The Foragers

by Katherine Nader

  The old man coughed. His chest heaved. All those years living in a temple with the fumes and the burning supplies, he must have bad lungs. I scanned the veranda outside where the other garbage bags lay and found scraps of paper that pieced together a map dated nineteen ninety-seven.

  I looked back at the garbage bags where worn out shoes, torn clothes and other scraps and pieces of leftover human belongings remained. The old man spent more than a decade cleaning up the forest! I looked at him still talking on the phone.

  “I don’t know how much longer I have to be here for.” The old man’s back slouched against the table. “I’m growing old and I have a feeling the Mori will replace me with a younger man one day. I just hope to hear your voice—please, at least one phone call to hear y-your voice before something bad happens…to me…” the old man cried.

  I let go of the door, tucked the map into my pocket, and turned away from the temple.

  Chapter Eight

  Fisher

  My feet hit the ground hard, sending shockwaves to my brain. My legs burned from running, propelling me forward at a sprint. My lungs heaved but the air just wouldn’t go in. Rising panic and dizziness pushed me to fall but I had to keep running.

  “You’re not going to be able to run much longer,” a voice laughed behind me.

  I slammed my back against a tree and grabbed my trembling knees. Thoughts accelerated in my head. They wouldn’t slow down. They wouldn’t let me breathe. My heart hammered in my chest and the ground started to spin.

  “Shall we kill him?” another voice echoed.

  “S-stop...” I clasped my head.

  “He’s already dead,” another said.

  “Get out of my head!” I roared.

  “Shall we kill him?”

  “He’s already dead.”

  “Enough!”

  Silence filled the air as the murmuring thoughts came to a stop. I exhaled in relief. Three shadows encircled me, laughing, and their faces blurring into one.

  “Maybe he is worthy, after all.”

  I froze.

  One of them poked me in the chest. I spun around as another punched me in the stomach, grabbed my hand and whirled me to the side. I swung out with my fist, smashing it into someone’s jaw. Two of them held my arms back. I kicked the third in the gut and pushed the others back as I ran. I tripped over twisting roots and went down on all fours. Laughter echoed all around me as I crawled back up. A shadow dislodged from a tree and tackled me. A fist edged closer to my face. Pain erupted from my jaw and a force of blood pooled in my mouth. My guts smashed together as all three rained blows on me. When I swung back at them, my arms went through their shadows and they disappeared.

  “Who are you?!” I yelled.

  “Who are you?” Three heads peered back at me from a tree, hardly discernible in the shadowy twilight of the forest. Their eyes swiveled wildly and their heads joined the trees again. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

  “It’s just a vibe,” I mumbled. “I just need to wake up. This isn’t real.” But the pain in my stomach was real. I couldn’t feel my face, either. I had never felt vibes become this physical before. I opened my eyes and everything was still. There were no more moving shadows.

  “There you are!” A boy slanted his face up at me.

  “W-where did y—”

  Four arms rose from behind the boy and pushed me back. My feet ceased to travel backwards and the forest whirled around me like a blur. Colors swirled as my head tilted toward the forest floor. The expected thump of the ground didn’t come. I gasped and flailed my arms as I fell into an unending darkness...

  ***

  Every muscle knotted up and I twitched awake. Sweat drenched my skin, my eyes throbbed, and screams vibrated in my ears. I gazed up at the hole above.

  “Help!” I coughed dust. The darkness disoriented me as I tried to climb up a wall. A paralyzing pain ran through my body, like ice. My teeth crunched over my lip and blood filled my mouth. “Help!”

  “They can’t hear you,” a voice whispered.

  My stomach contorted as I was smothered by an invisible hand.

  “It’s okay,” the voice continued. “I’m just like you. We all are.”

  More hands touched my back. “How many of you are there?”

  “Four … maybe five. That one over there doesn’t say much. It’s like he’s not even there.”

  I squinted into the darkness, unable to make sense of a shape or figure. “How did you all get here?”

  “They put me in here, just before you fell in,” the voice continued. “I’m Sharon.”

  I shook the figure’s hand. “Who are they?”

  “Zzzzz,” another voice hissed in the dark.

  “There’s always three of them,” another voice quivered.

  “We need to get out of here,” I said, digging into my bag. I felt for my rod, but the wire was all tangled and the pole had snapped in several places. “Do you have your kits?”

  “I have a torch,” one said.

  “Yeah, but with one battery,” Sharon added. “I already tried.”

  I unwrapped a stick of gum from my kit and stretched out the aluminum wrapper. “Give me the battery,” I said. I took the battery from a cold hand and slotted it into the torch. I rolled the wrapper to shape it like the battery and put it in on top. I clicked the switch and a small light sliced through the darkness, emanating from the torch’s center. “There.” I waved the torch around and met four faces marveling at me.

  “It’s so good to finally see,” a girl with short hair said. “I don’t even know how long it’s been. I’m Maori.”

  “Yeah, you lose track of time when you’re down here,” a boy said. “You can call me Toshi.”

  “You all look so young,” I peered down at them. They stood around me in a circle, their heads up to my chest. “Did they put you all down here?”

  They nodded.

  “Did they get into your head too?”

  “I don’t know how I got here,” another girl said, wearing a jacket. “I can’t remember anything.”

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “I think it’s Yara,” she paused. “Yeah, it’s Yara.” They all laughed.

  “How can you all still laugh when we’re trapped down here?”

  “It’s safer in here than up there,” Maori said. She lifted her sleeve to reveal a gash that stretched from her elbow to her wrist.

  “Oh my God.” I knelt down to examine the wound. “You should treat that before it gets infected.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t feel it.”

  The torch light landed on a kit with perfume and duct tape inside. I ripped the bottom part of my pants and rolled it around Maori’s arm. Pieces of duct tape held it together.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  The torch lit up the opening of the hole.

  “Even with all of us standing on top of each other, there’s still five meters to go.” Sharon read my mind.

  “Zzzzz,” a voice hissed again.

  I pointed the torch down the side of the wall to find a boy huddled with his knees to his face. He mumbled while he rocked back and forth.

  “He’s been like that for as long as I can remember,” Sharon said. “Don’t.”

  I walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. The boy started screaming. A buzzing sound swirled around him. It stopped when I let go.

  “I told you he doesn’t say much.”

  When I stepped back, the boy stopped screaming. “Where does this lead?” I asked, shining the torch down the dim and narrow path.

  “We didn’t get that far,” Sharon said. “We couldn’t see anything until now.”

  “I feel sleepy,” Toshi yawned.

  “It’s the air,” I said. “There’s not enough air down here. You have to stay awake. Come on.” I broke the gum into five pieces and distributed them. I kept the last one for myself. “It’s caffeinated.” I took a sip of water from my bottle and offered some
to the others, but they waved it away. Slinging things over my back, we headed down the narrow path. We walked for miles, the air thinning out the deeper we went.

  “I’m scared.” Yara tugged onto my arm.

  “Before coming to this forest,” I said, patting Yara’s small head, “what did you do when you used to get scared?”

  “My mom used to sing me a song.”

  “I told you that story,” Toshi interrupted.

  “No, you didn’t,” Yara argued. “My mom sang me a song when I couldn’t go to sleep.”

  “No, my mom sang me a song when I couldn’t go to sleep,” Toshi argued.

  “Okay, let’s not waste our breath here,” I advised.

  “If your mom sang you a song, what was it, huh?” Toshi crossed his arms.

  A wrinkle formed between Yara’s eyebrows. “It was … it was …”

  “Exactly.”

  “I hate you!” Yara pushed Toshi and ran down the path.

  “Hey, wait,” I called after her. “We have to stick together.”

  “We’ll catch up to her,” Maori said, dragging Toshi’s arm with her.

  “What about you, Sharon?” I asked.

  “I used to get scared of bears,” she said. “My father is a Kuma Hunter, though; he always kept me and Mom safe—until a bear gashed his face.”

  “How do you know that?” My voice trembled. “I didn’t tell you that.”

  “No, you didn’t.” Sharon paced ahead of me and disappeared down the path.

  “Wait,” I uttered. I caught up with them. We reached a soft mottled brown barrier that stretched from one caved-in wall to the other. Its center looked like an upside down turnip with a hole. I pinched a fluid that dripped from the interlocking chambers of the wall.

  “It’s like wax,” I said. It glued my finger and thumb together as I struggled to pull them free. White eggs as big as my fist nestled into each chamber and the wall caved in and out, like it was breathing.

  “What’s in there?” Yara fingers pressed into the hole in the center.

  “Don’t!” I warned.

  The wall shook as wax spilled out of all the chambers. The eggs hatched one by one as yellow and black striped creatures buzzed out of their chambers.

  “Ahh!” Yara bellowed.

  “Run!” Toshi’s voice ricocheted off the walls.

  The buzzing sound of the striped menaces thundered after us.

  “Come on!” Sharon gripped my hand and pulled me in after her.

  “What are they?” Maori yelled.

  “Wasps!” Sharon screamed.

  “Give me your bag!” I ordered Sharon.

  “Why?”

  My fingers slipped into her bag and pulled out four brown paper bags. I blew air into each one and stuck a piece of duct tape around the opening. “Toshi, Yara, put these up on the walls.”

  “What?” Toshi yelled.

  “Just do it!”

  Sharon, Maori and I ran to the end of the path, with Yara and Toshi behind. A streak of moonlight came down from the hole above. I tapped the torch against the wall and the battery and aluminum foil fell out. “Give me your perfume!” I yelled at Sharon.

  She emptied her bag onto the ground and picked up a spray can. I snatched it from her, sprayed her bag and lit it up from the fire that sparked when the aluminum touched the two ends of the battery.

  “They’re coming!” Toshi and Yara headed towards us.

  I kicked the bag forward and, as the large swarm of striped creatures approached, I sprayed the perfume onto the blazing fire. It engulfed the wasps in a split second. They shrieked, curling in on themselves, suffering a seizure before dropping to the ground like ash.

  “Ahh!” a voice screamed. Our heads jerked to the boy huddled against the wall.

  “Oh, no!” I tried to rush towards him but Sharon jerked me back. We watched the rest of the wasps engulf the boy as he screamed.

  “It’s too late,” Sharon cried.

  The fire spread to the wooden pillars that held up the walls. Smoke rose out the hole as we breathed in the fumes. With each cough came a whistling sound. My chest wheezed and I collapsed against the wall. A long and white slender hand clasped onto my arm and my weary fingers clutched onto his wrist, propelling me upward. I stared into the eyes of a man, hanging from a dangling wire and peering down at me. His glasses and scarf shielded his face.

  “The others,” my voice cracked as I pointed through the blinding smoke. “Sharon!” I felt a cold hand on the ground by my side and pulled. A skinless arm dangled from my palm and I dropped it. Coal black sockets stared back at me. “No! Sharon!” I cried. “Th-the fire must’ve—”

  Four other skeletons lay next to Sharon’s, reflecting a yellowed white. Tool marks gauged into a bony arm of one, and a round hole marked the skull of another. A red jacket covered its back. “No … Yara,” I screamed. “I killed them!”

  “No.” The man grabbed my chin and jerked my head around. “The flames didn’t touch them. They were dead a long time ago.”

  The man tightened a wire around me and I heard a click from around his waist. It pulled us up to the top. I crawled out of the hole coughing. Phlegm spilled out of my mouth.

  The man twisted a bottle open and poured water over my face. “You’ve got the sight. It’s what it does to you.”

  “I-I don’t understand,” my voice cracked. “I talked to them. I-I touched them. We even ate this-this gum!” I spat out a black ball of wax. “No—” I shook.

  The man pulled down his scarf and his hair fell out of its bun.

  “Y-you’re …”

  “Jun,” he said. He grabbed my throat.

  “W-what are you doing?”

  “Calm down. I’m not going to kill you.” He tilted my head to the side, and with tweezers in one hand, he pulled out a sting from my neck.

  “Oww...” I massaged it.

  “The Triplets.” Jun hissed as he dropped the sting into a bag and tucked it into his kit. “I’m surprised you’re still alive.”

  “What was that?”

  “Venom. Did they say anything to you?” Jun snapped his fingers at me. “Hey, stay with me…”

  My back slid against the ground and water caressed my body. It bubbled around my outstretched fingers. Steam rose from its clear surface. It was impossible to gauge the depth, but the water was hotter the deeper it went. I was in the middle of a lake with a hole in its sea floor. Jun crouched near the edge, looking at me through his binoculars.

  “Hey!” I waved my hands at him. “What’d you do to me? How do I get out of this...”

  “Just swim!” Jun waved for me to come.

  I swam over the hole in the ground, the steam licking against my skin. It died down once I reached cold water. I raised my hand in the air and Jun grabbed it, pulling me up. Water evaporated from my body. I felt rubbery and I itched everywhere. I realized I was naked. “Where are my clothes?”

  “Relax.” He pointed to my bag on the sand. “I’m not going to take your badge. It’s not me who’s after it.”

  “Who is?” I dressed myself.

  “The Kan,” a voice laughed.

  A pang of horror hit me. “No.” I grabbed my things to run.

  “Stay here,” Jun said, “and don’t move. That’s how they get to you.”

  “He’s one of us,” two others joined in. The words sounded strangely in sync, bitter and venomous.

  “You can’t have him,” Jun iterated. “Not even for a minute.”

  The bushes rustled as a shadow slipped from tree to tree.

  “Any minute now.” Jun looked into the trees and sighed. “Do I really have to spell it out for you, Masaki?”

  A boy with a magenta Mohawk soared out of the trees. He did a back flip and landed in front of us. Blades on a chain spun in each hand. “Who’s this guy?” He glared at me.

  “I’m—”

  “You see them?” Jun tugged on a rifle from his bag.

  “Yeah, I see them,” Masaki said,
his pupils dilated. His body twitched and he flung his blade into the bark of a tree ahead. A red band hung from its point. A shadow came alive next to the tree and a boy, nursing his wrist, stiffly gazed back at us. “There you are!”

  The boy ran as two others merged with him. Masaki dashed after them.

  “That’s your cue.” Jun hurried me. “Go.”

  Chapter Nine

  Maya

  “Stay here,” I told Eli, snuggling under her blanket and warming herself by the fire.

  “Is he going to be okay?” she asked.

  “He’ll be fine. We’ll go look for him after I get back.” I slapped the dust off my arms and strapped the kunai to my waist. “Enura will stay with you.”

  “I didn’t volunteer for babysitting,” he whispered into my ear.

  “Relax. It’ll be just like babysitting Minoru.”

  “That’s even worse.”

  “They’re expecting me,” I said. “I have to go lay out the plans to them before we make a move. It’s almost sunrise.” I pointed to the dark bluish sky outside the cave. I bent down on one knee and brushed a hair behind Eli’s ear. “There’s only twelve hours left, little one. It’ll all be over soon.”

  I tugged on a torch from Enura’s things and headed into the dark worm-holed end of the cave. White flickering lights from stones lit up the cave walls, revealing a twisted path that slid down a steep slope and down to a smooth curve. The walls arched a hundred feet above. I ducked behind the stalactites as bats flew past. Stalagmites dripped water from the arched roof, and more lights flickered from a crack in the walls that met ahead. I hunched over, dodging a few low roofed rocks and crawled through the crack. Two narrower paths with large openings awaited me on the other side. I avoided the steep one and got down on my knees to crawl through the other one. The cave became alive with hundreds of voices. My hands slipped over the wet floor and I followed the orange flicker against the wall. The narrow path opened onto a ridge that looked over a large body of water. Sharp stalagmites jutted out of its surface. I shivered in the cold breeze as I walked down the ridge and came to its end. The path continued two meters away, where loose rocks had broken up the bridge that connected them. I took a few short breaths, ran and rolled onto the edge on the other side. I walked for another mile, the voices growing louder, and reached a door. I cleared my throat, adjusted my jacket, and knocked.