Cascade box set 2, p.40
Cascade Box Set 2, page 40
As she hacked away with the crab like talon, she also wondered if whoever ‘they’ were that took them, were watching her now. Like how a cat plays with a mouse, watching her attempt to escape just for them to zap her or something, and then she would wake up an hour later in another cell.
“Screw it,” she said under her breath, and continued beating at the inside parts of the wall.
A gaseous noise came from a small hole that she had just created, and she backed away. Shit, I’ve hit a pipe.
A foul smelling white mist started to fill the room. Panic started to well up inside her, but she instantly pushed it back down, and walked back to the burgeoning hole. “I’m not dying in here.”
She hacked and tore best she could, ignoring the smoke, until she was able to get her hands into the hole and then pull the fabric like layers back. Heaving best she could, a large piece came away in her hand and instantly a glow emanated from the newly created gap.
From her position a few inches away, all she could see through the hole was another wall, but because it filled her entire view it was hard to see if it was near or far.
She coughed. Her head was starting to feel a little woozy. Pushing the disorientation she was feeling aside she tore away at the material on either side of the hole, pulling it back, further and further.
“Come on…” she said between gritted teeth.
Finally the hole was just about big enough for her to fit the top half of herself into. She looked back at the cell, it was now disappearing into a white haze. She wavered, then quickly grabbed at the wall to steady herself. No…
She had no idea what was on the other side of the hole, but staying where she was, was not an option. She pushed up against the wall, then pushed her head through the layers and through the hole, the air immediately became fresher.
Cubes on cubes. She blinked and shook her head, trying to clear her mind and equally understand the scene she was looking at. Cells similar to her own, spread out all around her, with only a few yards of space between each of them. She rotated herself looking upwards, and it was the same above. Stretching as far as she could see. A distant clanging made her freeze. When there was no follow up sound she breathed again. Looking down, she noticed a rail maybe a foot wide on the outside, ran along most of the metal boxes where their floors would be. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to stand on. She tucked the talon into her belt.
She went to push herself fully out of the hole, then she stopped. Do I really want to be out here? Inside whatever the hell this larger structure is?
She swallowed her fear, and pushed, squeezing her shoulders, then torso through the hole and dropping at the same time. Something’s wrong.
She felt like she was swimming even though she was breathing air of some kind. She reached out with her fingers until she was hanging half out of the hole, and then touched the rail. It was smooth and cold to touch, and didn’t provide much in the way of grip for her fingers to hold. She tried not to look beyond it, for just rows and columns of other cells were cast in all directions, seemingly in perfect symmetry disappearing into infinity. If she slid it was a long way down, or was it up or forward, she wasn’t sure.
Her feet scrambled to get more traction just inside her cell wall, and with a final push she slid out of the hole, her momentum taking her towards the rail, which she crashed into and then continued to move past. In a panic she desperately flung her hands out and grabbed the smooth metal. It was then she realized she was floating.
CHAPTER SIX
After four hours Burt and Abbey had left Pennsylvania, moved through Connecticut and entered Massachusetts. The fact that they had seen no humans at all throughout the entire journey bothered them both and the increasingly exotic plant life that was smothering most of the towns and cities didn’t help.
“The city of Worcester is about ten miles up ahead, and if we get any elevation on this highway I imagine we would start to see the walls of the Boston Camp,” said Burt.
Abbey rummaged around in her backpack and pulled out a small pair of binoculars, and looked out, but all she could see was more of the same brown trees of the old world and lush greens of the new. “I’m not seeing anything yet.”
Lumps of metal that were once vehicles had now become homes to smaller E.L.F’s, and as they passed the reed and flower covered mounds, creatures ducked back inside.
As the highway split the city, the remnants of homes and office buildings were still visible despite nature’s attempt to bury them.
“There’s no way a human would survive in this,” said Burt, the warm breeze from his pulled down window swept over his face.
“Maybe there’s Cascaders in there.”
Burt briefly glanced at her, while steering the pickup between broken cars and trucks. “You sense any?”
She continued looking forward. “No… I don’t think so.”
“The change is greater here, seems to be getting more concentrated the closer we get to Boston.”
“Looks that way.”
Her thoughts quickly jumped in and out of sensing creatures, linking with them so they knew they were no threat, then jumping back to her immediate surroundings. She did this now almost without realizing it.
After a long sweeping bend, a sliver of silver glinting in the early afternoon sun was obvious to them both.
“We found it,” said Abbey.
“Yup. You want us to drive right inside?”
“Yes, if that’s possible.”
“We’ll soon find out.”
The Boston Camp’s wall grew in size as they approached.
“I half expected it to be covered in vines and such like everything else around here,” said Burt.
Abbey went to reply when she closed her eyes as if she had suddenly been struck by a headache. “Stop.”
“What?” said Burt slowing the pickup but not stopping it.
“Stop!” Abbey exclaimed.
He slammed on the breaks. Just as he did the ground noticeably started to shake. He looked confused at the ground outside. “We don’t get earthquakes up—”
He didn’t need to finish his sentence as the cause of the ground shuddering became obvious as something which looked like a slug except being three story’s high climbed up onto the highway, and moved across it. Half way across it stopped and seemed to move part of its torso in their direction.
“You are controlling that thing right? It knows we’re no threat?”
Abbey had her eyes closed as if she was intensely concentrating.
“Abbey?”
“Yes!” The words blurted out with a force she hadn’t meant.
The creature looked back towards its intended path and continued to move its gargantuan mound like body off the side of the highway taking with it a good few vehicles.
“Well least the way’s clear now,” said Burt. He looked at Abbey. “You okay? We can stop here for a while if you want.”
She opened her eyes. “No, I’m fine, for some reason I was having trouble linking to that thing. Sometimes it goes like that. We can keep going.”
Burt nodded, then slowly pressed down on the gas pedal.
As they moved forward the wall loomed over them. It was even higher than the one near Austin, but appeared to have less gun emplacements. Where the large gates should have been, was just a gaping hole. They drove slowly through it, but had to slow even more due to the wreckage of vehicles laid out in front of them.
Even with the stalks and leaves sprouting from the concrete it was obvious a fierce battle had taken place all amongst the trees and hills around them. Military vehicles were tossed on their sides, and single and two-story buildings sat at regular intervals most with holes covering them, or entire sides missing revealing their inner floors.
“Most of these buildings look like they were newly constructed,” said Abbey.
“Like your camp?”
“No, these are just shacks compared to what we have there.”
“I reckon they never had the time and space to get going like the Austin camp.”
“You’re probably right.”
All around her she could sense the E.L.F’s, even if they weren’t showing themselves. “There’s a lot of creatures in these woods and hills, even more than outside the walls. It’s hard to keep track of them.”
Burt looked at her. “If you need me to turn us around, just say.”
She shook her head. “No, we’re fine.”
Burt went to ask her if she sensed any humans, but decided not too.
As they drove onwards, the landscape around them looked pretty much untouched. The strange alien plants where taking hold like everywhere else, but apart from that it didn’t even look like they were inside a camp. After a few more miles of driving over undulating hills, the highway straightened out, and a town grew ahead of them.
Burt stopped at the turnoff. “Shall we head into that town?”
“Yes.” Abbey tried stretching her senses across the miles around them, to sense anything out of place, but only a wall of E.L.F noise came back at her.
They drove up a slight incline, bumping over the occasional vine that was trying to reach across the road. Two-story homes, mostly destroyed, with broken wooden beams pointing towards the sky looked back at them on both sides. As the road grew wider and they moved into the center of the town, the destruction around them increased in intensity. Stalks and trees stood between mounds of rubble, while the twisted posts of street lamps lay strewn in all directions.
Burt stopped the pickup at a junction and sighed. “There’s nothing here for us. I’ve seen war zones, and this is or… was one. The creatures won, we lost.” He turned to Abbey, but she was already half out of the door. “Where you going!” he half shouted then opened his own door, but a loud shriek quickly made him pull it closed. Shaking his head, he grabbed the assault rifle down the side of his seat, and opened the door again, looking up at the sky. A bird like creature, except with the head of a dog glided across his view, then disappeared amongst some ruins. He followed it with his gun, then ran around the pickup to see where Abbey had gone.
He didn’t have to look far, she was crouched down near a manhole cover. He ran over to her. “What is it?”
“There’s something wrong about what’s below us,” she said tracing her fingers over the smooth metal.
Burt anxiously looked around them. “I don’t suggest we stay here for long, we’re exposed out here.”
“I’m sensing E.L.F’s all around us.”
“Okay? How’s that any different than anywhere else in this hell?”
She looked up at him. “What’s different is I’m not sensing any below us.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Fiona drifted from cube to featureless cube looking for an end to the maze she was in. Her arms and legs were tiring due to the constant need to control her momentum so she wouldn’t career into one of the cells too hard. It reminded her of an old computer game she used to play as a child where you had to control the thrust of a small spaceship.
“I always did suck at that game,” she said to herself, grabbing one of the intake pipes all of the cells had.
Another clanging noise rang out around her. By now she was used to the sound and ignored it while she looked at the metal boxes all around her.
“This is not working, I need a different approach.”
Making sure she had a good grip with her left hand she removed the E.L.F’s talon from her belt, having a quick look at its still sharp edge and brought it down on the smooth surface of the cell wall close to her. It landed with a thud then a scrape, the sound not traveling far. She struck it again, this time harder, a small tear appeared. She continued.
“Don’t be a monster. Don’t be a monster.”
She felt as if she was in some kind of surreal secret Santa game, not having any idea what present she was going to get when she managed to break into this particular well wrapped box.
After about twenty strikes, a big enough hole opened up for her to get her fingers inside, and pull back a small flap.
“Okay, that’s the outer wall, now the inner.”
She poked the talon into the hole, raking it around, and then stabbed away. After a few tiring minutes, she broke through and a roar burst from the gap making her jump back, letting go of the pipe. Whatever was inside this cell was not happy.
“Next cell then.”
She steadied herself, then drifted back to the hole she had just created. The creature inside was growling and slamming up against the inner walls, even though the cell itself was not moving at all on the outside. She pushed the flap of wall material back, then spun around and pushed off with her feet and drifted the few yards to the next box.
She could feel her strength waning, but working on finding something other than a monster inside one of the boxes was about the only thing keeping her sane. She took a deep breath then started striking the cell wall in front of her. This time it took longer to break through. Only silence greeted her.
“Great, of all these boxes I had to choose the ones with the monster or—”
A garbled noise that sounded like the Russian language but wasn’t, emanated from the hole she had created.
“Hello? Is there someone in there?”
More confusing words.
Is that a dialect of Russian? “Are you talking Russian? I talk that, but I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
A scratching noise now came the other side of the wall. Whoever they were, they were trying to get out.
“Yeah, you pull as much of this stuff off as you can from your side, and I’ll do the same from my side.”
She tore away with the talon at the hole in front of her, suddenly a large piece came away, and two eyes were looking back at her. Two definitely not human eyes.
“What the fuck—” She scrambled, pushing herself off from the cell wall and floated through the air, her back slamming into the cell behind her, without her eyes leaving the thing looking at her.
It spoke again, pushing its head further into the light. Its face was human like in the sense that it was oval, but it had two mouths, one on each side of its face. There was no nose to speak of, and its eyes were larger than hers, with multiple pupils. Its skin color was a pale yellow.
Fiona’s instinct was to turn and try to get away, but for some reason this creature, even with a face that would leave you with nightmares didn’t seem threatening.
She leaned slightly forward. “I don’t understand you…” She then pointed to herself. “Fiona.”
A hand with only four fingers, but longer than a humans appeared in the gap. And the humanoid thing uttered a noise which sounded like “Klept.”
“Klept?” said Fiona pointing at the being.
It nodded.
She pushed herself off the cell behind her and drifted forward until she grabbed hold of the pipe on the cell with ‘Klept’ in. “Okay Klept, let’s see if we can get you out.”
I’m helping an alien escape from a space prison.
A short laugh erupted from her mouth, making Klept lean back. She put her hand to her mouth, and cleared her throat. “Umm, sorry, just a strange situation for me.”
She knew Klept wasn’t understanding anything she was saying but felt the need to keep talking anyway, maybe it helped.
It wasn’t long before the hole was big enough for her to see most of Klept’s body, which much to her relief looked fairly human like, although he or she was extremely thin. They were wearing a one-piece dark purple suit of some kind of webbed material which didn’t reflect much of the ambient light around them.
“Cool outfit.”
Klept said some words. When they spoke the sounds came from both mouths on their face, giving the vocalization a kind of harmony which made it hard to hear the sounds clearly.
“You’d make a fortune in the pop charts.”
Klept looked bemused, or an expression Fiona took to mean that. She hadn’t realized that on meeting a species from a different part of space would mean learning everything from the ground up. But now that she was in that situation it was obvious that’s what would happen.
She then realized it must be strange for them as well, with her odd single set of vocal cords.
She let herself drift slowly backward and watched as Klept pushed through the opening in the wall and emerged outside. It was about six feet tall, so a few inches taller than herself. They both floated looking at each other.
“Well this is awkward.”
Klept pointed to themselves and then to Fiona, and finally into the distance to Fiona’s left. This was accompanied with more words.
“You want us to go in that direction?” She nodded to her left.
A word sounding like “Drire” came from Klept’s mouths.
“Okay, let’s go.” She pushed off in that direction and Klept did the same.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The sewers Abbey and Burt had been walking through were dark and foul smelling, but despite that felt completely safe for both of them. There was no sign of any E.L.F’s even having been down there, let alone living there now. They had been walking for half an hour, exploring the different routes offered to them, until they discovered a strange looking solid door.
“What the hell’s that doing down here? It looks like a door to a bank vault,” said Burt.
