?” Rebecca sank back onto her knees and whimpered softly. “What happened to us? Where are we?”
Abraham squatted down reluctantly, still wanting to try back for the grass and forest they’d come from. “Maybe we can figure things out if we keep moving.”
“How many times do I have to tell you—I’m not going back there.”
He settled down into a sitting position next to her. “Fair enough.”
They watched in silence as the sun bled into the peaks. Rebecca finally broke the silence after a few minutes. “That’s Kilimanjaro.”
“What?”
“The big mountain off to the south… It’s Mount Kilimanjaro.”
“Isn’t that in South America?”
“Africa, dummy. Tanzania to be specific.”
Abraham almost smiled. Half an hour earlier he was drinking and kicking a soccer ball back and forth with his best friend. He could still taste beer on the back of his tongue. “We’re not in Africa, Becky. We’re in Manitoba.”
“Geography’s one of my favorite classes. I know all the major mountains—Everest, the Matterhorn, U2… that’s Kilimanjaro.”
“A few minutes ago you had no clue where we were, now you’re trying to tell me we’re on the other side of the world?”
“Like I said… Kilimanjaro.” She looked at him. “And don’t call me Becky.”
“What?”
“Just because we’re here and we’re all alone doesn’t mean you have to treat me any differently. Call me Tubby.”
“Hang on a minute, I’ve never called you that in my life.”
“But you never stopped Allan from saying it behind my back—or any of the other guys in school, have you?”
No. He never had. But those boys didn’t know how good inside he felt whenever he saw her smile. Or the way her blonde bangs had a way of catching in her full eyelashes. They didn’t notice the beautiful sparkle in her pale blue eyes. They didn’t watch for the simple gestures; the way she shrugged her shoulders and the way she walked. Or maybe they did. Maybe like most other teenage boys they saw but kept their mouths shut. “I’m sorry.”
She rolled her eyes—another simple expression he adored in private—and shook her head in disgust. “No, I’m sorry. I can’t believe I even brought that up now. Here we are stranded in Africa and I get all sensitive about my weight.”
“We’re not in Africa.”
She shrugged her shoulders and Abraham grinned. “Africa, Canada… Kansas… it doesn’t much matter at this point. The sun’s gone down and it’s getting cold. We have to get home.”
He pointed back to the trees and she shook her head.
Abraham stood and brushed the dirt away from his jeans. “Stay here then. I’ll check the woods out myself.”
She wasn’t crazy about the idea but didn’t have a better one to offer. He helped her up and she warned him. “Five minutes—and don’t go all the way in. I want to able to see you the whole time.”
Abraham squeezed her hand. “Five minutes, I promise.”
He started through the high grass, his eyes trained on the forest ahead. They were unlike any trees he’d ever seen in person, but somehow seemed familiar—like something remembered from a book, or one of those boring documentaries his parents were always watching. The trunks were thick at the bottom and the foliage branched out above like erupted mushroom clouds settling into the sky. Abraham didn’t need to be a geography whiz like Rebecca to know trees like that grew in Africa. We’re not in Africa. He stopped when a gust of cool air stirred the grass. It made a rustling sound, a whisper. His heart pounded in his chest when he realized they might not be alone. Something could be in the grass with him. Something watching, waiting. He looked back at Rebecca and she waved. Abraham waved back and summoned the courage to continue. Nothing could be worse than that thing we found in the woods back home, he thought. Don’t be stupid. You are home. You’re not in Africa. I drank too many beers, or maybe Allan slipped something into my drink. We’re not in Africa. We can’t be.
He reached the trees and called out. “Allan!—Sheila!” The wind answered him. “Are you guys in there?” More silence. More wind. Abraham made his way into the forest and heard Rebecca calling after him. She was waving at him, yelling that he’d gone too far. He could only see the top of her head peeking above the grass. He had gone too far. Allan and his twin sister weren’t in this forest. He yelled their names one last time to be sure.
Something screamed back at him. Abraham looked up into the branches and saw a monkey grimacing at him. Its thick lips were curled back, its teeth yellow and sharp. It was too small to be a chimp and the color was all wrong. It was coated in orange fur and its eyes were too large and black. More monkeys descended from the canopy above, clustering onto the lower branches. They howled and hissed and threw pieces of bark and clumps of stinking vegetation at him. A piece smacked against his forehead and stuck. He wiped it away and saw the mess it left on his fingers. They’re throwing their own shit at me.
He backed away slowly into the grass. The screaming, feces-hurling monkeys clambered down the tree’s trunk in a wave of orange limbs and gnashing teeth. Abraham turned and ran. Their screams faded as he retraced his steps through the trampled grass towards Rebecca. He glanced back and saw a swarm of them bunched together ten feet off the ground. Why aren’t they chasing after me? That feeling of something hidden watching him returned. He burst into the clearing where Rebecca waited.
“You afraid of monkeys?” She asked.
“They were throwing crap at me.” He didn’t share his feelings that something else might be watching them. Not yet.
“What… like bananas and stuff?”
“No, they were throwing shit at me.”
“You still believe we’re not in Africa?”
Abraham’s silence answered for her. He pointed to another distant forest in the west. “We should keep moving, get out of this grass and try for higher ground before it gets too dark.”
She was watching the monkeys ascend back into the higher branches. “Are you sure we should leave?”
“They’re not there… Sheila, Allan… that thing. The farm I grew up on. None of it’s there, Rebecca. We’re all alone here.”
<
br /> She took his hand. “You can call me Becky.”
They left their little clearing and disappeared into the four foot high lake of flowering weeds and grass. Becky took her time, turning back every half minute or so to be certain the forest of baobab trees hadn’t reverted back to North American poplar. Abraham pulled at her. “We have to move faster.”
She sensed his fear but didn’t question it. That same primal apprehension had caught up to her as well. Becky remembered a summer when she was eight or nine walking with Sheila along the edge of a neighboring farmer’s corn field. The girls had ventured in and played hide and seek. It hadn’t take long to hide from each other, and it took a lot longer to find their way back out.
Abraham and Becky moved faster.
They were halfway through when Abraham stopped. Becky ran into his back and started to complain. He clapped his hand over her mouth, his eyes wide and unblinking. Listen! At first she could only hear her heart pounding between her ears, then the sound of wind rustling all around them. Abraham’s hand dropped from her mouth and they stood there for another half minute. Something to the right moved. They could see the tops of weeds dropping down thirty feet away and not popping back up. The wind wasn’t causing that.
Abraham shoved her to the west. “Run!”
She did as she was told, stumbling and flailing at the grass as it whipped her face. Abraham broke away from her and made for the hills to the northwest. He yelled as he ran. “Keep heading that way! Get to the trees and climb!”
She didn’t require any further instructions. He’d split them up, and for that Becky was terrified and furious. Together they wouldn’t stand a chance. His route would take him closer to whatever was stalking them. It shouldn’t have been his decision to make. He shouldn’t have left her like this. She burst through the grass and fell flat on her face into mud. Becky clawed back to her hands and knees and crawled onto higher ground. She made it back to her feet and searched desperately for a tree to climb. I’m scared of climbing step ladders—how the hell am I expected to climb a tree?
There was another baobab directly ahead of her. Its leafy canopy was probably filled with feces-hurling monkeys but Becky didn’t care. Her fear of climbing vanished as she jumped in mid-stride for its thick base. There were no low hanging branches to grab onto. She slammed into trunk eight feet off the ground and clung there, her fingers digging into bark, her thighs and feet holding her in place. How did I do that? She climbed like a spider another six feet. Her nails clawed into the tree far too easily. That’s going to hurt later.
She grabbed onto the first branch and pulled herself up into a sitting position. She watched as Abraham spilled out of the grass and staggered through mud fifty feet away. “Up here!” She yelled and waved her arms. “I’m over here!”
A streak of golden brown shot out of the weeds and brought him down. It was bigger than any lion Becky had ever seen in any zoo or on any movie. This thing was the size of a half-grown cow. It was a mass of rippling muscle, thrashing claws, and whipping tail. Its head was immense and Abraham’s arm was clenched firmly between its powerful jaws.
Once again Becky leapt without thinking. She dropped sixteen feet and landed on her feet with a thud. No pain. No twisted ankles. She sprinted for Abraham. The lion’s teeth had dug in deep and the boy’s body was being tossed back and forth like a rag doll.
He’ll never survive this… What am I doing?
She collided into its side and rolled. The beast’s back end slid through the mud and into the dirt kicking up a plume of dust. It pushed at the ground with massive back paws and reasserted its grip in the earth with its front claws. Abraham’s arm was still clenched between its jaws but he was no longer being thrashed around. Becky was back on her feet rubbing the top of her head where it had punched into the lion’s ribs. I could’ve broken my neck trying that. I should’ve broken my neck trying that…or at least knocked myself unconscious.
The animal seemed hurt, moving slowly and favoring its side. That wasn’t possible. It outweighed her by five or six hundred pounds. The big cat issued a low grumble of warning through its nostrils. Becky moved in a little closer.
“Get the hell away from it,” Abraham managed to gasp. His blood coated the lion’s lower jaw. Becky watched it drip onto the massive front claws beneath.
“I’m not leaving you.”
She took another small step and Abraham felt the viselike grip around his forearm loosen a little. The lion backed away from Rebecca, dragging him along. Abraham flipped over onto his knees and hammered the beast’s skull with a closed fist. It released him immediately and staggered back into the mud. It shook its monstrous head, spraying the two with blood and saliva.
And then it fell on its side unconscious.
Abraham cradled his bloodied arm and backed away from the animal on his rear end. “Did I… Did I do that?”
“I think we both did.” She was at his side, touching his shoulder gently and running her fingers along his bicep. The real mess was below the elbow. She didn’t want to touch that. “Is it broken?”
Abraham made a fist and released. He bent his arm experimentally, surprised at the results. “I don’t think so. I can’t even feel it.”
Rebecca worried he might have already been going into shock. “We need to clean that out and wrap it up in something to stop the bleeding.”
He wiped his forearm against his chest leaving a nasty red splotch on his tee-shirt. They could see the wound more clearly. “Only two punctures, see? I guess it didn’t have that good a hold on me.”
Rebecca covered one of the bite marks with the end of her thumb and pressed down. She released it a few seconds later expecting a fresh gush of blood but nothing happened. “I guess it didn’t hit any major arteries. You’re a lucky guy, Abraham.”
“If I can call you Becky, I want you to call me Abe.”
Becky nodded and looked back at the lion. “You think it’s dead?”
“I’m not checking for a pulse to find out.”
She helped him up and they made their way to higher ground. “Did you see me climb that tree?”
Abe was still inspecting his arm. “Sorry, I was kinda busy.”
“I jumped at least ten feet from the ground.”
“Sure you did.”
“I’m not joking.”
“People can do all kinds of crazy things when they’re scared. It’s that adrenaline rush thing I’ve heard about. Bet you couldn’t do it again.”
It wasn’t an actual challenge but Becky took it as one. She marched up to the tree’s base, planted her hands on her hips and stared up. “Watch this.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m just glad you’re okay. You don’t have to prove anything to—”
Becky squatted down and pushed back up with all of her strength. She shot up over ten feet with a surprised squeal and clung to the trunk with her nails and thighs. Her cheek was pressed up against the bark. “I… uh… I really didn’t think I’d be able to do that again. I was just being a smartass.”
“Jesus,” Abe whispered as he watched her climb fluidly into the branches above.
She sat on one and called down. “Care to join me? The view’s great.”
He ran his fingers along the trunk in search of a good starting place. Becky called to him again. “Not like that… Jump!”
Abe shook his head and grinned up at her. “You’re nuts.”
“Totally. Jump.”
Abe squatted and jumped. He reached up and grabbed the branch she was on. Rebecca wrapped her hand around his wrist. She pulled him up and plopped him down next to her. “Show-off.”
“What’s happened to us?” He studied his arm again and saw the two bite marks had already begun to heal over. One had almost vanished altogether. “That thing in the woods… it sent us to the other side of the world… it changed us… How?”
She showed him the tip of her finger. “This is where I touched it. I felt something weird as soon as it happened. Then you t
ouched me.”
Abe took her hand and felt the hardness of her fingertip with his thumb. “Sheila and Allan never touched it, at least not that we know of. They’re probably still back there—back home, wondering where the hell we went to.”
“Maybe it killed them.”
“Don’t say that. They’re okay.” He looked out into the approaching night over the low-rolling hills of grass and patches of forest, and to the mountains beyond. To Kilimanjaro. Ten or fifteen thousand miles beyond that was Manitoba, their hometown, their friends and neighbors, their families. Abe wanted to cry. He glanced at Becky and saw her gazing out in the same direction, her thoughts, no doubt paralleling his own. I have to be strong for both of us. I have to get us home. I can’t break down now. He realized he was still holding her hand. “Come on, let’s get down from here and find somewhere to sleep.”
Becky squeezed his hand. “Wouldn’t it be safer up here?”
He studied their interlocked fingers. Was there more than just the fear of their situation at work here? Stupid, he thought. They’d almost been a lion’s dinner minutes earlier and all he could think about was how much he wanted to kiss her. “I don’t know. Lions travel in packs and I’m pretty sure they can climb trees.”
“They’re called prides.”
“You know what I meant.”
“Maybe those monkeys were on to something. They were obviously up in that tree for a reason.”
She had a point. The little crap-throwers never did reach the ground. Abe looked up into the dark canopy above them. There were thicker tangles in places where it might be possible to get some sleep if they took turns. “Alright, follow me.”
They climbed another twelve feet until Becky found a particularly sturdy limb with a network of branches forking out. “Here, this is the perfect spot.” She tore four more branches—each as thick as her arm and lush with greenery—and laid them across the heavier branches. “It won’t be as comfy as my mattress back home but we should be able to manage.”