Ark Of Hope: Beyond The Dark Horizon

by Roger David Francis

  Someone laughed behind them and they both spun round.

  Queen Bebo stood shaking like a huge jelly, her mouth split into a grin that stretched across her face.

  “My hospitality not good enough for you?” She asked; her voice high and girlish. She seemed to fill up the whole of the path, her legs planted apart. Her breathing was harsh as if she’d hurried to catch up with them. Toffin and Dink had probably told her where they were going.

  “We’re looking for our friend,” Cassie said eyeing the woman with distaste.

  Queen Bebo waved her hand in the air. “She’s around somewhere. Maybe she’s been captured by the Oogaloo’s, they won’t keep her she’s too skinny, she can’t take my place.”

  “I’m sure she wouldn’t want to.” Brett said.

  The Queen stopped laughing and studied them. “I knew you were trouble,” she said at last. “I invited you into my home, all you had to do was eat and sleep but you started interfering in the ways of the Island. You need to mind your own business and clear off. What goes on here is nothing to do with you.”

  “Then help us find our friend and we’ll leave.” Cassie said.

  Queen Bebo considered it. She shrugged her enormous shoulders. “Maybe,” she said. “Come with me.” She waddled past them, her large arm extended, knocking into Cassie, almost sending her tripping backwards. They followed her slow lumbering steps towards two large oak trees. Queen Bebo stopped and pointed to a small path almost hidden between the trees.

  “Keep going, about five minutes walk and you’ll come to the Sacred cave. Inside it is the Challis of Truth.” Her eyes took on a crafty look, “If you can find it and bring it to me, I’ll show you the way off the Island.”

  “What do you want it for?” Jade asked.

  Queen Bebo’s eyes slid sideways, “It contains the secret of the Island,” she whispered. “If I knew what it was I would have ultimate power.” She pushed out a large fleshy tongue and swiped it around her lips, her voice still low she continued, “It holds the answer but no-one knows what the question is.” Her voice turned brisk. “Your friend’s inside. Tell Toffin I said you could go in.”

  She pulled a face and took a handkerchief out of her dress pocket. “Show him this and he’ll know you’re telling the truth. But be warned. If you lie to me, try to deceive me and keep the Challis of Truth for yourselves, then I’ll find you and feed you to the biggest Oogaloo.” She shifted her bulk around and headed off in the other direction.

  “Well, that’s told us,” Cassie said.

  Five minutes later when Brett was beginning to suspect Queen Bebo had sent them on a fool’s errand, he stopped abruptly. “I can see it,” he whispered.

  Just up ahead was the entrance to a huge cave. It seemed to have been carved out of a slab of granite, shades of black and grey stone built up in huge steps creating an opening. Cassie could see strange symbols carved deep in the granite. Probably the Oogaloos idea of graffiti, she thought. Standing in front of it was Toffin. He was nodding his head rapidly up and down.

  “I wondered when you’d get here,” he said. “You took your time. Of course you don’t know the shortcuts like I do.”

  Cassie waved the handkerchief in front of him.

  “I don’t want to see it,” Toffin cringed. “I know where it’s been. You’d better go in, but you can’t stay long. This is the Sacred cave, it holds the Chalice of Truth, but you won’t get your hands on it, nobody ever does.”

  Cassie dropped the handkerchief on the ground and keeping as close to Brett as possible, followed him into the cave.

  Her eyes felt sticky as she tried to open them and Jade groped around with her fingers. Where the hell was she? The last thing she remembered was an image of Robbie in her mind and then hands dragging her under the waves and thinking she was about to die.

  She struggled to sit up and rubbed her eyes. Her head ached with a small dull throbbing pain and the skin on her face felt tight. She licked her dry lips and thought she‘d been lucky she hadn’t drowned. She’d been so sure she’d been moments from death she could still hardly believe she’d been rescued.

  Or maybe rescued wasn’t quite the right word, she thought, captured seemed more appropriate. Rescued meant being wrapped in warm blankets and given sweet hot tea to drink, not being dumped in this terrible place. She sniffed and frowned. The smell was awful, like sewage and seaweed mixed with rotting flesh, and Jade stared around her in disgust.

  She seemed to be in some sort of large dungeon surrounded by dead animals that lay decomposing a few feet away from her. The dirt ground was literally covered in them, some piled on top of each other. One of them was a monkey and she could have sworn she saw its eyelids flicker. Jade hoped she was wrong, the creature was almost mummified. Why had someone bought her here? She wondered. Maybe it was the Island’s equivalent to an abattoir, the thought made her shudder.

  She wasn’t tied up but she was definitely being held prisoner. There seemed to be only one door, made of metal, and it was firmly shut and Jade didn’t think it was going to open any time soon to let her out. She wriggled miserably. Her clothes were damp and she wondered how long she’d been here, probably a couple of hours, she decided as she felt her half dried hair.

  The room was a considerable size with stone walls. There were no windows to let in any light but a lamp hung down from the ceiling casting a nasty yellow glow over the carcasses. The floor was mud packed and uneven and all around the animal bodies Jade could make out small footprints in the dirt. She’d been laid out on a concrete shelf and her shoes were missing. Carefully Jade swung herself down until her toes touched the ground. Her bare feet squelched on the dirt floor.

  Grimacing, Jade edged her way in a shuffle step around the dead animals and headed for the door. Dreading she might tread on a clump of matted fur, or God forbid, squash her bare foot into a contorted face, her journey of twenty feet seemed to take ages to achieve.

  She stood listening for a few moments, her ear pressed to the door but she couldn’t hear any sound. Slowly she turned the handle but of course it wouldn’t budge, she hadn’t expected it to. She decided to try banging on it, and using her fists she pounded away, stumbling backwards in amazement when the door was suddenly flung open.

  The most appalling manlike creature she’d ever seen strode into the room.

  His green hair hung straight down to his ankles. It was knotted and twisted, some parts of it were frizzy and the rest was just filthy clumps of matted hair. His forehead was so large it overshadowed his eyes and his nose was a flat round hole. Where his mouth should have been were two thick rubber bands of red gristle covered in tiny warts. The warts began to wriggle and a dull flat voice emerged from inside the slit.

  “Follow me.” The man said and turned his back on her striding back out of the door.

  Because the stink was overwhelming and Jade thought she’d seen more than one of the dead animals twitch, she decided that following the green haired man was the lesser of two evils.

  Outside the dungeon she found herself in a narrow passageway. The man up ahead filled the space entirely but he was sure footed and seemed to know where he was going. At one point he glanced back at her and Jade thought his eyes flickered with a dull crimson light. It was hard to tell though; they were mostly hidden under his huge forehead.

  The end of the passageway opened up into a cave and Jade felt her legs go weak. She had to swallow hard to stop herself heaving from the stench. Every wall of the cave seemed to be coated in some sort of fabric that bubbled against the stone and Jade wondered if it was that causing the terrible smell.

  Seated cross legged on the floor were about a hundred small creatures, hairy, their green locks covering their bodies, their foreheads jutting out, and Jade realised with a shock they were children. They were making a chattering noise and pointing at her.

  Oogaloo’s. Wasn’t that what Hope had told her? They didn’t look particularly friendly, in fact to Jade, they seemed downright hostile
with their small darting eyes and wart covered mouths. Above their heads a row of flickering bulbs lit up their squirming bodies but the other half of the cave was in darkness, Jade could just make out shapes moving.

  The green haired man strode into the middle of the cave and to Jade’s surprise dropped to his knees, threw his body forward and began kissing the dirt floor, making awful snuffling noises. The chattering children watched him solemnly as he stood up and began walking backwards towards her.

  He didn’t turn his head but his green hair swayed and Jade saw two eyes in the back of his head staring at her. More than anything Jade wished there was somewhere to run to, away from the oncoming danger but behind her was only the passageway leading to the dungeon.

  Just when she thought the green haired man was about to lunge at her, he stopped abruptly, his large barrel chest heaving.

  A very stark bright light came on filling the cave with a harsh terrifying ambiance.

  Jade could only stare. In front of her was an enormous chair with red velvet drapes and a huge cushioned seat. Filling up every inch of it sat Queen Bebo, her thighs overflowing the sides. Next to the chair was a small table with a plate piled high with cucumber sandwiches. The Queen’s cheeks were already bulging out on both sides as she crammed the food into her mouth. She swallowed hard and indicated with a wave of her hand to Jade that she should sit at her feet.

  The strange green haired man poked her in her stomach and then grabbed her roughly by her arm and propelled her forward towards the Queen. The chattering of the green haired children had subsided to a muttering and an air of expectancy seemed to fill the cave. Her arm was released and Jade reluctantly slid down onto the dirt floor in front of the Queen. She crossed her legs and arms, looked up at Queen Bebo and smiled brightly, her heart thumping.

  “Do you think this is funny?” Queen Bebo’s bushy eyebrows rose up. “You’ve caused nothing but trouble since you arrived on my Island and now you’re laughing at me.” Her high pitched girlish voice rose petulantly, “What do you want?”

  “I have to find my friends,” Jade said. “We’re not here to cause trouble. Perhaps you could tell us how we get off Sandys Island so we can go home?”

  “Go home?” Queen Bebo looked astonished and then spluttered and began to laugh, a high pitched whining sound. Immediately the cave shook with the laughter of the children as they whooped and hollowed. After a few moments the Queen held up her fat hand to quieten them, and after wiping tears from her eyes she said, “I am not really amused but your foolishness took me by surprise. You’re never going home, don’t you understand yet? This is the world’s end.” She shoved another sandwich in her mouth still staring at Jade.

  “So what do you want from me?” Jade asked.

  “From you?” Queen Bebo’s bushy eyebrows rose. “Why nothing. You’re simply bait. How else was I to get your stupid friends to go into the Sacred cave?”

  A little ripple of excitement ran through the audience of children.

  Jade frowned, “I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Of course you don’t, you’re too stupid.” The Queen shook her head, her large jowls wobbling and a look of cunning spread across her face sending her features into a grotesque mask of wobbling flesh. She flapped her podgy hands and the green haired man immediately handed her a large wedge of bread with half a cumber pressed into it. Queen Bebo snatched it from him and crammed it into her mouth.

  Jade watched in disgust as her throat worked to get the lumpy food down her gullet as fast as she could. After a few minutes the Queen cleared her throat and gasped, “I can’t go there myself; I’m too big to climb down the hole so I sent your friends instead.” A rippling sound of horror went up from the children. “I told them if they wanted to find you alive then they had to bring me back the Chalice of Truth.”

  The green haired man made a small moaning noise deep in his throat.

  The Queen continued, her podgy hand clutching another half eaten sandwich; “Unlikely they’ll get out in one piece,” she grunted, “but I have to try. The Challis of Truth is very special, your friends are disposable.”

  Jade felt a hot sick wave of anger wash over her. “You bitch!” she yelled, “If you’ve sent them to their death then I’ll kill you!”

  The words were hardly out of her mouth when the green haired man bent down and grasped her shoulder forcing her backwards. Jade felt her head hit the dirt floor and for a moment felt dizzy as a wave of nausea hit her. She stared up at the ceiling of the cave watching the swirling colours chasing each other, reds, blue’s and silver intertwining, dipping and twirling and she blinked wondering what she was looking at.

  Queen Bebo had heaved herself up out of the chair and was standing over her, legs apart.

  “Sandy Island is getting ready to disappear again,” the Queen’s voice was low pitched and held a note of despair. “Nothing else matters but you wouldn’t understand, you’re not important, you and your friends, you shouldn’t even be here, you don’t belong.” She carried on, her tone rising and falling, her fingers twitching at her side. “First it’s the colours and then it’s the Black hole. Only the Challis of Truth can stop it happening.” She raised her voice, “they must find it and bring it to me!” she shouted, her voice echoing around the cave. And then she did an awful thing; she pressed her enormous bare foot on Jade’s stomach.

  Gasping for breath Jade tried to roll away but the fleshy foot held her down.

  “Tie her up,” the Queen lifted up her foot and suddenly the swarm of green haired children were all over her, pinning her down, their thin mouths covered in warts opening and closing as they yelled and screamed in delight as they tied string around her arms and legs. She could hear Queen Bebo chuckling and she closed her eyes, willing this to be a nightmare.

  Chapter 18

  Toffin stood at the entrance to the cave and said, “This is as far as I’m allowed to go, you’re on your own now.” He sniggered. “If you get lucky and manage to find the Challis of Truth, the Queen might pardon you and let you off the Island, good luck with that.”

  “What’s so special about it?” Cassie asked curiously.

  Toffin looked around furtively. He lowered his voice. “It holds the knowledge of the universe and it grants the holder of it the answer to one question.”

  “Is that all?” Cassie felt disappointed, she’d hoped it was like Aladdin’s lamp and she could have three wishes. Though she actually only needed one, to get off this Island in one piece.

  Toffin looked at her amazed. “All?” he whispered. “It’s everything.”

  Brett frowned. “So what’s the question?”

  Toffin gave him a dirty look, “How should I know?” He shook his head. “No-one knows, that’s what so special about it.”

  “So how do you know it’s real? I mean if you can’t prove it, maybe you’re putting your faith in something that has no power.” Cassie pointed out.

  “We believe. Don’t you have your own God you believe in? What question would you put to him?”

  Cassie grinned, “Am I going to win the lottery?”

  Brett nudged her and looked at Toffin thoughtfully. “So the Challis of Truth is a religious icon?”

  “You don’t get it. It’s about knowing. Knowledge is truth and the truth is contained in the Challis.” He raised his stubby blocked hand at them and lowered his voice, “Queen Bebo thinks she rules this Island but she’s wrong, she’s here for one purpose only, to populate Sandy Island, she’s really nothing more than a big fat bitch container full up of cargo, but don’t tell her I said that.” He paused and glanced around, dropping his strange flat voice to a whisper, “I’ve said too much now Sir, I have to leave.” He pointed, “Good luck, you’re going to need it.” He disappeared from the entrance, scuttling off behind a large oak tree, and Brett shrugged.

  The cave entrance was quite low and Brett had to duck his head down. “I don’t see how Jade could be in here,” he said to Cassie. “I think that Queen B
ebo was having us on. This Challis thing they keep going on about, it’s probably made of gold, encrusted with diamonds, it’s just about money.”

  Cassie coughed. “You could be right but we should try and find it, it could be a bargaining tool.”

  Something whizzed past her head and she screamed.

  “Christ,” Brett grabbed her arm. “Someone’s firing arrows at us.”

  A little voice spoke, “In here, quick.”

  Hope stood framed in a doorway leading off the small cave and as another arrow missed Cassie by a couple of inches, Brett pushed her into the opening and followed her through into a much larger cave.

  “It’s the Oogaloo’s,” Hope explained, “the children like to practise their archery skills, to them you’re just prey.”

  “Charming,” Brett muttered.

  The cave Hope had led them into was lit up with hundreds of candles that flickered around the stone walls. Hope pointed to the far end.

  “The Challis of Truth is inside that hole in the floor but it’s guarded by the Choolies so be careful. The men are warriors.”

  “We don’t care about the Challis of Truth, or the Choolies, we just need to find Jade,” Brett told the little girl. This time he could see her and she looked exactly the same as the first time he’d met her on Professor Bunting’s boat. She seemed real but now he knew she wasn’t.

  “It’s important that you get it,” Hope told him, patiently. “It’s the only way you’ll be allowed off the Island.” She stared into Brett’s eyes, “Poppy said you’ll know what to do, he has faith in you and sometimes faith is all you need.” She smiled, “I have to go now.” And she disappeared.

  “Stay close to me,” Brett told Cassie. He shivered, the cave was icy cold; his breath was coming out of his mouth in thick plumes of mist. “I don’t know about this,” he said doubtfully. “I heard what the little girl said but while we’re pissing about looking for something that probably doesn’t even exist Jade could be in real trouble.”