Fit for Life

[Kulindahr]

Four More​

A girl screamed.

Rigel was awake in an instant, on his feet and looking toward the source of the sound. Light flared from the fire; he was aware that someone had dumped a small heap of dry twigs and grass on, to make light. It lit two figures under the watch tree. What he saw kicked Rigel into a sprint toward them.

“Antonio, what the–“

“Let her go!” The voice was confident, young, and hard. “Let her go or I’ll shoot!”

Antonio, standing naked behind a girl Rigel guessed at fourteen, held something to her throat and had her stretched up standing on her tiptoes. At the edge of the grove stood a boy with long hair, about the same age, in a stance that said to Rigel he knew what he was doing. And beyond him Rigel could see two more figures.

On a level he couldn’t have explained even if he’d been very aware of it, Rigel realized a number of things at once: these were the ones who’d been following them, the kid with the gun meant business, and the way to calm things was to step between that firearm and its intended target. He had slowed only to a jog, and it only took two more strides and a jump to get where he’d decided to be.

“Back off!” yelled Antonio as Rigel was finishing the second stride and readying himself to jump.

“Let her go!” Was the voice a little shrill? It was definitely angry.

Antonio yelled “Back off!” again as Rigel’s left foot hit the ground and he waved his arms and yelled, “Wait!”

The gun swung his way. Rigel order himself not to panic, and to his surprise, it worked: panic didn’t vanish, it just sort of hit a wall and stayed there, where he was aware of it but it wasn’t all that important. He stepped right to finish putting himself between the kid with his gun and Antonio with his captive. It was time to say something....

“What kind of gun is that?” he called to the kid.

“What do you care?” came the response.

Rigel choked on a laugh. “I don’t. But I wanted your attention and that’s all I could think of.” The kid didn’t say anything. “Antonio, let her relax a little”, he called over his shoulder. Sounds of a sudden deep breath followed by a small cough told him the girl could at least breathe easily. The kid took two steps forward, but he didn’t look as tense.

Ordinarily, Rigel would think later, when someone with a gun steps closer to you, and the gun is pointed at you, your attention would be on the gun, right? But in the flickering light the fire cast on the kid even though reflections off the metal showed the gun to be a silver-finished revolver, and the muzzle looked very lethal indeed, what caught Rigel’s attention were the kid’s shoes: one of those hybrids between a hiking boot and an all-terrain running shoe, with reflector strips built in – and one of those reflectors on the side of the shoe was a very familiar swoosh shape’

“You’re wearing Nikes”, he observed, and as he said it things fell together.

“So?” The kid sounded confused.

“What’s your name? I’m Rigel.”

“Austin. Your thug has Melanie, and he’d better let her go.”

Antonio was smart enough to let Rigel do the talking. What Rigel said was, “This may sound dumb, but where were you before you came to all this grass and trees?”

“What difference does that make?”

“Just answer”, Rigel replied with all the firmness and sense of command he could muster.

“We were sitting on the sidewalk in front of ‘Fit for Life”, on–“

“Monument Circle”, Rigel finished with him. “Antonio, let her go. You other two, come on out of the grass.” He was walking while he talked. “And you saw an accident?” he asked, his eyes on those of Austin.

“Fuck, yeah! Stupid bicycle guy’s carry latch popped, some jar flew out, landed right in front of a big Dodge van, made it skid, it bounced a Lexus and they both went out of control.” Austin paused and licked his lips. His voice was hoarse when he went on. “Then the Lexus flipped, and rolled, and we couldn’t get out of the way.”

Rigel had closed the distance; he reached out his right hand. “Let me have the gun, Austin, and I’ll tell you how we got here – from the Vortex, right where you were.”

Austin looked at the gun, then back at Rigel, uncertain. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“How do we know we can trust you?” Rigel changed his approach. “What was Melanie doing, that got Antonio to drop down and grab her?”

“She just wanted to be warm.”

“Well, you can come be warm at the fire, all of you. But if you do, you’re going to be surrounded by people who will want to get that gun away from you because they don’t know you. Let me have it, and they’ll all be kool.” Austin was plainly struggling. Rigel lowered his voice. “Austin, it won’t do you any good anyway. You really don’t want to shoot anyone, and if you tried there’d be a couple of knives and other sharp things sticking in you before you could pull the trigger, and then I’d have a hard time stopping them from using it to shoot you.”

“You’d want to stop them?” Austin’s voice carried confusion more than doubt.

“Definitely. You’re just scared and confused – and so are we. You don’t really want to hurt anyone, you just want to feel safe.”

“Yeah”, Austin agreed in a whisper. His arm lowered; Rigel intercepted it and easily slipped the gun away and into his own hand.

“Ruger, .357", he read off the side. “It looks silver.”

“It’s an alloy”, Austin told him. “Stainless steel with lots of nickel and platinum and stuff. Won’t rust, cleans easy. Good on the streets.” He stopped as if he’d said too much.

Rigel chuckled. “Where you were, or lived, or what you did don’t matter now, Austin. We’re here, and what matters here is that we all get along and work together to survive. Hey – you got ammo for this?”

Austin gave him a look like he was an idiot. “What good is a piece with no bullets?” he asked. Rigel could here the unspoken “bonehead” or “moron”. Instead of answering, though, Austin turned to his companions who were standing protectively by Melanie. Antonio had vanished – up the tree for clothes, Rigel hoped. “Dmitri – you got my pack? Bring it?”

“Yah” was what the answer sounded like to Rigel. The accent and the name made him think “Russian”. Seeing the kid when he handed Austin a rather stuffed backpack didn’t help; he didn’t really know what Russians looked like.

“Look – I got four boxes of fifty, a box half-full, and three quick-loaders all full, three more in my pocket, and the piece is loaded. Good enough for you?” Austin’s voice had a sort of “Are you done prying into my business?” tone to it.

“Awesome. Hang onto it – and don’t let anyone else know how much you have.”

Austin shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.”

Something else Rigel had seen sank in just then. “Dude, was that water in there?” He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice.

“Yah”, came the answer, from Dmitri. “So? We have lots.”

It felt like a gift from heaven to Rigel. “If you’ll share some of that ‘lots’, you’ll be very, very popular. We’ve each had about a handful of water all day.”

All four newcomers were standing by Rigel now. They exchanged glances, and after a moment Austin nodded. “One bottle”, he offered.

“One of mine”, the other boy said. “They’re getting heavy.”

“Why did you have all that water?” The question came from Ryan, who’d walked up quietly. “I’m Ryan”, he added.

The kid laughed. “I’m Casey. We went to Fit for Life for a free day trial, right? We figure, like, they’re going to let us in free, but when we get thirsty from sweat, then they get us for like five bucks a bottle of water. I bought some, and Austin brought some, and Dmitri did, too. So we gots us all this water, and inside they don’t just have water, but it’s free, and flavored!” He grinned. “We came out with more water than we went in with.”

Ryan laughed along. “Why bring more out?”

Casey looked at him like he was missing a circuit or something. “Because we could, smart boy.”

Rigel slapped him on the shoulder. “You brought a treasure. Maybe you saved all our lives.” He took the bottle of plain water that Casey held out. “Right now, this is worth more than gold.” Inspiration struck, and he handed it back. “You take it to share. C’mon.”

A minute later everyone was awake and sitting around the fire. One bottle of water may not seem like much among fourteen people, but when all you’ve had for the day was a sip from a leaf, another mouthful was huge. Rigel watched the bottle make its progress; Casey had appointed himself judge of consumption, and carefully watched each person drink. When it came back around, he handed the bottle to Rigel.

“Kill it”, he said.

“That’s more than my share”, Rigel objected.

Casey shook his head in disagreement. “You’re the leader – I can tell. So you sweat more than us. It’s your share.” To his right, Rigel saw Ryan, and Ocean, nodding agreement, so he stifled his objections and drank. When he realized there weren’t any envious or jealous looks directed at him, he decided Casey was right, and everyone just accepted it – and he swore to himself to not take it for granted.

“Thank you”, he told Casey, including Austin with a nod. “You guys joining us?”

“Fuck yeah”, Austin declared. “You got fire, something to keep the wind off, better beds than we thought of. We stick with you, maybe we make it.”

“Welcome, then. Listen: tomorrow we start hiking. Two of our people know about finding water, and they say we have to go north by northwest. They don’t know how far, or how long. I don’t know how fast we can go – we’re used to streets and sidewalks, not grass and trees with bumps and maybe holes.” To his left, he heard and saw Chen smack his forehead, jump up and grab Antonio, and head off into the grove – something to find out about later, he figured. “Until then, what you have is all the water, except little trickles that collect on some of the plants’ leaves.
“So you’re the water-masters. You don’t let anyone know how much there is, In the morning we’re drinking off leaves again, but tomorrow sometime you pass around another bottle. Until we find more, that’s what we have for staying alive.”

“What if person try take bottle?” Dmitri asked.

“Stop ‘em. But I don’t think they will. Us from the Lexus, we’re all in college, and we’re smart enough to know the water has to last. At least a couple people from the van are, too. And everyone pretty much does what I say, anyway.”

“You got us killed!” Melanie screeched – for the second time, Rigel realized.

Oran had one of her arms, and was trying to control her; all at once, with incredible speed, he had her in a half-nelson and arm-bar. “Chill, girl”, he ordered, loud enough for everyone to hear – which wasn’t all that loud, since everyone had fallen silent when the girl began screaming. Rigel decided to let Oran handle it.

“We didn’t get you killed”, the Eagle Scout explained calmly. “We were just along for the crash – and we were dead before the car even flipped, because we don’t remember that. Ocean and the van didn’t get you killed, either; they were dead about the same time we were, and they were just along for the crash, too. What got you killed was an accident.”

“A stupid bicycle carry bag and a busted strap”, Austin agreed. “Melanie, we’re dead, okay? They’re dead, too. None of us did it, it just happened.” What he said next didn’t carry very far, but Rigel caught it: “Bet my dad wishes he’d arranged it, though.” That made two things on Rigel’s list of things to find out about later.

Oran let Melanie go. When he did, she spun around and fell into his arms, crying. Oran held her for a while, then led her off away from the fire. That turned into a signal, and others began heading back to their spots.

When the crowd thinned out, Rigel had a question for Austin. “Why the gun?”

The kid didn’t hesitate. “In case my dad sent someone to make me dead.” His tone was matter-of-fact, like to was just one of those things that made up life.

It was nothing of the sort, to Rigel. “Oh, come on – what kind of father would want his son dead?”

“Mine would. He thinks I’m going to hell anyway, so I should hurry up and go.”

Rigel was trying to grasp such a thing, but failed. “Why does he think you’re going to hell? Who would be like that?!”

Austin looked at him like Rigel was the kid, and naive as well. “He says I’m going to hell because I’m gay. He wants me dead because I’m gay. He wants me dead because he was married when he made me, and so was my mom, but not to each other. If anyone found out he had me as a son, his career would be gone.”

“Who’s your father, Austin?” asked Breeze, quietly, her eyes troubled. She scooted sideways on her bit of log for Oran, who'd come back.

“Governor Johnson Argyle Reagan Templeton.” If words could have sizzled and burned as they emerged from a human mouth, those would have. From Austin’s tone, Rigel almost expected to smell smoke and ozone.

Breeze’s jaw dropped. “You’re ‘Pure-Heart’ Templeton’s kid? And Mister ‘Family Values’, Sir ‘Honesty is My Policy’, Lord ‘Moral Behavior Makes the Man’ wants his own son dead?!”

“Your father is the cruelest evil bastard in the world”, Oran swore, in a colder, angrier tone than Rigel could have imagined from the even-tempered youngster. “We had the best assistant Scoutmaster in the world. He never did anything to any of us. He wouldn’t even get in the water when we went skinny-dipping. There wasn’t anything we couldn’t tell him, and he never passed anything on. But District Attorney Templeton heard he was gay. The bastard found someone to testify that he’d molested some of us. It was all lies. Some of our leadership corps testified; they were Eagle Scouts and seventeen or eighteen, but Templeton convinced the jury they weren’t reliable, because a molester threatens everyone so they lie for him. He didn’t do a thing wrong, and that bastard sent him to prison for eight years.
“If anyone should be dead, it’s your dad. But he’s running for Senator now, isn’t he?” Oran asked, bitterly.

“Yeah. That’s why I got the gun. If he could get me killed quietly, he wouldn’t have to worry. His illegitimate son would be in a box. In the grave, no one can tell you’re gay.”

 

[Kyanimal]

Kuli ...

I've been enjoying the latest chapters immensely! And, yeah! It still reminds me of, has the flavor of, King's "The Dark Tower"! (Have you read it? If not, I have no doubts that you would like it!)

That's quite a cast you're assembling. I'm quite curious to see how you handle them all, and look forward to reading more about them.

I'm glad you brought Austin into the group. When I read of him before, the only correlation to the characters I could make was that maybe he had "translated" into Anaph. And, then, I was thinking that everyone, except Rigel and Ryan, had maybe "transported" with new names more appropriate for their new "world". Most of their names seem to be of an "etherial" nature ... Orion, Ocean, Breeze, Anaph, even Tanner. Guess they were all from the West Coast, huh?

And, why was Antonio up in the tree without his clothes? I mean ... if everyone is wanting to be near the fire ... uh ... maybe he was ... uh ... Never Mind! You can never be too sure about those hot blooded Latinos!

Also, I think that last line worked quite nicely for a chapter "close"!

In short ... "May I have MORE, Please, Sir?"

Keep smilin'!!
Chaz

(I also noticed that Austin's gun "transferred" intact!)

 

[Kulindahr]

Kuli ...

I've been enjoying the latest chapters immensely! And, yeah! It still reminds me of, has the flavor of, King's "The Dark Tower"! (Have you read it? If not, I have no doubts that you would like it!)

The only "Dark Tower" I'm familiar with is a trilogy by (IIRC) McKinnen -- it's fantasy, but nothing like this (which is, whatever it looks like, science fiction).

That's quite a cast you're assembling. I'm quite curious to see how you handle them all, and look forward to reading more about them.

I'm glad you brought Austin into the group. When I read of him before, the only correlation to the characters I could make was that maybe he had "translated" into Anaph. And, then, I was thinking that everyone, except Rigel and Ryan, had maybe "transported" with new names more appropriate for their new "world". Most of their names seem to be of an "etherial" nature ... Orion, Ocean, Breeze, Anaph, even Tanner. Guess they were all from the West Coast, huh?

They're all their original selves. I think there was enough information in the "back home" chapters to figure out the people following and lurking was the final batch of dead from the accident (dead out of the accident, not dead due to the accident -- English can be very imprecise at times [if I could, I'd write this in ancient Greek, which was very precise, but then I'd probably only finish a line a day, and get little else done]).

And, why was Antonio up in the tree without his clothes? I mean ... if everyone is wanting to be near the fire ... uh ... maybe he was ... uh ... Never Mind! You can never be too sure about those hot blooded Latinos!

I'm not sure where that came from, except he has this image of himself as a commando. Waybe he had a sleeping bag we don't know about?

Also, I think that last line worked quite nicely for a chapter "close"!

Then I'm glad I ended it there.

In short ... "May I have MORE, Please, Sir?"

I'll consider the request.

(I also noticed that Austin's gun "transferred" intact!)

Observant of you.

 

[harry113]

This is a great story Kuli. Thank you
I, too, thought the last chapter ended very well.
Please tell us more
Harry

 

[Kulindahr]

I'm not really happy with this next chapter, but here it comes anyway -- my brain is already opening windows on what's coming, which means new chapters demand my attention.

Enjoy.

 

[Kulindahr]

Moving and Changing​

There was good news, and bad news, in the morning, Rigel learned on waking: the good news was that everyone in camp had heard of his rule about sex, that there was a gun in camp but Rigel had it, that Austin was governor Templeton’s son and gay – and no one was terribly upset about any of it. The calm acceptance seemed strange to him, but he wasn’t going to question his luck. The bad news was that Melanie, Dmitri, and Casey had been caught in a threesome off away from camp.

“Well, they’re all under eighteen”, Devon observed as he munched on some fern tips seasoned with an herb that tasted rather lemony – the combination was sour, but better than fern by itself. “So they didn’t break the rule.”

“Half the group is under age”, Ryan noted, “and half over. But if people are going to be grouping for sex, and some are left out....”

“Tensions”, Rita concluded.

“Yeah, tensions”, Rigel muttered. “Great.”

“This is why marriage was invented”, Ocean said. “So everyone would know who belonged to whom, and no one would cross the boundaries.”

“But they do anyway”, Rita reminded them. “Affairs, strings of marriage and divorce, free sex, wife swapping – fun and games.”

“The other option is a totally open arrangement, but that doesn’t work, either”, Ocean said. “Some people are naturally possessive. Some people are naturally monogamous. Some people commit and stay that way.”

“And some people are naturally promiscuous”, Devon agreed, “so no system will work.”

“Something’s got to, though”, Ryan countered. “Even temporary marriages or whatever.”

“Bonding”, said a new voice. They all turned to see Anaph; they all blinked and took in the sight.

What he wore had been different anyway, with a dark brown half-cape that had a half-dozen shades of color in it, tall boots that reached almost to his knees, heavy denim cargo shorts with extra pockets sewn on, a billowy shirt of some advanced camouflage pattern, several rows of beads – necklaces and chokers – and a beret in a camouflage pattern of fall colors. Now it was even stranger: to the pair of copper bracelets on his wrists there were now ones made of strawberry vines, still fresh and flowering, and others woven of something like a tiny woodland clover, three different bracelets on each wrist; in his left hand he bore a tall, shining white oak staff a good arm’s length taller than he was; his half-cape had been extended by the addition of ferns that were also still fresh... and those were just the obvious alterations. He looked more refreshed and energetic than any of them, yet how he could be, when it must have taken the entire night to weave and tie his ‘accessories’ was inexplicable.

“Bonding what?” Ryan asked, with Devon nodding his agreement with the question. But it apparently didn’t seem strange to Ocean.

“Many cultures had something between permanent monogamy and open relationships”, she explained enthusiastically. “They got called ‘bonding’ a lot, because they were bonds between people that everyone recognized. No one involved any gods saying ‘until death do you part’ or anything. The partners could agree on how long it would last, or leave the question open. Everyone knew that while they were bonded, they were off-limits. Well, they could make a bond that allowed others to join under certain circumstances, too.
“It wasn’t like being ‘man and wife’, or even ‘man and man’ – the Hawaiians had that, did you know? It wasn’t a ‘the two become one flesh’ or ‘entwine we these spirits unto the ages’, but a partnership. It’s more civilized than all the laws the Puritans gave us, which are contracts for abuse or legalized rape.”

Rigel cut in when she stopped for a breath. “And you think a bonding thing would work?” She nodded vigorously; Anaph nodded solemnly, his face almost aglow.

“A bonding would declare that they are partners, that none else might intrude, and that their joinings be respected and honored. Life would be served.” The staff balanced itself for a moment as Anaph spread his arms, fingers wide apart, almost like a prayer.

“Uh, yeah”, was Ryan’s comment.

Devon was more helpful, from Rigel’s perspective. “I like it, big man” – Rigel hoped that wasn’t going to become his official title – “It covers the possibilities people might want, it’s flexible, and if we make them official, it should give the stability we need.”

“But one girl with two partners?” Rigel asked. The idea seemed too strange to him.

“For stability, it’s a good start”, Devon argued. “Look – we’ve got what, six ladies and eleven gents? Doubling males with one female helps.”

“Don’t forget that Austin is gay”, Ryan offered. “That helps the odds.”

“Whatever. What would be difficult would be a gent and two ladies”, Devon stated.

“Unless more of us were gay”, Ryan quipped.

“I need to think”, was Rigel’s conclusion. “I don’t need to sit for that – let’s get walking.”

People were already falling into roles where their talents could be used: Tanner’s talent for spotting patterns was useful for making them, too; he had already organized everyone by time Rigel ended the “council” by the fire; Oran recruited all the guys to pee on the coals and kill it – “Boy Scout style”, he called it, for extinguishing fires. Them Oran and Chen led off, acting as scouts; Tanner and Casey led the main group; Dmitri fell in with Antonio as read guard; Devon took a middle position with all the girls – he’d become sort of the official chaperone, Ryan had commented to Rigel; Rigel ended up near the front, walking with Ryan, Anaph, and Austin.

Rigel settled on a limited goal this first day, a grove about the size of theirs that Antonio, Chen, and Oran had agreed looked like it was a little short of twenty kilometers away. The three of them had come down from the watch tree laughing; all they’d said to Rigel and Ryan was, “You had to be there” – he guessed it has something to do with three guys all trying to share a small perch up high, and shrugged it off. Rigel feared they’d need to do more than that, but on a first day, when so many of them were far from athletic, he wasn’t going to push it.

Mostly they walked in silence. What little talking they did consisted of comments on the scenery, which became monotonous really fast; it was just oak savanna, mostly level with a few low rolling ridges that came in little bunches. At first everyone kept eyes open for anything that suggested water; lack of luck tired them of that.

Rigel called a break when the sun was about a quarter of the way to noon. Chen urged everyone to stretch, even teaching an impromptu class on why to stretch and how. Those who paid attention agreed they certainly felt better when hiking resumed.

When Rigel kept them hiking past noon, there were grumbles. He’d picked a small cluster of oaks, hardly enough to call a grove, as a place to rest, but they weren’t moving as fast as he’d guessed. The argument that made him stop short of that goal was simple: Crystal just stopped, sat down, and began to cry. Lumina dropped down with her, then Breeze and Melanie.

Rita touched Rigel on the elbow. “We have to rest.”

He nodded. “I know. We’re not going very fast.”

“But if we don’t rest, we won’t be going at all”, Ryan pointed out.

So they rested. The stop came with a treat: Anaph had found a plant that had its seed pods just under the soil, a little bit like a peanut, and had been quietly harvesting as he hiked. The things tasted a bit like a cross between a walnut and an apricot, which pleased everyone – though after eating fern tips and roots, even something flavorless would have been welcome – but the biggest pleasure was that there was a small handful for each person.

Ryan was frustrated. “I don’t even know what family to put this in”, he complained. “A real peanut would be Fabaceae, but look at this – it has leaves like a vetch, but the flowers look like they’re out of Rosaceae!”

“So we’re not in Kansas any more, R2-D2", Rigel teased.

“Kansas? Bro, we ain’t even on Earth any more!” Ryan started to throw the sample Anaph had brought him onto the ground, but caught himself, and instead hooked it into his belt. Rigel raised an eyebrow. “Maybe I can publish, and be famous”, Ryan told him with a straight face.

Anaph had been watching a beetle dismantle a wildflower. Suddenly he erupted off the ground and dove toward Rigel. “Danger! Use your weapon!” It caught Rigel off guard; he stared for a second before his brain connected “weapon” with “the gun in my pocket”. He stood up and fumbled for it.

“I’ve never fired one”, he admitted. He didn’t get a chance to remember whatever he knew about that, though; slender, artist’s fingers took the gun from him. Protests came to his lips and died: Austin had dropped to one knee, revolver in one hand and the other up and holding that wrist, and he was bringing the gun down to line up on something – something that had just launched itself out of a lone oak about fifteen meters away, coming at them.

Anaph screamed, but it wasn’t a scream of fear. Later, Rigel and Ryan agreed it sounded like some predatory animal challenging another. That’s how it worked, too: the beast charging the group shifted its course and was coming right toward Anaph, who stood right behind Austin. Austin was calm, steady; Rigel saw as in slow motion as the boy’s hands came down, slowing, freezing, and the right index finger snaked inside the trigger guard to squeeze once, twice... then Anaph was diving aside, rolling, aiming again as he rolled and squeezing once, twice, three times. With the second and third shots, dark spots blossomed on the side of what looked like a big cat. It turned, shrieking rage, to face Austin again, and Rigel watched the finger tense on the trigger – then not move, because the animal, with two holes in the side of its chest and two up front just under its neck, tried to launch itself... and fell over. Its last act of defiance was another screech, which gurgled as blood came with the breath. Then it was still.

Antonio was the first to speak. “Where did you learn to shoot like that?” he asked admiringly. “That rocked!”

“One of my dad’s bodyguards. He was gay but he got married to keep his job. He felt sorry for me, ‘cause of my dad.” Austin was triple-tasking: answering Antonio, emptying the revolver cylinder of used casings, and watching the cat for any signs of life. He reached in his pocket, froze, relaxed, and turned to Rigel.

“Do I get bullets?” His tone conveyed the message that any other answer than “Right away!” would be ridiculous or foolish. Rigel understood his perspective immediately: he was the one who knew how to shoot, so he should have the gun, so he should have it loaded....

“Yeah – here.” Rigel reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of loose rounds and two full quick-loaders. Austin didn’t take his eyes off the cat; he merely stuck a hand out and caught what Rigel offered, then loaded and checked the cylinder without looking.

“Save the brass”, he said to no one in particular. “And clean the live one and give it back.” He stood up, gun still trained on the cat. “Anaph – poke that thing with your stick.”

“It’s a staff”, Anaph corrected, but held it by one tip and jabbed the cat with the other, ready to run. The beast just lay there bleeding.

Antonio moved in and deftly cut its throat, making sure it was very dead. He sat watching the blood run out, looking a bit sad. “I’d like its talons”, he said.

Everyone was standing in a circle around the carcass; now that it was dead, fascination overcame fear. Oran knelt and looked at it. “I can skin it”, he offered. “Cat is lousy meat, though. It can have diseases, too.”

“Skin it”, Rigel ordered. Antonio, we’ll worry about the claws later.”

“And its teeth”, Anaph added. “Bring the whole skull.”

That’s how the guys in the group ended up taking turns carrying a bloody, bug-infested cat pelt the rest of the day.

“It’s teeth are wrong”, Ryan commented. They’d resumed their hike; Rigel was carrying the trophy, Ryan took the chance to examine it. “The body looks like a Puma concolor – cougar, puma, mountain lion – but these extra long teeth on the sides are like the old saber-tooth, and that’s been extinct for like nine million years.”

“Back home”, Rita inserted. He scowled at her, then winked.

“It’s got quills around its neck, too, like a porcupine, and I don’t think any cat ever had those. Then look at the head – it’s longer than a regular cat; the skull is bigger and it has a bigger brain.”

“You mean it’s smart?” asked Rigel.

“Smarter than what we’re used to, but that’s still not a huge brain. It’s part of a bigger message, though: the sabers mean it’s got real competition, the quills mean it’s got serious enemies, the brain means those enemies are tricky.”

“So how big are the dogs?” Oran joked.

“Bigger”, Ryan replied with a wink, yet quite seriously. “Guys, equipment like that on this beast means getting in on the food chain around here is more like brawling your way to the counter in a bar than walking into your seven-eleven,”

Rigel ran the words through his mind again. “You mean this place is dangerous?”

“‘This place is dangerous’ for two thousand, and the Daily Double”, Ryan answered. “Come on, Rye – we knew to expect something like this last night! Think about it: the things that have come through copied well have all been things we’d need. That Austin’s toy was still itself said there were things here we’d want it against.”

“I’m glad it was something in daylight”, Crystal commented.

“Uh, girl?” Ryan responded. “This is just one.” He paused. “I think it was a very good idea to have a fire last night.” Crystal’s face went white.

“Yeah.” That gave Rigel an idea. “Time to walk again. Oran, Anaph, Chen, Antonio, walk with me.” When they were all moving, he picked up his train of thought. “Anaph, where’d you get the staff?”

“Brother oak supplied it.”

“Okay, put that in terms like we were seeing it happen”, Chen told him, irritated.

“I was walking from tree to tree, listening to them. From one a branch leaned down, wounded high up. A long piece was nearly broken off, and was straight. Brother oak offered it to me, so I grasped it and tugged, and this came free.”

Rigel didn’t buy that, but he wasn’t going to argue. “Not something you can just do any time, huh?”

“No – the tree must offer.”

“Blast. Look, what I want is a way to make more staffs, plus spears, and bows and arrows. We need weapons; Austin won’t always be in just the right place at the right time.” He looked at his chosen weapons committee.

“Oak doesn’t make good bows”, Chen replied. “Spears we could do, though, probably short ones.”

“Harden the tips in the fire”, Oran added. “And a short spear is better than no spear.”

“So tonight when we look for fire wood, we look for pieces to make spears with.” Looking at Rigel, Ryan made it nearly a question.

“Right. And we work on them”, Rigel affirmed.

Their stop came sooner than Rigel had hoped. Their pace wasn’t quick, but the real problem came when Oran came jogging back from scouting. “There’s a cliff ahead”, he reported. He turned and pointed to where they could see Chen standing and waving. “The ground isn’t real solid there.”

Rigel stopped them ten meters from Chen and went for a look. It was indeed a cliff, an almost vertical drop with a reddish-brown color, rounded rocks of gray to white peeking out here and there. At the bottom was a sort of beach of rocks like them, fallen over the years. “Why doesn’t the dirt fall and bury those?” he asked.

“Wind”, Ryan guessed. “The rocks fall and stay put, the dirt dries out to dust and gets blown away.”

“Who cares? We have to get down there”, Austin said.

“No way”, Oran told him. “Not by climbing, I mean – we have to walk until there’s a way down that won’t break bones.”

The edge of the cliff led west by northwest. Looking along it, Rigel didn’t see any groves, and after the cat encounter, he wasn’t going to risk not having a fire. But not too far along there was a fair grove a hundred meters or so back from the cliff. He pointed it out to Ryan.

“Best I can see”, his friend agreed. “Let’s.” About two hours later they reached it, and started looking for a spot to camp.

Ocean settled the matter. “Water-catchers!” she cried, her name for the plants they'd found and got water from before. Rigel knew that water at hand would raise spirits, so that’s where they settled.

Nightfall came to a quiet camp where the females of their little tribe went to sleep, and the males got lessons from Chen and Oran in making spears. Rigel turned in when Chen handed him the first finished one, a fairly straight stick that reached to the middle of his chest, with a rough, nasty point burned a deep brown. It was the first thing they’d really made in this new world, and it was a weapon. He wondered where it would lead.

 

[DonQuixote]

Kuli,
I don't know why you didn't like the chapter - you covered a lot of ground, group-wise and trip-wise.

Discussions on formalizing relationship boundaries, killing a big cat, starting to make tools from the natural habitat.

I found it a good read.

Thanks for your continued efforts.

 

[Kyanimal]

Kuli ...

I agree with DQ! My only guess about why You may not have been "happy" with that chapter is that You know what your original intent was, and, perhaps, didn't quite achieve what you had in mind. But, WE are not that privy to the inner workings of your mind, and therefore don't have that intimate perspective. I liked that chapter Very Much!!

Your story is becoming even more Interesting with each new "phase" that you are showing us!

Keep smilin'!!
Chaz

 

[Kulindahr]

It didn't have the feel of flow to it that the rest have had. The others have just sort of tumbled out, like each step made the next necessary.

It did have something about being gay in it, though.



edit: actually, it had two things about being gay

 

[Kulindahr]

The appearance of a new fan inspired me....

 

[Kulindahr]

Progress​

Five days of hiking.

Rigel looked over the rag-tag group as they rested in the shade of a small clump of oak. The day was working up to be a hot one. That was bad news because it had rained about dawn just enough to get everything damp, and the evaporating water was making it muggy. Except for Austin and Anaph, all the guys were already shirtless. Rita said they’d lose more water that way, but Rigel had let it go; there’d been a tiny trickle of a spring in the previous night’s grove, enough that each had gotten two good swallows before the water was gone. When they left, it was refilling about as fast as a kitchen sink with a faucet that dripped every few seconds.

Melanie came to sit by him. “He’s weird”, he announced. Rigel didn’t have to ask; she meant Anaph, and he couldn’t dispute the point.

“How are the shoes working out?” he inquired. The day before, Melanie had stumbled on a rodent’s hole; she hadn’t been hurt, but the cheap, flashy shoes she’d worn didn’t have the same luck; the right one had been torn, upper from sole, and the upper cracked. Anaph had given her his own shoes, and was going barefoot.

“Good now. That moss in the toes idea worked – they don’t slip now.” That had been Oran’s suggestion, a trick from survival training, he’d said.

“Kool. Um, I need to ask a question.”

“Sure.” She grinned at him. “Big man.” Rigel groaned; Antonio’s nickname for him was catching on.

“You and Dmitri and Casey. How serious a thing is that?”

Melanie reached over and stroked the top of his thigh, upward from the knee, and stopped with her finger poking him about three centimeters from his crotch. “We like to fuck. You made that silly rule, or you could join us.”

“So it’s just sex?” he pressed.

“It’s not like just finding a ho and fucking. A ho’s just a warm slot or stick, not people. We’re friends. We’re there for each other. We fuck when we’re scared, we fuck when we’re lonely, we fuck when we’re horny." She turned and looked him in the eye. “People are talking, huh?”

Rigel stifled a laugh. “Well, you were kinda loud last night.”

“I know. Austin told us to keep it quiet, you know? But they were both in me, together, going opposite ways, and it never felt like that before.” She shrugged. “We ain’t nothing but mammals, and my mammal got out.”

That was an understated way to describe a sound that had been part shriek, part “Ah!” of surprise, and part panting, and had gone on at least ten seconds, Rigel thought. He struggled for the right words.

“Um, would you say you guys are a triple? Like a couple, but three?”

She gave it a moment’s thought. “Kinda a open triple. We’re not, like married or anything.” Rigel’s suddenly pained expression spoke volumes. “Oh! You think we should be married, to have sex!”

“Melanie, it can’t be just like trading back rubs. Sex is serious stuff. Everyone needs to know who’s with who. It makes a difference if everyone thinks you’re just easy for sex, or if they think you’re, well, with each other.”

“With”, Melanie interrupted. “But not married.”

“Okay. But I want you guys to do something that will help. It’s a bonding ceremony, to say to everyone you three belong to each other–“

“We’re not property–“

“I didn’t say that. It just means you’ve got a bond that’s just yours, with responsibilities and boundaries, not... not just sluts.”

Melanie considered that for a while. “I get it – kinda like a formal announcement that we’re, like, going together.”

“Something like that.” Rigel felt relief that she’d gotten the idea, at least sort of. “I’d like to have a ceremony soon.”

“I’ll talk–‘

Melanie was interrupted by a gun shot. It was just one, which meant Austin was getting better: this would make three cats they’d killed. Primitive they might be, but the spears made a big difference; the shooter could be guarded by a wall of sharp points while he aimed. He feared the day when those spears might be all the protection one of his people had against one of those beasts.

When cheers came from the grove, he jumped up with everyone else and they all went to see what had happened.

“Deer!” Chen called out when he saw Rigel coming. “Or something like one. The cat just killed it, and we killed the cat. Now it’s ours!”

Antonio was already at work skinning the cat. They’d found that if they rubbed the back of the hide with the lemony herb and urine, and let them dry in the sun, the smell wasn’t so bad, the bugs left – and the fur as a “mattress cover” made sleeping a lot easier. Lumina had the first; she was getting weaker, tiring faster than anyone. She slept better now, and wasn’t such a drag on their speed. Rigel worried about her for another reason: more and more she seemed unaware of where she really was. Devon was spending a lot of time with her just to get her to do the simple things required by their simple life; without him, she might just have sat down, not eating, not moving even to pee, and just died.

Oran was whistling as he skinned the deer. Rigel understood the sudden good cheer: they’d had nothing to eat last night, and only a few “Anaph nuts” each this morning. It wasn’t a big buck – it wasn’t a big cat – but to Rigel’s untrained eye, it looked like enough to keep their stomachs from complaining for three or four days.

“We have to cook all that before we carry it”, he thought out loud.

“Nope.” Chen grinned at him; he’d just returned from disposing of the guts by the expedient of dumping them by a rotten log and rolling it on them. “We cut branches, strip them, make poles. We cut the meat into strips, and hang them over the poles. Then we march in the sunshine and make sun-dried jerky.” The grin vanished. “I don’t know what to do with the organs, though. They won’t last, in this heat.”

“Ooh, gross!” Crystal exclaimed. “You mean like the heart and kidney? Throw them away!”

“Bad idea.” Ocean’s comment surprised Crystal. “Crystal, meat can be a nutritious food and you don’t need much else, but you have to eat everything. If we could make sausage, we’d throw in–“

Ryan caught her from behind and clamped his hand over her mouth. “We’d put in all the kinds of meat”, he finished for her.

Barf averted, Rigel thought. All we’d need is for Crystal to hear that the intestines are part of sausage..... Later, he nearly barfed himself when he asked about making sausage, and Ocean explained that the lungs and brains should go in, too.

It was an hour before they set off again, but their spirits were all high. Full nutrition or not, it was going to be good to have meat.

Five days, Rigel thought. Five days, and we should have come over a hundred kilometers.

“Brooding about our speed again?” Ryan asked him as they watched Oran supervise the stacking of dead wood for a fire. Once again, it wasn’t the grove Rigel had meant them to reach. “We’re going as fast as we’re going, buddy.” He marked off on his fingers: “Sixteen klicks, twelve klicks, ten, fourteen, and today eighteen.” Those were all estimates, of course; they had no way of measuring distance but counting their own paces. “Everyone got sore the first day, suffered from it the next two, recovered, and now we’re starting to get good at it. So we’ve only managed seventy instead of a hundred? We’re moving.” He caught a chunk of wood Dmitri tossed at him and stacked it. “More important, we’re learning to work together. We’re getting in shape. It's progress.”

“We’re destroying muscle mass”, Rigel countered.

“Meat for a while will help. Maybe Antonio can kill another deer on his own.”

“Maybe.” Rigel brooded. “And maybe I’m just feeling like no matter how far we go, it all looks the same ahead. Where’s this water?”

“Ocean said at least four more days, probably five.”

“Probably five”, came Ocean’s voice. She dumped an armload of small branches near Oran, who had decided things were organized enough for him to concentrate on a fire pit and then a fire. “I know it’s there. We’re getting closer.”

Rigel looked to be sure no one but “council” was close before answering. “We may not have five days”, he told them. “Unless we find more water, we barely have water for three days.”

“Someone could go ahead, with empty bottles”, Ryan suggested.

Rigel shook his head. “And what are the odds of the right group having the gun when a cat attacks? No; we stay together, until Chen can find the right tree to make bows.”

Oran spoke up. “With a long spear, you could stop a cat.”

“How long is ‘long’?” asked Rigel.

“The person’s height plus a meter. Then you put on a crossbar half a meter from the tip.”

Ryan was curious. “What’s that for?”

Oran looked at him seriously. “So when you wait for the cat to jump on you, and you stick the point in its throat, it can’t reach you when it starts climbing the spear to tear your throat out.”

“Uh-huh. Ever done it?”

“Hardly”, Oran conceded. “But it doesn’t sound too hard – just point the spear tip at the cat’s throat and stay grounded.”

“Okay, what’s ‘grounded’ mean?” Ryan wanted to know.

“You stick the butt of the spear in the ground, and kneel and hold it, and stay far away from the tip. The cat does the work by landing on it.”

Rigel intervened. “Well, so far we don’t even have any spears as tall as any of us. We can talk about this again if we ever get some long enough to work. The point right now is no one goes off ahead – whatever we’re going to do, we do together.”


That night Anaph held a bonding ceremony for Melanie, Dmitri, and Casey. Rigel’s mind was elsewhere, trying to come up with a solution for the water problem. To have come this far, to have had the luck they had, to be working together as well as they were, and then die from lack of water... His mind snagged on the word “die” and wouldn’t let go: hadn’t they died already? There was something important there, he was certain, but nothing came.

He remembered nothing of the ceremony; dinner, though, was a different matter. Each person got three strips of meat wrapped around something in the center – but before they started eating, Rita had a little lecture.

“Eat all of it”, she said. “It’s got what we need to hike another day. We’ve had cramps, and dizziness, and headaches, from poor nutrition. Each one of these has something different in it, with nutrition to fight those things. So chow down!”

Ocean sat next to Rigel and explained the three items. One had deer heart, one had liver, and one had kidney, inside. They’d crushed “Anaph nuts” and one almost-ripe strawberry per serving to help flavor it before roasting it over the fire. Rigel thought the effort was great, but wasn’t so sure of the results; in his view, the only way to eat kidney was drunk enough that everything really did taste like chicken.

Everything got eaten anyway. Mostly, they were so hungry they were ready to try grass – and some had been trying different plants along the way.

Maybe with the meat, they could go harder tomorrow. That was in Rigel’s mind as he snuggled up against Devon and aimed for sleep. But the thought that went with him to dreamland was this: five days’ hiking, three days’ water.

​

 

[Kulindahr]

Storms​

A day passed: no cats, no new water sources, indeed no groves along the way. The closest was at least thirty kilometers, and to Rigel’s pleased surprise, they reached it. As the sun went down, Ryan thought he saw a haze on the northern horizon. He thought about pointing it out to Rigel, but decided not to: if he was just imagining it, he didn’t want to give false hope.

About noon the next day, a rumble came from the north. Anaph heard it first, then Oran. They pointed it out to Rigel, who called an early lunch halt; he asked everyone to be quiet, so they could listen.

“That’s thunder!” Ocean exclaimed. “Thunder means rain!”

Rita disagreed. “It could be from heat lightning. When ht air hits mountains–“

“Mountains mean rivers! Rivers mean water!” Ocean argued.

“Maybe”, Ryan cautioned.

“It’s a good chance, though”, Rita conceded. “Something waters this savanna, and we haven’t seen any rivers out here.”

“That cliff was evidence of an old one, wasn’t it?” asked Austin. “I know there are cliffs like that back home.”

“Or it could be a fault line”, Ryan pointed out. He stared north. “If it was from a river, that river carved its way across here. If it carved its way across here, there should be oxbow lakes left as the channel moved. We haven’t seen any.” All at once he spun around. “Antonio should go up a tree as soon as we get to some.” His gaze was toward Rigel, who nodded.

“But why not you?” he asked his friend.

Ryan grinned. “I’ll go up if he thinks he sees anything.”

Eagerness put energy in the group’s steps. Chen started to jog once, then stopped sheepishly. “Can’t go long that way, huh?” he asked no one in particular.

How far they went that day was uncertain. They’d been relying on an averaging of Rigel’s, Ryan’s, Chen’s, and Antonio’s paces, but the eagerness infected them as well, making their stride lengths uncertain. It was the widest spread of their pace counts yet; using Chen’s, they’d come thirty-one kilometers; using Antonio’s, they’d come twenty-four. With his and Ryan’s coming out to twenty-five and twenty-six, respectively, Rigel decided to call it twenty-five.

But the distance didn’t dampen spirits, even though it made them weary; Melanie had fainted an hour before they stopped. Rigel let her have an extra mouthful of water, knowing she needed it, knowing someone else would come up short later because of it. There were no easy decisions. Yet they’d pressed on, drawn by the sound of thunder, the hope it meant rain, the hope rain meant a river.

From his tree perch, Antonio thought he saw a lake or pond. Ryan went up to look, as did Rita, but none was sure. Rigel decided not to say anything to the group. “If it’s real, let it be a surprise”, he reasoned, and Ryan and Rita agreed.

And after the sun went down, they could see lightning.

“A lot of that is heat lighting”, Rita argued. “It’s going sideways, from cloud to cloud.”

“Depends where you look”, Devon said, with a chunk of dried venison in his mouth. “Over there on the west end, it’s all vertical.”

“That means rain?” Melanie asked weakly.

“Good chance, anyway”, Ryan allowed. “We can hope.”


Next morning, there were clouds closer – and that wasn’t all they saw: Ryan was elated to note that the air had cleared, and there were plainly hills to their north, if not actual mountains.

Rigel dampened his excitement. “This is it, buddy: we’re already fainting because there isn’t enough water. If we don’t find some today by lunch...” He slammed a fist into palm. “This is crazy! Someone pulled us here, and dumps us out where there’s not enough water, not much food— what’s the point? Are we just amusement?!”

“Maybe their aim is bad”, Ryan suggested. “Maybe this is a test: do we drop some of our number so some survive? Are we loyal, not leaving anyone behind? Are we resourceful, finding resources where there are hardly any?”

Rigel, along with Ocean, Rita, Chen, and Oran, stared at him. Chen broke the silence. “And if it’s a test, which way do we choose? Which choice means we pass?”

Oran’s frown was serious. “And what happens if we fail?”

“Maybe”, Rita mused, “It’s not pass-fail. Maybe there aren’t any consequences like that. Maybe it’s just to learn about us.”

“I like that idea”, Ocean responded enthusiastically. “I’m gonna pray it’s true!”

“Pray to who?” Ryan asked, curious.

“Whom”, Rita corrected.

“The universe”, Ocean said, eyes practically glowing. “The universe is aware. It can bend events to benefit the sentient.” She didn’t see the look Ryan got, or his rolled eyes.

“What makes you think we’re in the same universe?” Chen blurted out. “In our universe, wouldn’t we be dead?”

“Um, let’s not go there right now”, Rigel admonished. “If this universe is ours, or not, maybe it can hear Ocean. At least it can’t hurt to try. I say the best way to get it to listen, if it can, is to do our darnedest to do everything we can. We don’t wait for it to rescue us – we move.”

With that, he took his spear/staff in hand and led off.


Casey fainted first, about an hour before noon. Another mouthful of water, Rigel thought. Then it was Melanie again, and this time she couldn’t get back up. Antonio gallantly hauled her up to sit on his shoulders, but Rigel could see the strain. Third was Lumina. Agonizing inside – only a few knew how short their water was – he was helping her drink in little sips when Oran came running and yelling.

“Water!” he hollered. “Rigel, it’s water!” Rigel almost spilled the bottle he was holding. Devon caught it and took over, murmuring quietly to the ever-more-distant girl, who seemed hardly interested in drinking.

Rigel put a hand on Oran’s shoulder. “Calm down, bud. What did you find? How far?”

“It’s like a sink. The dirt on top is damp” their scout reported. Rigel had to chuckle at his delivery; each statement was separated from the next by a gasp for breath.. “ It’s by a sort of cliff, with shade. Chen found it. We dug down to see if it got wetter. About two feet down, we could squeeze water out of the dirt. At three feet it was seeping slowly. That’s when I came back. He’s still digging.”

Rigel could have cried for relief. He settled for hugging Oran tightly to himself for a full half-dozen seconds. “Thank you”, he breathed into the boy’s ear. When he released him, Rigel waved his arms for attention. “Chen and Oran found some water”, he announced. “Oran will take us there.”

Some did cry, at that; everyone joined in a cheer.

Crystal collapsed on the way. Breeze helped her up, but soon collapsed herself. Tanner got them to their feet, and the struggled on, tanner in the middle and the two leaning on him. Grimly, Rigel parceled out water: even though there was water ahead, this was their last clean bottle, and if the water was contaminated... he didn’t finish the thought.


Chen, they all learned, had silk underwear. That was revealed because it was the only thing he’d had fine enough to really filter the water to get it clear enough to drink. Some laughed, but most were excessively grossed out by the thought of drinking water that had been filtered through anyone’s underwear.

But the alternative left the water brown and borderline disgusting: one by one, they caved in, and drank. Rigel limited them to a swallow each at first, then started to fill bottles When half the bottles were filled – and it was slow going because of the filtering – Rigel let everyone through for a major mouthful.

He, Ryan, Chen, Austin, Crystal, Tanner, and Ocean were at the hole. The others had retreated to the grove on the far side, where they were watching actual rainstorms drenching the land to the north. They speculated about better water the next day, maybe even enough to swim in and try to get clean – not many were backpackers, so they hadn’t had the experience of being without bath or shower for days at a time.

Austin tapped Rigel on the shoulder and asked, “What’s that sound?” It was a sort of muted roar, but high pitched.

Ryan’s eyes got big. “Quiet!” he ordered. Seconds later he was grabbing at bottles. “Out! Everyone out!” he yelled. “Up hill!” Not that there was any hill, but they got the idea: get higher than they were.

They were off the mostly-bare dirt and onto grass, and Rigel turned to Ask Ryan what was happening. But his question died on his lips: still at the hole he saw Austin, scooping up a bottle. And beyond Austin, at a distance he couldn’t judge, came a wall of water, muddy, with sticks and stones tossing in the front.

There was no way Austin was going to make it.

 

[DonQuixote]

Wow. Dead and ready to die a horrible death all over again.

Unsuspecting, intent on helping the group.

What comes next? I feel like I should post an old Batman Rock 'em Sock 'em end of show cliffhanger type cliche'.

(Good story, I'm a little slap happy this morning. Nothing another 4-6 hours sleep wouldn't help! lol)

Thanks, again, for posting these inventive novellettes for us.

 

[Anonymous]

This is a really intriguing story! Can't wait to see more!

 

[Kyanimal]

Kuli ...

Fascinating! If I wasn't before, Now I'm Completely hooked!!

And, I'm no longer thinking King as much as I am Tolkien! Lord of the Rings ... Rigel as Frodo, Ryan as Samwise, Anaph as Gandolph, Austin as Stryker, etc., etc.

I sincerely hope there is enough, within You, to keep this going for a long, long, time!!

THANK YOU!!!

Keep smilin'!!
Chaz

 

[Kulindahr]

Wow. Dead and ready to die a horrible death all over again.

Unsuspecting, intent on helping the group.

What comes next? I feel like I should post an old Batman Rock 'em Sock 'em end of show cliffhanger type cliche'.

(Good story, I'm a little slap happy this morning. Nothing another 4-6 hours sleep wouldn't help! lol)

Thanks, again, for posting these inventive novellettes for us.

You can thank a certain other prolific writer here for the cliffhanger.

I got to that point, and was struggling with how to follow it, when the thought occurred that he left us with cliff hangers quite frequently -- so I did it, too.

 

[Kulindahr]

Kuli ...

Fascinating! If I wasn't before, Now I'm Completely hooked!!

And, I'm no longer thinking King as much as I am Tolkien! Lord of the Rings ... Rigel as Frodo, Ryan as Samwise, Anaph as Gandolph, Austin as Stryker, etc., etc.

I sincerely hope there is enough, within You, to keep this going for a long, long, time!!

THANK YOU!!!

Keep smilin'!!
Chaz

I'm going to pretend I never saw this, because those links to Tolkien's characters would really screw with my people's personalities and development.




To wipe it out of my mind, I'm going to have to write in some sex.

 

[Kulindahr]

This next chapter sort of wrote itself last night; I left you guys with a cliff-hanger, but I couldn't sleep that way. My dog, Bammer, went off to bed anyway, so I wrote this up with only the fire to keep me company.

I've been polishing it since breakfast, and I think it's ready.

 

[Kulindahr]

Changes​

Oran was ripping clothes off; Chen began to sprint for Austin, who was oblivious to what was coming. Ryan screamed at him: “Run!” Dmitri tried running toward his friend; Ryan tackled him, while Devon tackled Chen. Austin ran, looked over his shoulder, and sprinted.

Austin was smart, Rigel noted calmly emotionally detached as he awaited the inevitable. The kid was running at an angle, not trying to outdistance the wall of water yet not trying to get straight to high ground, but making a course to do the best of both. Then the water touched his heels, and he threw his backpack, with its water bottles. It hadn’t even landed in Rigel’s arms before Austin vanished, slammed to the dry ground and overrun by tons of water and dirt.

Oran had peeled off everything, and was cutting across the slight rise they were on to a farther part of the watercourse. Others followed. Rigel went, too, crushing the backpack as though it were Austin himself. And as he went, a thought occurred to him....

Okay, whoever, whatever brought us here. If you could move us from our own world, I think you can do something to save Austin. Do it – or I swear that whatever you brought us here for, we won’t do. His final thoughts were vehement, filled with anger that Austin should have been saved from a car wreck and a bastard of a father only to drown before he had a chance to make anything of his new opportunity for a life.

An arm rose above the churning flood. Oran sprinted right into the water, running until his knees got wet. Then he performed the best long shallow dive Rigel had ever seen. Rigel’s breath caught in his throat. “Please”, he whispered.

There was a cheer when Oran came up and stroked swiftly to where Austin’s body was tumbling. Anguished, because that body looked lifeless, Rigel watched the Eagle Scout get Austin into a cross-chest carry and steady him. But before he could tell what Oran had planned next, the two were swept out of sight around another bend.

“Flash floods”, Ryan said tonelessly at his side. “I should have known from the watercourse. We were getting water from the last flood, water that caught in a pocket in the bedrock, so it didn’t seep away. The light dirt on top kept it from evaporating. I should have seen it! The rain north of us, the slope toward the mountains...”

“It’s not your fault”, Rita assured him. “Oran was stupid to go after him, though! Now we’ve lost two.”

Ryan nodded miserably, not believing it. They began to wander downstream, hoping.... and as they moved, the water began to subside. It had just been the exact wrong time to be in that bed, Rigel thought, sinking into misery.

Anaph’s voice snapped him out of it. The kid knelt briefly. “Master, come – we must go to them while there is still life.”

Something about his certainty moved Rigel. “All right”, he replied. “Antonio, keep watch here. Rita, you’re in charge. Ryan, Chen – let’s go.”

Antonio hefted his spear – he and Rigel had ones taller than they were – and saluted with fist to chest. Only then did Rigel realize what secondary disaster might have befallen them: Austin had the gun, the only real protection they had against the cats.

Thus a grim trio set off at a jog, following Anaph, who seemed to somehow know the way. They cut across the watercourse once, where the water was down to twenty centimeters; they cut across it again, where it was down to ten. Then there was a small hill, with a grove on the south side, and they saw a wide pool of water, in fact a growing lake that hadn’t been there before. Halfway down its edge, Oran was struggling to bring Austin’s body ashore. Rigel, Ryan, and Chen broke into a run; Anaph continued at the same pace as before.

The trio got to the water’s edge while Oran was still struggling. Chen waded out and helped; with one of Austin’s arms over each set of shoulders, they brought him to the grass and lay him down.

Oran looked at Rigel, misery in his eyes. “I tried. But it was too rough – I couldn’t do mouth-to-mouth in the water. Then we got tumbled, and when I rolled us up again, water just poured out of his mouth.” He stepped forward and nearly fell against Rigel, who wrapped him in a tight embrace, ignoring the mud – and blood! -- and tears, though the latter made him feel awkward.

Anaph, though, was focused on Austin. He rolled the body over, lifted arms, and water gushed out. He did it again, and a third time, then rolled him back over, and put his ear to Austin’s chest. He grabbed Chen, and tapped Austin’s chest; Chen got it, and got ready for compressions. Oran started off: tip the head to clear the airway, turn the cheek to feel for breath, suck in a big one and give three quick, forceful breaths. The moment he stopped, Chen got to work: pump, pump, pump, pump. He stopped, and Anaph gave Austin two breaths. They kept going.

“I bet he’s cold”, Ryan said. It sounded silly; if his heart was stopped, what difference did that make? But Rigel followed his buddy’s tug on his sleeve, and they set about undoing Austin’s pants and slowly tugging them off. Anaph nodded in approval, which made Rigel feel better. Then he got daring, and managed to pull Austin’s shirt up between Chen’s sets of compressions, then over his head when Anaph paused next.

He and Ryan were rubbing Austin’s feet when it happened: Austin coughed. Immediately Chen put his head to the bare chest. A relieved smile blossomed, but he stuck to procedure and checked for a pulse at Austin’s neck. “He has a pulse”, he whispered in awe, tears beginning to stream down his face.

But Anaph had to do three more sets of breaths before Austin was breathing on his own. Rigel thought he should look triumphant or something, but when Anaph sat back on his heels, he looked puzzled and troubled. He looked up at Rigel. “He is not home”, he announced.

Rigel dropped to his knees and tried to get a response from Austin, the classic Red Cross shoulder shake and "Hey!", but there was nothing. Angrily he slammed fist into palm, and would have done it again except something dropped into his palm: it was the gun.

“In his side pocket”, Ryan said quietly. Rigel just nodded. Holding the .357 calmed him, gave him a focus.

“We won’t give up”, he announced. “Ryan, your spear is pretty long. If we take off our pants and string them on it and mine, we can make a stretcher. We’ll carry him.” He looked around. “To the grove. Chen, go get everyone and bring them here.”

Anaph took hold of Chen’s shoulder and stopped him from getting up. Without saying anything, he reached out his hand to nearly touch Rigel’s hand where the gun was. Their eyes met; Rigel nodded, and handed the firearm to Chen. In good practice, Chen opened the cylinder and checked the rounds, then looked through the barrel before closing the cylinder again. That methodical adherence to proper safety also helped steady Rigel.

“Not quite clean”, he observed. Bending, he plucked three strands of the fuzzy grass that dominated this section of the savanna. The gun he handed to Rigel, quickly braiding the grasses together, then took the gun back. He carefully threaded the small end of his grass cord through the barrel, and gently pulled it through. It came out with slight brown streaks. Chen looked again, didn’t like the result, and repeated the process with a new grass braid.

“Close as it’ll get, I think”, he decided, then closed the cylinder – after another check to be sure he hadn’t dropped any rounds. He gave Rigel a salute, then started off. After just two steps he stopped and peeled off his shirt. “I’m not surrendering my pants”, he said, “but here’s my shirt”. Rigel caught it with a grin, remembering that Chen’s underwear had been their water filter.

While Rigel was helping Chen, Anaph had used his staff, the longest of anyone’s, and Rigel’s, to start the stretcher. Rigel surrendered his pants and shirt, and Chen’s shirt. Three sets of pants and three shirts made an odd but dependable stretcher. Ryan and Rigel rolled Austin onto it, then grabbed the ends. “On three”, Ryan instructed. “One... two... Up!”

“You didn’t say three”, Rigel noted. His spirits were definitely higher.

“You lifted anyway”, Ryan countered.

Anaph walked silently, right hand on Austin’s chest, just resting there, rising and falling with the boy’s breathing. Oran walked on the other side, oblivious to being naked, oblivious to the blood running down from cuts on his chest and sides. Rigel noticed that Anaph’s hand lay atop three leaves, green ones – oak, he thought – and he wondered what was going on in Anaph’s mind. Surely, he thought, the kid doesn’t believe in magic!

A scream came from the grove. Rigel was tired of screams, and frustrated because there was nothing he could do about this one: they were too far away to make a difference. But three shots rang out in quick succession, accompanied by the scream of one of the cats. Then there was another scream, and two more shots. Yelling followed. Torn inside, Rigel plodded on. Why now? he anguished. Isn’t a drowning enough?


They reached the grove.

A large chunk of Rita’s shirt was gone, torn off her back: she had deep scratches, and was barely conscious. Devon was stretched on the ground, holding his left arm and gritting his teeth. Chen was advancing on the cat, fumbling with the cylinder on the .357.

Antonio was on his back – under the cat. But he was smiling grimly and in satisfaction: his hip knife was buried to the hilt right behind the cat’s skull. He gave it a twist, and the cat jerked. Crystal screamed.

“Just muscle reaction”, Antonio explained calmly. “It’s dead. Now will someone get the thing off me, ¿por favor?” Rigel and Tanner moved to roll the carcass, but Rigels’ attention was on Austin.


Anaph’s skin was pale white. He’d shed his cloak to make a sort of tent over Austin, holding it up with three spears he’d just taken –from girls who made no protest. It was a very somber group that settled in to make camp earlier than they ever had. Oran dug the fire pit with a gift Antonio had made the night before: a wooden shovel, He made it deep, setting the sod around the edge in lieu of rocks.

“We’ll rest here a few days”, Rigel decreed. “Let’s make this look like home.”

Once again he found himself building walls of whatever was available. With Antonio’s gift to Oran, that was easier: the walls were mainly sod, taken from a ditch Oran dug near the edge of the grove. “The latrine”, he informed them all, “So use it.” It was far larger than they needed for a latrine, but that was to provide sod for their windbreak wall.

When Oran made the announcement, Breeze came up and began gently wiping his wounds, cleaning the blood off. He was still nude, which didn't seem to bother either of them, but when she was finished, she led him to where his clothes were stacked neatly. "I got them for you", was all she said.

Devon's arm had been torn; a great gash ran at a slight angle down his left bicep nearly to the elbow. Ocean had him sit, stuck a stick between his teeth, and produced a needle and thread from somewhere; after rinsing the wound with some water filled with crushed plants, she began sewing. He passed out before she was done; she just caught him, let him slide to the ground, and kept sewing.

Rita's back was a mess. Ocean had assigned Crystal to clean it, but the girl just sat there shaking; Melanie took on the job, using the last of their clean water. When Ocean checked her over, she declared, "You'll be sleeping that way for a while. And no twisting or turning, no heavy lifting."

"Hit me on the head", was Rita's response. "Knock me out." Ocean snorted faintly but didn't say a word.

Rigel was setting a piece of sod on the corner, making sure it overlapped the ends of the pieces below; suddenly, with no warning, Austin sat up. The sod landed clumsily; Devon snapped at Rigel, but subsided when he saw what had their leader’s attention. The sod stayed where it was; with Devon’s torn arm, he couldn’t lift it.

“Hi”, said Austin. Then, “Hey – did I lose my gun?!” He wiggled his butt, trying to feel if there was anything in his pockets.

“We’ve got it”, Rigel assured him as everyone else gathered around. “What... I thought you were in a coma, or something.”

Austin shivered. “Oran, fire – now”, Rigel ordered. “Austin, let’s get you by the fire.” But he looked at Anaph for approval, sensing that this weird kid knew things he didn’t.

“When it’s going”, Anaph agreed. Rigel’s gaze followed Anaph’s, and his eyes widened in astonishment: though Austin was sitting almost vertically, those three green leaves were still on Austin's chest.

 

[DonQuixote]

Kuli,
You are making a full fledged adventure novel out of this great story.

And there's still all the background stuff we started with that we still don't know about - no I haven't forgotten.

They really need to learn how to skin and cook those cats so that their meat is disease free. Lots of protein there.

You are a prodigious writer.
This and the other story both concurrently in rapid succession.

Thanks for all your efforts.