by Rae Agatha
Dan kept a strong grip on Rick, while Anna and Matylda walked ahead of them. When they finally cleared the woods, Matylda stopped, turned around and said.
“There it is,” she pointed ahead.
About three or four hundred yards ahead of them there was a small lake, glittering in moons’ silver gleam. They also saw an outline of a wooden house, situated very close to the lake. Behind the lake there were fields and another part of the forest.
“Oh my God, it’s really there,” Anna said.
“Those fields are very similar to the ones I found when I walked out of the forest. Strawberries, cabbages, potatoes, probably more vegetables, the fields are impressively vast. I came out from the forest which, I suppose, was on the opposite direction to yours. The plane must have been somewhere in the middle of our paths. Even though I found it, I wondered if there were any other people in the area, so I left the wreck and discovered the hut. It was completely deserted, but I liked it as a shelter much more, so I returned for my supplies and to take things from the plane like the first-aid kit and the flares. The first-aid kit will definitely be handy now,” she added pointing at Rick’s leg.
“Did you make the ladder?” Dan asked.
“How on earth would I do that? With what?” She asked rolling her eyes.
“Oh come on, I only asked,” he replied.
“No, it was already there.”
Rick shook his head in disbelief. Anna looked at him and they knew they were both thinking the same – what the hell was this place?
They all moved ahead. Rick was trying to take normal steps, but it was just impossible.
“Do not try to walk like that, you’ll strain the joint more than it already is,” Matylda told him. “You will only injure more and causeyourself more trouble.”
“Honestly, I can’t wait to sit or lie down, it hurts like hell. I hope it’s only twisted, not broken, the goddamn root was clenching around it so hard, especially when you were cutting the big one around my chest.”
“Maybe it knew it was your weak spot and wanted to make sure it got you, even though the bigger one failed?” said Anna. “I mean, I’m pretty sure the snakes and the insects were communicating somehow, I don’t know, maybe the flora is the same. Call me crazy if you want, I don’t care.”
Nobody answered, but everyone silently agreed with her. If she was right, then not only was it truly the loneliest place they’d ever been to, but it must have also been the most frightening one.
“I wonder if there’s anyone else around, you know, more people,” Dan said.
“I haven’t seen any bodies around, that’s a good sign, I guess,” Matylda replied.
“That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but yes, I think it is a good sign, too, I agree,” Dan said.
“Where are you from, Matylda?” Anna asked.
“Where I’m from or where I live?”
“Both.”
“I’m from Poland, I’m living in Madrid now.”
“To catch more sun?” Dan snorted with laughter.
“Sort of.”
“And when are you from?” Anna continued.
“What do you mean when?”
“What date, what year?”
“That’s a strange question. It’s January 8th 2004.”
Anna, Dan and Rick looked at each other, they weren’t even surprised.
“I’m from 2013, Dan is from 2005 and Rick is from 2001.”
“What?!” Matylda stopped and looked at them waiting for everyone to start laughing.
Everybody was dead serious, though. “That’s bullshit, it’s impossible.”
“It’s true, Matylda,” Rick said. “All of us woke up here, but we’re all from different times, cities, even from different countries. You can look at Anna’s watch, it shows the exact date.”
Matylda stopped, looked at Anna’s watch then at them.
“You could have simply set the clock to show that date, it doesn’t prove anything.”
“Then how about this – when I was working as a college teacher, together with the students, I was reading a novel written by Rick, who, at this point has no idea he is even going to write it.”
“Look, I don’t believe you, okay? It’s a really dumb joke, that’s all it is.”
Anna took out her wallet, got her driving licence out of it and gave it to Matylda. She turned her headlamp on and pointed it at the document. She frowned, looked at Anna again, checked the photo and looked at Fielding one more time.
“What the hell,“ she said.
“Seriously, that thing with the driving licence it’s like in Bukowski’s novel Pulp,” Anna said. “Who knew I’d experience something similar.”
“That’s true, yes, there was a similar thing,” Rick smiled.
“What? What’s the story?” Dan asked.
“Well, you see, the main character of Pulp is a PI, Nicky Belane, a total loser and a drunk who can barely make ends meet, and he is hired by Lady Death herself, who wants Belane to find Celine, the writer, who escaped her and is still alive, but she can’t find him. Belane can and once he does, he organizes a meeting in a restaurant between him, Celine and Lady Death, who needs to make sure the Celine the detective found is the Celine she was looking for. So, Nicky tricks Celine to show them his driving license and on the document, there’s his date of birth, which says 1894. And thus, Lady Death is sure Belane found the right guy. So yeah, it’s pretty much the same, and even though in our case, it’s not a matter of the date of birth, it’s about the date of issue, but my driving licence serves as important evidence in the case Four Of Us against The Time and Space.”
“On a different note, I’ve noticed all of you have something with you, I mean like apart from clothes; Matylda has the whole backpack, you have your wallet, Dan do you have something in your pockets?” Rick asked.
“No, I left my wallet and my phone on the chest of drawers when I got home. I took it out of my pockets before I fell asleep.”
“I wonder how come I don’t have my things,” Rick said.
“Maybe you didn’t take anything with you?” Matylda asked.
“No, I never leave home without my wallet and my phone. Weird.”
“Well, since I already am a party-pooper telling everyone that Michael Jackson’s dead –“
“Michael Jackson’s dead?!” Matylda asked shocked.
“Yes. 2009.”
“Oh my God! I can’t believe it.”
“Well, the whole world couldn’t believe it. It was incredible to see the entire globe united, mourning together for weeks. For what it’s worth, at least MTV started showing some music again, for like a week. Michael Jackson’s music mostly, which was understandable.”
“What, no music on MTV? Music Television with no music?” Rick asked.
“Nope, the station is now all about reality TV shows. They actually officially dropped the words “music television” in their logo, like two or three years ago,” Anna said.
“What’s reality TV?”
“Wait, what was there in the early 2000s?” Anna tried to think of some examples.
“You know Big Brother? The Real World? Survivor?” Dan asked. “I think those were already on TV in the late 90’s.”
“Yeah, that’s such a crap,” Rick replied.
“Well, you better think of canceling your cable TV if that’s your attitude my friend, because that’s going to be like 90% of television a decade ahead of you,” Anna said.
“You’re kidding,” Rick said with the grimace of distaste.
“Anyway, I think what Anna wanted to say is that you were probably robbed, Rick. While you were sleeping, before you appeared here,” Matylda said.
Rick took a breath to say something, but he just let it go. He looked at Anna.
“Yes, that’s what I wanted to say,” she said. “Matylda, you’re a one straightforward girl, you know that?”
Matylda only glanced at her and kept on walking. Rick thought that, unfortunately
for him, Anna’s theory made a lot of sense.
“Well, here we are,” Matylda said about twenty minutes later. They were standing in front of a medium-sized wooden hut.
“Let’s get inside, we won’t see a lot in the moonlight anyway, we might as well get some sleep,” Dan said.
“What time is it, Anna?” Rick asked as they were walking inside.
“It’s 6:00 p.m.”
Chapter 11
They opened the door and lit the inside before walking in. It looked old, but decent. The entrance was quite narrow, so Anna and Matylda walked in first to light the way, then Rick hobbled inside and finally Dan came in and closed the door.
The windows were closed, but the shutters were opened so some of the moonlight was able to shine inside. The first room looked like a combination of a kitchen and a dining room. It was spacious, there were some cabinets on one of the walls, two of them had their door badly broken, hanging quite miserably on their sole hinges. On the other wall there was a sink which looked pretty old and three cabinets joined by a partly decayed work surface. As far as they could see, there were no electrical outlets, nor were there any overhead lighting fixtures.
In the middle of the room there was a table with six chairs. All furniture was in poor condition, some parts of the table were rotten, the chairs looked as if they would fall into pieces the moment anyone sat on them. The floor which was wooden, was full of small holes and knots.
“It’s not exactly a five-star hotel, but it looks better during the day,” Matylda said. “Come one, I’ll show you the other rooms.”
While they were moving inside the house, the wooden floor was making unpleasant cracking noises. Through a short hall they walked toward three rooms located opposite to each other. There were two rooms on the left and one on the right. First they walked into the one on the right, which resembled a very modest bedroom. There was a window, with one shutter closed, one open, and one big bed with three pillows, a quilt and a blanket. The room looked a bit as if it was taken out of the Civil War times; one chest of drawers was standing next to the wall with the window, and in the corner there was a small table with a ceramic basin and jug, both a bit chipped. A mirror was hanging on the wall, right above the table. Under the bed there was a rug, barely long and wide enough to be visible from under it. The other room looked very similar, but instead of one big bed it had two smaller ones and its window was entirely covered with shutters. Everything else was the same. Looking at the general state the cottage was in, it seemed quite surprising, that the beds were in quite decent condition; the blankets had small holes in them and the sheets were dusty, but it seemed the beds were strong enough to sleep on them without any bigger problem. The third room looked like a storage. There was a mattress on the floor, some wooden boxes and oak chests and no furniture.
“It’s not really a hut, Matylda,” Dan said.
“No?”
“No. A hut generally has one large inside space, not defined rooms
like here.”
“Well, I am not an English native speaker,” Matylda replied. “Sorry for the confusion.”
“It’s okay, I am only being precise,” Dan only shrugged his shoulders in a gesture assuring her that nothing really happened.
“This is a really strange place,” Anna said.
“Well, the roof and the windows look solid. Seems to me we’re safe here,” Rick said.
“At the back of the house there’s a pier, it’s quite wide, it goes to the lake, it’s about twenty meters, so, more or less, twenty yards, long,” Matylda said.
“Great, I could use a bath,” Dan said.
“Listen, I need to lay down, my leg is killing me,” Rick said through his teeth. “How about making this room the gentlemen’s room?” He asked pointing at the one with two beds.
“Fine by me,” Dan replied. “I could use some sleep, I mean we’ve been through a lot, a lot, since we woke up, I don’t know about you, but I’m really knackered,” he added while rubbing the back of his neck. Rick hopped inside the room and sat on the bed being closer to the door. He started carefully unlacing his shoe and the bed squeaked quietly as he was moving.
“So, ladies’ room?” Anna asked Matylda looking at the single-bedroom.
“Yes. Would anyone like a drink before going to sleep?” Matylda asked and took out four mini bottles of wine.
“You took them?” Dan said smiling and reached out.
“Naturally,” Matylda answered and smiled back. Dan thought it was nice, that it was the first time she looked at least a bit relaxed.
“Rick? Want some?”
“Jesus Christ,” Rick hissed as he was taking the shoe off from the injured leg. He unrolled his sock and looked at his right ankle. “Could any of you hand me a flashlight? I need to see what’s going on.”
Matylda gave him hers; Rick pointed it at his leg and sighed heavily. The ankle was horribly swollen and there were thin red effusions in the places where the plants, especially the ferns and ivy, had twisted around it. It looked as if his foot was wrapped with a red string. Rick thought such lines were probably drawn all over his body and that he must be covered with bruises, as aching as he was.
“Can I see it?” Matylda asked. All of them were standing in the hallway looking at Rick.
He beckoned her in and lifted his leg a bit. Matylda walked in, took a look at it, she delicately touched the swollen part and said, “It’s not that bad, I don’t think it’s broken. I’ll help you when I get some sleep. I know what to do.”
“You do?” Rick said surprised. “You will?”
“Yeah, it may not look too good, but I don’t think it’s anything complicated or uncommon. We’ll fix this.”
“Um, okay,” he replied clearly relieved.
“It won’t help as quickly as normal medicines would, but I think that soon you’ll be able to walk without any bigger problems.”
“Okay, so, what are we going to drink to?” Anna asked as she walked inside and gave Rick a bottle.
“For safe returns. Whatever that means,” Dan said. They all looked at him and said nothing, only clinked their bottles.
Half an hour later, they were all in beds. Anna and Matylda closed the door to their room, Rick and Dan did the same. As Rick was lying down, he had a feeling that every muscle in his body hurt him. He thought that in the morning he had to see exactly what he looked like as sore as he was.
“You asleep?” Dan asked.
“No,” Lawrence replied. He was lying with his arm folded under his head. “My leg hurts so much, I can’t close my eyes. My kingdom for some Advil or aspirin, I swear to God. Why aren’t you?”
“I was thinking about my wife,” Dan replied.
“You’re married?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry I seem surprised, but I haven’t seen a wedding band on your finger.”
“It’s okay. I can see you’re married, too.”
“Yes, I am,” he replied and spontaneously glanced at his left palm.
“How long?”
“Five years, but we’ve known each other since high school. You?”
“Almost nine. You have kids?”
“No. You?”
“Yes, a boy, Johnny. He’s nine.”
“That’s nice.”
They were lying in silence for a few minutes.
“You’re happy?” Dan asked.
“What, with my marriage, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“I am. You’re not?” Rick looked at him.
“I – I don’t know. It’s complicated,” Dan sighed as he turned on a side. “I mean who knows what happy really means. Guess it’s kind of relative, isn’t it?”
Rick smiled weakly. “Well, we’re not exactly having the time of our lives right now, Monica and I,” he said and swallowed. “I think that, to tell the truth, I might also say it’s complicated in my case – at least at this point.”
Dan didn’t say anything. He was too tired to co
ntinue the conversation, he felt his eye lids were becoming unbearably heavy, the stress was finally letting him go. He yawned.
“Good night, Dan,” Rick said looking at him.
“Yeah, night,” Salinger replied and started snoring quietly some minutes later. Rick felt the pain in his leg pulsing with every heartbeat. It was irritating, but most of all he was worried he had a serious injury that would make him unable to move fast and look for a way back home. He tried exasperatingly to lie down in some position that would help him ease the pain and get some rest as he was unspeakably tired. The adrenaline rush in his veins almost since the moment he woke up (which seemed ages ago) finally started letting him go. But the images of snakes, the goddamn lianas and the gigantic root coming at him were preventing him from falling asleep. After some time, Rick sat and, trying not to move his foot, covered himself with a blanket lying on the bed, folded on its footboard. He lay on his side, facing the door, and closed his eyes. Finally, the fatigue took over and soon he was fast asleep.