What They Found in the Forest
by Ljubo Popovich
Part 1 appears
in this issue.
conclusion
In the morning, hunters left the village, and everyone set about their tasks. Vaslav, Eric and Elle sat on logs, gawking at the ceaseless productivity around them. Being around people revived them.
“Where is this place?” Elle asked Liam, gazing about like someone coming out of a dream.
“Just a village. Doesn’t ’ave a name, really.” He stripped the bark off a branch with a wedge-shaped stone.
“Did everyone wander in like us?” Eric asked.
“The lucky ones,” Liam said. “Had to drag some of ’em here half-dead and crazy to boot.”
“Can you tell us what’s going on?” Elle asked.
“We’re choc-o-block with theories. Talk to Cliff. He been here the longest. We’ll let you off work because it’s your first day.” Liam smiled.
They waited until Cliff returned from mushroom-gathering.
“Firstly,” Cliff said, “do you remember anything?”
Elle told what she remembered, which was hardly anything.
“That tallies,” Cliff said. “So you’re not the type to believe in aliens. Looks like I’ll have to show you.” He went to his tent, brought back something made of metal.
Elle and Eric stared. It was a sickle-shaped lump of shiny metal, rusted, but unmistakably a piece of something larger. On its surface were hundreds of miniscule dots, spaced in erratic clusters. They’d never seen anything like it.
“It’s the only thing we’ve found so far.”
“What is it?” Elle asked.
“Everyone who ends up here arrives with nothing. Like Adam and Eve. But not quite so innocent.” He winked. “One of the villagers dug this up when he was digging a grave.”
“Some ancient relic?” Eric asked.
“Could be part of a ship, or a machine. If you don’t mind a hike, I’ll take you to see something else. We can talk along the way.”
“So we’re really on an alien planet?” Eric asked.
“Took you this long to figure that out?”
“I knew something was wrong with the moon,” Eric said.
“Apart from the different seasons and constellations, and no satellites in the sky, what convinced me was the botanist I met a few months ago. He identified over a hundred extinct species of plants and fungi.”
“But I don’t get it,” Eric said. “It has rain and rabbits and birds.”
“Right. They seeded it with all the right stuff. It’s almost like a paradise. You can find trees thousands of years old, even fossils, if you look hard enough. They’ve been at it a long time.”
“Why would they need us?” Elle asked.
“Whether it’s food or research we’re not exactly in a position to know.”
They continued up the steep path in silence. The chirping of insects and the humidity seemed authentic enough to Eric.
They came to a dank cave under a small waterfall. Cliff ushered them through the spray.
“It may look like a crude cave painting, but look closely.”
There was a ship and string-shaped entities. “I’ve seen better drawings in grade school,” Eric said.
Cliff grunted irritably. “Tell me if they look familiar.”
“I don’t remember being abducted,” Eric shrugged.
“It’s eerie. Like a dream I had.” Elle decided. “But it’s almost too crazy to believe.”
“This was painted with human blood. Our little tribe wasn’t always as peaceful as now.”
“Thanks for taking us in,” Elle said. She glanced at her husband as a few tears trickled down his cheek.
“We’re never getting home,” Eric muttered quietly.
“We’ll talk about it on the way back,” Cliff said, starting off at a brisk pace.
* * *
Vaslav sat with them, repeating phrases no one understood.
“One day I’d like to know his story,” Cliff said. “There are almost a hundred of us in this village now, from all walks of life, all corners of the globe. You could probably walk for a few months and come across another group just as diverse. You’d run into a few strays along the way too.”
“You two,” Liam called to Eric and Elle, “I’ll show you how to make your tent.”
“That’s not what I imagined our first house to look like,” Eric smiled.
“Shouldn’t have gotten your hopes up,” Liam said.
Liam showed them everything they needed to know to get by. They worked every day on their assigned tasks and collapsed onto their reed mats at night.
At the top of their tent, there was a hole where the poles crossed through which she could see a few stars. “We’re astronauts,” she said. “We’ve been in space.”
“I thought we were poor before. Turns out I had no idea.”
“You know, it’s nice to see you working.”
Eric grumbled. “I’ve been working my ass off since we got here. You’d think they’d give us more time to get adjusted.”
“I wouldn’t mind staying here.”
“I knew you were gonna say that.”
“Who needs all that stuff anyway?”
“Don’t buy into it, Elle.” Eric sat up. “It’s a desperate life.”
“Liam’s been here three years.”
“Not many last that long, according to Cliff. Their time comes and the aliens come back for them. You’ve heard what happened to Cliff’s wife.”
“We can start over. Try to enjoy the time we have.”
“I don’t like the fact that those things put an expiration date on us.”
“We could get lucky and make it to old age.”
“Even Liam knows that’s not a possibility. The total population doesn’t go up.”
“We could give it a try.” She pulled him by the arm.
* * *
Newer people arrived at the village. But as often as people came, many departed, setting off on long pilgrimages from which they never returned.
There was plenty to do. Eric skinned his first deer, and set it down on their tent like a rug.
“We’re going to have to make a bigger tent,” Elle said.
“Really? You’re pregnant?”
“Too soon to tell. But I’ve gained a few pounds.”
“Don’t go getting fat,” he guffawed. “You know, I was bored as hell at first. But Liam sure knows how to keep people busy.”
“There’s hope for you yet.”
Restful sleep was the reward for their work. But as time wore on, changes occurred.
Liam lay down and hardly ever got up. Cliff took over directing everyone’s work.
“What’s going on?” Eric asked.
Cliff shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid Liam’s time has just about run out.”
“But he’s only been here three or four years.” Eric’s hands were shaking. He couldn’t believe the stories were true.
A few days later Liam’s body became a stiff as a plank, and though his eyes remained open they couldn’t force food down his throat.
Soon enough a pleasant humming drone issued from the sky.
Cliff and another man lifted the body onto a wooden bench as everyone backed away to the edge of the clearing. A strong wind gathered.
Eric watched everyone drift to sleep on the ground one by one. A few feet away Elle swayed and then went limp. He felt influenced by the pull of the ship, a strange magnetism tugged at his consciousness. Without thinking, and with his last ounce of strength, he reached out and clasped a burning coal from the fire. It seared his flesh but it also brought back his awareness.
Burying his pain and leaning against a tree, he squinting through closed eyelids as a massive disc-shaped object floated into view. A sphere detached from the hovering ship and touched down. As far as he could tell, he was the only conscious one left, and whatever immobilizing force they had been using had ceased.
Within seconds the pod opened and a creature from his nightmares crawled out. It had a long spine that looked like a spiral staircase with a dozen multi-jointed limbs. These unfolded to propel it forward. As it crept along the ground directly toward Liam’s inert form, Eric stared in disbelief.
It emitted high-pitched grinding noises and removed a baseball-sized sphere from a hollow in its abdomen. The sphere unfolded into a disc, and the creature made a tiny scratch on the intricate surface before putting it away.
Eric stifled a scream when the creature vomited a colorful liquid onto Liam’s body and dissolved the flesh in seconds. The skin and muscle turned into thick smoke, and the bones crumbled into dust as the acid devoured every ounce.
The alien lapped at the rivulets of blood with a thousand tongue-like fingers, and Eric glimpsed what lay underneath the liquefying mass. Folded into a compact ball beneath the exposed package of entrails was a bright, intricately webbed, egg-shaped layer of tiny limbs. The thing awoke, unfolded, stretched out its tendrils, and began lashing about in the bloody mess from which it had emerged. Its flesh expanded rapidly as it took in air and shook off the molten body of its host until it was a fifth the size of its parent.
Eric was paralyzed with fear and disgust. He clenched his ruined hand into a fist and could not unclench it. The creature straightened out, sweeping away its tracks with a flat tail. The hideous spawn slurped up feet of intestine through a maw in its navel, and a multitude of scintillant eyes blossomed on its pointed skull.
A second sphere floated from the hull, and white noise filled his mind, easing him into oblivion.
* * *
The next day Elle couldn’t find Eric. She set out with Cliff to search the woods.
“He wouldn’t just leave,” she said. “They must have taken him.”
“It wasn’t his time,” Cliff said. “He’ll probably turn up.”
Elle waited. At the end of every day she ventured out. After a week she made her way back to the cave.
“What the hell, Eric?” she saw him at the back of the cave.
“Elle, I’m almost finished.”
“Where have you been? What’s wrong with you?” She squinted at him as he chipped a line into the soft roof of the cave. Every inch was full of gruesome images. “What is all this?”
“When the ship came to take Liam, I stayed awake, Elle.” Tears sprang to his eyes.
“What? How?”
With a feeble effort he raised his burnt hand. “There’s only one thing left to do,” he said.
“What did you see?”
“I drew it all here. The whole cycle. It’s all on the walls now. If we can get more villages together, we can make weapons. It’s just a matter of time before we capture one of their ships.”
“What did they do to Liam?” Her eyes darted over his drawings uncertainly.
“I need you to do something for me, Elle.”
“Why don’t we go back to camp and talk?”
“I need you to kill me.” Shaking, he held up a wooden spear.
“No.” She snapped the spear over her knee. “You can try to recruit from other villages or whatever. I’m going to go back and make the most of my time.” Ignoring his pleading calls she stomped out of the cave.
When Cliff and the others went to the cave, Eric had already left. Cliff spent hours in the cave, deciphering the drawings. He had brought the metal relic with him, the shard dotted with hundreds of lines and indentations. He compared it to series of images on the wall.
“The little dots,” he said.
“What?” his companion asked, holding the torch closer.
“All of these markings on my artifact. They’re human beings. Settlements. It’s a map.”
Copyright © 2018 by Ljubo Popovich
