OtherWorld

by Sarah Dreher

  “Me, too,” Callie Rose agreed. “Always looked like the Way to Hell to me. I never had the nerve to try that one.”

  Well, they might as well go. Stoner nodded to Aunt Hermione and together they took a step down the stairs.

  The darkness rose like water to meet them, lapping at their feet and ankles. It was cold. Not musty basement cold, but sharply cold. Like the inside of a frozen food locker. Like a winter night. Like the water in a January pond.

  “Marylou,” Stoner called over her shoulder as the cold rose to her knees, “are you with us?”

  “Right behind you,” Marylou answered, and embellished it with a few choruses of “Not real, not real.” She thrust her sandwich forward into Stoner’s line of vision. “Want to try this? It’s truly excellent.”

  “No, thanks. I’m not hungry.”

  “You really should eat something. It’s no wonder you’re hallucinating.”

  “I’m not hallucinating,” Stoner said firmly. “This is really happening.”

  “Suit yourself.” Marylou returned to her mantra.

  They were waist-deep in cold now. And darkness. Stoner strained to see, to make out anything—a work bench, a shelf, a window, a crack of light anywhere.

  Nothing.

  Callie Rose had come this way before, she reminded herself. It couldn’t be as bad as it looked. Besides, they really didn’t have a choice.

  Somehow not having a choice didn’t make it any easier. In fact, it put her back in all those old childhood “not-having-a-choice” situations—like doctor and dentist appointments, and the first day of school, and endless vacations in the family car touring Civil War battlefields, with no one to talk to and her parents fighting in the front seat. Helpless, miserable, impotent situations.

  Even Aunt Hermione seemed shaken. She was quieter than usual, and though Stoner couldn’t see her face, she could feel her energy. It wasn’t optimistic energy.

  “Stoner.” She heard a whisper behind her.

  “Yes, Marylou?”

  “Was this part of the ride when you went on it before?”

  “No.”

  “Should we be afraid?”

  “Callie Rose doesn’t think so.”

  “That’s right!” Marylou said with a sigh of relief. “I forgot. Silly me.”

  Stoner felt a flash of sympathy for her friend. “Silly you,” she said with a little laugh.

  “Don’t get lost,” Callie Rose called from up front.

  Don’t get lost? How can we not get lost when we’ve been lost from the minute we warped into this dimension?

  She took a tighter grip on the blanket.

  There was no way she could tell where she was now. The darkness was so complete, so unremitting it seemed to be not just around and above her, but beneath her feet. The darkness ate sound, and thought, and only motion seemed real. She knew Aunt Hermione was beside her. She could feel the tug on the blanket-stretcher when they drifted out of step with one another. It was comforting, and she was tempted to miss a step now and then just to be reminded of her aunt’s presence. But she was afraid of jerking the stretcher.

  After a while it seemed that she was being carried forward farther and faster than by her steps alone. She felt off-balance. She might fall. She...

  She felt someone near her. “This is the scary part,” Callie Rose said. “But it’s okay. We’ll be somewhere pretty soon.”

  “Where do we come out,” she asked.

  “Sometimes one place, sometimes another. Wherever it takes us.”

  “You mean you can’t decide where to go?”

  “I never could,” the girl said. “That’s how come I was so scared when I talked to you. You probably aren’t scared at all.”

  “I’m scared,” Stoner said. “Very scared.”

  “You’re joshin’.”

  “No, I’m really scared.”

  She felt Callie Rose take her free hand for a moment. “Well, I never woulda thought you’d be scared of anything.” Then she was gone, presumably to lead the way.

  I know, Stoner thought wryly. Nobody ever expects me to be scared. They always think I can fix things, or do the stuff that needs to be done, or make the decisions...

  Only Gwen really knew the truth.

  She wanted Gwen to talk to her, to hold her… wanted it so badly it was an ache in her stomach. She missed the sound of her voice, and the way she’d suddenly reach out in a crowd and touch Stoner’s hand and whisper, “I love you,” for no reason at all and completely unexpectedly. They always laughed together—nobody had ever made Stoner laugh the way Gwen did. She wanted to laugh with her now. She wanted to play Scrabble with her, or sit beside her and read. She wished...

  Stoner felt the tears begin to squeeze from her eyes. She wanted Gwen to be alive, and warm and talking—not this cold, silent...thing ...she was carrying along in a blanket. This wasn’t Gwen. Gwen had gone away somewhere. Gwen was...

  …dead.

  She stopped in her tracks. “Aunt Hermione?”

  “Yes, Stoner?”

  “I think Gwen’s…”

  “No, dear, it’s this darkness, whatever it is. It plays with your emotions. I can’t tell you how many horrors I’ve been reliving.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Sometimes there are disadvantages to being in touch with one’s past lives.”

  “I’m sorry,” Stoner said. She had to find out if Gwen was still alive. “I’m going to put her down a minute. I want to check her pulse.” She started to lower her side of the blanket.

  “No!” Aunt Hermione pulled up on her side.

  “What?”

  “I don’t mean to frighten you, but there’s nothing beneath us.”

  “What?”

  “Beneath us. Nothing.”

  “But what are we walking on?”

  “Whatever you’re walking on is all there is for you, and what I’m walking on is all there is for me. Do you understand?”

  She understood, all right. This was like one of those dreams where you have to go from one place to another. It’s terribly important, though you don’t know why, and the only way to do it is by crossing bottomless chasms on two by fours which are only attached to the ground on one end, and things are always sliding unexpectedly so your whole body jerks and almost wakes up but doesn’t, and if you make it across there are deep, narrow underground tunnels you have to crawl through with the earth threatening to fall in on you any second and...

  She hadn’t had dreams like that in a long time. Not since she’d had the good sense to run away from home at the age of sixteen.

  “I didn’t want to tell you,” her aunt said. “It’s quite a terrifying thought, isn’t it?”

  Just to make sure, Stoner eased one foot out to the right and felt… nothing. Okay. Now we just keep on going as we were before. Nothing happened then, nothing’s going to happen now. Keep on going, and trust to instinct. Little kids do it all the time. They climb to dizzying heights. They cross fallen trees over rushing streams. They don’t think about it, they just do it.

  So just DO IT.

  She was completely frozen.

  The darkness seemed to close in tighter, while the space around her grew more empty.

  She made an interesting discovery: it’s possible to have claustrophobia and agoraphobia at the same time.

  “Aunt Hermione?”

  “Yes, Stoner.”

  “I don’t think I can move.”

  “Of course you can,” her aunt said, and started forward, dragging the blanket stretcher with her.

  Stoner stumbled, then ran a step or two to catch up.

  “I think,” Aunt Hermione said, “you’d do well to take a page from Marylou’s book.”

  “Okay.” She turned her mind inward and began a silent chant, “Not real, not real, not real.”

  She didn’t believe it for a minute.

  But she did believe the faint patch of light ahead. It looked like natural light, like maybe the first gray da
wn light, or evening on a cloudy day. She didn’t care. It was light, and meant they’d be out of this infernal darkness. Then she could put the stretcher down and see if Gwen was...

  The light sputtered and winked out, like a candle in a sudden draft.

  Another illusion.

  Stoner could feel her nerves sparking under her skin. She wanted to give up, to let her mind shatter. She was exhausted, and confused, and frightened, and just didn’t care any more.

  Let go, she thought. Let go and you won’t have to do this. Someone else will take over, or we’ll all die—anything, it doesn’t matter. All I have to do is let go.

  Another smear of gray light appeared up ahead. Another illusion, another tease.

  Or was it?

  She strained to focus on it, to try to make out something, anything that would tell her this time it was real, this time they would find the end of this nightmare. But it was still too far away.

  Her legs were shaking with fatigue. Her arms burned and trembled with the weight of Gwen’s body. Yes, body. She was sure of it now. It was Gwen’s body they carried, nothing more.

  Gwen was gone. The rest of them weren’t going to make it. Even if that small window of light turned out to be the end, they’d never get that far.

  Let go now, she thought, just let go. Stop fighting, stop trying, stop...

  She heard what she was thinking. Rage flowed through her.

  “You son-of-a-bitch,” she screamed into the darkness. “You don’t beat me this way.”

  CHAPTER 15

  George ran her hands through the grass, feeling for a break in the sod. It had to be here somewhere. She was sure of it. And there was someone down there, too. She’d heard a sound a few minutes ago. A banging sound, maybe distant voices. She didn’t care that no one else had heard it. Something was going on underneath her and she didn’t need a Gallup Poll to tell her she was right.

  She sat back. “Stape?” she called softly.

  “Yeah?” Stape crawled toward her through the darkness. Lumbering along on her hands and knees, dressed in her work overalls and tool belt, she looked like a slow, lumpy old bear.

  You silly thing, George thought. You’re as clumsy as a puppy, and you can’t half hear because you pound nails all day. You never remember to put your socks in the laundry hamper, and when you need them we have to crawl under the bed and you have to wear them dirty—or mismatched. You have a memory like a sieve, especially if what you’re supposed to remember is errands or groceries. And I know you sneak drinks and cigarettes with Rita in the back room at the club. But, hey, I’m no bargain, either. And I do love you so.

  “What?” Stape prompted.

  “Did you hear something?” She knew she hadn’t, but she just wanted to be close to her for a moment.

  “Hell, don’t ask me,” Stape said. “You know how I am.”

  George smiled to herself. Stape wasn’t stupid. There wasn’t anything she couldn’t learn or fix or solve or build if she put her mind to it. Their trailer looked like the periodicals room at the public library with all the books and magazines she read. But she was uncomplicated. And, living in a world full of people who seemed to thrive on complication, George found Stape to be as cooling and refreshing as a spring rain. She made George feel safe, made it seem as if this living thing was do-able. Because Stape didn’t think about it, she just did it.

  “Know what Stoner told me back at the club?” Stape said. “She told me it gets so cold up there where they live the bugs die. They go three, four months out of the year without bugs.”

  “Maybe we should try moving there for a couple of years,” George said. Stape hated bugs. She often said the only bad thing about the aluminum siding business was what you ran into when you pulled the old siding off.

  Stape gave it a moment of thought. “Nah. People from up north are too nervous. I wouldn’t want to get that way.”

  Behind her she could hear Frenchie and Tom laughing softly. She knew they thought she was a jerk for believing in abductions and underground tunnels. Maybe she was. Maybe it wasn’t possible for someone to dig an entrance through from the lawn behind the Mexico pavilion without being seen. On the other hand, if they did it on Tom and Frenchie’s watch, they could bring in a back hoe and those two wouldn’t notice. They’d be too busy telling make-out stories and trying to believe their own lies.

  A sound caught her attention. “Did you hear that?”

  Stape put her ear to the ground. She frowned, listening. “Yep,” she said after a moment. “There sure is something down there.”

  * * *

  The light didn’t wink out this time. Instead, it grew wider and taller. With each step she took forward, it seemed to Stoner the edges were losing their solidness, becoming insubstantial and hazy. What only a few moments ago had looked like a window or door was now a fusion of light and darkness, as if she had been in dark woods and was emerging into twilight.

  The tunnel light could be that color, she thought hopefully. Fluorescent lamps reflected from gray walls would give off misty light like that. She slowed, feeling the anger that had brought her through the past few minutes giving way to exhaustion. It was solid beneath her feet now, too. Things were looking up. Time to catch their breath and take a head count. She lowered the blanket gently to the ground.

  Aunt Hermione was there, of course. And Gwen, still among the living, still on the edge. The chanting, humming behind her must be Marylou. She turned to look.

  “I must say,” Marylou proclaimed as she strode into the light, “I have a real problem with this ride. It’s much too long, and not a great deal of fun. Though I must compliment the Disney organization on their Special Effects. Best I’ve seen since ‘Lawnmower Man.’ Do you suppose this is one of those Virtual Reality things?”

  “I don’t think so,” Stoner said. “It’s Real Reality.”

  “Nonsense,” Marylou snorted.

  “It is.” She turned to her aunt. “Tell her.”

  “Excuse me,” Marylou said abruptly before Aunt Hermione could respond, “but I think you have some nerve, defining my reality for me.”

  “She has a point,” Aunt Hermione said.

  “It’s the height of arrogance,” Marylou persisted.

  Stoner didn’t feel like arguing. So she had lapsed for a second. So she had thought, if she could get her friend to admit the true terror in the situation, they might have the benefit of one more person’s input. They might, for God’s sake, be in this together. But if Marylou was going to stubbornly cling to her one-sided view of things… “Has anyone seen Callie Rose?” she asked.

  “She was up ahead last time I checked,” Aunt Hermione said. She turned inward. “It’s hard to tell just where she is now, but I sense she’s definitely in the vicinity. I suspect she’s looking for the entrance.” She studied Stoner’s face. “You seem reluctant to go on.”

  Stoner nodded. “I guess I’m afraid we’ll never find the end. We’ll just keep going and going, and never get anywhere.”

  “It does seem that way, doesn’t it?”

  She was startled. Aunt Hermione having a crisis of confidence? Aunt Hermione, who always seemed to believe they were watched over at all times by a loving and protective Spirit? Who was convinced everything would work out the way their own High Spirits had sat down and decided it long before they were born—just a bunch of High Spirits sitting around planning a trip to Earth. What’ll we do this time, gang? I don’t know, what do you think? I decided last time. Well, let’s see, we’ve done Fame and Fortune and Fun. I’ve got it, this time let’s SUFFER!

  Aunt Hermione sensed her surprise and smiled. “I know it’s unsettling for you when I become discouraged, Stoner. It always has been. But, if you’ll think back, you’ll recall that I always recover.”

  “I know.” She was a little ashamed of herself.

  “But, no matter how discouraged we are, I think we should press on.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we have only one o
ther option—to stay where we are. And that seems a particularly unproductive decision.”

  She had to agree. Carefully, she looked ahead, taking a few steps into the light.

  It was mist that had caused the grayness. Mist and steam. They were in the middle of another jungle. But not an ordinary jungle. This jungle had trees as tall as skyscrapers, with canopied branches like monstrous umbrellas. Flowers the size of rooms, and blades of grass reaching into the sky like radio towers. Insects as large as elephants clung to house-sized toadstools. Gigantic ferns caught shreds of low-lying clouds and dripped a constant waterfall of condensing moisture.

  The place reeked of rotting vegetation, the peaty, earthy small of swamp water, and—something else, something familiar but she couldn’t quite place it… Sulphur. The air was heavy with sulphur. And heat. Stoner had the feeling she knew where they were. The Energy pavilion. Complete with volcanos, earthquakes, and prehistoric creatures. She didn’t like it. Didn’t like it at all.

  She turned to go back, even at the risk of confronting the darkness with its ability to scramble her mind. But the entrance was gone.

  An animal shrieked in the distance.

  “Well,” said Marylou, “that certainly is dramatic. I wonder where we are now.”

  “I know where we are,” Stoner said. “And we really, really don’t want to be here.”

  “I can see why.” Marylou wrinkled her nose. “It’s downright putrid.”

  “And dangerous.” She started to pick up her side of the blanket stretcher and had an idea. If she could get away for a few minutes—her whole consciousness was tied to worrying about Gwen, and time, and the necessity for hurry. Maybe, if she could put that behind her, she could think more clearly. Because she had the feeling there were Answers out there, just beyond reach but reachable.

  She looked over her shoulder. “Marylou, can you help Aunt Hermione carry for a while? I want to scout on ahead.”

  She moved very carefully through misted moonlight. Bubbling lava oozed in a stream to her right. Good. If she became lost, she could find her way back by following the flow of glowing, molten rock. The shifting fog made vision difficult. She tripped, and crashed into a giant fern.