by Tammy Walsh
“Have you thought about trying something different?” I said.
“My crew is depending on me.”
“Someone else can’t be their captain?”
He cocked his head to one side.
“You don’t like that I’m a pirate?”
No, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“It seems to me that you’re better suited to… other things,” I said.
“Not all of us can be historians,” he said, smiling at me.
Boy, did I like that smile.
He looked like a boy, a dimple rising to one cheek.
The boyish quality clashed with his otherwise monstrous appearance—his sheer size, bulk, strength, and the twisted horns.
He was nothing like the monster I thought he was.
Except in bed.
The rumors, so often disappointing when it came to other prisoners, had certainly been true of this particular prisoner.
“How about you?” he said.
I wondered when he would ask me that.
“I’d like to return home,” I said.
“Then home you shall return.”
“You’ll let me go?” I said, surprised at this revelation.
“Of course. You have a home to return to. And no doubt, your family and friends will be missing you.”
Would they? I wondered.
I figured my landlord would be more concerned as I hadn’t paid my rent in a year.
The police would have gotten involved, trying to locate me.
They might even have fingered the wrong guy, thinking I had been kidnapped by a human.
“My family’s not close,” I said. “We’re a family of black sheep. When I moved away from home to study at college, I rarely contacted them. I let them know I was fine every now and then but they never worried about me.”
“It’s a terrible thing, not to feel like you belong,” Egara said.
I looked him over.
Was that how he felt?
With who? I wondered.
“I never felt that way,” I said. “The truth is, I never really belonged in my hometown. It was so small, so parochial. A great place to retire, but not the kind of place I wanted to spend my life. I became fascinated with history, with the pursuits and efforts of greater men and women.”
Egara reached out a hand and gently rubbed my cheek.
“You are a great woman.”
Then his eyes flicked over from my cheek to my eyes.
No one had ever said that to me.
No one had ever thought I was special or unique.
Just one of many.
“We should get some sleep,” I said.
“Yes,” Egara said. “With any luck, tomorrow we will be on our way off this planet and we will never return to it again.”
That sounded good to me.
I curled up and rubbed my arms around myself.
I still felt a little awkward sleeping without a blanket.
I mashed the sand up, forming a rudimentary pillow.
It was chilly and I shivered.
Egara curled up behind me, spooning me, and wrapped his arm around me.
He would be my blanket, I realized.
My security blanket.
His warmth pressed against my back and I hugged his arm.
He couldn’t have been comfortable with the position but did not complain.
Concealed within his warm embrace, I found sleep easily.
I knew something was wrong the moment I woke up.
The sand slipped down my collar and rubbed at the delicate skin of my lower back.
I slept well for most of the night but for about the past thirty minutes or so, I drifted in and out of sleep due to a lump digging into my back.
I took it to be Egara, growing amorous during the night.
He didn’t wake me, didn’t probe me further.
I suspected we were both exhausted from the previous day’s activities.
I rolled over and got more comfortable.
That would last for a few minutes before I once again felt that lump digging into my back.
When I blinked and opened my eyes, I stretched and peered up at the night sky.
The stars were completely different from what I was used to.
But right then, that wasn’t what took me most by surprise.
It was the fact they were moving.
Of course, that was impossible—at least, not at the speed I was watching them move now.
Another sliver of sand slipped down the back of my shirt, causing me to shiver.
Then I realized.
The stars and the sky weren’t moving.
I was.
But how could that be?
I reached down to Egara’s arm wrapped around my waist.
My hand came in contact with something cold and slimy.
It wasn’t Egara.
My groggy eyes burst open, suddenly wide awake.
I peered down at that strong arm wrapped around my waist.
It was green.
And there were no fingers on the end of the long arm, no knob of wrist muscles.
In fact, no muscles at all.
Even if I thought it was his arms clasped tightly around me, I knew it couldn’t be Egara.
I couldn’t feel his muscular chest pressing comfortingly against me.
I couldn’t feel his powerful heartbeat pulsing.
Or the warm sensation of his breaths pressing against my neck and the occasional kiss of his lips while he dreamed.
Then there was that mysterious sand sliding under my shirt and out the other end.
And then, of course, there was the smell.
The rancid stench of rotting eggs hit me full-bore.
The thing wrapped around me wasn’t Egara’s arm.
But it was an arm.
It trailed like a thick rope across the desert floor behind me, pulling me up an incline.
It was so long I couldn’t make out what was at the other end as it disappeared over the rise.
It was leading me toward that disgusting smell, I thought. The stench grew stronger the closer I drew to it.
Whatever it was, I didn’t want to go anywhere near it.
I placed my hands on the vine belt wrapped about my waist and pulled at it.
When that didn’t work, I clawed at the slimy surface with my nails.
I scratched it and in response, it tightened its grip.
“Let go!” I said.
It squeezed harder and sucked the air from my lungs.
I could hardly breathe.
I felt those same panicking breaths I had the day before when I first came to this new environment.
I rolled over and gripped the vine.
I pulled against it and slammed my fists on it.
And still, it continued with that slow relentless journey up the incline.
I peered at the line my ass left in the sand, disappearing over the rise, leading to the sand dunes in the distance.
“Egara!” I yelled. “Egara! Help! Something’s got me! Egara—!”
Another vine—smaller than the main one pulling me up the incline—snaked up from between my breasts and wound around my face.
It gripped my cheeks and pressed hard into my mouth.
I struggled and bit at the vine but it only tightened further.
Finally, fearing it might rip my head from my shoulders, I stopped biting at it.
My breaths rushed through my nose and I could barely draw in one breath before another had to be drawn in to replace it.
Angling my head up to peer at the summit, something began to emerge.
A dozen other tentacles slithered out from the hole at the top of the sand dune, shaped much like a volcano.
From the hole, the largest and most dangerous creature I had ever seen unfolded.
It had the appearance of a giant flower and angled upward, its petals opening at the dawning of a new day.
That giant flower bent ove
r and aimed at me.
It yawned and a huge gaping hole opened wide.
And still that vine drew me up the incline.
I was going to be this thing’s lunch!
Tears streamed from my eyes, more in shock than anything else
“Agatha!” a familiar voice bellowed from the lower horizon.
“Egara!” I muffled beneath my gag.
It was a mistake as the gag only squeezed tighter and made my jaw groan under the pressure.
Egara came running up the incline and drew the twin shivs he had snatched from the alien twins.
He bellowed and hacked at the vine drawing me upwards.
The vine didn’t stop, didn’t pause to defend itself.
One, two, three swipes, and he’d cut through the vine that’d snatched me in its grip.
I slipped slightly and the vine lost its hold on me.
I wanted to celebrate, to scream and shout in victory but I daren’t do it with the vine wrapped so tightly around my face.
Egara pulled his arm back to hack through the last of the vine when half a dozen others slithered down the incline like snakes.
Two wrapped around his legs, tightening all the way up to his thick waist.
Egara looked over at me before continuing to hack at the vine attached to me.
It snapped and I slid down the sand dune.
The gag in my mouth must have been attached to the main vine as it lost its strength and shriveled from my face.
I yanked it free and spat it out.
I flung my arms and legs out and dug my heels into the sand to prevent myself from sailing further down the incline.
I spun around to face Egara, who swiped at the vines, already latching onto him thickly, completely locking down his legs and preventing him from moving.
He tried to take a step forward but the vines trapped his feet and he lost his balance and fell, hitting the ground.
A dozen other vines slithered toward him but he continued to hack at them one by one.
One snatched his wrist and held it in place.
It wasn’t strong enough to stop him but it slowed him down.
And once he had been slowed, it allowed other vines to move in and catch his powerful arms.
He now only had one arm capable of defending him.
It wasn’t long before his second arm was snatched along with the first and the vines wrapped up his body entirely, lashing him tight so he couldn’t move a muscle.
They pulled him along the ground toward that enormous flower-like alien head and lifted him up into a standing position.
“No!” I yelled from further down the incline.
I got to my feet and stepped forward.
“No!” Egara shouted back at me. “Stay away!”
I froze and peered at the sand beneath my feet and across to the vines that snapped to attention in my direction.
My stomach turned as the giant flower flattened out its enormous petal-like protrusions, forming a giant sail that spread an enormous shadow over the area.
It turned on itself and peered down at the morsel its vines had brought for it.
The petals opened and inside were its dripping wet innards.
Tiny sharp objects I thought were teeth revolved like a churning concrete mixer.
It was going to eat him.
The same way it had been going to eat me.
I needed to do something.
I needed to help him…
But what could I do?
I was a stranger here.
I had no weapons and no knowledge of this creature.
I watched helplessly as the vines unfurled and dumped Egara inside the awaiting giant plant’s “throat.”
It consumed him, the petals slamming shut around him as he disappeared from view.
He was gone.
Dead from protecting me.
I couldn’t believe it.
It was my fault.
I took a step forward as if I could actually do something.
The vines immediately froze and turned.
Oh, great.
I took a step back and the vines shot along the desert floor in my direction.
I ran back down the incline.
I had no idea how long this creature’s tentacles were but if I kept going, I would outrun them.
I hoped.
Egara
I was surrounded by the warm synaptic fluid of the Desert Flower, a hideous and extremely dangerous pest that had spread throughout the galaxy and infested all desert moons and planets.
They burrowed deep in the sand and stretched their long tendrils to search for food it could snatch up and drag back to its mouth, located at the very tip of the sprawling sand dunes.
Once a creature was caught, there was little to no chance of it escaping.
Struggling only encouraged the vines to grow tauter until they snapped the creature’s bones, rendering it weak and unable to shake off the vine.
The only way to escape was if you had enough strength, and failing that, you were doomed.
Unless someone came to the rescue as I had done for Agatha.
That morning, I awoke and reached over for Agatha, expecting to find her clutched in my warm arms. Instead, I found empty space.
I figured she must have gotten up to go to the bathroom. It was light and we’d overslept.
I stumbled over to the edge of the clearing and took a leak.
I groaned and leaned my head back. I peered up at the sky and rolled my neck.
It’d been a long night and the cracking, snapping bones in my neck showed how uncomfortable I must have slept during the night.
I dreamed about Agatha, and each time I opened my eyes, I was pleased to find her wound tightly in my arms.
She was so soft, so warm.
It was only when I did up my fly and turned to head back to our camp that I noticed the line etched into the sand and rose up the steep incline of the nearby sand dune.
The blood froze in my veins.
I realized immediately what must have happened.
“No…” I said out loud.
I should have headed back to the camp to grab my trusty bed pole cudgel but I didn’t want to waste time.
Every second counted.
I wondered how long it’d been since the creature had snatched her.
Was I too late?
Was she already buried deep in the belly of the creature?
I sprinted up the incline and found, to my terrified eyes, that the line continued further.
I bolted further up the incline until I reached the top, praying I would see her when I crested the next rise.
I got to it, not slowing or stopping, and once again, saw no sign of her.
I followed that line, and with each shallow horizon I crossed, I drew closer to the sand dune’s peak.
A cool mist descended over the sandy mountain as the heat of the approaching new day mixed with the cold air from the previous night.
The cold dampness rasped in my throat.
Running up the sand dune alongside me were tiny black beetles. They had special shells that could capture moisture from the air.
I shot up one rise after another until, finally, I saw what I was looking for.
Agatha.
Her body was bound tightly by the long vines.
She didn’t struggle, didn’t try to escape.
It was a good thing as her body would have been crushed to nothing otherwise.
After chopping at the vine and setting her free, I had taken her place and entered the stomach of the enormous beast.
But I knew something Agatha didn’t.
Gharr moon was not my homeworld but it was similar.
We evolved in unison with this very same creature.
In the past, my ancestors struggled mightily with this beast.
When there were several of them, they could wipe out an entire Vulcarian village without much effort.
Over the eons, my culture develop
ed weapons to overcome them.
Eventually, a special Vulcarian was born with the ability to directly overcome the Desert Flower threat with special glands in his body.
He passed the ability down to his descendants, of which I was one.
Now, I was trapped in that disgusting thick liquid in the belly of the Desert Flower.
It would consume me—slowly, over the course of many years.
I floated like a newborn ready to be born—and that, strangely, was what I was about to do.
I found that center inside myself, that soft golden light at the heart of every Vulcarian, and embraced it.
The warmth escaped my body and heated up the surrounding liquid in that giant pouch.
I listened to the rhythm of my heart and sent out pulses, simulating the process it went through when it gave birth to a Desert Flower.
As the heat rose and the creature felt me pulsing inside it, it shivered and a gap opened in its belly, spilling me across the sand.
I coughed and sputtered, struggling for air on my hands and knees.
The slimy liquid ran over me and drenched the sand.
I pushed myself up onto my feet in time to see the Desert Flower snatch Agatha again and drag her along the sand back in the direction of its quivering gaping maw.
I approached the vine that held her by the leg and rubbed the birth liquid over it.
The vine let go and set to slurping at the liquid on my body.
To the Desert Flower’s mind, I was its offspring and it would treat me as such.
The moment the creature released Agatha, she kicked back to get as far from the creature as possible.
She slithered half a dozen yards before she stopped and looked up into my face.
It took her a moment to recognize me.
“Egara?” she said.
She got to her feet and beamed with joy.
“Egara!” she said, throwing her arms around me. “I thought I’d lost you! I thought it ate you and… and…”
She pulled back and looked at me again, tears already shimmering in her eyes.
She had no other words she could think to say and leaped forward once again to wrap her arms around me.
“I’m so pleased you’re okay,” she said, her voice so soft and gentle it took me by surprise.
That golden light in my chest swelled as I took her in.
She was a little scuffed from the sand and vines that’d dragged her across the desert but she was otherwise okay.
“What happened to you?” Agatha said, peeling her hands off me and the thick goo coming with it. “And why are you covered in goop?”