A Shrouded World 7

by Mark Tufo

  At first, I said it because I meant it; I knew he was tired—how could he not be? Then I started to think: if he could dissolve a piece of metal, what could he do to flesh and bone? Even if it was just by accident, I had no desire to find out what it felt like to be a dropped ice cream cone on a hot cement walkway in the middle of July in Georgia. My words seemed to spur Bob on, he was going to walk as far as he could with me in his arms before letting me down. He was determined not to miss his feeding time again.

  “I can do it, Bob. I promise.” I meant the promise as I verbalized it, now I just had to take it a step further and actualize it. Bob twisted me around so my feet could touch down, and we could continue without me having to waste time getting up. It wasn’t quite like getting out of a moving car, but I still had to get my reluctant legs going so that I didn’t fall over as he gently deposited me. I did good for a while; I was determined not to let Bob down. By the time we reached the third rest area, Bob was ushering me along. I don’t know why he was so compelled to help me, but I was grateful for it, even as the pungent porridge was being force-fed to me. Whereas I was tolerating the substance, Bob was contentedly cooing. To each their own. Hell, some people liked Moxie. Who am I to judge? But yeah, I was judging. Anyone that liked that bitter concoction had problems that needed to be medicated away.

  Instead of taking the time allotted to us to rest, I kept moving. It was too damn difficult to get going again. We’d been walking for a while when I received another belly bump. I looked up to see directly ahead of us an opening—we’d made it to the interior. I figured this was about the time I should be feeling terrified. I suppose I was, but it was buried so deep in fatigue it wasn’t currently relevant. This had just been the climb to get in, what if now our goal was the top? Would that even be possible under the current conditions?

  14

  Mike Journal Entry 3

  Once in, we were finally given some time to rest. It wasn’t comfortable by any means, as our amenities only included a cold, impartial floor, but it was bliss. I barely made it to an unoccupied space before I collapsed and fell into a deep slumber, fueled by a complete system failure on the part of my body. Again I wondered if Jack was nearby, but the concern quickly melted away into the blackness of a deep unconsciousness. I awoke to the coupling of my feed tube. It is not a pleasant sensation to find yourself eating while sleeping. Bob was directly behind me; I got the sense he was asleep. His eyes were pulled in an inch or two from the surface, though he was still standing, and from someone casually looking from a distance, he appeared awake. That seemed to be enough to keep Warty away, wherever he was.

  I’d no sooner finished eating when I felt a shot of adrenal course through my body. It would seem that not only was my skull cap able to deliver pain at will, but it was tapped into my brain too. If it could give my adrenal gland a goose, what else could it do? No reason to believe they couldn’t induce paranoia, or mess with the chemical balance to the point I became suicidal, or homicidal, which wouldn’t take much, given our conditions. No doubt it could create hallucinations; was there a chance that even now I was living in a nightmare created by an outside force? That did it. Pissed off didn’t even begin to describe how I felt. My mind might not be even relatively close to the sharpest of tools, but it was mine, and fuck them for coming in uninvited. To be so completely at the mercy of another was terrifying. There was every reason to think they could do as they pleased, even to the point of removing hope. They were at the helm, in complete control of my ship. How does one even begin to contend with that?

  We were walking again because that was my life now. It defined me. When this was all over, I was going to dedicate myself to being a fitness trainer; it would revolve around the slogan: Get Fit or Die Trying!

  There were, at least, two periods of sleep. I had no way of knowing if they were spaced out at twenty-four-hour intervals; all I knew was I welcomed each one, and I seriously wouldn’t have been that bummed if it was my last, meaning, I wouldn’t care if I didn’t wake. Not that I wanted that, but...

  “Maybe the most advanced civilization I’ve ever encountered, and the douche bags haven’t heard of elevators,” I sighed as we were walking.

  “Bob.”

  “I know, right?! You get it.”

  I was zoning out. All of the available power I had was diverted to my legs. My brain was allowed to switch to autopilot, something it had been fairly used to doing on earth, which was, basically, not thinking.

  “Mike.” I heard my name in that irritating, high robot twang. I wondered why I’d even said my name aloud, when it came again. “Mike.” This was accompanied by a shaking of my shoulder and a deep grumbling from Bob, though it came out more like a release of air from a whoopie cushion. Weird. He was trying to be mean, but sounded like something my infantile humor adored. “Mike! Wake up, I don’t have much time!”

  “Milk.” Bob was doing his best at an echo.

  Time? That seemed to be all I have. For some reason, my eyes had been focused so far out, I could not see what or who was standing before me.

  “Mike, man, it’s me, Jack. I need you alert.”

  “Milk.”

  “Jack in the Bean Stalk Jack or Jack Frost or that Jack from the Titanic?” I was not thrilled with how close my mind was to slipping over the abyss.

  “Jack Walker!” This was accompanied by a stinging smack to the side of my face and dome.

  Bob interceded, whoopie farting again. The hit stung like a bitch but once the ringing bell in my head faded, I was able to clear my mind. “Fuck, Jack. Sorry. I’ve been so lost in my…in my head for a while.”

  “Can you tell your, um, friend here to move?” Jack was attempting to peer around Bob’s immense bulk.

  “Bob, it’s okay.”

  “Bob?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah, Bob. Long story. Pretty sure we’re long lost kin. Fourth cousin, twice removed; he’s probably from the South.”

  “Mike! This is fucking important.” Bob had sidestepped, allowing Jack to get into my face.

  “I’m listening, I’m listening.” I wasn’t. I was, in actuality, struggling to see if this was a fabricated lie. Could this truly be Jack? It was more likely I had neurons in my brain rearranged to believe it was.

  “I hope you are, man, because this is crucial and I have to leave. Soon, you’ll be coming up on multiple forks on your pathway.”

  I had it in my mind the forks were for eating cake, if that gives you an idea of how much I was concentrating on the conversation at hand.

  “There are seven tunnels. The first two, you go to the far right, the third the far left, the fourth you go through the second to the right, and the fifth one is dead center. Are you with me so far?”

  I felt like I’d just smoked a bong and now had to contend with the cop that was giving me an advanced calculus problem. Glazed eyes and not a cohesive thought…about normal. I nodded because I could follow the simple commands.

  “The sixth is the pathway immediately to the right of center, and the last is again to the far right. Fuck, I have to go. Don’t fuck this up.” He grabbed my head between his hands. “This is for your life, Mike.” I realize he was attempting to reiterate how important this was, but right then, I wasn’t even sure if he was real. Tough to give a shit about a hallucination, even a pretty convincing one.

  “Got it, got it,” I lied. I’d got as far as the first two were to the right. I’d be lucky if I could follow the yellow brick road at this point.

  “Okay, and I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  And just like that, Jack was gone, if he’d ever been there at all. “Did he sound funny to you?” Bob didn’t answer, he may have shaken his head; when you are one continuous shape, it's difficult to tell.

  We walked to the point where I had convinced myself Jack wasn’t even a real person, ever; this entire thing a construct to keep my mind occupied while my body received abuse. Wouldn’t be the first time a person had retreated within when whatever was on the o
utside was beyond the scope of coping.

  “Bob.” Then I received a sticky hip check.

  I looked up to see that the path had been partitioned, like separate tunnels on a vast thoroughfare. “That’s weird.” And I kept plodding on.

  Another hip check, Bob headed to the right. I followed; seemed prudent. The tunnel wasn’t long, a couple hundred yards at the most. When we got to the end, they all led out to the same place, and we walked on. A small, recessed, purple LED lit up on the side of Bob’s cap. Those nearest to us had the same purple light; most others had something close to a sunbaked yellow. Trudged for another hour or so. We’d been staying a lot closer to the right side than I would like; there was nothing even remotely similar to a safety railing, and although it wasn’t overly common, more than a few had stumbled off or been carelessly bumped into and knocked over the side. Before I knew it, we were once again inside a tunnel. When we came through the other side, Bob’s hat donned two purple lights. Again, those nearest to us sported the same configuration, and now most of the others had two yellows.

  None of it made even the slightest impression on me until after our food break. Once I added some fuel for the brain, thoughts of Jack and some mumbled words came back into play. This was when a serious dose of panic seized all future thoughts. I clearly remembered the two right leading directions; after that, it was like I was fourteen and my mother was giving me a list of chores to do while she went out. Might as well have been the muffled trumpet sound of adults on a Peanuts show.

  “Bob, was Jack real?”

  “Bob.”

  “Are you sure? He didn’t seem real, and where would he have just shown up from? And then he disappeared; that makes no sense.”

  Bob pressed his eyes out, first so he was bug-eyed, and then to the point he looked like he was a cartoon character and a sexy female version of a gumdrop had walked by, whatever that entailed, maybe she would have been frosted in powdered sugar. For this particular scenario, he was only trying to make a point.

  “Okay, okay, put your eyes back inside your head.” Those were words I never thought I’d utter. “I get it. Jack was real.”

  “Bob.” He sounded content that I believed him.

  “If he’s real, and it's important which lanes we travel down, I think it was far left for the next one. After that, Bob, I don’t have a clue.”

  “Bob.”

  “Are you shitting me? Do you know where to go? I didn’t know you spoke Jack-anese. I knew we were friends for a reason. That’s another question, Bob, why? Why me?”

  Before he could answer, we were given the warning to get moving again. We slowly weaved our way to the far left. With the crowding, it took a lot longer than it should have. By the time we got there, we were once again heading under.

  “Fuck me,” I muttered as I looked around. Bob had three purple lights; I would imagine I had the same. The vast majority around us did not. Didn’t know what it ultimately meant, but I planned on following the program. “Do I have the same lights as you?” I asked Bob.

  I watched as he pulled the hat down into his stomach. He reached in with small arms he’d formed and pulled it out so he could look at his.

  “Bob,” he answered affirmatively as he put everything back where it belonged.

  “I wish I could get my hat off.”

  “Bob,” he said, cryptically.

  We were five tunnels in, five solid purple lights. I didn’t know whether to feel special or marked. If any of the beings around us noticed the variance, none said anything or gave more than a cursory glance. The meaning would be as foreign to them as everything else. It was the sixth tunnel that presented the biggest challenge thus far. Bob had stopped dead center on the walkway; I made sure to get in front as the throngs streamed by. No idea what it was about Bob, but nobody wanted anything to do with him.

  “Please tell me you didn’t forget which way to go.” I couldn’t be mad at him; my usefulness had run out shortly after I’d been removed from my cell. Bob was silent. “Let’s reason it out. We’ll…” A sticky hand emerged from the side of his body and spread across the front of my mask and the tinny speaker. Not gonna lie, this was the first time I was happy I was wearing the rubbery contraption, so we hadn’t made a skin to gumdrop connection.

  Then, because it just wasn’t weird enough, I heard Jack’s voice again being played over some internal tape recorder. “The sixth is the pathway immediately to the right of center. The last is again far right. Fuck, I have to go. Don’t fuck this up.”

  “Had to leave the ‘don’t fuck this up’ part in, didn’t you?”

  “Bob.” No doubt in my mind, there was a humorous slant to his answer.

  “Let’s go.” For once, I was leading instead of being steered along.

  15

  Mike Journal Entry 4

  I took a deep breath as I gazed upon the seventh and, supposedly, last entry point. The question now was: what happened next? It wasn’t going to be fields of poppy. I’d seen Jack; he still had the cap and the facepiece over his mouth and nose.

  “You ready for this?” I asked, but Bob was already ambling by. He’d made up his mind. This tunnel, unlike the others, was long and winding. Throw in some mountain views and it would have been idyllic… (is there any need to express the sarcasm or does it bleed through appropriately?) There was a translucent barrier at what we figured was the conclusion of the tunnel. I looked over to Bob and we headed forward. When we broke through that slight electrical field, it was absolute fucking bedlam and pandemonium. Monsters were running around, there was screaming and crying, and, I think, all manner of pleading for mothers.

  When the world spun on a more stable axis, I used to enjoy watching those shows on how food was made. One episode in particular fit this scenario closely. It was about corn. After the vegetable was shucked, cleaned and shorn, the individual kernels headed down a huge conveyor belt to a drop off where a high-speed camera was able to detect pieces that were either not fit for human consumption or just not high enough quality—maybe slightly brown when it should have been sunshine yellow. The unbelievable part was that, when that substandard piece was detected, a highly concentrated and well-aimed burst of air would push just that kernel off the belt. It fell out of the area and into a container that I’m sure was used for livestock feed or to make high glucose corn syrup or a thousand other things. It was unreal to me to watch these hundreds of thousands of pieces falling over a ledge while individual ones got picked off. It defied anything my oft-baked brain could justify.

  This was close to that, but instead of here and there pieces being rejected, the majority were selected, blown away by blasts of air so powerful I could hear bones being broken upon impact. If that wasn’t bad enough, the creatures were pushed off into the abyss; right into the unknown. There were commands to Stay still! but there was no stopping the massive stampede as creatures large and small scurried in every direction they could, except for back. The wall we’d come through was a one way, no reentry without a valid stamp, and it didn’t seem like any of us had one. Saw more than one monster smash its face into that seemingly ephemeral barrier. I didn’t even care when Bob’s hands wrapped around my mid-section. I didn’t know if he was doing it to comfort me, himself, or to make sure I didn’t go running off. Animals were being hurled around like they were stunt people on thick cables. Some were doing cartwheels, others face down on the walkway snapping fingers or hooves, attempting to seek purchase before they went screaming over the edge. My heart was laboring as I watched the carnage, yeah, I couldn’t even identify most of the things that were being killed, but suffering and terror was something I saw in all of them.

  For all of the mini-gale force winds being thrown around, I never so much as felt a mild breeze. Maybe it was because I was nearly enrobed in gummy, or maybe that was just how perfect their system was. After a few minutes of watching and wondering when the hammer was going to drop, I watched as large drones with even larger arms flew down. Bob let go o
f me as one picked him up. I was alone and was thinking about making a run for it, but when one is inside a blender where do you run to? The edge of the blade or the side of the container? Either place makes you puree. It wasn’t long before I was rising, getting my own personal flight. A large, horned creature was running for me, arms outstretched. If it was able to grab hold of me, I’d be ripped in half like baited chum to a shark. I raised my legs as the thing launched. No doubt it had me—then, as its outstretched arm grazed my thigh, it was blasted violently to the side by the sorting air, its arms still reaching as it fell helplessly away into the void.

  I’d dodged a bullet. Still didn’t know if that only meant I was destined to be stood up against a wall. I wanted to take a calming breath, and I might have, except I noticed off to my side Warty was being airlifted as well. My apparent arch-nemesis must have followed Bob and myself as we wound our way through the puzzle. We kept moving higher, to the point that the bedlam below lost all semblance of chaos. I couldn’t hear the cries of pain or alarm; eventually, I could barely see any of the creatures. Somehow, through it all, I found myself to be extremely tired. I questioned how that could be with all the excitement happening and all that could still happen, then I noticed Warty was out cold. The fuckers were messing around with our melatonin production; sleep was being forced upon us.

  When I awoke, I was in a Five-Star Caribbean resort, sleeping in a California king-sized bed with some crazy thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and blankets. A large basket of fruit sat on the table in the kitchen area. Succulent red apples glistened in the tropical sun, alongside fruit-of-the-month caliber pears, bananas, avocados, and kiwis. I didn’t even care that I detested the last two; I’d still eat them. As I turned my head to see who my sleeping partner was, the dream faded away to be replaced by a much bleaker reality. Bob was next to me, deep asleep. Warty was close by…if I could get my sludge-filled limbs to move, my best bet would be to kill him before he did the same to me.