“Roger, look at what happened to me. It’ll happen to you too. You can’t stop it. Just give in,” she said with dry, clicking vocal chords. He could almost hear the bugs and the dirt moving in her throat as she spoke.
The voice was a horrifying mixture of the voices that had haunted him as a young adult. All those thriller movies—Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Friday the 13th—came rushing back to him. His mother had become one of the boogeymen. How was he supposed to fight his own mother? He couldn’t raise a hand to harm her, much less kill her. Even if she was a walking maggot farm, she was still his mother.
Despite his worries, his exterior self remained calm. His body didn’t move, but he found himself answering her with a voice outside his body.
“I can’t quit. I’m gonna win, Mom. I can feel it, and I think Firturro is gonna help me.”
“No. No one can help you. Can’t you see that?” One of her skeletal fingers grazed his cheekbone, and his skin immediately became numb under her touch.
That was when he’d managed to jerk himself out of the dream, his left cheek still tingling in the dark. His mother’s parting words caused chills to dance across his already clammy flesh.
The only available light was a lamp in the far corner of the room. Its scarce light flickered across the walls, shadows chasing more shadows. Roger reached over and gripped the bedside table, but no matter how hard he squinted his eyes, he couldn’t make out what was on the table. His hands moved across the knotted wood, his fingertips replacing his sight as he searched for the lantern and matches he knew were there.
His left hand found the cool glass surface of the lantern just as his right touched the cardboard matchbook. He tried to open the matchbook, but his fingers had become as useless as sausages, and the matchbook fluttered into the complete darkness at his feet. Roger paused, the hair on his arms and legs stood so far off his flesh that he could feel the root of each one of them alive and pulsing in his skin.
Something’s under the bed.
He pulled his feet onto the bed even as his rational mind demanded that he stop behaving like a fearful child. However, at this moment the boogeyman was as real as the Obawok. Four little half-crescent moons were being branded into his palms as his hands clenched into tight fists.
Roger shoved his fear back and lay across the bed, thrusting his hands into the unknown darkness, while his fingertips groped along the dirt floor. When his fingers brushed against the cardboard cover of the matchbook he grabbed at them so greedily that for a second he felt them slip even further under the bed. Moving slower, and with a great deal of caution, he managed to get his thumb and forefinger around the thin piece of cardboard and slowly lifted them off the floor.
This time he was very careful as he felt along the matches inside the matchbook and plucked one out. He pulled the lantern to the edge of the table and removed the lid. He lit the match, cupping the small amount of light in his hands for a second before touching it to the wick and making the light bloom across the room like a small ray of sunshine.
When it was securely lit he sat up, put his feet back on the floor, and pushed himself off the bed. He walked to the kitchenette with the stiffness of someone who had just stumbled into the waking world. Gripping the edge of the counter, he turned the coffee machine on and found himself mouthing a silent prayer that the ancient ones hadn’t forbid caffeine.
Roger tilted his head and looked around the corner as the overhead lights were turned on and he heard the faint clicking of a key. The door opened and two guards began searching the apartment. He stood by the bed and sipped his coffee as the guards finished their inspection. They returned to the door and stood on separate sides as little Tigaffo appeared between them.
Roger made a brief, grunting noise that might have been construed as a “hello” and returned all of his interest to his cup of coffee. He studied Tigaffo over the brim of his mug and noticed that the greasy substance that had been coating Tigaffo yesterday was even more pronounced now.
“I’ve been sent to bring you to the training area,” Tigaffo said. His voice was slightly edgy, and Roger was sure that it had something to do with his refusal to give a respectful greeting.
“Where’s Firturro?” Roger asked turning around and trudging back to the bedroom.
“He has gone to make sure the training and test areas are being prepared appropriately. It’s part of his job as your watcher to ensure your safety and fair treatment.” Tigaffo paused, waiting for Roger to turn around and address him. When Roger made no move to do so, Tigaffo spoke again, not even attempting to disguise his anger. “You have ten minutes.”
Roger heard the shuffling feet, and moments later the walls trembled as the door was slammed shut and latched behind them. A perverse sense of satisfaction overcame him and he smiled into his coffee.
In an attempt to clear his mind he stretched, allowing his muscles to move and breathe. After a few minutes both his mind and body felt better, and Roger went to the bathroom. On the shelf where the sweat suit had been yesterday was a pair of black soccer shorts and a plain gray T-shirt, size X-Large, neatly folded up and lying next to a newly laundered towel. He studied them for a minute, wondering how they had gotten there, before he put them on.
He pondered the randomly appearing clothes while he brushed his teeth but came to no answer and decided to stop worrying about it before it gave him another headache. Moments after he left the bathroom, Tigaffo returned.
“Are you ready?”
Instead of replying, Roger took his empty cup to the sink and rinsed it out. Then he turned on his heels and headed straight for the door.
As Roger approached, Tigaffo backed up, his haughty smirk disappearing under a thick layer of fear as his dark lips parted in a little “O” revealing his brown and yellow teeth. The guards moved even closer to Tigaffo, but Roger only smiled to himself as he brushed by the expectant trio and into the hall without pausing. They stared at him, leery of the possible confrontation, before also passing through the door and into the hallway. The guards quickly followed, and Tigaffo shuffled along behind them.
“Follow me,” Tigaffo commanded, as he pulled himself to his full height and marched down the hall.
Roger chuckled and within a couple of strides was walking alongside Tigaffo. “Where are we goin’?” he asked, his voice light and playful.
Instead of answering, Tigaffo quickened his pace to try and pull ahead.
Within minutes they had reached the central joining section of the halls. Roger tried to memorize where they were going as Tigaffo puffed beside him. Yesterday they had gone left from this area to get to the council chambers, but today, they took a right hand turn. After they turned from the central area and into the adjoining tunnel they turned again, and Roger was surprised to note that the floor was gradually extending upwards.
The air grew warmer and the rocks alongside of the tunnel became lighter as they continued walk. Just as Roger was beginning to wonder if they were going to the surface, the hall ended. Roger looked closer at the wall in front of him and realized a small seam ran down the middle of the wall. Two small yellow gnomes stood on either side of the wall.
A sudden rumbling sound echoed through the tunnel as the doors slowly swung open. Bright rays of orange-red light filtered in through the widening crack in the stone doors. Roger held his breath and closed his eyes, letting the warm glow wash over him.
207
Seven
Pain multiplies like a virus.
Every inch of Roger’s skin tingled. His half-closed lids were nearly translucent because of the brilliant glow behind them. Roger hadn’t realized how strongly the lack of real light had bothered him until that moment. His eyes were watering, but he was thrust into the direct light when a sharp prong pushed into his back.
A tight cluster of Obawok stood in front. He turned around and noticed that one of the guards was standing directly behind him, the cause of the prodding. Roger turned back to face the other Obawok
. Blinking through water hazy lenses, Roger made out Firturro and Tigaffo standing at the front of the pack.
“Go ahead, take your time. Most people don’t, and that can cause problems. Our dual suns cause the sunlight to be very bright,” Firturro told him.
“Dual suns?” Roger tried to picture a skyline with two suns and found that he couldn’t.
“Yes, there are two suns that cross patterns in our sky. The rise at the same time on different sides of the horizon, and they set at the same time on the opposite sides of the horizon. But I’m sure that the guides will fill you in on all of the technical aspects. I’ve just heard that it’s beautiful at dusk.” Firturro smiled, and Roger realized that the vibrant purple eyes that were normally shining in Firturro’s face were now covered with a harsh scaly green material that appeared to grow out of his skin like secondary, sideways eyelids.
“What…what’s wrong with your eyes?”
“Oh,” Firturro continued, “Don’t worry. It’s a natural protective measure that Obawok have. It’s perfectly normal.”
“Can you still see through that skin?”
“Of course.” The other Obawok snickered, and Roger realized how silly the question must have been.
207
Kristi Brooks
“Why are all these others here? Where’s the other human I saw yesterday?” Roger asked, pointing to the new orange and red haired Obawok on the back row.
“Why do you need to know?” Tigaffo piped up.
“I wanted to be sure I had met everyone involved. It is my future we’re talking about here, isn’t it? I should have the right to know who I’m dealing with.”
“Yes, Roger, you’re completely correct. These two gentlemen in the back with orange hair are to be your guides during training. Their job is to show and demonstrate different aspects of the surface and the Mezoglike.” Firturro smiled and pointed at the back of the room. “The two red-haired Obawok standing in the back are trainers. They are here to help you physically adjust to and maneuver in the environment in which you will take the test. The other human you met yesterday is being trained in a separate area. You will be on the surface together, but you will start at different times to prevent unnecessary contact.
“Now,” he said, looking back at Roger, “we shouldn’t waste anymore time, so if you’re ready, we will move into the main training chambers.”
“Sure.”
The room was twice the size of Roger’s makeshift apartment. The walls were underground, but the roof peaked above ground and was constructed of smoked glass, allowing light into the room. The wall opposite Roger was made from the same smoked glass as the ceiling. A door slid open as he watched, and the guides led the group through the wall. When he approached the doors, he noticed strange green worms crawling at the edge of the glass wall, trying desperately to get back under that partition. Their small writhing bodies caressing the clear divider, as if reaching for him.
He was staring at this swarm of pulsating bodies so intently that he forgot to duck and walked right into the low hanging doorframe.
“Ow, Fuck!” Roger shook his already tender forehead and realized everyone was now staring. While Firturro was concerned, the others merely smirked at him, and he knew he’d just gone one step further in proving their theory on the idiocy of humans. After he’d successfully navigated his way through the door, Roger looked back at the things that had caused his distraction.
The bottom halves of the blue-green wormy beings were securely anchored in the ground, making them strands of living grass. There were thousands of the moving creatures set between the glass and a narrow pathway of compressed black dirt dancing together to some unknown rhythm, their upper bodies moving and turning in compressed rows. It was as if they were trying to communicate with him through an unintelligible primal language.
As he was watching them, a crimson hue blotted his vision and the air constricted in his lungs. He bent over to catch his breath, but when he looked up everything around him had changed. It was so dark he couldn’t see the walls or the floor as he stumbled toward a small, flickering light and searched for the others.
As he approached the source of the light he saw figures moving through the shadows, but they didn’t look like the other Obawok he’d seen. As soon as he got close to one he realized that the reason for this difference was that these Obawok were actually women. His body felt as if it was floating, and he didn’t stop until he reached a door and looked inside. It appeared to be an apartment smaller than his with three beds crammed together in the small space.
He ducked out of the room and continued down the hall until it emptied into a massive room where a line of Obawok men waited in front of a large desk in the middle of the room that was flanked by two Obawok guards. As Roger watched, different Obawok women entered through a door to the right of the desk. The women walked up to the desk and were then escorted by the next Obawok in line to a door on the opposite side of the hall.
The understanding of the crude bordello crushed him like a tsunami. The women entered the room in jerky strides with faces so emotionally blank they reminded him of robots. Not one of them complained or cried as they were led into that room, and the thought of what had happened to them in this horrid dungeon made Roger’s stomach clinch together even tighter.
Something tugged at him, but Roger scrambled to hold on, to stay in that room with those women. He threw his body forward, his fingers scratching across the rock so harshly one of his nails broke and thin lines of blood trickled from his palms as he struggled to hold on. Just then one of the women Obawok stood before him, her lips mouthing words he couldn’t hear.
“I can’t hear you,” he shouted, focusing all his attention on what she was trying to tell him. He felt his body being pulled up and back, and as the room faded a single word followed him.
“Itckrelle.”
He blinked, looking at the Obawok surrounding him. Bile crawled up his throat; threatening to spill onto the floor and making him feel faint. He could feel the hatred and fear that filled this world, and he was gagging on it.
When Roger regained his composure, he looked around the room and noticed that the two red haired Obawok in the back watching him with an intensity Roger had only seen bad actors use in old spy movies. Straightening up, he placed his hand against the developing welt. He looked at his other hand and saw that the nail on his finger was broken and small, thin cuts covered his palm. He clinched his fist together and moved toward the others.
“This is your first lesson, so listen carefully because I won’t be repeating it.” One of the orange haired Obawok pointed at the barren, gray branches of a nearby tree. “You have to be sure to watch for trees on the surface that resemble this one. Most of the trees are similar to your trees on earth, but these are quite different. Their arms will ensnare you if you aren’t quick enough to avoid them.” He held a bright yellow stick up in the air and motioned for the rest of the group to move away with his other hand.
There were a few moments of tense silence before Roger saw the branches of the tree sway like they were dancing in the wind. Only there wasn’t any wind here. Then, with a barely perceptible whirl of leaves, one of the longer branches whipped out and snatched the stick out of his hand. Roger spent quite a few moments studying the tree, but no matter how hard he tried, he could find no sign of the yellow walking stick in the tangle of long gray branches.
“What happened to the stick?” Roger asked.
“It became part of the tree,” one of the guards grunted before the guide had a chance to answer. Neither of the guards had spoken a word before now, and his voice was rough, gravelly, and abrasive. “Once the object gets back to the trunk of the tree that grabbed it, it disappears into the tree itself.”
The guide cleared his throat and nodded to the guard. “You’re excused for talking out of turn, but don’t leave yet. I need you to stand by the grutom patch.”
The guard flinched and a look of sheer terror crept into his fac
e, but he made no move to do as the guide said.
“I have instructed you. Are you going to ignore your commands?” The guide’s face was flushed under his green skin. After a few seconds the guard shook his head, straightened up, and walked over to the patch like a condemned man.
“You also have to watch out for the grutoms,” the guide began, pointing to the blue-green worm creatures next to the guard’s feet. “They’re harmless enough as long as they don’t come in contact with bare skin. When they touch flesh, they’ll burrow in and corrode your bloodstream. A grutom victim won’t die right away. It takes at least three days for the creature to work its way into your heart and establish a colony.” A slightly hidden smile tilted up one corner of his mouth as he saw the creases in Roger’s face deepen, showing his growing concerned. “It’s a long and painful death.”
The guide finished his speech by nodding at the guard. The guard grimaced and Roger would have sworn that he saw tears gleaming in his wrinkled flesh as he leaned over the container, pushing his hand into the squirming mass. The creatures immediately covered his hand as he unsuccessfully tried to keep the terror from his face.
Roger looked around the room, his eyes wide with panic, searching for a way to stop what was happening. No one was moving. Most of their faces were smiling at the idea of the Obawok’s pain. However, Tigaffo only managed to look small and terrified. Firturro and the others were clearly repulsed but made no move to intercede on the guard’s behalf. Roger lunged for the guard, intending to push him out of the way, but as soon as he moved, he felt a heavy hand pulling back on his shirt. When he turned around, he saw that the other guard was holding him back. He pulled forward again and felt the shirt rip, but when he reached the grutoms the other guard was standing up. Lumps were moving under his tightly drawn flesh and his skin was at least three shades lighter.
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