The Universe Next Door: A Jake Corby Sci-Fi Thriller (Jake Corby Series Book 3)

by Al Macy

  I pointed. “Well, that settles it. We haven’t traveled back in time. That coastline erodes back a few feet each year. If we’d been transported back in time a million years, or even a thousand, the river mouth wouldn’t be where it is.”

  “It’s a relief to know that nothing weird, like time travel—hey, look at that.” She pointed at the sky. A jet contrail near the zenith spread toward the south.

  I resisted the urge to wave my arms and yell out, “Here we are!” The plane was so far away, only the contrail was visible. We watched it for a minute. I pictured the interior of a 747, people sleeping, watching the movie, sipping cocktails. I hated flying, but right then, I was jealous.

  Our new world showed no local evidence of civilization but was teeming with animals. I counted ten separate flocks of birds. Something was grazing down by the river, and I postulated the existence of mountain lions, bears, or worse. Frequent rustlings in the bushes kept us on alert.

  The fog had cleared to the edge of the Pacific. The temperature was around sixty degrees, typical for June. Our fire in the wood stove last night had kept the chill out of the air.

  With no bridges or roads in sight, there wasn’t much point in looking for other people. We needed shelter.

  “Shall we check out the local real estate market?” Dire situations often bring out my humorous side. That’s gotten me into trouble in the past.

  “Maybe a fixer-upper. Let’s see your ear.”

  I squatted down and released my grip. Dried blood covered my finger.

  “It’s okay, but you better keep it clamped for a while.” She put my fingers back where they needed to be.

  It took us two more hours to find the cave. It was as I remembered but totally covered with vegetation.

  “I’m going to see if there are any current residents. May I borrow your flashlight?”

  Marie started removing it from the key ring.

  “Why don’t you leave it on there. It will be easier to find if I drop it.” I opened the knife in my Leatherman tool—probably our most valuable possession—and wriggled in through the brush and fallen tree trunks. Boonie was beside me. He wasn’t growling and his hackles weren’t raised, so I didn’t expect any significant threats.

  The entrance to the cave was only three feet high and about as wide. It went back eight feet, with soil and a few rock outcroppings on the floor.

  “Everything okay out there, Marie?”

  “Yes. How’s it look?”

  “It’s—just a second.” A pair of eyes glowed back from the interior. Near the floor. Close together. “Boonie. Get it.”

  He charged, and the eyes disappeared into a hole. Boonie started digging, and I egged him on. Back on normal Earth, I would have let it be, but things were different here. This cave would be perfect for us, but I didn’t want any little creatures coming out and biting us while we slept. The idea of respecting wildlife was fine when you weren’t competing with it.

  Boonie kept digging with no results. When I was convinced that the tunnel was too deep or had a second entrance, something launched itself out of the hole. Its head was small, about as big as weasel’s, but its body just kept coming and coming. Boonie dodged its gaping mouth and grabbed it by the neck. He shook it to death. This place was like Disneyland for dogs.

  “Jake?”

  “We’re okay. We’re coming out. Call Boonie.”

  In front of the cave, I laid out our kill. Two feet long, it had a lizard’s face with tiger-striped fur covering its back. It had no forelegs. Two clawed legs came from its hind end. The belly had scales. I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture.

  “Do we let Boonie eat it?” I kept watch around us. We’d learned our lesson with the tree-raccoon-snake things.

  “It could make him sick.”

  “Right. Maybe just a little bit as a test. Plus, until we have our defenses set up, I don’t want any blood around here.”

  We walked a hundred yards from our new home, and I cut some meat from the furry cave snake. I gave a hamburger-sized piece to Boonie. He wolfed it down and waited for more.

  “Sorry, buddy, let’s wait until we can cook our meat.” I buried the rest. I was tempted to eat a little bit, but only so I could tell Marie that it tasted like chicken.

  * * *

  In the failing light, I brought leaves and pine needles into the cave, and Marie arranged them into a debris bed. I pounded some rocks into the cave snake’s hole. That was the only burrow I found.

  During the hike, we’d eaten normal-looking, normal-tasting blackberries and taken a few sips of water from a clear, swift-running creek. Apart from being hungry, our stomachs were okay. So far.

  That night, the three of us sat in the pitch-dark cave. My ear was only oozing, but I worried about the smell of blood attracting predators. Large predators. “Have you ever seen any animals like the ones we saw today? On Animal Planet, I mean?”

  “Not even close.”

  “Me neither.”

  Boonie chewed on a foot-long bone he’d found, making contented crunching and scraping noises. I didn’t have the expertise to know what kind of bone it was. Too bad humans couldn’t summon up that living-in-the-moment peace of mind that dogs had. If we didn’t learn to deal with the stress of our new existence, we’d be sunk.

  Marie cleared her throat. “You and Charli are doing a great job with Sophia. You’d hardly know …”

  “Right. I’m amazed at her resilience. What a great kid.” She’d bounced back well from a series of traumatic events that no child should have to go through. But she still had trouble relaxing if Boonie wasn’t in the room with her. She couldn’t go to sleep unless he was on the rug by her bed.

  Charli and I were married six months ago and gave Sophia top priority.

  Marie and I—and Boonie—had to get back. Our absence could break her.

  I drifted off to sleep, picturing our happy wedding reception, with Sophia feeding Boonie wedding cake under the table.

  In the middle of the night, Boonie gave out a small woof.

  I struggled up from the depths of sleep and told him, “Quiet.” I listened. Nothing. Then, soft footfalls from outside. I moved my head left and right. Was it near the entrance? Sweat trickled into my eyes. More footsteps, and breathing. I moved my hand to my pocket, removing the Leatherman tool, pulling out the knife in the darkness. My nerves frazzled, I swallowed and held my breath.

  Crash! It bumped against one of the branches across the entrance. I found Boonie’s snout and held it closed.

  Sniff, sniff, sniff, followed by a big exhale. I put my other hand over my ear as if I could block the scent of blood. After what seemed like hours, the beast moved on. Boonie put his head back down.

  Now I really did need to pee. No way I was going outside. I’d just have to hold it until morning.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I woke the next day and wriggled out through the brush we’d used to camouflage the cave’s opening. Standing up, a branch grazed my damaged ear, and a wave of pain drew my hand to it. I’d have cried out, but I didn’t want to wake Marie. Boonie stretched and trotted off into the bushes.

  Animals—birds?—squawked, growled, and roared in the treetops. A flock of green birds flashed by so close the whoosh of their wings made me duck. A light fog carried the ocean scent, forcing the memory of a beach hike: walking arm in arm with Charli while Sophia hunted for agates and Boonie chased sea gulls.

  With a sigh, I scratched the underside of my chin. What should the day’s priorities be? Making fire was at the top. Cooked meat was less likely to make us sick. Plus, it would help protect against animals. Would tyrannosaurs fear fire? With luck, a smoke plume might even attract the attention of someone in the jets overhead.

  On YouTube, I’d seen people start fires with sticks. The image of Tom Hanks celebrating his creation of fire in Castaway flashed into my head. That was my goal for the day.

  I untied the nylon rope connecting my key ring to the clip on my belt. The line was o
ver a foot long. Good thing I’d inherited a fear of losing things. My mom had always tied ribbons to anything that was small enough to lose.

  I began with a quick, proof-of-concept arrangement. Without wandering far, I collected raw materials, and with the aid of the knife on my Leatherman tool, soon had a small bow, a stick for spinning, and a base stick with a little hollow carved into it.

  I worked slowly and deliberately, as if afraid of the smallest cut. I was. Even a small injury could get infected and lead to serious consequences.

  Boonie crashed around in the bushes having the time of his life, but he stayed close.

  With one loop of rope around the stick, I pushed the bow back and forth and really got the stick spinning. After only a minute, the hollow was warm. This might work.

  Marie squeezed out of the cave and rubbed her face. Boonie bounded from the bushes and greeted her. She ruffled his fur then came over and knelt down. “Looks good, caveman. Is it going to work?”

  “Maybe.” I pointed to the top of the spinner stick. “I have too much friction here. It makes it harder to spin the stick. Friction at the bottom is good, but—” I put on a caveman voice “—Ogg need grease for top.”

  “Just a sec.” She pushed down on my shoulder and stood, favoring her left leg.

  Walking over to the cave entrance, she picked up a banana slug and came back. It was two inches long and no different from the ones at home. She hesitated, then pinched off a bit of its body and handed it to me. “Squish this into the top hollow.”

  Marie tossed the rest of the slug and wiped her hands on the ground. She looked at me. “I know, seems cruel, but I’m not sure we can afford a sanctity-of-life attitude in this world. If I’m going to be a caveman—a cave-person—I’m going to think like one. If we get back home, we can join the save-the-banana-slugs league, but here …”

  By noon, I was on the third version of my fire-making kit but without any actual fire. Just smoke, sore muscles, and a grumbling stomach. The fog had burned off, and the sun burned into my neck. If only I had a magnifying … my reading glasses!

  I pulled them from my pocket and held them a few feet from the ground. Two concentrated spots of light appeared. Bright enough?

  Marie looked over from her rope-making project. “Put the lenses together.”

  Of course. I wouldn’t be doing any reading for a while. I broke one of the lenses out and placed it against the other. The spot was twice as bright, and within a minute I had a flame in a bundle of dried grass.

  With a good strong fire that would last all day and luck that was going our direction, we headed to the river for some food shopping. Like good cave-persons, we spoke softly, walked quietly, and carried big sticks.

  A grassy meadow bordered the river. We emerged from the forest and froze. Marie whispered, “Brontosaurus” while I said, “Apatosaurus.” Whatever it was called, it was shockingly huge. Whoa! An elephant could walk under its belly. Where the hell were we? How could we survive here?

  It took a break from its grazing and raised a desk-sized head into the sky. I imagined a whoosh as it moved through the air. Scanning the far distance for tyrannosaurs? Greenish-brown stripes ran down the sides of its body. It soon went back to grazing, raking in great bundles of grass and swallowing without chewing.

  Over the creature’s back, high in the sky, a pair of contrails appeared. I looked back toward our cave. A thin trail of smoke rose into the air. Not likely to be spotted.

  Marie tapped my shoulder and pointed to our left. A group of four big lizards hopped through the grass like kangaroos. One made a hooting noise, and they all bounded off upriver. Boonie took off after them, but I called him back. He hesitated before returning. If he got hungrier, would he continue to obey me?

  Our stomachs urged us to quit sightseeing, and we crossed the meadow along a well-worn path. The plan was to gather a t-shirt load of clams or mussels, if they existed here, and cook them directly in the fire. We both eyed the deep river water. Who knew what monsters lurked there?

  The river was wide enough that I’d have trouble throwing a rock across it. Gentle gusts sent riffles across the surface.

  A big splash and the quacking of ducks pulled my attention downstream. Boonie had jumped into the water and was swimming toward a group of ducks.

  “Boonie, come.”

  He turned and started back to shore. A wake appeared behind him, off to one side.

  Marie grabbed my arm. “Jake!”

  “I see it.”

  We both yelled at him and pointed to the disturbance. If he would swim faster, he could escape it. Maybe. He had a huge dog-smile on his face as if saying, “Did you see me scare those ducks?” Aargh! He didn’t know what was behind him. I’d never met a dog who could understand the concept of pointing, and Boonie was no exception.

  “Come with me,” I yelled.

  We both ran down the shore, away from Boonie. It worked. He turned to follow us, heading directly away from his pursuer.

  Could the aquatic beast travel faster than our dog? Certainly. Once Boonie got into shallow water, he’d be faster. Could the creature follow him onto land?

  The wake got larger, and a set of eyes broke the surface. I clenched my teeth. Not good. What could I do? A dark body stretched out behind the eyes. Some kind of crocodile.

  Only a few feet to go. Hurry! We both screamed, “Come, Boonie!” His legs hit the bottom now. He was still oblivious to what was behind him. He’d soon be bounding up onto the shore.

  Instead, he stopped as if he’d swum into a wall and jerked back. He whipped his head around and dropped below the surface.

  I charged into the water.

  “No, Jake!”

  I ran through the water, stepping high. The rocky bottom sloped down gradually. Boonie was still underwater. I had my stick but couldn’t swing it underwater. Did the croc-like creature have Boonie’s legs in his mouth or just his tail? Please have it be the tail.

  One more step and I dove into the water. The creature hadn’t made much progress pulling Boonie back. It was much smaller than I’d thought, only three feet long, and Boonie was holding his own. With my arm above the surface, I jabbed my stick in the monster’s eye, or as close as I could get. Four jabs, five. It released Boonie, thrashed to the side, and grabbed the stick, snapping it from my hand. By chance, the stick smashed me in my injured ear.

  I’d had my face underwater for only seconds, but with the exertion my lungs were screaming for air. I didn’t want to take my eyes off my opponent, but I needed to breathe. Would he grab my legs? Getting my mouth above the surface, I grabbed a quick breath, and put my face under again. He was gone and Boonie was loose.

  I backed out toward the bank. Boonie stood there growling.

  “Stay away from him, Jake.” Marie was on the bank, ten feet from our snarling dog.

  “Right.” I angled toward Marie, checking the water for another attack. Boonie’s brain was still in fight mode. Better to keep my distance until he calmed down. His legs looked okay.

  When I got to Marie, she hugged me, but her face held a scowl.

  Boonie vomited and stopped barking. He shook himself and trotted over to us. His legs were working fine. I sat on the ground and pulled Boonie into a hug. I ran his tail through my hand. He yelped. The tail had a bend in it. Blood covered my palm. I checked his legs. All okay.

  I looked up at Marie. “I know.”

  She crossed her arms. “There’d be a big difference between telling Charli and Sophia that their dog was dead and telling them that their husband and father was gone.”

  I took a deep breath and coughed. I’d swallowed river water. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

  Marie gazed across the river.

  “First,” I said, “we need Boonie. Having him with us significantly increases our chances of survival. He’s got better ears, a better nose, and sharper teeth than we do.” I put my hand on my pocket. Yes, the Leatherman tool was still there.

  “Wer
e you thinking that when you rushed into the water?”

  I took a breath. “Partly.”

  “But it was mostly that he was your buddy.”

  “Yeah. He’d give his life for me. I couldn’t let him down.”

  We walked away from the river. Who knew what might jump out. I sat down cross-legged, and Marie eased herself down next to me. We sat for a few minutes, always keeping an eye out for new threats.

  She put her hand on my knee. “Okay, it wasn’t a stupid decision, and I realize how important Boonie is to Sophia. But I want you to understand that your grandmother-in-law is expendable—”

  “Marie—”

  “No. I’m mostly a liability on this little adventure of ours.” She looked downriver where the apatosaurus sucked down grass. “I’m eighty-three and—”

  “What were you working on this morning?”

  “You mean while you were making fire?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. With the plant stems.”

  “I was making rope.”

  “You learn that as a Girl Scout?”

  “Ayuh.”

  “I don’t know how to make rope. We’re going to need rope. So don’t tell me you’re a liability.”

  “If the time comes, Jake, that you have to choose between saving me and saving yourself, let me go. I’ve had a long and spectacular life. Don’t be a hero.”

  I stood up. “I get the message, but we’re all going back to Charli and Sophia. All three of us. So let’s get out of here and stop looking like Tyrannosaur Tater-Tots.”

  We found a river inlet about the size of a basketball court. The bottom was mud and clay. I removed my t-shirt and tied off the arm holes. Without going in too far, and with me standing guard, Marie soon filled the shirt with freshwater clams and mussels.

  The hike back to the cave was tiring, and I lagged behind Marie and Boonie. I guessed the clams were heavier than I thought.

  We built up the fire, then let it die down to embers. We put our harvest in the center, hinge sides up, and covered them with coals. A good old-fashioned Maine seafood bake. Even without clam sauce, the meal was delicious. It took my mind off my throbbing ear.