And then I am at the base of the cliff. I don't have time to look so I make another wild running jump and reach as high as I can, feeling blindly for any crack or crevice with my fingertips might latch on to. By sheer blind luck my fingers find a grip and I pull myself upwards.
The alien creatures snarl behind me and I hear a big clatter of sharp claws scratching on the rock surfaces below me. There are more yelps and startled yips as the creatures try to follow after me. But I do not waste any time looking back to see how these creatures fare jumping up after me.
The snapping jaws of one of them crunching the air where my left elbow has just been convinces me that they are doing just fine keeping up with me.
Looking up I see a rocky ledge halfway up the outcrop. But the face of outcrop now looks more like a sheer cliff than a climbable wall. However the hot breath and thundering of the pack of creatures below me motivate me to move even faster regardless of how impossible the climb now looks. These creatures may not like clambering across the jumbled boulders, but they are still snapping at my heels. Literally as one of them lands on the boulder that I have just jumped from.
I stretch up to grab any kind of crack or crevasse that I might find above me. But all I can feel is smooth rock. I hear the sharp sound of an alien creature's jaws snap closed on the air behind me and the scraping of their claws on the rock as they jump up to try and snare me in their powerful jaws.
Below me is a sea of snapping jaws. Snapping jaws with razor sharp teeth. Razor sharp teeth that slice into the heel of my shoe, gripping hard and pulling me back down towards the ravenous creatures. I cling with one hand as my other hand scrapes across the hard rock, trying desperately to find any purchase as I feel one of the creatures' teeth slice into the flesh of my foot.
The pain gives me a jolt of adrenalin, my fingers finally gain a grip on the slippy rocks above my head and the adrenalin rush releases some hidden strength, and I manage to pull my foot loose of the creature's jaws. And in another moment pull myself further up the rocky cliff, just as a set of alien jaws snap at the air under me.
The low growling turns briefly to whining howls as the creatures realize that they can no longer jump high enough to reach me. But their claws still clatter against the rock face as they jump against the rocks trying to follow after me.
Then a brief fight breaks out over my shoe.
As the creatures distracted themselves fighting over my shredded footwear, I climb higher, looking for some kind of safe harbor on the cliff above me. I don't know where I am going. I just know that I need to get away from the snapping jaws of the growling creatures below me.
The rock cuts into my hands and arms, and my bare foot, as I clamber upwards in the quickening darkness. My elbow strikes something sharp and a spike of pain shoots along my arm. But I manage to cling on to the rocky cliff as the pain shoots through my body.
I hear the creatures below me growl and yelp as they see me struggle. Then I hear answering yelps for above. I look up and can see shadowy outlines moving at the top of the cliff. Some of these creatures must have run up the mountainside where it is not as steep as the cliff face and out onto the top of the rocky outcrop.
Great, I think to myself, now I'm trapped. But better trapped than eaten, I remind myself.
I see a rocky ledge just above me. I clamber up onto it and see that is recessed into the cliff face a little. I roll over and huddle against the rock, as far from the edge as I can. I am shivering and shaking, not just with the terror of the pack of animals circling around both above and below me, but also with the cold.
But more than anything I am so, so tired. I know that I need to keep awake. I know that these creatures might find some way of crawling along some rock ledge to get to me. But right at this present moment in time I can do nothing but close my eyes and allow my fatigue to take me away.
Chapter Seven
I am dreaming that I am falling. Or rather flying. Yet kind of both. But I am not afraid of the fall. I am spinning around the top of a deep funnel shaped hole. And I am afraid of the bottomless hole that sucks me down. I know that I am spiraling down and that if I am swallowed by the funnel I will be crushed. So I scramble up and back out of the mouth of the funnel. Spreading my arms and using them like wings to fly out into the open space above. It is a hard flight, taking all of my strength to push myself up into the open air above the funnel against that force that wants to pull me back down. But I struggle against the force, and I finally break free and soar up into the open space above. Just as I open my eyes and wake up.
For once in my life I wake fully and instantly. Normally each morning I have to be dragged kicking and bitching into the land of the living. But today I open my eyes with a smile. Which fades as I instantly remember where I am, hiding from vicious animals on a ledge, on a cliff, on an alien planet.
But despite having just spent the night sleeping on a ledge, halfway up a cliff face, with no blankets, I feel rested, and I feel warm. And obviously I haven't been eaten in my sleep, I think to myself. But to wake up refreshed and warm? That definitely does not seem at all plausible. There is no way that I could have just spent the night sleeping in the open and feel warm and comfortable. Maybe I am still dreaming, I think. But I know that is not true. I feel wide awake.
Rolling over, carefully as I remember that I am on a ledge twenty feet above the ground, I look out at the orange and purple foliage that stretchers as far as my eye can see. It's definitely an alien planet, I think. So I guess everything else must be real as well. I had kind of hoped that it would all have been a dream and that I was waking in my apartment, on my ex-boyfriend's stupid futon, needing to get up and go to work.
But then I smile. "Well, at least I don't need to get up and go to work," I say. But the alien forest does not respond to me. "Speaking of responses..." I say as I peek over the edge of the ledge. There was no sign of the creatures from the night before. Craning my neck, I try to look up towards the top of the rocky outcrop. But there is no sign of anything moving up there either.
Maybe they only hunt a night, I think to myself. Which would be good for me. At least until tonight, that is.
And then I realize that I am not hungry. I should be hungry. I haven't eaten anything for... well, I don't know how long. A couple of days at least. I haven't eaten anything that is apart from that alien fruit that I found on the starship.
Maybe that fruit has poisoned me, and I don't feel hungry because I am going to die, I muse. But somehow I don't believe it. I have never felt better in my entire life. Which considering where I am, stranded on an alien planet about to become dinner for a pack of alien animals, or recaptured and sold as a sex slave, is probably the strangest part of this whole experience.
I sit up and dangle my legs over the edge of the cliff. Stretching my arms above my head, I take a deep breath of clean, fresh air. Having lived all my life in a big city, it is a novel experience.
I see something on my arm and freeze. There running along my arm, from my shoulder to my elbow, is a smooth, shiny green colored substance.
"Eeek!" I scream, as I try to pull it off. But as I try to catch hold of it, it just flows through my fingers like water. "What the..." I gasp as I try again.
But no matter how I try, I can not get a grip on it. It parts like thick syrup as my fingers touch it and then seals up behind my fingertips. And when I take my fingers away it returns to is sleek, glossy finish as if I had never touched it.
I am in a panic now. I pull up my t-shirt and see that the substance covers all of my body. It has seeped under my bra and down into the waistband of my jeans, coating my torso like a thick coating of paint. I run my hands across my stomach, and I can briefly see my skin beneath as the gloppy stuff parts around my fingertips. But moments later it flows back and joins up seamlessly once more.
Pulling up my jeans' leg I see that is has reached down as far as my knees. Reaching around and twisting my neck and shoulders as best I can the slime seems to be all over my
entire body, front and back. I try again to pull it off me. But once again it just flows around my fingers, and I can get no grip on it. I flick my hand, but it doesn't flick off like water might. It seems to be stuck to my skin, but I can not even feel it attaching in any way.
I need to get back to the river and get this stuff washed off me, I say to myself. But then I pause and look around the alien forest. I am acutely aware of what the creatures that I encountered last night could do to me. On the one hand I don't want to leave the relative safety of this cliff face ledge. But on the other hand who knows what this mold, or moss, or whatever it is currently doing to me. I have no doubt that it is currently leaching nutrients from my body and slowly poisoning me in the process.
Plus, I'd have to leave sooner or later in order to get some food and water.
Leaning over the edge of the ledge I look down the sheer cliff face. It's going to be harder climbing down this morning that going up last night had been. Not least because of the motivation of the alien predators chasing hot on my heels.
Literally, I think to myself. Hadn't one of them actually bit my foot? And what about all the scrapes and cuts that my hands, and arms, and almost every part of my body, had gotten while I was frantically clambering up the cliff?
I look at my foot. There is not a blemish on it. And none on my hands or my arms either. At least not on the parts free from the slime. I stop and think for a moment. There is no way that I could climb this cliff, even back on Earth, without getting even the smallest of cuts or scrapes. But last night I was climbing as fast as I could, and I slipped and scraped myself several times. I stretch my arms out in front of me, turning them over in the morning light. But there is not a single mark on them.
I look at the slime as it flows around my upper arms. And flows it does. As I look more closely, I can see that the slime is in a constant state of movement. With one part flowing down the outside of my arm to loop around and flow back up the inside of my arm. And another current flowing straight across from side to side. All these currents flowing into and around each other, merging and splitting and remerging as the slime flows across my skin.
But I can't feel a thing. The slime flows across my skin, at one time flowing down past my elbow, nearly to my writs, and the next contracting up past my elbow nearly to my shoulder. But all frictionless. There is no trace left as the slime ebbs and flows up and down covering and then exposing my forearm. There is no wet feeling as the slime cover my skin. Without looking, I would not know that it was there. It is really quite fascinating to watch. And I find myself intrigued as I watched the patterns of movement swirl, combining and splitting apart.
I shake my head and blink hard to snap myself out of the almost hypnotic trance that I had fallen into. I definitely don't have time for that. And even if this slime has somehow healed all my cuts and abrasions from the night before I still do not know what it is or how it might be affecting me in other ways. I need to climb down and get to the river to wash it off.
Quickly I slide to the edge of the ledge and swing myself around to begin my climb down to the ground below. Searching with my toes, I find a foothold below me. I lower my weight onto it as I search for the next foothold with my other foot and slide my body off the ledge.
It is slow going. And the rock is quite hard. I quickly scrape my fingers against its sharp surfaces. Which reminds me of the scratches that so mysteriously vanished from the night before. But I don't have time to think about that right now as I hang precariously from the edge of a cliff.
If only I had a pair of gloves, I think to myself.
No sooner had I imagined the protective material on my hands of gloves on my hands, than the slime starts to flow along my arms. "Hold on..." I start to say in alarm. But before I can even finish the thought the slime has flowed along my hands and coated my fingers in a layer of covering.
I briefly let go of the rock with one hand and marvel at the glossy finish to the skin tight glove that now coats my hand. When I take hold of the rock once more I find that there is a cushioning feel to the slime, and my grip feels firmer, as if the slime gives me grip.
My other hand is coated as well. I let go of the rock with that hand and once again marvel at the seamless coating that now covers my skin. I imagine my hand bare and the slime flows back along my arm again, leaving my skin undamaged and my hand and forearm naked. Then I imagine the glove again and watch in fascination as the slime flows back up to coat my hand.
OK, I think to myself, while it is good to have the protective coating of the gloves on my hands, "how the hell can the alien slime read my mind!" I finish the thought out loud.
But the rock under my left toe crumbles and I grab a crevasse in the cliff to stop myself from falling. Now, instead of the rock cutting into my skin the slime seems to offer a cushioning protection and even though I can still feel the rocks, and feel that they are hard and sharp, I do not get cut holding onto the cliff face. In fact, the rest of the clime down is uneventful and soon my bare foot touches the cold surface of the boulder at the bottom of the cliff.
I am glad that I still have one shoe. But walking through this alien wilderness with one bare foot is not going to be nice. I doubt that I will get more than a few feet before I cut my foot on sharp rock or something.
But just as I think that I might like a replacement shoe for the one that I lost last night I feel the slime start to flow down my lower leg. Pulling up my jeans leg I watch as the slime flows down my leg and coats my foot. I lift my foot and see the smooth coating flow across my sole and heel.
I press my foot to the boulders, and I can feel the same kind of cushioning protection that I got from my "gloves". Tentatively I jump across a small gap between two boulders and land on the next one. The slime gives my foot excellent grip. Quickly I climb and jump across a few more boulders. It is much easier in the daylight, and when not being chased by vicious predators. I look back and am surprised not to see any slimly footprints. Somehow the slime knows to stick to my skin and not to the boulders.
I make quick work of clambering across the boulders at the bottom of the cliff is easier now that my foot is protected as I jump from one to the next, and soon I jump off off the last one to stand on the rocky forest floor. If anything the slime covered foot is holding up better than the one that still has a shoe on it. Well, I chose my shoe to stand behind a coffee counter serving customers, not hike through the wilderness.
Thought it is a bit weird to have a shoe, which even though it is flat, still has a heel and sole on the bottom of it, compared with my other foot with just a thin coating of this alien slime across the bottom. I feel all that seems lopsided.
I rock from side to side, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, and somehow the slime knows what I mean, and it seems to thicken underneath my foot and balance out.
Taking a few tentative steps I can feel that I do not, in fact, have a lopsided gait. In fact, I almost wish I had the slime on both feet because it feels more comfortable on the rocky ground than my actual shoe does.
I start walking downhill. I assume that whatever river I might find will be running along the bottom of the valley. The laws of physics must work the same here as back on Earth, I think to myself. And it is a lot easier walking downhill that it had been trudging uphill with an empty stomach the night before.
As that thought occurs to me, I stop dead in my tracks. My empty stomach. Once again I ask, I how do I not feel hungry? I think for a moment. The only change is the slime that now covers my body. But how can the slime on the outside of my body stop me from feeling hungry?
The obvious answer is that the slime is not just on the outside of my body. But there is no way that I can worry about that right now. Maybe my body has just shut down from the lack of food and the stress of being kidnapped by aliens who want to sell me as a sex slave.
But I quicken my pace as I make my way through the alien forest. And soon I find myself at the edge of the river that runs along the bottom of
the valley. The brownish, green water that flows along the river bed does not look that appealing. Well, I assume it is water. Though who knows what strange bugs are swimming around in it.
Remembering how cold the water was yesterday I gently dip my slime covered foot into the river.
But instead of the shock of cold water sending shivers through my body I get a more pleasant feeling. I can still feel the wetness of the water. And I can feel the current flowing past my foot. But the heat is no longer being sucked from my body. It is like the slime is acting as a kind of wetsuit protecting me from the cold.
But more importantly from the point of view of washing this stuff off me the water is having no effect on it.
I pull up the leg of my jeans, exposing more of my slime covered skin and, squatting down, I submerge my lower leg in the fast flowing water. Leaning forward, I reach down to rub the slime off my leg. But as my hands enter the water the slime runs down my arms and coats my hands like a pair of gloves.
"Well, that's not going to work," I say to myself as my slime covered fingers rub across my slime covered calf and leave no impression on it at all.
I pull my leg out of the water and stand up. My leg is dry instantly. And also the slime is still acting as a very comfortable boot. More comfortable than the sneaker on my other foot, which is now soaked through from the wet mud at the edge of the river bank.
Kidnapped Page 7