Not Peachy, Mate

by Wendy Meadows

  “You bet,” Grace smiled back.

  Far away in the darkness, Momma Peach slowly opened her eyes. “What...where...” she mumbled as four women carried her body through the night. Because of her weight their travel was slow going. “Where…” One of the women carrying Momma Peach's left arm looked down and said something in a strange tongue. The other three women nodded their heads and gently, with as much love as they could possibly muster, laid Momma Peach down on the ground.

  “Who...” Momma Peach mumbled, feeling her body touch the hard-packed earth. Her vision was fuzzy but strangely her mind didn't feel like it might when waking from a strong anesthetic. She listened to the four women standing over her as they began speaking in a quick, urgent tongue. “What in the world?” Momma Peach looked up into a pitch black sky at what appeared to be billions of twinkling stars. All the way in the outback, with no lights of civilization to ruin the view, all the glorious stars were perfectly visible. She spotted the Southern Cross and even Cassiopeia, which she remembered was visible in the southern hemisphere during some seasons. She felt a weak smile touch her face at seeing strangely familiar constellations amid the other stars. No matter how lost a soul was in the world the stars were always a friendly sight saying hello.

  The four women continued to talk. One of the women rubbed her arms and stretched in a way that clearly said Momma Peach was too heavy to continue carrying. The other three women agreed and then quickly knelt down and began gently shaking Momma Peach's shoulder. “I’m awake, babies,” she said. The four women began helping Momma Peach stand up. She struggled to her legs, shocked that her kidnappers were treating her with such love and care. “I’m okay,” she promised.

  One of the women looked at Momma Peach and whispered “Momma” in a shaky voice as a tear dropped out of her eye. The other women quickly whispered the same word, began crying, and hugged Momma Peach. “Momma...Momma...Momma...”

  Momma Peach sure didn't know what to do. So, she did the only thing a Momma could do: she wrapped her arms around the four women and held them. “Now...now,” Momma Peach said in a soothing voice, patting their heads, “everything is going to be okay...how, I sure don't know, but it surely will be, my babies.”

  “Momma,” the women cried and held onto Momma Peach like she was a life raft in a stormy ocean.

  “Oh...babies,” Momma Peach nearly cried herself as her mind fully cleared. “What am I gonna do with you?”

  “Momma...momma...” the women cried and then began trying to pull Momma Peach toward the area where the ravine was located. “Momma...momma...” they said in worried voices and pointed into the distance. “Momma...you come...come...”

  “I can't go with you,” Momma Peach said in a regretful voice. She pointed back toward Greenglow. “I have to go that way...not your way.”

  The four women continued to yank on Momma Peach. “Momma...come,” they cried. “Momma...come...momma come...”

  Momma Peach felt tears sting her eyes. What in the world was she supposed to do? “I have to...oh, okay,” she caved in and let the four women pull her away. “I will go see what you want,” she said and began walking toward a strange and hidden land that the world was unaware of.

  Back in town, Grace walked in front of the garage and dropped down onto one knee, grabbed her stomach, and yelled out: “Help me!”

  Jasmine jumped up from her chair, ran to the back edge of Evan's Volkswagen, and peered outside with her gun at the ready. She spotted Grace on one knee, holding her stomach and begging for help. “What is this?” she hissed. “What’s going on?”

  “They're...killing each other!” Grace called out. “You have to stop them...and help me...I've been shot!” Grace let out an agonizing wet, sputtering cough that fooled even Michelle. “They've gone mad!”

  Jasmine studied Grace with careful eyes. The woman, in her eyes, was obviously in need of medical attention. “Hands up where I can see them!” she hollered and rushed out of the garage with her gun aimed directly at Grace. “Hands—” Jasmine didn't see Michelle hiding in the shadows. All she saw before Michelle kicked her gun away was a shadow lunging toward her. “What...” she cried out.

  Michelle didn't waste any time. She kicked Jasmine in the stomach. Jasmine crashed backward and slammed against a wall. Michelle quickly conducted a roundhouse kick and caught Jasmine in the face before the woman could stand up. Jasmine dropped back down and fell into a semi-conscious state. Michelle spotted some rope and hurried to tie Jasmine up before she came around. “Not bad,” Grace said in an impressed voice. “You and I could make a great team.”

  “We are a great team,” Michelle told Grace, tying Jasmine's hands behind her back. “I don't know this land. You do. You're going to have to help me find Momma Peach.”

  Grace nodded. “I'll do my best,” she promised, bent down, and began urging Jasmine to wake up.

  Jasmine moaned, opened her eyes, and saw two furious women staring at her. “What...” she said and tried to raise her hands, only her hands were tied together behind her back. “Untie me this instant,” she demanded. Jasmine was a woman who was used to getting her way through intimidation and threats. Only Michelle and Grace weren't two women who could be bullied.

  “Shut up,” Michelle snapped at Jasmine. She grabbed her chin with a hard hand and yanked her face upward. “Momma Peach has been taken by your friends. I want to know where they've taken her, and I want to know right now.”

  Jasmine stared into Michelle's angry eyes. “Drop dead,” she spat.

  Grace quickly patted Michelle's shoulder and made a face that told Michelle to follow along. “Okay, then,” she said in a tough voice, “I guess we have no other choice but to take her over to Evan's store and feed her to the desert death adder.”

  Jasmine froze. “Desert...death adder?” she asked, becoming paralyzed by fear. Jasmine hated snakes. Snakes terrified her. The land was full of snakes...the world was full of snakes.

  Grace nodded. “You can talk or die,” she warned Jasmine.

  Jasmine felt a cold chill crawl down her back. Where was Andrea? Where were the women? “Where is my sister? My sister will stop you,” she asked in a voice that came out far too shaky. Michelle looked at Grace with grateful eyes.

  “Oh her? She’s in custody,” Grace explained.

  “She spilled the beans,” Michelle added in a quick voice, hoping to deceive Jasmine. “We know all about the murders. She already turned you in. You might as well give it up.”

  Jasmine struggled against the ropes holding her hands together. There was no chance of escape. Her only hope was to play ball. “It was all Andrea's idea,” she blurted out. “Andrea’s a liar, don’t go thinking she’s so innocent. Andrea killed—”

  “Save it, sister,” Michelle snapped. “I want to know where those women took Momma Peach and I want to know right now. If you refuse to tell me, I'm going to leave you locked up with the snake we have over in that store.”

  “Desert death adder,” Grace reminded Jasmine. She leaned against the trunk of the Volkswagen and wiped sweat from her forehead. “I could go for a cold soda,” she told Michelle. “Maybe we should just skip all this talk and introduce this woman to the snake and get ourselves a cold soda while we’re in there?”

  “No...wait,” Jasmine begged. Michelle looked down at Jasmine and watched the woman turn into a yellow-bellied coward. No longer was Jasmine a threatening storm that made others cower and run to do her bidding. “I...”

  “Talk!” Michelle demanded.

  “Okay...” Jasmine looked out into the dark night. If Andrea had been defeated and the women had somehow managed to kidnap Momma Peach, that meant the situation had turned sour and control was no longer in her hands. But, Jasmine thought, maybe the women had taken Momma Peach to the hidden land. Maybe Michelle was lying. She didn't know. There was only one way to find out. “I'll take you to the hidden land,” she said in a begging voice. “I can't tell you how to get there. No outsider could get there, especia
lly not in the dark. I'll have to show you the land where the women live.”

  Michelle looked at Grace. Grace nodded. “Move,” Michelle ordered Jasmine.

  Jasmine struggled to her feet. If Andrea was truly in custody, at least there was a chance that her girls might save her. If Andrea was back at the hidden village, then surely she would kill Michelle and Grace; or so Jasmine hoped. “We have a long walk ahead of us,” she said and nodded out at the night. “We're going to need flashlights. The land is far too dangerous to walk across in the dark.”

  Grace looked around, spotted a flashlight lying on a pile of oily rags, and grabbed it. “Batteries are good,” she said, testing the flashlight. “Let's move.”

  Michelle grabbed Jasmine's arm. “Move.”

  Jasmine drew in a scared breath, studied the dark, and eased out of the garage. She hated the dark. The dark terrified her. Of course, she never showed her fear to anyone—yet, somehow, Momma Peach seemed to know. How? Well, Momma Peach had a way of knowing things.

  Far away in the dark, Momma Peach reached the ravine and began the treacherous trek down toward the hidden village. The four women accompanying her took painful steps to make sure Momma Peach made the voyage without any harm. “My...you gals are treating me like royalty,” Momma Peach said, nervously climbing through the tunnel that ended in a large, cold cave. The cave was lit with weak torches, making Momma Peach feel as if she had somehow walked back through time and entered the olden days where man survived by his wits alone. “Goodness,” she whispered. The four women pointed toward the entrance of the cave. “Okay...okay, babies.”

  One of the women ran ahead of Momma Peach and began shouting: “Momma...momma come...momma!” Momma Peach heard other women begin yelling in response joyfully. By the time she reached the entrance to the cave and peered out, she saw at least twenty women running down a long dirt trail lined with torches. Each woman was crying and shouting: “Momma…momma...”

  “Oh my,” Momma Peach whispered and backed up. The three women standing beside her ran out of the cave, joined their sisters, and then dropped down onto their knees and shouted: “Momma...momma!” Momma Peach stood in shock. “Oh...my,” she said, feeling like she was in some very serious, deep trouble. There was no way the women calling her Momma with tear-filled eyes were going to let her escape. “What in the world am I supposed to do?”

  The women kept crying Momma over and over again. As they did, Momma Peach heard a faint sound mingling in with the cries. She strained her ear and listened. “Help!” she heard the voices of men. “Help us…help us, please.”

  Momma Peach froze. “Oh my,” she whispered.

  “Momma...momma...momma!” the women cried and began approaching Momma Peach with happy grins and innocent looks, wanting to pet her cheeks and her hair. “Momma...momma...momma!”

  “Help us!” the scared men cried.

  “Oh goodness me, yes sir and yes ma’am,” Momma Peach whimpered and began stepping back into the cave as the women began touching her feet. “Oh, give me strength...give me strength!” Momma Peach cried out. Her voice echoed through the cave in a terrified howl. “I’ve got myself caught up in one of them strange science fiction movies...only this ain't a movie.” Momma Peach looked over her shoulder and saw the dark tunnel she had arrived through. Running was not a possibility. “So what is?” Momma Peach whimpered as the women began hugging her ankles.

  “Momma...momma...momma!”

  “Help us,” the voices of scared men cried over and over.

  Momma Peach closed her eyes. “Well, Mr. Sam,” she whispered, “I sure hope you take care of my sweet Timmy because I am...doomed. Yes sir and yes ma’am, I sure am.”

  9

  Jasmine led Michelle and Grace through the tunnel leading to the cave. To her shock, no guard was protecting the entrance to the tunnel; that was bad news. “We have to be silent,” she whispered.

  Michelle examined the tunnel with careful eyes. The tunnel reminded her of being back in Sam's desert town, trapped in the caves underneath it, fighting a deadly killer. “How much further?” she asked.

  Grace was fascinated by the tunnel. “All these years...my goodness,” she whispered.

  “Not much further,” Jasmine whispered and nodded forward. “The cave isn't far.”

  “All these years...” Grace whispered again. “How could this be? Surely someone...anyone...would have located this tunnel.”

  “My sister said that the land hides what it doesn't want people to see,” Jasmine told Grace in a low whisper. “Now be quiet.”

  Michelle rolled her eyes. “You make it sound mystical, but it isn’t. This tunnel was just very difficult to find,” she whispered in a sharp voice. “We had to crawl down into a ravine to get to it. The ravine is located in a barren spot of land. It's not like a million people are out here searching for this tunnel.”

  “Yes, but...” Grace pondered and then grew silent when she spotted the light of torches flickering off a dark wall.

  “There's the cave entrance,” Jasmine nodded. “Kill the flashlight. There will be guards.”

  Michelle grabbed Jasmine's arm and pulled her down. “Okay, Grace, stay here with her. I'll go on ahead and disable the guards.”

  Grace hesitated and then nodded. Being a good partner meant knowing when to listen. “Okay...be careful.”

  Michelle looked down the dark tunnel. “If I'm not back in thirty minutes, take this woman and go back to town.”

  “If you're not back in thirty minutes, I'm coming in,” Grace assured Michelle. “I’m not leaving you behind. We're partners.”

  “Yeah...we are,” Michelle told Grace in a grateful tone and then moved forward. She crept down the dark tunnel and arrived at the cave. The cave, from what she could see, was vacant. “Where is everybody?” Michelle whispered and locked her eyes on the front of the cave. She spotted a dirt path lined with torches leading away from the cave. “Where is—” she began to ask again but stopped when she heard a man yell out in a pleading voice.

  “Let us go! Please!” Michelle dashed to the front of the cave, squatted down, and looked down the dirt path. The path led to a small hut village lined by more torches. She couldn't see into the village.

  “Momma Peach has to be in there,” she said, took out her gun and checked it. “Okay...let's...” Michelle began to say but stopped. She threw her head back toward the tunnel and thought of Grace. “Let's go get my partner.”

  Grace kept her eyes on the tunnel and when she saw Michelle reappear, her heart sighed with relief. “What did you see?”

  Michelle hurried up to Grace and squatted down. “I spotted a small village...no guards, though. I also heard the sound of a man crying out for help?” Michelle looked at Jasmine. “Talk.”

  Jasmine knew something was wrong. Andrea always kept guards posted. Andrea also always kept the men she was holding captive sedated with the special burning plant. If the men were awake and crying for help, that meant Andrea wasn't inside the village, which meant...Michelle had not been lying after all. “How do you think the women live?” she asked in a shaky voice. “Andrea understands biology. The women...the time has come for them to have children. Every twenty years, the birth cycle must be carried out. Men are stolen and…well…what is needed for a woman to conceive is…taken from their bodies. Afterward, the men are forced to drink from a plant that causes a person to fall into a hypnotic state and—”

  “Their memories are erased, yeah, I get it,” Michelle told Jasmine. “Disgusting, still.”

  “I've never heard of such a plant,” Grace said uneasily.

  “You wouldn't,” Jasmine snapped. “The plant isn't one that grows on its own. The plant has been created through centuries of...experimentation, I guess you can say. I stay away from it because it...scares me.”

  Michelle didn't have time to worry about this strange plant. Momma Peach was her only concern. “Okay, Grace,” she said and began to stand up. Movement caught her eye. “Freeze!” she calle
d out.

  “It’s me, Evan,” Evan answered Michelle. “Oh, thank goodness.”

  “Evan?” Michelle lowered her gun.

  Evan appeared with Andrea in tow. Andrea had a white bandage wrapped around her forehead. “She led me here,” Evan explained. “Tell them why.”

  “Dynamite,” Andrea explained, looked down at her sister with disgust, and then bowed her head. “I will help you free Momma Peach and then blow up the cave. It’s the only way out. My girls and I will forever be trapped.” Andrea slowly raised her eyes. Andrea kicked at Jasmine. “My sister will join us.”

  “No!” Jasmine begged and began trying to struggle in her bonds. Michelle shoved her down with her right foot. “No deal, sister,” Michelle told Andrea. “Four men are dead,” she reminded Andrea. “Evan, watch them. If these two try anything...shoot them.”

  Evan let out a heavy sigh. “I figured you wouldn't go along with this woman's idea,” he told Michelle. “Yeah...you're the kind who has to do things the hard way, so go do it. At least this mess is going to end tonight...one way or another.”

  “Please,” Andrea begged Michelle, “my girls—”

  “Your girls killed three men at your orders,” Michelle snapped at Andrea. “Murder is murder, girly. I'm not interested in your pity-party talk. Grace, come on.”

  Andrea looked at Evan. Evan shook his head at her. “Very well,” she said, sat down, and stopped struggling against the ropes holding her hands together.

  Michelle and Grace ran into the cave with their guns at the ready. “Okay, here's the way of it,” Michelle said, studying the glowing village, “there's more of them than us and there's sure no way we're going to outrun them.” Michelle looked around. “You have to go find the dynamite Andrea was talking about.”

  “Why?” Grace asked.

  “We have to trap these women in this cave until the authorities can dig them out,” Michelle explained. “Go find the dynamite and place it all around this entry point. When you see me come running with Momma Peach, light the dynamite and haul butt.”