The Forest Beyond the Earth Page 3

  Dad said the forest took the Earth away from people after the Fire Dragons burned them all.

  Nervousness made the flavor of grasshopper burble up into the back of her throat perhaps an hour into the journey. She’d never been so far away from the cabin, so at risk of being taken by the Tree Walkers. Of course, she also had not been twelve years old the last time Dad decided to go off on a trip, either. She simultaneously felt like a frightened child and a small adult proud of her increased freedom.

  Dad walked with purpose but not hurry, his rifle angled sideways and downward to the left. She wanted him to hold her hand, but accepted he could not as it would get in his way if he needed to shoot a monster.

  A few hours into the trip, he slowed to a stop, looked around, and let out a relieved exhale. “Gotta let out the bad water.”

  “Okay.”

  Dad took two steps to the left and stood with his back to her. She decided to take advantage of the pause as well and squatted, pulling her skirt out of the way. Soon, they resumed the trek, sipping from canteens while walking.

  “Where are we going?” asked Wisp.

  “There used to be a small settlement a ways north of us. Scavengers have probably been and gone already, but I’m hoping they didn’t take everything. There’s gotta be something of use left there.”

  “What’s a settlement?”

  He let go of the rifle long enough to pat her on the head. “It’s a place where people used to build houses all close together. Must’ve been a defense tactic. I guess even the ancients had tribes. People banded together for protection. Much easier to defend themselves when they put their cabins all together.”

  “Oh, like a city?” Wisp peered up at him. “There’s cities in some of the books. I think ‘towns’ are like the same thing, but smaller. I wonder what it’s like to have so many people around. I think it’s kinda scary.”

  “People change, sweetie. Before the dragons came, they weren’t quite as mean to each other as they are now. Back then, you didn’t have to worry so much that any person you ran into would try to hurt you and take all your stuff… or take you.”

  “Take me?” She blinked. “Like the Tree Walkers?”

  “Not exactly. You remember me telling you about marauders?”

  She nodded. “Bad people, but not monsters like the Tree Walkers.”

  “Right. They roam in packs, and sometimes they steal people, too.”

  “What for?”

  “They force them to work. Sometimes they make them fight each other as a sport. A few of their groups even use people for meat.”

  She gagged. “Yuck! Well, no one’s going to take me for meat.”

  “Nope. You’re way too skinny. They’d throw you back and keep fishing.”

  Wisp poked him in the side and raspberried him. “Am not! I don’t taste good.”

  “Did you taste yourself?” He glanced back at her.

  “No. I just don’t want to taste good. I’ll smear red berry all over me so I look like the firepillars. Red means don’t eat.”

  “Right. Maybe that’ll work.” He winked at her.

  The ground pitched into a hill, at one point growing so steep she had to grab handfuls of dirt to make the climb. Vines with thousands of tiny prickling thorns scraped at her legs. Dad waited at the top, staring at something in the distance. She pulled herself up enough to see over the ridge, her nose even with ground level, and gaped in awe at a huge metal object covered in runner vines and plants. It had the overall shape of a tube, much bigger than the cabin, and many times longer. Squarish panels resembling windows ran down the length over an angled flat section on the side that had gouged into the ground. The huge beast had a tall, vertical fin opposite a pointy end with more windows. All sorts of junk littered the ground in the area.

  “What is that?” she whispered.

  “A thunderbird,” said Dad. “A machine from long ago.”

  “Like your bullet maker?” She pulled herself past the ridge and stood.

  Dad crept toward the wreck. “Only in that they are both machines. This one is far more complicated. I don’t even begin to understand how it worked.”

  “Complicated. It’s difficult?” She tiptoed after him.

  “I mean it’s got a lot of parts. It’s beyond me to understand how something like this could work. I think they used to fly.”

  “Wow… but it looks so heavy.” She pointed at the angled part on the side. “Is that a wing? How did it flap?”

  He shrugged. “Magic that has been lost to us. All I know is they used to carry people over great distances, high in the clouds where the Tree Walkers couldn’t reach them.”

  Wisp stepped around a tangled mess of metal and placed one foot on the wing above where it dug into the earth. The dull-grey metal warmed the bottom of her foot, but not painfully so. She leaned her weight forward, arms waving to the sides, and walked up to the long, tubular body.

  “Be careful,” said Dad.

  She squatted beside the curved wall and put her face over the window, shielding her eyes with both hands. Two small fog spots from her nostrils appeared on the plastic. Inside, a few of the seats held desiccated remains, mostly skeletons wearing tattered bits of clothing in styles she’d never imagined. The skeleton nearest her had a dark shirt over his ribs with the word Nike on it.

  “It’s a shrine! They’ve all gone to the Other Place,” called Wisp, before lowering her voice. “I’m sorry for disturbing you. I’ll go away now.”

  She crawled on all fours down the wing and leapt to the ground. “What’s nikkey?”

  “What?” asked Dad.

  “A man by the hole had it on his shirt. N-i-k-e. Nikkey.”

  “No idea. Could be his name. Some of the marauders do that… write their names on their chest armor.”

  She grinned, peering down at her chest where the faded image of a cartoonish bunny rabbit skull stared off into space. “Like my shirt, but it’s not words.”

  “I think that was meant to be cute.”

  Wisp took a few steps to the side before plunking herself down on a square cushion that resembled the bottom part of a chair. Fortunately, it turned out to be soft. “What’s cute?”

  He glanced over at her and cracked up. “You.”

  Her eyebrows shifted together. “What?”

  Dad stepped toward her. “Well, it means something or someone that, when you look at them, you feel happy enough to want to…” He scooped her up into a hug. “Squeeze them.”

  Wisp squealed with laughter.

  He spun her around once before setting her down. “Hmm. You know, there might be something useful in here if we can find a way in.”

  “Isn’t it a shrine?”

  “No. Those people went to the Other Place from right here. A shrine is something made to show how much you love someone, even after they go there.”

  “Oh.”

  They circled around the other side, where more of the underbelly showed. There, the entire side of the thunderbird had been charred black. Most of the trees nearby had either died or had huge swaths of bare wood showing where the bark had disappeared. Plenty of underbrush covered the ground, but the soil beneath the growth showed a definite blackening compared to the rest of the forest. The windows on this side had melted to openings.

  This wing jutted up into the sky, about twice as long as the one she’d climbed, but looked as though it should’ve been much longer. Twisted metal strips dangled from the end a short distance past where an enormous round pod full of blades hung. As soon as she gazed into it, an overwhelming fear that it would suck her in and shred her to little strips of bacon came out of nowhere. She grabbed onto Dad.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s bad. It wants to hurt me.”

  “It doesn’t want anything. It’s a machine. Or… it was a machine. It’s scrap metal now.”

  She glanced at the windows. “Are they watching us?”

  “Could be,” said Dad.

  He k
ept walking around to the tail end, where a small ramp opened into a vast, empty space. If anything had been in there, someone had already taken everything.

  “How did they all go to the Other Place at the same time?”

  Dad took her hand and led her off into the woods, leaving the thunderbird behind. “It fell out of the sky and hit the ground so hard, they all went to the Other Place.”

  “Oh.” She looked up at him. “Did a Fire Dragon kill the thunderbird?”

  “It’s possible, but I think if that happened it would be in much smaller pieces.”

  She giggled, but felt bad about it.

  They walked on, continuing well past noon. With each passing hour, her constant dread of seeing Tree Walkers lessened. Traveling away from the south, plus having gotten so far from home without seeing one, reassured her. Of course, it could be that the daytime kept them sleeping. Worry of sunset got her squeezing his hand.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Are we going to be home before it gets dark?”

  He brushed his thumb back and forth across her hand. “Yes. We’re almost there.”

  “To the city?”

  “I changed my mind. The city’s farther off than I thought it would be, and I don’t want to risk taking you on such a long trip. We’re going to a place where I hid some stuff.”

  “Okay.”

  She resumed staring at the ground to avoid painful encounters with rocks, roots, or bugs. A mulch of dead leaves with the occasional tract of moss made the ground as soft as the bottom of her Haven. Wisp looked up at a sudden leftward tug from Dad.

  “We’re close.”

  Dad followed a light brown path of soft sand that resembled a stream with no water in it. A few minutes later, he veered to the right and headed up a shallow hill, atop which sat a strange mound of vegetation. It had the same brick-like shape as her Haven, but far larger―bigger even than the cabin. She gazed at the fluttery bits in various shades of green, never having seen any plants before even close to that.

  “What kind of bush is that?”

  “It’s not real.” He stopped by one of the narrow ends, stuck his fingers into the foliage, and pulled it aside like a curtain to reveal a metal door. “It’s plastic.”

  She grasped a dull green strip. Slick and flimsy, it certainly did not have the texture of a leaf. “Plastic leaves? Why?”

  “To hide this place from marauders.”

  “What is it?”

  “Our stuff.”

  He pulled an opener out of his pocket, slid it into a hole, and turned it. The door gave way with a loud creaking groan of rusting hinges. Dad stepped over a metal flange, ducking to enter a door-shaped hatch. She scrunched up her nose at the strange chemical smell, but followed him in. Her foot came down on a smooth, cold surface. The bizarre sensation of walking on such a surface startled a gasp out of her.

  She stared down at a floor that appeared made of stone, but perfectly flat. “Dad, what is this?” She patted her foot around, making a clapping noise.

  “Concrete,” said Dad.

  Wisp squatted and ran her hand back and forth across the floor. “It’s cold. Is it supposed to be cold? It stinks in here, but not as bad as when you make ngh. Nothing is that bad.”

  Dad’s laughter echoed out of the dark.

  “You’re smelling rubber and a bit of ethanol.”

  She stood and took a few steps forward until the glow from Dad’s light-maker washed over the face of a huge black monster with eyes almost as big as her face, and a tall, snarling mouth. Screaming, she leapt backwards and crashed against a metal wall, causing a resounding boom. The unexpected noise made her shriek again and spin around.

  “What?” shouted Dad. He ran to her.

  “Monster!” She pointed at the creature while hiding behind him.

  He pivoted and pointed his light-maker at the horrible face. When he started to laugh, she went from petrified to furious.

  “Sweetie, that’s not a monster. It’s a Jeep.”

  “A Jeep?” She narrowed her eyes. “Stop laughing at me.”

  “It’s an old car. No gas. Doesn’t work anymore. It’s a machine like that thunderbird.”

  “It’s so dark in here. I thought I saw a face. Stop laughing at me.”

  Snickering, Dad moved over to a set of shelves and picked among cardboard boxes.

  “Is the Jeep yours?”

  “Well, I suppose it is, but it’s not useful anymore, except maybe to get out of the rain.”

  She edged around the evil face and stared in awe at a huge black ring covered in dust and nubs, as tall as her chest. Scratches, scuffs, and dents covered both sides of the old vehicle. Rusty metal plates dotted it as well, added to cover holes or perhaps as armor. Another matching ring jutted out from the back end of the Jeep. The machine appeared to have four of them, one at each corner, like feet. She climbed up to stand on a narrow ledge running along the side and peered in at comfortable-looking chairs. Both had dark stains on the beige fabric.

  “Is that blood on the chairs inside?”

  Clanks and clatters came from the shelves behind her. “Your mother and I were attacked before we got here. Yes. That’s blood, but our wounds were not as bad as it looks.”

  She stepped down from the running board. Thinking that Mother had used this ‘Jeep’ thing made it feel like a shrine, too. “Is that why she went to the Other Place?”

  Dad remained quiet for a few minutes. When he spoke, his voice nearly cracked with grief. “No… at least, I don’t think so. We were here for years before she… had to go there.”

  Wisp padded up behind him and wrapped her arms around. “I miss Mother.”

  He froze, again silent for a moment. “I do, too.”

  “I’m glad she can watch and protect us.”

  Dad pressed his hand over hers, clasped at his chest. “She’s always with us.”

  The somber mood lasted a while before he resumed digging among the boxes. She released her hold and hovered nearby, folding her arms as the cold of the place seeped into her bones.

  “Why did you leave your things here but home is so far away?”

  “Aha!” Dad grabbed a large white plastic jug and shook it, making a sound as though it contained sand. “Found it. Umm. Well, we stayed here at first, but it’s just an old bunker. Even in the summer, it’s cold inside, and it has no windows… Your mother wanted a nicer place to live. So we decided to leave our valuable things here and went off to find a better spot.”

  She glanced at the entrance, wondering how that big machine ever made it through a hole that small. “How’d you squeeze the Jeep in the door?”

  Again, he laughed. “There’s two doors. One’s much bigger.” He pointed around the ‘wall,’ explaining how it split open down the middle and swung open. “There’s a little door inside the big doors.”

  Wisp wandered around the room, eyeing shelves of cardboard boxes, plastic jugs, and unidentifiable metal parts. “How did all this stuff fit in the Jeep?”

  “Most of it didn’t. A lot of this was here when we found the place. Found this here.” He patted his rifle. “And the bullet machine.” Dad held up the white jug. “And the magic fire dust.”

  She laughed.

  He stuffed the jug in his backpack as well as a pair of plastic bags full of shiny metal bits. “Damn, last box of primers. I should probably start hunting with a bow or something. Save the bullets for emergencies.”

  “You can pick up an arrow and shoot it again.” Wisp shook her head. “Can’t do that with bullets.”

  He waved for her to come closer. “Come on. Time to go home. And you’re right. But arrows also don’t always kill the monsters in one shot.”

  Wisp hurried to the exit and climbed through the hole in the bigger door, brushing the camouflage netting out of her way. She ran a short distance away and jumped into a patch of sunlight to get feeling back in her toes.

  Dad climbed out, giving her a startled/angry stare for a moment. Right as
she expected him to yell for her getting too far away, he shook his head and muttered to himself. She stood still, feet together in the sunlight patch, and basked in the warmth. Once he had the door locked and the fake bush back in place to hide it, he hurried over.

  “Sorry. I was cold. My toes went to the Other Place.”

  He patted her on the head and ran a hand down to her shoulder. “It’s all right. We’re far enough away from the Tree Walkers here, but don’t make a habit of it.”

  Relief spread over her that he hadn’t gotten angry. “Yes, Dad.”

  He hefted his rifle, spun in place while examining the forest, and decided on a direction. Wisp followed with a huge grin, thrilled to be going home again and overjoyed to have been allowed to be with him on one of his trips. Of course, walking so much made her legs tired, but the vastness of the Endless Forest kept her awestruck enough not to care.

  Not long after the late-afternoon shadows began to creep across the ground, Dad pointed at a spread of greenery. “What are those?”

  Wisp glided ahead of him, nearer to a plant with small trumpet-shaped pink flowers, a reddish stem, and thin green leaves. She sniffed at it, getting a mixture of pine and lemon. “Umm. Whack runt?”

  Dad smiled. “You’re almost right… did you mean wax currant?”

  “Oops. Yeah.”

  “Can we eat it?”

  “No, but the flowers will turn into berries in like a month or two, and we can eat those.”

  He grinned. “You are listening.”

  Wisp ran back to his side, proud of herself.

  They walked among the woods for a little while more until Dad pointed at another shrub with leaves somewhat like pine needles.

  “Juniper,” said Wisp, barely looking at it. “Can’t eat it and the berries are poison.”

  He ruffled her hair.

  Moments later, he gestured at a bush with stark pale blue berries.

  “Creeper Gone Grape. Can eat the berries, but they taste bad.”

  “Oregon grape,” said Dad.

  She repeated it.

  Dad nudged her around to his left side and walked with an arm around her back, one handing his rifle. “Your mother would be proud of you.”