“I’m scared, Drake. How are we going to get out of here? They are going to see us.”
“Shh! They are going to feel the vibrations from our voices if we don’t stop talking. I got your back. You are in good hands. Trust me,” he whispered and then led her into the dark.
There were several more humans in the projections. Some were native to Rumor Mill. One of whom was Hopper, a skinny friend of Brody’s with a high metabolism, who was raised on a cattle farm on the outskirts of RM in a little settlement called, Gossipton. This kid could eat half a lea gode and still not show it. He had lost his mother when he was younger (not in reality, but mentally), and never knew his dad all that well. He was forced to grow up under the care of his grandmother who made him work harder than any employer. On Earth, his duties consisted of daily feces shoveling, hay bale stacking, pitch forking hay, milking the cows, digging irrigation ditches, gathering eggs from the chickens, mating bulls, artificially inseminating cows, branding yearling calves, growing his family’s groceries, feeding the goats, milking them, and crop dusting the fields for insects all by himself within the five thousand acres of land that his grandmother, June, inherited as a kid.
The projection showed Hopper racing down a dirt road in his blue Nebular road racer. The idea was borrowed from before the seven years came to him in a dream. He designed the vehicle on blue prints and helped the mechanic shop class at school build it from scratch. It was not enough of an accomplishment for him to feel any better about his familial affairs; he was still somewhat shaky in his suicidal thoughts. So shaky, he made it on the wall of shame of these short Pasties’ dwelling.
Drake caught sight of a back door, per se, as he spied the disinterested Pasties dueling each other, like light saber fighting. Crossing their projector beams all over the place, they wrist-wrestled until too many were involved and their lights ricocheted off the walls in some out of sync fashion. Farrah held onto Drake’s hand as they continued past the little Pastie people and into another sector of tunnels and caves. The entryway was filled with steam and hard to see through.
They used their hands to feel their way to a dead end where a mass of shiny objects were reflecting from the firebug hangout. They sat in the darkest part, watching as the bugs were in some kind of assembly, maybe a mating ritual. Their lights were going a mile a minute, and it was almost a spiritual experience to watch.
Still caught in the feeling of wanting something to eat, Farrah bit down on a firebug, in her mind saying, I am going to have to eat eventually; bon appetit.
The bug juice shot out like an exploding water balloon as it lit a trail the length of the hollow; the bug itself was crunchy. The juice made a pile of metal objects become all the more apparent. They were going to be converted into the crew’s new protection from harm. It was a stash of parts from the heli-bus and some other things that must have gotten brought there by someone else.
“Maybe it was that group of mercenaries who got lost a while back while on a pilgrimage through the wilderness,” Drake said as he got up and cleaned himself off the best he could. It was not very productive; all it did was smear the bug juice further.
He too grabbed a hand-sized June bug look-a-like and crunched down on its tail. The taste was titillating to the taste buds. He washed it down with a slurp of the pool water. It didn’t taste too bad, either—somewhat savory.
The two returned to the opening where Chisholm and Shana were at as they approached them with spare bugs to lend. They force-fed one to Shana as she refused with a closed mouth. Once the smell hit her nose, and the juice seeped through her tightened lips, her mouth opened to accept the oversized critter. She went to kiss Chisholm on his red, freckle-surrounded lips while trying to share her meal like a mother bird feeding her young in a nest. He kissed her and pulled back. His lips were lit up like glow-in-the-dark lipstick at an emo rave. Drake handed him a bug of his own. They feasted until all were nourished.
Chisholm stood up to stretch his lungs. Farrah stayed down to wash her oversized mouth out in the water. She slurped a mouthful, and then spit out an arch half the length of the channel. The water lit up like a clan of excited microorganisms swimming around in her saliva. It fizzled like bubbly wine to the bottom of the pool, some five feet deep in this section.
Drake grabbed Farrah’s hand as the water started to ripple from approaching footsteps. The echoes of foot stomps got heavier and louder. Chisholm yanked Shana up, and the four ran to the back where the scraps of metal were hidden. Drake’s opened mouth lit the way.
The cave walls were now vibrating. The slithering noise of shoulders rubbing the sides of the cavern was mind-boggling. The group cantered further until all were hidden from sight, and Drake closed his mouth. Trying to hold their breath so they wouldn’t make any noise, Chisholm and Shana were having the most trouble. They felt dizzy and light-headed, somewhat bummed that they were forced to run after already being tired. Nevertheless, each one grabbed a chunk of metal to prepare themselves for the worst. Drake, having the sharpest object, sat up toward the front to protect those behind him. He still had the bug juice in his mouth; his cheeks were glowing bright from the inside so that, when the time was right, all he had to do was open wide and attack once he had the enemies in his light. The humans had no idea how many they were going up against, though.
“Has anyone ever had, or does anyone in here currently have, any suicidal thoughts?” Drake turned back toward those hiding behind him.
“Well, I have never been happy about my weight, and just maybe, I have considered suicide on a couple of occasions.” Shana admitted. She pulled her dampened loose shirt bottom down over her muffin top to hide in embarrassment. “I guess one other time, when Stan Cogswell broke up with me.”
“That’s not good. They feed upon that stuff. They can’t see physically, but they can see mentally. You are in thermal mode to them. They are going to be coming. Maybe that is why it sounds like a hundred or more are on their way. We need to get you out of here… for our own safety.” Chisholm finally spoke after catching his breath, then faded again at the end of his suggestion. He went back to sloshing and running through the shallow cave puddles.
Tynan’s crew was in another part of the cave that sucked them into a channel of well-lit hollows. It did create contours of dark spots that beveled the sidewalls into the light. Having used those as hiding spots along their way, the ten-person crew stayed in a straight line and tried to follow the next person’s footsteps. It didn’t take long for all of them to seek another vast opening that was as wide as it was tall. Several projections lit up the dugout cavern where the gleam from the jewels almost took their visibility away. Harvey was getting restless being all by himself.
“Keep down everyone,” he whispered in hopes the others would pass the info down the line of people. “And don’t let them see you. The pools of water were splotchy, yet deep, in this part of the cave.”
The water was dark with ripples from the vibrations that were keeping it stirred. The vibrations were stomps of rhythmic beats that made up the start of the ceremony. A major broadcast from the emerald bearer, standing the tallest of all the buttermilk, off-red colored Pasties, lit up the majority of the ceiling. The review was of more familiar people. Some were friends of the runaways. One looked just like Brody.
The same image of the robot came about as Brody’s thoughts were displayed above. He was standing in the middle of a control panel room looking through the eyes to outside. There were two beautiful girls and two young men with him, one huge, and the other a Shagranian, more bronze than the sky when the full moons cast brown on a red planet during a late autumn night. They were unfamiliar to any of the friends who were watching, but they still moved in comfortable motions like this crew’s friends do. The big guy took off.
The robot had uprooted itself from deep within the ground. An earthquake of some sort looked like it was shaking the soil of it
s togetherness, loosening it enough for the giant tin soldier to be released. A large heli-bus was blotting out the sun like a gigantic bird of long ago myth. The shadow gave its underside a dark, mysterious warhead bearing appearance. This heli-bus was a lot more dominating than the one the Pasties had recently pieced out.
A shape of a two-ton bomb etched itself from the kiss of the nearest solar star’s rays. It had a name logged into it: DEATH. Its mission was to take out the entire apparatus. That meant some of the good of the bad were going with.
A mysterious event took place when the bomb was dropped. It didn’t explode into a holocaust of mushrooming flames. Instead, it spilled a sappy blue substance down its length. The robot slowed to a standstill at the edge of the tan gneiss rim rocks as the bird hovered around the backside of its head. The cliff was only twenty feet taller, but reachable if the robot could only get its arms to lift. The substance was a rusting-glue, of some sort, that entrapped the arms like a slimy spider’s web.
A Pastie caught a shimmer of light that reflected off of one of the crew’s oversized rodeo belt buckles. It glanced across the canopy of stalactites, seeking shelter in the water after colliding with the overview. The skinny, dark, curly haired, saddle-bronc rider, Emil, covered it up and looked away to avoid the stares. Oddly enough, even though he covered it, a light continued to shine. Once the projecting gems of Pastie eyes spied the light, they, in turn, shined light into the water where the other light was last witnessed. There was a mound of gems marinating in a pool of liquid that lit up like glistening diamonds on a bride’s finger. It was something else to see so many different gemstones in the same vicinity. There must have had a street value of over four hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ worth of stones in that fountain. A thought came to Tynan’s mind, but stayed just a thought for the time being.
Brody was seen getting closer to the projecting eyes of the Pastie, seeming to taunt him with a bizarre awareness of his being watched. He looked dead into the camera and mouthed something only his friends could translate: I promise to make everything better. You are going to be all right. I am coming to get you.
Lexie’s love for Brody made her collapse to her knees on the hard floor as she reached her hand out to his image. She tried not to cry, but couldn’t hold back. Tears blanketed her soft cheeks. Her brown eyes looked like the darker gems further below the water. Tynan leaned over and gave her a hug. Now she had come back around to accept his friendship. Cole crawled over to hold her head in his chest, afraid of losing her to anyone else. Reagan Shaw leaned his back against hers to let her know he was still there for her.
The robot’s arms slowly lifted as if they were fighting off the quickly drying rubber cement. It got both to shoulder height, straightened out, and braced itself while the fingers crawled up the side of the cliff. The rest of the way to the top, they sprouted upward until Brody managed to get a stern grip on a couple Joshua Trees three rows back from the edge. The huge feet walked their way up as the heli-bus threatened to send stickier blue molasses from side-mounted launchers. With one swat before ascending, the robot struck the heli-bus as it spiraled to the ground like a bird with a broken wing. Once it made contact, the entire craft exploded far enough away not to cause any damage to the robot. The heat from its flames, and that of the desert, dried the glue the rest of the way, causing the robot to fall down in the hole where it laid immobile, paralyzed by the blue glue. The shell-less turtle was now in a vulnerable position for an attack.
Suddenly, the robot got up and began running through the tunnels like a person whose arms have been paralyzed to their sides. It idiotically tromped to a distinct underground sect far away from where civilization was known to be found.
The surroundings looked familiar even though the broadcast was being aired from mid-day.
Lexie quit crying while Harvey wiggled amidst all the surrounding guys and stooped to comfort her for Brody’s sake. They looked up to witness that the Pasties were revealing several of the people who were having suicidal thoughts from the treatment facility. The main source, that generated a first time flickering of projections from the eldest Pasties’ blue diamonds, seemed to come from the center of the Robot.
It was hidden from sight like the person had already died, but was never collected of his soul before committing suicide. Somehow, his body was being trapped and kept alive. The image of someone who looked like an aged Brody—who was being preserved in a light green liquid glass cylinder, with tubes being fed into it—was paused on the vaulted ceiling. The image looked alive, but was close to drowning. His espresso hair floated upwards to reveal his pale white face. From within the liquid, more tubes were exposed, one of which was in his right ear.
The review shut off as the cavern turned black. Trying to focus, Tynan and Harvey got the girls huddled between them and the other guys. They all formed a chain, holding onto each other’s hands: boy, girl, boy, girl. Tynan led the way, using his free hand as an antenna in the dark while his eyes adjusted to the surroundings.
The Pasties were passed by as the tunnel turned at ninety degrees. The corridor was straight and narrow enough to reach out and touch both sides at once.
The ten-person-crew channeled down the funnel until another opening came into awareness with a queer, piercing light. This cave suddenly became extremely lucid. A major stash had been found. The light was glistening from everything in the pile. The entryway was mysterious, a liquid transfer of gases causing a reflecting mirror-like mirage. The opening was sealed with a liquid transfusion that didn’t get them wet when they entered. It just expanded a little until they stepped through the vertical, swirling mercury deposit. This part of the cave was dry and free of Pasties. It was full of everything they needed to break free: heli-bus shrapnel, piles of different gems, the upstairs transponder box in case the heli-bus got detached, and various things that were significant to the cause, many of which comprised of weaponry or things that could be easily made into a weapon.
Unfortunately, the mirage was a trap door; a one-way that Tynan and the crew would need more people to help take down. The best thing about it was that sound can travel back through it, but things of mass, like people, can’t. For now, they were all stuck, but not so much that they couldn’t team up and puzzle together some useful weapons. Harvey suggested people try to make more mallet weapons, specifically maces, if at all possible. Swords would be useless because the pasties were made of near rock. They needed to be chiseled down to nothing instead of sliced and diced. Lexie and the other supposed virgin paired up as they started digging through the scrap metal and gemstones. Tynan, Harvey, and four others went to the other side of the hollow to try and find something for nourishment. Along the way, the Pasties that had brought the stash were sitting in the back huddled up and hiding. They came to life with a vengeance and started attacking the nearest human. Tynan and Harvey overcame them as the gems fell to the ground and the souls of those Pasties floated to the ceiling. Everyone sat with their backs against the wall in a semi-circle. This would enable them maneuverability from the attacking Pasties. The inference was a short battle that proved the might of the few was stronger than the brawn of the many for the time being. In due time, the floating souls would attract more enemy Pasties. Tynan geared up with a seat post mace held high, waiting for the next victim to come through the liquid door.
Chapter 7
Restless Pasties
Isaic came barreling out of a dark chute, screaming at the top of his lungs, “The Pasties are coming; the Pasties are coming! They are heavily armed and doing their war stomp down the tunnels! Run, everyone!” He made sure to scream loud enough for the others to hear him as he ran the opposite direction from where the armies of Pasties were coming. Having doused himself with firebugs from head to tail, he led everyone through the now lit tunnel system, following his previous fingertip scrapes on the walls as reminders, back to where everyone else promised to meet. Everyone showe
d up except for the group Tynan was leading.
“That kid is gifted. He can see things that we can’t. Is he one of the select few that are the chosen of Trendago?” One of the nerds in Isaic’s group lifted his head up from his meek assembly of friends and spoke.
“He is. That kid is one of the smartest people I have ever met.” Another female talked over the hum of the small cliques. “It’s just too bad he is so dang lazy.”
Isaic overheard their gestures and spoke. “I’m not lazy. I just don’t care. I have a girl back home who likes to take care of me. We live with her mom. I take my friends over there every day at lunch for food and smokes.” He was referring to Marnie and his future mother-in-law, Sharalee. “They love me.”
He would never hurt Marnie, intentionally. She was the love of his life, and he didn’t care how much weight she had gained. He was after her heart. She was one of the nicest people one could meet. Now he was sad, for a split second, after taking the time to stop and think about her.
The group pummeled away from the tromping Pasties in hopes of evading their battle efforts. Isaic shouted, “The only way they won’t be able to find us is if we all stay positive! Don’t give up in your mind, and try not to think about anyone back home that might make you feel depressed. That is what they are feeding upon: our emotions. So, if anyone starts getting negative, I am going to be forced to send you to the back of the line. That way they get to you first. Got it?”
At this point, he couldn’t get anyone to tell him they couldn’t. Smiles lit the inside of the cave as light refracted off the gleaming teeth. Isaic walked up and down the marching crew, making certain none had any sign of negativity on their face. His lit body was still aglow from the firebug juice.
Good and Evil : Freeland - Part Two (9781628547375) Page 9