by J Boyd Long
“I’m just reminding you that you’re tougher than you think you are.”
Eissa smiled and patted his arm. “I know, I know. I’m sorry.”
Quentin leaned over and looked back towards town again. The group was getting bigger. He climbed wearily to his feet.
“We’ve got to go.”
“Shit,” Eissa said. “Help me up.”
They walked deeper into the woods. A hundred yards in, they turned to the right and followed a faint trail that ran parallel to the road. Eissa slowed to a crawl after a few minutes, her chest heaving.
“Keep going,” Quentin said. “We’ve got a good lead, so we can walk, but we gotta keep going. Don’t give up on me.”
Sweat ran freely down her face. The heat and humidity made the situation even worse, sapping their strength, and the woods were filled with gnats and mosquitoes.
A gun shot rang out in the distance, but it wasn’t followed by any others. They kept going down the trail. Quentin’s chest was already burning from the run across the field, and now there was a stitch forming in his side. He repeated a mantra that his therapist taught him, trying desperately to avoid a panic.
I’m stronger than I think. It’s only a paper tiger. I’m stronger than I think. It’s only a paper tiger.
They pushed on, and the silence in the woods soothed his nerves. The blister on his heel was on fire, and every muscle in his body was shaking with exhaustion, but he was growing more confident that they were not being followed. He held Eissa’s hand when the trail was wide enough, trying to give her some strength and comfort. He gave up swatting at the gnats and tried to save his strength for walking. It was getting dark in the woods, and he was terrified of getting lost.
At long last, they stood in the back doorway of the barn. It was deep dusk outside, and almost completely dark inside. He was so tired and relieved to finally be there, that he thought he might cry.
There was no sign of people in the barn, although the space was filled with the soft sound of horses munching on hay and swishing their tails around. They walked inside and stopped at a ladder built into the wall.
“Well, it looks like this is the stairway to heaven,” he said. “Let’s sit and rest for a minute, and then we’ll climb up there and find a place to camp out. What do you think?”
Eissa slid down the wall to the floor with a sigh. “I think I’m going to die, right here.”
He sat down beside her and patted her leg. He knew how exhausted he was, and she was in far worse shape than him. This had been an incredibly physical day, on top of everything else, and the lack of supper compounded their fatigue. He set aside the urge to take the easy way out by sleeping on the ground floor, and tried to encourage her instead.
“I think you’ll make it,” he said. “You’re a lot tougher than me, and I’m going to make it.”
“After walking approximately a thousand miles today, then running from a lynch mob, now you want me to climb a hundred-foot ladder? This day just keeps getting better,” Eissa grumbled. “I suppose that next we’re going to cross a rope bridge, and swim through an underwater cave.”
Quentin chuckled. “In for a penny, in for a pound, right?”
The wood floor, so comfortable at first, quickly began to make his butt sore. He shifted a few times before giving up.
“I’m going to climb up and check it out.”
She nodded and gave him a half-hearted wave.
He put his foot on the first rung and bounced on it experimentally. It was solid, and he climbed slowly up through the hole in the ceiling. Dim light came through the small door that opened over the street, but it was fading rapidly. He lay down next to the ladder and stuck his head through the hole.
“Come on,” he whispered. “It’s not a bad climb. We need to get situated up here before it gets too dark.”
Eissa slowly climbed to her feet and started up the ladder, and he knew that she was hating it right from the start. Her legs and arms were trembling by the time she was halfway up, and she set her jaw in determination.
“You can do this,” Quentin said. “You used to do obstacle courses and stuff, and I’ve seen you carry a grown man on your shoulder. You’re a bad motherfucker. Come on, you got it.”
“I was twenty years old, and 130 pounds,” Eissa said through gritted teeth, but she took the next rung with a bit more confidence. “Even bad motherfuckers get old and broke down.”
At last she gained the top of the ladder, and rolled onto the floor, gasping for breath. Quentin left her there to rest as he walked around, trying to get a feel for the place.
The front half was mostly empty, save for a few dozen bales of hay stacked by the open door that looked over the street and the town. The back half was separated by a wall, and was divided into several different rooms. Quentin turned on the light on his phone, and looked through them quickly. They were all stacked high with hay, with the top row of bales ending up near the rafters. Finished with his tour, he turned off the light and went back to the ladder.
“Are you going to live?” he asked.
“I think so,” Eissa said. “Once I get my breath back, I’ll be able to give you a firmer answer on that.”
“Well, it looks like our best bet will be to hole up in one of those smaller rooms in the back,” Quentin said. “We should be fairly safe there.”
He grabbed her hands and helped her up, and they made their way to the room in the back corner of the barn, farthest from the ladder. Eissa held the light while Quentin rearranged a couple of bales to make a staircase up to the top of the pile, and then moved a few bales around on top to make a wall.
“This will keep us from being seen from the floor,” he explained. “Also, it will keep us from rolling off and falling.”
“Oh, nice,” Eissa said. “Because I was focused on lynch mobs, rats and snakes. Now I’ll be able to spread my paranoia even further, and obsess about plunging to my death.”
“You aren’t going to plunge to your death,” Quentin said. “There’s a wall of hay there to prevent that from happening. And I really don’t think you have to worry about rats and snakes. They’re afraid of people, and even if there were any in the barn, which I doubt, they would have been long gone as soon as I started moving bales around.”
“This isn’t about logic and reason,” Eissa reminded him. “We’re talking about an irrational fear. That’s way more powerful than facts. Especially in the dark.”
Quentin helped her climb the hay bale stairs and into the hay fort he had constructed. He climbed back down, gathered up an armload of loose hay from the floor, and carried it up to the top.
“Here, we’ll use this for padding,” he said, dumping it over the edge. “You spread this around, and I’ll go get some more.”
“Good plan,” Eissa said. “This shit is like bales of splinters and pokey things. It’s all confirming my commitment to my expensive bed, which has never given me a splinter, or poked me, or made me uncomfortable in any way.”
“Hey, this will make it better for you,” Quentin said, climbing back up. He handed her a thin blanket. “I found you a poncho, like a serape thing. It was hanging on the wall down there.”
“Thanks,” Eissa said doubtfully. “Hopefully it doesn’t have any diseases or parasites.”
“I know, you don’t sleep in barns,” Quentin said, getting himself settled in. “But let’s try to be positive for a minute and think about all the new things you’re experiencing. In the last twelve hours, you’ve traveled through a portal to another dimension, which we didn’t know existed. You’ve done more walking today than you’ve done in a long time, and you’re about to roll in the hay with a man, which you’ve probably never done. That’s a pretty full day.”
“Whatever rolling in the hay that takes place, happens singularly,” Eissa said. “And as to the rest of this…” She trailed off for a moment. “I’m not, like, regretful that this happened, you know. I just wish it could have wrapped up about six hours ago a
nd sent me home.”
“I think it’s romantic,” Quentin said with a yawn. “Except for the whole ‘mob wanting to kill us’ part, of course. It’s terrifying, but at the same time it’s a fantastic adventure, and the fact that we don’t know how it’s going to work out adds all this mystery and excitement to it. I wish you were enjoying it more.”
“I’ll work on it,” Eissa said. “Tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll wake up in my own bed.”
A cricket began chirping somewhere in the barn below them and was soon joined by others.
“You don’t think those guys will find us here?” Eissa asked in the darkness.
“Nah, I think we’re okay. I can’t imagine that they’ll search for us all night. After all, it’s not like we did anything wrong. Well, I did set his doorway on fire, but I’m sure they put that out pretty quick. They don’t have a reason to drag it on. They probably got hungry and went home already.”
“I hope so.”
The last of the light crept out of the room, leaving them with their thoughts and the gentle sounds of the horses below. Eissa’s quiet snores joined the sounds within minutes, but sleep was a long time coming for Quentin. He stared into the darkness, examining the sensations of fear, panic, and adventure, as they rolled around his stomach like a million butterflies. How could any of this be real? Was it a mistake to be so focused on leaving this dimension as fast as possible? After all, Holt was undoubtedly waiting to take him out as soon as he showed up at IBZ. The questions swirled around his head, as the emotions swirled around his stomach. At long last, he slept.
Chapter 6
Quentin woke up to Eissa’s foot jabbing him repeatedly in the ribs. At first, he was confused about his whereabouts. A sliver of sunlight poked through the dust motes in the air, hitting the wall just below the ceiling in the back of the room. As he realized where he was, and that it must be morning, his confusion shifted to the insistent beating his ribcage was enduring. He propped himself up on an elbow, scowling at Eissa.
“What?” he demanded. “Stop kicking me, I’m awake.”
“Shhh,” Eissa hissed, frantically waving her hands at him. She slithered back off the hay wall and crawled over and placed her lips by his ear.
“I’ve gotta pee like nobody’s fucking business,” she whispered. “I was going to go find a spot with some privacy, but there’s some fucking dude sitting in the doorway.”
Quentin sat up in alarm.
“Is he, like, looking up here?” he asked. His eyes widened. “Is it the blacksmith guy?”
“Hush, goddammit,” Eissa hissed. “I don’t think he knows we’re here, but if you keep running your fucking mouth like that, he will.”
Quentin glared at her. He was used to being chastised by her, but generally not before he’d had a few cups of coffee to get his day going. He crawled over to the edge of the hay wall, and slowly raised up until he could see over it.
Sure enough, there was a figure sitting in the doorway. There was enough sunlight filtering into the barn to see that the man was facing out the door, and was in the full lotus position. Quentin crouched back down beside Eissa.
“I think he’s meditating,” he whispered.
“What?” Eissa asked.
“I said, I think he’s meditating,” Quentin repeated.
“I heard you,” Eissa whispered back. “Who the fuck climbs up in a barn to meditate at the butt crack of dawn?”
Quentin shrugged. As long as it wasn’t Carl Holt with his gun, or the blacksmith, they probably weren’t in too much danger. It was likely someone who worked in the barn.
“You may as well come down here and just ask me,” a deep voice boomed out from below.
They froze, staring wide-eyed at one another.
“Is he talking to us?” Eissa asked, barely mouthing the words.
Quentin shrugged helplessly. Before he could articulate an answer, the voice called out again.
“I know you’re up there, you two. I can climb up and meet you up there once I’m done with my morning meditation, or you can come down here and join me in my meditation, or you could just sit quietly and wait for me to finish. Either way, if you could stop all that annoying whispering, it would make everything so much better.”
“Go down there,” Eissa whispered. “I’m about to pee my pants, and I don’t have another pair.”
Quentin crawled over to the hay wall and peered over the edge. The man in the door looked the same as he had before, still facing away from them. If he had come to attack them, he would have done it while they were still asleep. Quentin took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Okay,” he called out. “I’m coming down.”
He crept down the hay bale stairs, his pulse pounding in his ears. The man on the floor said nothing. Quentin reached the bottom and sat down, brushing the bits of hay from his clothes and his hair. He was nervous, his shaking hands gave that away, but he didn’t feel like he was in danger. It was a welcome change from his last interaction with a stranger.
“When you finish peeing, please bring my cloak down with you,” the man said. “Assuming that you don’t pee on it, that is.”
Quentin tried to gauge the man by his voice. It was a deep voice, full of power and character, but it also had the vibrato quality that comes with advanced age. It wasn’t a shaky voice, but it did contain a faint tremulous note to it, as well as sounds from several unconnected points on the vocal register. While the primary part of the voice was deep, the bass tones were accentuated with mid and high tones as well, creating a very distinct and unusual, yet very engaging sound.
Eissa appeared over the edge of the hay fort and began climbing down. She had rolled the blanket up and tried to make it look neat, but it was still covered in bits of hay, as were her clothes. When she got to the bottom, she sat down beside Quentin, breathing heavily. Her hair was still in yesterday’s ponytail, and strands of it had pulled loose overnight and stuck out wildly.
A moment later, the man in the doorway sighed, stretched his legs out in front of him for a moment, and turned to face them. He was about ten feet away, and a sunbeam lit up the right side of his face and body, which made him glow in the dim room.
“Well, I can see that you aren’t going to let me meditate in peace,” he said. “I guess it wasn’t enough for you to steal my cloak, and sleep in my spot.”
“Sir, I am so sorry,” Eissa said. She lurched to her feet and took his cloak over to him. “Quentin brought it up to me, and I guessed that it belonged to a day worker, so I didn’t think anyone would need it overnight. I’m terribly sorry.”
“Alright, alright, don’t start crying on me about it,” the old man said. “It’s not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.” He took the cloak, spreading it out over his shoulders.
Quentin stared at the old man. His long black hair hung down past his shoulders. His skin seemed several shades darker than even a good tan would make him, although it was hard to tell with the sun lighting up half of his face. He looked an awful lot like an old Indian chief, which was baffling under the circumstances.
“So, do you live here?” he asked. “Other than your cloak, we didn’t see anything to suggest that this was someone’s spot, or we wouldn’t have stayed here.”
“I don’t live anywhere, really,” the old man said. “I stay here sometimes, when I come through.” He looked at them intently for a moment.
Quentin shifted uncomfortably under his gaze and tried to think of something else to say.
“So, where do you come from?” the old man asked. “I already know the answer. I’m just curious to see what you say.”
Quentin looked at Eissa. Her eyes were wide with alarm. Did he know about the portal? They had created a story for Becky, the waitress, but they never decided what they would say if someone had actually seen them come through the portal. Of course, the old man hadn’t said anything about the portal, exactly, but it was certainly implied in his question. As usual, his brain was working muc
h faster than his mouth, and the best he was able to do was grunt. “Uh…”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” the old man said. “Let’s pretend I didn’t say that at all, and we’ll just start over, okay? So, where do you come from?” He smiled, and raised his eyebrows in an obvious attempt to look inquisitive.
“Well, you see, that’s a bit complicated,” Quentin said. He didn’t want to say anything specific, in case he was reading too much into the question, but he was on the spot and had to say something. “In a manner of speaking, we’re from right here in Gainesville, in a way. That is to say, we’re from a town called Gainesville, although not this particular one, uh, sir.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” the old man said thoughtfully. He drifted into silence for a moment, looking down at his hands.