by R. W. Ridley
***
Ajax and I followed Max to a lake nestled in a small valley three miles from the Myrmidon camp. The wind created a chilly looking chop, and I hoped Max was just stopping on the muddy shore to rest. I wouldn’t be that lucky.
“It’s deeper than it looks,” Max said.
“Please don’t tell me the eggs are in the water.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Well?”
“I can’t say nothing.”
“Why not?”
“Because you asked me polite-like not to.”
“Crap!”
“If you hadn’t said please, I may have told you, but I was taught to pay respect to pleases.”
I bent over and placed my hands on my knees. I was not looking forward to getting in that water. “How far down?”
“Thirty feet, give or take a foot or two.”
“Let me guess. The eggs are heavily guarded by a bunch of worms.”
“Not a bunch,” he said. “There’s usually just one, but he’s pretty darn good at guarding them. Big, too. Biggest one I’ve ever seen.”
I sat down and took my shoes off. “The Myrmidon smell will wash off in the water, won’t it?”
“It will. Wouldn’t do you any good if it didn’t anyway. The egg guarder don’t pay no mind to it.”
I got down to my underwear and slipped on my now-empty backpack. I dipped my toe into the disturbingly cold water. “Anyone ever done this before?”
Max scratched his head and gave the question some thought. “I’ve known about a dozen or so who’ve tried. Only one fella made it down and back up. He didn’t have no eggs or left arm by the time he got back to shore.”
I shook my head. “This just gets better and better. How did he make it?”
“Well, now he come up with a theory that the guarder can’t see nor smell nor hear. It feels you in the water. You splash around and kick and whatnot, it’ll find you before you barely get wet. He swam quiet like a fish.”
“How do you swim quiet like a fish?”
“Ain’t sure. All I know is he did it and was doing fine with it until he was on his way back up.”
“What happened on his way back up?”
“He bumped into the guarder. Scared him crazy. He took to kicking and moving like he was on fire. Guarder got a bead on him then.”
I stepped in the water. My toes felt like they were instantly frozen. I asked Max one last question before wading in deeper. “How far out do I need to go?”
“Smack dab in the middle. Dive down and look for mounds that are about eight foot high.”
“Mounds?”
“Yeah, they got a hole on one side. That’s where the eggs are. They got air inside, so you can catch your breath before you come back up.”
The water got deeper and deeper as I slowly approached the middle of the lake. When I lost the bottom, I swam as quietly as I could. Every time I heard myself splash some water around, I winced. I even bit my cheek when my teeth began to chatter from the cold. The farther out I got, the colder the water got. Near the center of the lake, something brushed my feet. I stopped moving as much as I could without sinking. Something brushed my leg. My heart began to beat impossibly fast. I felt all the air leave my lungs. There was something underneath me. I waited a minute to see if it would brush me again. When it didn’t, I told myself it was just a fish and continued towards the center. I heard something break the surface behind me, but I couldn’t bring myself to look. Something brushed my leg again. It felt as though my heart was going to beat out of my chest. I stopped, closed my eyes, and slowly turned to see what had surfaced. A white hump disappeared underneath the water as soon as my head was all the way around.
Ajax paced on the shore. He approached the water on a couple of occasions, but retreated. He wanted to jump in the water and help me, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“He’s looking for you,” Max shouted. “He don’t know where you’re at, but he’s got a pretty good idea you’re in the water. Oh, Lord, he’s a crafty one!”
If I could have shouted back I would have asked him to please shut up. I didn’t need to be told a giant worm with teeth was looking for me.
“You ain’t got much farther. Maybe ten feet. Then dive.”
The worm surfaced again. Its head came out of the water about fifteen feet. Max was right. It was huge. It was as big around as a whale. I couldn’t tell how long it was, but it didn’t matter.
It bent down and gently touched the water with the point of its head. It reared up and came back down, touching the water a few feet from where it did before. It did this same thing a number of times. It was probing the water trying to find me. It did it one more time, missing me by just inches.
I heard a splash from the shore. Ajax had waded in a few feet and was slapping the surface of the water. The worm slipped underneath the water and disappeared. It was going after Ajax. The silverback continued to slap the water, trying to draw attention to himself, and he was succeeding. In fact, he succeeded too well. The worm surfaced and stretched towards Ajax, hiding the gorilla from my view. The Banshee splashed into the shallow water, and I could see Ajax diving out of the way at the last second. He rolled, regained his feet, and splashed the water again.
The worm rose up again.
“Ain’t going to have a better chance,” Max yelled. “Get to swimming and diving. Go, go, go!”
I took his advice and quickly but quietly covered the next ten feet. Counting to three in my head, I took a deep breath and dove.
The water went from bitterly cold to downright icy as I swam down. I couldn’t see anything but a murky green haze in front of me. My whole body was numb. I swam down, down, down with no real concept of how deep I was. The water got colder and colder as I went. My lungs started to ache. I wasn’t going to be able to make it to the bottom. I was sure of it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a change in the light. Something was moving, and I had a pretty good idea what that something was.
I stretched my hand out in front of me and kicked my feet as fast as I could. I didn’t really care if the movement helped the worm find me. I was pretty sure he already knew where I was.
I wanted to take a breath. I needed to take a breath. My lungs were shrinking and the cold water seemed to be crushing my chest. How far was 30 feet? It couldn’t be much farther, could it?
My hand crashed into something that felt slimy and hard. The worm was underneath me. I drew my hand back and tried desperately to see what I had touched. A pinhole view cleared away in the murk, and I saw something brown. I reached out and touched it. It was the mound. I hurried down and felt my way around the structure. Max had said there was an opening somewhere, but I wasn’t sure I was going to find it before I ran out of air. I kicked my feet and patted up and down the side of the mound.
The light above me disappeared and came back. The worm was above me. I began to think the best thing that could happen to me is to run out of air and float to the top. At least I wouldn’t be eaten alive.
My hand slipped inside the mound. The opening. Something slid across my head. I pulled myself inside the mound and scrambled to find the air pocket Max told me would be there. Please, don’t let him be wrong, I begged. My hand broke the surface, and I rushed to get my head above water, spitting and coughing as I did. My lungs burned as I breathed in and out deeply.
I wiped my eyes and saw little points of light, what my grandpa would have called seeing stars. I found my footing and to my surprise discovered that I was walking up an incline. When I got knee high in the water, I fell to my hands and knees and crawled until I could fall on my back with my head out of the water. I blinked and tried to adjust my eyes to the darkness. After several seconds, I could make out the curve of the mound. It was as if I was inside a dome looking up at the ceiling. A few more seconds passed and I sat up. Over my shoulder, I saw a pile of rocks the size of baseballs. They were perfectly round. The eggs. They had to be. Fresh la
ys. I wiggled out of my backpack.
They were slimy and soft. It felt almost as if they would break apart in my hand, but they were amazingly durable at the same time. Shivering from the intense cold, I placed eight eggs in the pack. Once I zipped it shut, I heard a clicking sound. The worm was coming from overhead.
I looked up and stared through the darkness. I saw it. Something was crawling on the ceiling. It had a long skinny body and a white head. A climber. I saw more movement. A dozen climbers over my head.
I scrambled down the ramp and submerged into the water, holding on tightly to my backpack. I didn’t take a good enough breath. There was no way I could make it to the surface. I held my head high out of the water and was in the process of working up a deep breath when one of the climbers jumped into the water. I quickly went under and swam towards the opening. The climber grabbed onto my leg and scratched me. I kicked frantically and swam out of the opening to the mound.
The Banshee bumped me and nearly knocked the backpack out of my hand. I stopped swimming and floated slowly up. The worm bumped me again. As long as I didn’t respond, it didn’t seem to know where I was.
Several seconds passed and it appeared the Banshee had moved out of the area. I had no idea where the climbers were or if they could alert the guarder that I was in the area, but I didn’t plan on sticking around to find out. I swam to the surface and managed to break through the chop without running into the worm again.
“There he is,” Max said. “Got the eggs?”
I held the pack out of the water.
“Good. Got both your arms?”
I held my free hand out of the water.
“Good. We’ll take stock of the rest of you when get on shore.”
I worked my arms through the straps of the backpack and started my slow swim to the shore.
A small white mass broke through the surface, followed by another and another. The climbers. They formed a circle around me, and I readied myself for an attack on all sides. They didn’t move. I fooled myself into thinking they were going to let me pass, that they had just developed their bodies and they were venturing out into the world for the first time, but I was wrong.
They all started slapping the surface of the water with the palms of their new hands. They slapped harder with each whack of the water. They were letting the guarder know where I was. I couldn’t afford to take it slow. I pushed myself forward and swam like there was no tomorrow. Water was kicking up behind me. It looked like the wake of a small prop engine.
I felt the water rising behind me. A quick peek over my shoulder revealed the worm swimming towards me like an alligator on top of the water. It was on the other side of the lake, but once it snaked its entire body behind it, I was done for.
“You best swim,” Max said.
I wanted to scream out what do you think I’m doing, you idiot, but I couldn’t afford to take the time or energy to do so. As it was, the backpack was slowing me down. I wasn’t a great swimmer, but I could hold my own. I was certain that if I didn’t have the backpack full of eggs I would have been on the shore by now.
What was going to happen when or if I got on shore was another matter. I had eight Banshee eggs with a giant Banshee worm chasing me. Plus there was a group of climbers that probably weren’t going to just let us walk off with the eggs. Getting on land more than likely wouldn’t end my problems.
I pushed those questions out of my mind and concentrated all my efforts on swimming. My arms felt like lead weights, and my thighs burned.
“He done went under,” Max said.
I hated the play-by-play. I wanted him to just shut up. My fingers scraped the bottom of the lake. Shallow water. I somehow increased my speed and eventually placed a foot on the lake bottom and stumbled out of the water.
The worm exploded straight up out of the water a good twenty feet. It let out an ear piercing bellow and then fell backwards back into the lake.
“How many did you get?” Max asked.
“Eight,” I said almost completely out of breath. I turned and twisted desperately working my arms free from the backpack.
Max grabbed it and opened it.
I started to get dressed.
“Ain’t no time for that,” Max said. “The guarder just ratted you out.”
“What?”
“He let every Banshee from here to Knoxville know that you stole their babies.”
He pulled out an egg. “Where’s your knife?”
I pointed to the backpack. “Side pocket.”
He opened the pocket and found the knife.
The climbers had made it to shallow waters.
“You and the hairy fella remember your way back to the Myrmidon camp?”
I was shaking almost uncontrollably as I picked up my belongings. “Yeah.”
“Well get going then.”
“What about you?”
“There’s only one thing that’s going to get them worms and climbers off your behind.” He held up an egg and poked it with the knife.
The egg let out a squeal like a piglet.
“A screaming egg.”
The climbers shifted their direction toward him.
Max took off running. “Get moving, boys. When this thing dies out I can’t give you no more cover.” He stuck the egg again and it let out another scream.
***
We heard the high-pitched scream of the Banshee egg for 30 minutes. The sound of it carried for miles. Ajax and I ran to the top of the hill overlooking the lake before I begged him to stop so I could get dressed. I was so cold I felt like my insides were frozen solid. Unfortunately, putting on my clothes didn’t provide much relief.
I gathered up my crossbow and arrows, and assured Ajax I was ready to go even though my legs were stiff. He picked up the backpack and looped one of his massive arms through the strap. I thought of insisting that he let me carry it, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was just too weak and tired.
We started down a game trail when I noticed something was missing. “The jubilee meat is gone.”
The Banshee egg let out another scream.
“What do you know? That Ratty-Bob stole our meat.” Another scream. “Guess he earned it. I just hope the screaming egg keeps the Banshees away.”
We trekked through the mountains for the next hour and a half. My legs had gone from stiff to numb. If I hadn’t seen them attached to my body, I wouldn’t even have known I had legs. I fell more than I can remember. Each time, Ajax helped me up with his huge hands.
I fell one more time and said, “I can’t go any farther, Ajax. Not without resting.”
He dragged me to the nearest large tree and propped me up against it.
I was shivering more violently than before. The wind had picked up and blew the cold right through me. “Wonder how Max is doing?”
We heard a cracking sound from the bottom of the mountain. It put us on edge, but no other sounds followed it so we decided it was just the wind breaking a dead branch.
“Speaking of sounds,” I said, “and I really hate to bring this up, but we haven’t heard that egg scream in almost twenty minutes.”
Ajax grunted and moved in closer to me to keep me warm.
I felt myself starting to shut down. The more I tried to control my shaking, the worse I shook. I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering. The light of the afternoon seemed to be pulsating from bright to dim.
Ajax moved in even closer. He reached out and pulled me into his chest, wrapping his arms around me. It was a bear hug from a gorilla.
“I can’t do it, Ajax.” I was talking without knowing what I was really saying.
He rubbed my back.
“I can’t protect everyone. I only want to protect her.”
I didn’t know it at the time, but there were more noises coming from the valley below us. Ajax became increasingly nervous with each crack, whack, and rumble.
“I know that’s wrong. I know I’m supposed to fix what I’ve done, but I can’t do
that if fixing it means she goes away.”
A tree fell a few hundred yards away and Ajax turned quickly to face the woods. Something was coming and he knew it. He grabbed me by my arm and dragged me up to the lowest limb on the tree. After retrieving an egg, he passed the backpack up to me, and motioned for me to climb higher.
I shimmied up to the next limb with a great deal of difficulty and rested in the crook of the tree. “I can’t go any higher, Ajax.” He roared, urging me to keep climbing, but I just couldn’t do it.
The tree started to shake from the bottom up. I nearly fell off the limb, but grabbed onto the trunk while desperately holding onto the backpack.
A worm surfaced thirty feet away and slithered along the trunk of a tree. Ajax banged the egg on the ground and it squealed. The worm immediately took notice. It shifted its body in Ajax’s direction and dove underneath the ground.
Ajax bounded back down the mountain with the worm chasing him. I knew what was going on, but I couldn’t make sense of why it was going on. I thought Ajax had gone crazy. It didn’t hit me until some minutes later that he was leading the worm away from me. He was doing what Max had done. I dropped down off the tree and felt a stabbing pain in my injured knee. In addition, my numbness had turned into millions of imaginary needles pricking my entire lower body. I was a hot mess of agony, but Ajax was risking his life so I could continue on to the Myrmidon camp. I wasn’t about to let anything keep me from making it. I’d make it even if it meant losing my arm to do it. She was depending on me. I wasn’t going to lose her. Not to the Myrmidons, and not by finding a way back home. This was my life now. Running from and fighting horrible monsters. I’d happily put up with it if it meant I got to keep her in my life.
***
I made it to the treeway and collapsed on one of the platforms. Somehow I had managed to hold onto the backpack, my crossbow, and most of the arrows. My clothes were sticking to me. It almost felt as though they were frozen to me. I had to warm up or I wasn’t going to be much good to anyone. There was only one place I knew of where I could get warm, and maybe even find a dry change of clothes, Bostic’s treehouse.