by Daryl Banner
“What is this stupid indicator indicating?? Everything’s blinking! Make it stop!”
I stagger to my feet, bracing myself against the wall. The only thing in view is still endless ocean and nothing. I have no idea how long I was asleep, how much time has passed, how far we’ve traveled …
“We’re losing altitude,” reports John, inspecting dials and poking buttons.
“I don’t want to drown,” the delivery boy mutters to himself, eyes glued to the pilot’s console with a look of utter loss. “It’s a horrible way to go.”
“At this rate, we’ll explode before we drown,” mutters John with a grunt. “See? Bright side to everything.”
“NOW’S NOT A TIME FOR JOKES!” shrieks the boy.
The alarm keeps spitting digital bullets into our ears, flooding the cabin with aural panic. Marianne sucks at her fingers and tosses fruitless suggestions on what to do, to which John irritably explains that they’re not plummeting into the ocean; we’re merely descending at a miniscule rate. Something’s clearly wrong—hence the alarm—but he wouldn’t have a first clue of what. The delivery boy wonders aloud if the craft might float in water. “Just what we need,” moans Mari miserably, “to turn our adventure into a lost-at-sea nightmare.”
“Land.”
The three of them turn to me, their arguing ceased. Mari and the boy are confused while John stares at me, brooding with dark resolve.
“Land,” I repeat, hurrying to the front and pointing at the foggy glass.
The others look. With the farthest reach of our eyes, we see a strip of darkness so thin we’re likely all doubting it’s even there—a mere illusion, this thread of shadow stitching together the distant horizon and sea. Watching in utter silence, we hold our breath as the hovercraft floats across the air, the ocean rushing past us beneath our toes. Is the shadow growing closer? Is it real?
Mari whispers, “It looks …”
“Ugly,” finishes the boy in fear.
“Mysterious,” agrees Mari.
With the crawl of each second that passes, the needle of darkness that separates water and sky begins to grow tiny stems that almost don’t exist. The tiny, tiny stems grow sluggishly taller, taller, taller … until they become the smallest skeletons of dead, leafless trees I’ve ever seen. What at first looks to be an innocent cloud soon reveals itself as a thick, wooly blanket of mist that sleeps atop the trees. This mist doesn’t stir or move or swirl. Neither do the trees seem to sway. It looks like a painting against the sky. The thorny terrain grows and grows until it becomes something as promised and imminent as death itself.
John rushes to the controls, gently pressing his palm to the touchscreen while the alarm incessantly barks. He pokes about the console, searching for something.
“He doesn’t know how to land the craft,” the delivery boy realizes in horror. “We’re going to crash!”
“Of course I don’t know how to land the damn thing. Do I look like a pilot to you?” John growls at him, his ire causing his hand to flinch, which in turn causes the craft to twitch. He literally holds the vehicle in the palm of his hand—and all of us with it. “If I can’t get it to slow down, I’m going to guide us to a plain or flatland of some sort. If we crash, we’re going to crash gently, damn it.”
Land rushes towards us much quicker now. In stark contrast to our own beach, the sands here look so grey, it’s like they’ve had their color extracted somehow. The shore comes closer and closer and closer. The mists …
“I can’t see anything,” John realizes, and the fear in his voice does nothing to reassure the rest of us. “That thick fog, I can’t see through it. I can’t see where we’re landing. I can’t see anything!”
Before we can count the fingers on our hands, the shore is behind us and yet another vast blanket lies in all directions, except this blanket is made of an unmoving, opaque, grey-white haze. I daresay the view inspires far more fear and mystery than the ocean did.
I’m at John’s side. “You can do it,” I cheer him on. “Maybe you can pull back against the oncoming wind to slow us down,” I suggest, “like this.”
I put my hand on his. The touch of our skin breaks the tension in his face, if just a little, and his lips part. I move my fingers to guide his. Isn’t it strange, that even in a time like this when our lives literally hang in the balance, I find myself longing for his attention? Why do John and I have to play this game? I get no thrill in the chase. It makes my stomach writhe, worrying and recalling every single time my heart’s been broken or neglected or betrayed. Can’t we just say what we feel and know the relationship we have? Or does he enjoy the endless, emotional mystery?
“We can use the wind,” I whisper calmly. “Then, the moment we break through the mist …”
The ruminating mind of John shows in the tensed furrowing of his brow and the locking of his chiseled, stubble-dusted jaw as he clenches and unclenches his teeth, chewing on nothing but his worries.
“Then we’ll let the hover propulsion stabilize our fall,” he says, finishing my sentence, “provided there aren’t too many trees.”
“Yes, that’s it,” I encourage him over the wailing alarm, my small, pale hand still resting on his rough one.
As the belly of the craft flirts with the fog, the hum of its engine grows louder. Then everything starts to shiver, from the walls to the tied-down crates to our very feet, as if cutting through the cloud is its most trying endeavor yet. The white blanket rises, rises, rises … until white is all we know.
Instantly, the dark trees emerge through the blinding white, appearing as ugly, crooked thorns jutting out of the earth and whipping past us. Too soon, the craft grazes the tips of the trees, snapping them right off and showering splinters down below. Shaking, jostling, we all clutch our nearest savior—a crate, a chair, a person—and brace for a less-than-tender landing.
The ground rushes to meet the vehicle faster than any of us can scream, but before we crash, the propulsion of the hovercraft makes us bounce off the ground, then ricocheting sideways off a thicket of nearby trees, and then the whole craft goes belly-up, all of us flipped upside-down. Losing my footing, I clutch John as we tumble to the ceiling—our new floor—and are met with the slam of Marianne’s body to my right. The three of us squeezed against the screens of the ceiling that blink and flicker and flash, we hold on tightly as everything slows to an abrupt and noiseless stop.
The lights flicker off, the alarm ceasing with it.
In the merciful silence, we hear the engine breathe its last, almost like a sigh, and then we are truly in a silent nothingness. Even our breathing seems trapped in a vacuum, my heartbeat turned silent as we lie in the dark.
Mari is first to speak. “Jen? John?”
“I’m alive,” I answer quietly.
“I’m good,” John returns too. I feel his body shift, perhaps to lift his head. “Delivery guy? You still with us?”
He responds with a miserable and meek, “Mm-hmm,” before he, too, squirms in the dark to right himself.
I lift my own head, looking in all directions, hungry for a sign of light. Even the front window lends nothing; everything in all directions is pure black. When my eyes adjust, I catch a dim red glimmer in my peripheral and turn toward it to find Mari’s glowing cheeks staring back at me. With a grunt, I pull out my device that still lives in my pocket. The miniscule light that emits from its screen casts a ghostly glow that fills the cabin.
“Can we get a better light?” asks John. “I don’t want you to waste its energy. We may need it.”
“This is all your fault,” whimpers the boy, his voice quivering. “We’re all dead and it’s your fault.”
I’m not quite sure to whom he’s assigning said fault, but I’ll assume it’s me. I’m about to say something when John answers instead. “We’re not dead,” he tells him, like it’s good news. “We’re all safe, all alive. I know you didn’t plan to do this when you woke up this morning, but we’re all in this together now whether we
want to be or not.” When the boy doesn’t answer, John sighs and says, “I know you’re scared. We all are, but if you stick with us, you’ll be safe.”
“Safe,” repeats the boy quietly. The cabin is silent for a moment. Then, he says, “You needed a light. I have this.” He crawls over the ceiling to hand John a wristlet, of which he holds two. John takes one and slaps it on his wrist, wrinkling his brow and jabbing a finger at it, confused. “You press right here on the top,” he tells John, demonstrating, “and then it—”
A beam of light pours out, stabbing the opposite wall.
“Bright,” John grunts—or maybe complains, I can’t tell—then climbs to his feet to survey the cabin. “Why’d the hovercraft just shut off like that?” he asks himself.
The boy answers the rhetorical question. “It’s just a defensive feature of any hovercraft. They aren’t meant to be upside-down ever, so it shuts off to p-p-prevent further damage and ensure the safety of its passengers. Thrusters are only on its underside.” He scrounges in the dark for his lost cap, reclaiming it near the back of the cabin.
“So you do know a thing or two,” remarks John. “Wait. Are you telling me we have to flip this whole thing over for it to work again?”
“I don’t know,” the boy grumbles tiredly. “The four of us alone can’t dream of budging a hovercraft. Look at me! I struggle to even carry a simple shipping crate! That’s why they left me behind to watch the ship!” On his feet now, he gives the wall a frustrated kick. “Great and wonderful job I did of that. I’m so fired.”
“You can’t lift a crate, and they hired you as a delivery boy?”
The boy’s pouty, resentful eyes are his only answer.
Impatient, I push forward to the controls, which now rest on the ceiling. Looking up at them, I spot the button that once closed the ramp and reach for it.
“Jen!” hisses Mari. “What are you doing??”
I smirk. “Opening the door. What’s it look like?”
“Stop! No!”
I sigh and stare back at my friend. “What’s our plan, then? Huddle in here all day and braid each other’s hair? Why don’t we see where we’ve landed, at the very least? Explore our surroundings. Then, we’ll come back inside and close up for the night, using this craft as our … base. Hell, it’s stocked with enough food for weeks, isn’t it?”
“A month, maybe more,” the boy agrees, counting the crates with his eyes. “Split among four of us, hmm …”
“We may need to seek out a source of water, too,” I point out, itching to have a look around. “I can’t believe we’re here,” I murmur with exhilaration, half to myself. “The realm of the Dead. The place I’ve only heard about since I was a child. The place of—”
“A source of water …?!” cries Marianne, exasperated. “Did you leave your brain back on campus?? A complete and utter lack of resources is the very reason this place is what it is! No food anywhere. Every river has run dry. The shore is toxic. The trees are dead. I’m worried even the air out there is poison.”
I don’t share her worries, and she clearly doesn’t share my excitement. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.” I reach for the button.
“JEN!”
A faint groan comes from the engine, then the door above us opens up, spilling in a hazy light from outside.
“See? We’re not dead yet,” I tell Mari. “The craft is just sleeping, not powerless. She’ll open and close when we want. Let’s have a look around, then we’ll be back to eat some dinner. I could go for a little bit of what we had before we left. How about you?” I put on a chipper smile, then climb atop a crate to reach the exit, ignoring Mari’s utterly stupefied expression.
When I raise my head through the threshold, my eyes are met with splinters of darkness and grey. The thick blanket of mist, which looked so bright from above, casts quite a shadow underneath that is bleak and heavy. I take the splinters to be trees, and not inviting ones at that. My excitement, quite quickly, becomes apprehension. This is what it looks like … during the day?
John appears right next to me and aims his wrist, a spear of light cutting through the dark. It does nothing to make our surroundings any more welcoming. It just worsens the gloom, bringing to light the eerie trees, knobbed, gnarled, and misshapen as they are. Mari joins us at last, her eyes opened brightly. To my surprise, she seems more fascinated than terrified, staring out into the nothing. That, or her eyes still have yet to adjust.
None of us say a word. We’re waiting for something to happen. John turns his light left, turns his light right, aiming and searching … for what?
Then I see it. Two tiny white specks.
Before I can draw enough breath for a decent scream, the shadows in the dark leap upon us. I throw my hands forward, catching—something—by the throat, and then I hold on for dear life. I don’t hold on for long. The thing’s momentum topples me, sending me right back into the craft. Landing on my back with a sickening grunt, I twist my face away while the—claws, talons, severely-unkempt fingernails—try their very best to tear out my eyes.
Mari’s scream reaches my ears suddenly, and that seems to inspire a little fight into my muscles. With a thrust, I overturn the dark figure and straddle it. Atop the creature, I pin it to the floor of the craft—or rather, the ceiling—and emit a belly-given war cry into its faceless face while I attempt to strangle it to death.
That doesn’t last long. The creature lurches somehow and I’m on my back again, the creature hissing with a mad intent, its arms quivering as it holds me down.
A sudden beam of light dresses our faces for a brief moment, and in this brief moment, I find I’m strangling the thin neck of a young man with pale blue eyes and pasty chapped lips. His eyebrows—one of which seems half-shaven—are pulled up in surprise, and I have a sudden thought that I might be wrestling with a fellow human who’s been stranded here in the lightless realm.
He seems to think similarly of me, because his grip softens when our eyes meet. He draws no breath and says no word, but his pale eyes continue to bore into mine, curious and searching.
What is he searching for?
A blunt object to the pale boy’s head terminates said search, throwing him across the cabin. Standing over me now is John, who lends a hand to help me up.
Before I can even take it, the creature-boy is back on his feet, tackling John to the wall. I shriek and clamber to my feet, stumbling out of the way as John and the thing wrestle back and forth. John gains footing, shoving the boy into a crate, but then the boy propels himself off the crate and slams John into the opposite wall with an inhuman growl that sounds almost catlike. John grapples for something with his free hand, catches grip of a sharp lever connected to—something—then rips it out of the wall and twists the creature-boy around in one deft move, stabbing the boy’s hand into the wall.
Shockingly, the boy seems to feel no pain—that, or he’s too riled up on adrenaline to feel anything at all—but with one of his hands stuck to the wall, he has only the other with which to claw at John. Taking no chances, John moves to take another lever off of the control panel, but finds it not as willing to let go as the first one was, so he goes for the nearest food crate, quickly unbinding it. Then, with a grunt and an impressive strain of muscle, John shoves the crate at the pale boy, crushing his legs against the wall and effectively trapping him.
With most of his body pinned to the wall and only one hand free, the pasty boy-thing seems to process his predicament quickly, giving up the pursuit of scratching out our eyeballs, and just stares at us as he hangs there.
John breathes heavy, leaning against the wall, calming down. I note a scratch on my left arm, but ignore its sting, much preferring to keep my attention on our capture.
A soft moan comes from the ramp where Marianne wrings her hands and peers around outside, her big eyes shivering with unease. “I … I don’t see …”
“The other one got away,” John finishes for her.
“Other one?” I blurt.
“There was another one?”
“I fought it,” John confirms. “The thing got scared, it looked like. Ran off.”
“It was a f-f-female,” says Mari.
John snorts. “No, it wasn’t. It was bald, which was about the only thing I could see before it leapt at me.”
“She had breasts and a woman’s hips,” she argues.
“That thing wasn’t man or woman.”
I take one hesitant step forward. “Does he talk?” I ask, then face the pale creature to find out for myself. “Hi,” I say gently. “You just tried to kill me. My name is Jennifer. He’s John, the one who just stabbed you into the wall. That’s my friend Marianne by the door in the ceiling, but you can call her Mari. And … sorry, delivery boy, but you never told us your name. Want to introduce yourself?”
John and Mari look at me as if I’ve just turned into a tarantula.
“East,” answers the delivery boy. “Connor Easton, but they c-c-call me East, they all call me East.”
I return my gaze to the creature on the wall. “Do you have a name?” I ask.
He just hangs there without a word, the wet whites of his eyes flicking between us suspiciously. He’s probably wondering what we’re going to do with him.
“What are we going to do with him?” asks our trusty delivery boy East, who quivers in the corner of the room clutching his own light-spraying wristlet, as if protectively shielding the light from us.
“Figure out what the hell it is,” says John, staring at it with a mixture of disgust and anger.
“We know what it is,” I retort, annoyed at his obvious denial. “We know what he is.” I face the pale boy again. “Can you talk?”
The creature does not.
“Are you …” I take a short breath. Though the boy-thing does not immediately reek of anything foul as one would naturally expect, his appearance still encourages a great sense of reluctance to breathe near him. “Are you … Undead?”
The creature still says nothing. He almost pouts, as if disappointed that he’s been captured.
John huffs, annoyed. “The other one could come back any second. We have to capture it too before it kills us.”