Stranger in the Woods

by Geof Johnson

  “And your mate, or betrothed, or whatever you call her…she’s your age? Sixty something?”

  “We were born on the same day. We received our marks at the same ceremony.” He glanced at the dark circle on his forearm and his mouth tightened momentarily.

  “I hate to ask this,” Shelby said, “but how much time do we have before it’s too late?”

  Bo seemed to swallow hard and he stared at the pine-needle covered ground in front of him. “Weeks. No more than that.”

  “How many weeks?” Justin asked.

  “I do not know exactly. A few, at best.”

  “Will you know when the time is really close? Will the mark on your arm show you that?”

  “I believe I will begin to get a feeling of sadness or emptiness, which will deepen as the time approaches.”

  The deadline, Zach thought grimly. “How about your mate? Will she feel the same thing?”

  “I believe so. We are linked, after all, even across this vast distance.”

  “What happens to her if you don’t make it back for the bonding ceremony? Will she be an outcast, too?”

  “Not necessarily. Females can get a second chance, if it is determined that it is the male’s fault that the bond was not completed. She would have to find a male who has lost his mate, or whose mate could not finish the bond.”

  “Like you.”

  “Yes.” He nodded soberly. “Like me.”

  Zach reached into the side pocket of his quiver and pulled out the small framed picture of him and his friends standing in front of the cylinder. He handed it to Bo. “I thought you might like this.”

  He accepted it with a wan smile. “Thank you. I shall keep it always.”

  “I wanted you to have something to remember us by, after you go back to your people.”

  “I would never forget you, anyway.”

  “I hope not. It also might come in handy when you’re trying to convince your family and friends about where you’ve been all these years. A picture of some humans in front of a strange-looking machine might help.”

  “Yes. It will be hard to deny, once they see this. They will know that I had a fantastic adventure.”

  * * *

  The days slid inexorably toward mid-November, and Zach’s anxiety rose as the temperature dropped. He became fixated with the weather app on his phone, checking it several times a day for forecasts, afraid that he would see one that predicted snow. He also became obsessed with the mail. Every time he saw his grandfather, he asked the same question.

  “Did they come yet?” He didn’t have to be specific. Grandpa knew what he was talking about.

  “Not yet.” Grandpa was working with his back to him, and he lowered the soldering iron and sighed toward the lab’s work bench. “I called them and they said the tubes have shipped, and I told you I’d let you know the minute they came in.”

  “Promise? You’ll have to call my cell phone because you can’t text.”

  “Won’t you get in trouble if you’re in school?”

  “It’ll go to voice mail. You can leave me a message.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “But you gotta promise.”

  “Zach!” Grandpa set down the soldering iron and turned around to face him. “Listen. I’m as antsy about this as you are.”

  “You don’t act like it.”

  “Well, I am. Haven’t you seen me in this lab every day, working like a slave? I come down here as soon as I finish any paying job that I have, and then I work as long as I can. I’m trying to get the equipment as close to ready as possible, so when the new tubes get here, all I gotta do is pop ’em the machine and power it up.”

  “But if something burns out again, we might not be able to order replacement parts before it’s too late, and we won’t have the money, anyway.”

  “Did you get any more calls for jobs?”

  “Just one. But even with that, we won’t have but sixty or seventy dollars. Mom still won’t give me an advance on my allowance.”

  “Maybe it won’t matter. Maybe with the new tubes, the equipment will work long enough to send Bo back to his world.” He pulled the tall wooden stool closer and sat on it with one foot still on the floor. “By the way, do you have any kind of plan for how you’re going to let him know it’s time to go, once we get the machine up and running?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You need to. Tell him to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. Do you think he could do that? It’s not like you can call him to give him a head’s up.”

  “Well, we could tell him to watch for a signal. Like, if we go to a certain place in the woods and wait, that means he should drop everything and meet us there because it’s time for him to go.”

  “How will he know you’re there?”

  “The forest tells him. Don’t ask me how, because he’s tried to explain it and it doesn’t make sense.”

  Grandpa nodded while he listened, then said, “He’s an amazing fellow, isn’t he?”

  “I wouldn’t believe that he could do half of the things he does if I hadn’t seen them with my own eyes.”

  “He’s taught you a lot about the forest, hasn’t he? You and your friends.”

  “Yeah, he has. Jason and Justin are talking about being park rangers or working for the Forestry Service when they graduate.”

  “I can see them doing that. Those are supposed to be very gratifying jobs. How about you? Do you want to do something like that?”

  “I don’t know. I still have plenty of time to figure it out.”

  “I imagine your mother will want to have something to say about that, anyway.”

  “But it’s not her choice, is it?”

  Grandpa answered initially with a wry smile, then a small laugh through his nose. “No, I guess not.” Grandpa shook his head gently. “Now I need to finish what I was working on before you interrupted me, because it’s getting late.” He shifted his eyes toward the door, and Zach knew he wanted him to leave.

  * * *

  Zach had trouble sleeping during the next week. When he finally managed to doze off, he was troubled by frustrating dreams, where he was lost in a strange neighborhood or town, and he had to get home but couldn’t find the way. Every turn he made led him to more unfamiliar streets and greater feelings of distress.

  He had the opposite problem in school. He struggled to stay awake in his afternoon classes, especially American History, and nodded off in the car on the short ride home.

  “Zach,” he heard his mother say, and he jerked his head upright and blinked.

  “Hunh…where are we?”

  “We’re home.” They were in their driveway, stopped in front of the garage in the back. She pushed the gear shift into park and turned off the engine of the Honda. “Have you been staying up late playing with your phone? Do I need to take it away from you again?”

  “No ma’am.” He opened his car door and slung his heavy backpack over one shoulder as he stepped out. “I just can’t seem to fall asleep at night.”

  She got out, too, and they started across the backyard toward the terrace and the door to the kitchen. “Have you been drinking Cokes after dinner? They have caffeine in them, you know.”

  “I haven’t been drinking any at all.”

  She unlocked the back door and they went inside. “So what is it, then? Is something on your mind? Girl problems or something?”

  “No! Of course not.” He dropped his backpack on the kitchen table and collapsed in one of the chairs. “It’s just…I don’t know.”

  But he did know. He couldn’t tell her. I’m worried that we won’t get the machine in the laboratory fixed in time to send a giant alien man back to his planet. You don’t know him. He’s nice. I wish you could meet him.

  She set her purse on the table beside his backpack and stared at it for a moment, then her face softened to a sympathizing, motherly look. “If it’s anything I can help you with, just ask. Don’t be afraid to talk to me. You’re not too old f
or that, are you?”

  He shrugged his answer.

  She glanced through the open basement door. “I think your grandfather is in the lab. The light is on down there.” She walked to it and called, “Dad, is that you?”

  A distant, muffled yes came as a reply.

  “Why don’t you go help him, Zach? You seem enjoy that.”

  “He doesn’t want me to. He said I just get in the way.”

  “That’s not right. This is your house, too, and you’ve put a lot of effort into cleaning up that filthy lab. I’m going down there and telling him he has to let you help.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “He’s right. There’s not much I can do that’s of any use right now.” He stood and picked up his backpack. “I’ve got homework, anyway. I’m going to my room.”

  Chapter 43

  The next week, a cold front swept through and the temperature dropped below freezing for the first time. Zach’s state of mind deteriorated to a near-panic. He desperately felt like he had to do something, anything, to help speed things along with the machine in the basement. Every day when he came home from school, his grandfather was in the lab, working diligently, but he still declined Zach’s assistance. Finally, on Thursday afternoon, he called Zach into the equipment-crowded room as soon as he walked into the house.

  “Where’s your mother? I don’t hear her upstairs.”

  “She dropped me off from school and went to the farmers’ market.”

  “I’ve got something to show you, but I’d like to show all of you at once. How quickly can you get your friends over here?”

  Zach’s mood brightened immediately. “Pretty quick, I think.”

  “Call ’em now.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Zach and his friends were crowded around Grandpa in the laboratory, their faces eager. Zach was so wound up that his fingers were twitching at his sides, and he finally had to shove his hands in his pockets to get them to stop.

  Grandpa cleared his throat and said, “The new tubes came in yesterday.” Zach started to complain but Grandpa quickly added, “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to get your hopes up and be disappointed if things didn’t go right. I wanted to install them and check everything out before I let you know what was up.”

  “Does that mean it’s working?” Jason said.

  “As far as I can tell. I’ve only had the whole system on for about a minute, and then I shut it down because I didn’t want anything burning out before you got to see it. I know you have a lot of time and money invested in this, and it’s only fair that you be here for the big test.” He looked into each of their faces and said, “Are you ready for this?”

  They assured him they were. “Okay, then. I think you’re going to like what you see.” He reached over and pressed the main switch on the control station. The row of meters on the top pegged to the right for an instant, then settled down near the middle of their arcs, while a deep hum filled the room. Zach held his breath and gritted his teeth, waiting to see if anything was going to blow up. Nothing did. He exhaled.

  “Look at that.” Grandpa pointed at the tall cylinders. A shimmering field now appeared in each of them, filling their openings from top to bottom. Each field looked like the surface of a stretched-out, supernatural soap bubble, with iridescent colors playing about in fantastic patterns.

  Shelby was the first to find her voice. “That’s what Bo came through, isn’t it?”

  “Yep.” Grandpa picked up a broom that was leaning against the nearby bench. “We can’t know for sure if it’s doing what it’s supposed to do, but I thought of a way to test it to see if it’s doing something, at least. Who wants to try this?”

  Jason stepped forward and took the broom from Grandpa while Zach and the others hesitated. “What do I do?” Jason said.

  Grandpa picked up a small cardboard box from the bench. “I put some junk in here, mostly leftover plastic and metal bits, to give it some weight so you could feel it. I thought you could set this on the end of the broom, put it through the field, and tilt it so it dumps out on the other side, and then pull the broom out. If there really is another side. We’ll know for sure if the box disappears but the broom comes out in one piece and doesn’t get disintegrated or something.”

  “Can’t we tape my phone to it, set it to record, and put it through?” Zach said. “Then we could see what’s there.”

  Grandpa shook his head. “I don’t know what the field would do to the electronics of your phone. Let’s just do this for now.” He nodded toward Jason to proceed.

  Jason stepped to the cylinder on the right and held the narrow end of the broom horizontally before him. “Let me try this, first.” He cautiously pushed it forward until it penetrated the shimmer and the colors rippled around it like water. “Cool,” he muttered, then pushed it farther, until it was almost all the way through, impossibly past where it should’ve bumped into the back of the cylinder, but didn’t.

  “That looks like a magic trick,” Zach said quietly.

  Jason pulled it out, still intact. “Now for the box.” He turned the broom around and balanced the small cardboard container on the flat of the bristles, then eased it through the field while everyone watched.

  “Dump, it,” Justin said.

  Jason twisted the handle and his eyes widened. “It fell off. I can tell.” He withdrew the broom to find the box gone. Shelby clapped her hands and bounced on the balls of her feet. Zach felt like doing it, too.

  Jason turned the broom around again and slid the pointed end back through the field and waved it slowly up and down. “Wonder where it went. Is it on Bo’s world, you ’spose?”

  “Doubt it,” Grandpa said. “I changed a couple of the settings on the main knobs just to be sure. We don’t want another one of Bo’s people to come stumbling through like he did.”

  Suddenly there was a sizzle and pop from inside the control station, and the field vanished from both cylinders.

  So did half of the broomstick.

  “Uh-oh,” Jason said and examined the severed end of the slender pole. From where Zach was standing, he could see that it was sliced smoothly, as if from a fine-toothed saw.

  “What happened, Mr. Ogletree?” Justin said.

  Grandpa frowned at the control station. “Not sure, but it sounded like something blew out in there. Let me have a quick look.” He grabbed a screwdriver from the bench, knelt beside the machine, and backed out the four screws that attached to the front plate. He pulled it loose and set it on the floor.

  “Ugh,” he said as he looked inside. “It looks like some of the tubes burned out again.”

  “Oh, no,” Zach groaned. “How many?”

  “Hard to say without testing them, but right off I can see at least four that are goners.”

  “What are we going to do?” Justin said. “It’s almost winter, and the machine is still busted.”

  “It’s not time to panic, yet.” Grandpa stood and brushed his hands together. “Let me check everything out with my tube tester and then we’ll know where we stand.” He motioned toward the door. “Y’all run along. I can’t do this with you looking over my shoulder and fretting over every little thing.”

  “How long do you think it’ll take?” Zach asked.

  “I’ll be done before dinner.”

  Zach’s friends left, and he tried to do his homework at the kitchen table so he could hear Grandpa when he called him back down to the lab. Zach found it hard to focus with his mother cooking dinner, banging pots and pans around and opening and closing drawers and cabinets. He finally had to go to his room.

  He didn’t get much work done there, either. He couldn’t concentrate on the math problems he had to solve. His mind was downstairs with his grandfather in the basement. It wasn’t until nearly six o’clock that his mother called to him to say that Grandpa wanted to see him.

  Zach joined him in the lab and tried to steel himself for the grim news. “How bad is it?”

  “Six tubes are shot. We
’ll have to order more right after dinner.”

  “But it’s almost Thanksgiving! That’s next week. That means the mail will get really slow, doesn’t it, with the holidays coming up? And me and my friends don’t have much money, only seventy-five dollars, and that’s counting my allowance. How much do you think everything will cost?”

  “If I remember correctly, these tubes will probably set you back about two hundred bucks, with shipping. They’re the most expensive ones in the machine.”

  “We’ll never be able to make that much money in time! Bo…oh, dang it! He’s screwed. Totally screwed.”

  Grandpa gestured gently with one hand. “Hold on, don’t go all gloom and doom on me. Give me what money you have and I’ll make up the difference. Consider it an advance.”

  “But it could be months before we make the money to pay you back.”

  “Let’s make a deal. I’ll loan you the rest of the money to pay for the tubes, and every time it snows, you and you friends have to shovel my front walk and driveway.”

  “But we would do that for you anyway.”

  Grandpa raised one finger. “I get to be first, even if you have other paying jobs lined up.”

  “But…uh….”

  “Is it a deal or not?”

  Zach started to object until he realized what his grandfather was offering. It’s not a loan. He’s giving it to us. Zach was surprised. His grandfather always seemed to be careful with his money, almost stingy. “Sure. We’ll do it. But what about the control station? It could blow up again just as easy as it did today, couldn’t it?”

  “I’m going to install a regulator and an internal breaker this time. I should’ve done it before, but I wanted to stay as true to Uncle Nicholas’s original design as possible. Now I see that he should’ve put both of those components in there in the first place.”

  “Do you think we can get it fixed in time?”

  “I believe so. You’re right about the shipping. It will be slower because of the holidays coming up, but I’m going to pay a little more and upgrade to the faster option. I don’t think they offer overnight service, so we’ll have to trust them to get the tubes to us quickly enough.”