First Trip: Get Up and Walk the Land 7
The world went whooshing by. Eran heard a voice like a trumpet blowing through wind chimes and for a moment he wasn’t on a hill but in a cage inside a cavern made of slime and angry metal. He blinked and the hot evening returned.
How he didn’t trip running through this ocean of garbage was beyond him. Then again, his left palm throbbed and his knee was wet…
“Run!” He cried towards the silhouettes he hoped were his friends. Dots of light raced past him like tracer bullets, but there were no reports. Just fireflies, he thought, just crazy fireflies.
Everyone turned to flee except for Yaniv, who froze like Windows updating at the worst possible moment. Dor’s vicious tug made no impression on the stunned boy but Tamar’s gentle pull restored his senses immediately.
Despite his initial stupor, Yaniv was soon ahead of his friends, sliding through the shrubs and boulders with mercurial grace. The others followed, waving away fireflies that chose the worst possible time to reveal themselves. For a moment, the sky was alien, studded with dozens of moons and crossed with a great ice ring. Eran almost paused to examine it, but another blink brought back the indigo sky with its orange clouds.
A roar like an angry orchestra shook the valley, followed by mocking laughter. Eran’s heart beat so hard his whole body pulsed. Yaniv was as white as Dor was red. Tamar looked ready to puke. However, everyone was running and no one was bleeding. That was good.
Eran went on running through the feverish evening, feeling like a ship gliding through the void. He allowed himself a glance over his shoulder, hoping his brain wouldn’t choose that moment to hallucinate again.
As far as he could determine, neither the monster nor its human companion followed the party. It was rapidly growing dark and this was hard terrain, full of thick bushes and massive boulders. Running here was almost as dangerous as fighting monsters. Almost.
By now, the twilight robbed the landscape of definition, making everything appear blue and purple. The air smelled of summer and distant fires. No extraordinary sounds disturbed the night, only crickets and jackals competing over who was the biggest jerk, and the crunchy footsteps of his friends.
Eran’s memory of what he saw was fading fast, like a nightmare he just woke up from. He willed it to remain. This was not a dream. He was not mad. He saw what he saw.
Still reeling, Eran discovered to his surprise that he was walking, almost strolling. He was drenched in sweat and that didn’t help any of his minor lacerations. Now that the adrenaline rush subsided, he was acutely aware of all the parts he’d bruised, cut, or chafed during the trip.
“Stop, stop... stop…” Dor nearly vomited the words. He was soaked from head to toe and his hat was gone. Despite his breathlessness, he still managed to mutter, “Stinking… terrorists…” between one suffocated breath and another.
Eran looked around, first to make sure everyone was there and then to assess the party’s location. Piled stones, a slight smell of rotting meat… they were in the ruined village they’d passed through earlier. Good enough for a breather, but not good enough as a hiding place. Too exposed, too obvious.
Eran leaned against a low stone wall. His sides hurt from the exertion, but he could find solace in doing better than Dor. The dead dog they had noticed earlier was still there, even more bloated and aromatic.
Yaniv skittered to a halt in the middle of the ruins. Tamar stood by, casting terrified glances in all directions. Eran grabbed her by the wrist.
“Don’t… stick… over the wall,” He croaked. “You too… moron,” he advised Yaniv.
The two crouched beside him and Dor, both seemingly unexhausted by their wild escape. Damn over achievers and their superior stamina.
Dor pulled out Tamar’s gun and carefully peered over the wall. Eran didn’t know what effect a boy with a face like boiling shakshuka would have on the enemy, but he sure terrified Eran. “Let me… let me know… if you see them.”
Eran nodded. “Guys, you okay? Did you see it?”
Tamar nodded. Yaniv perused the ground.
“I saw… something,” Dor said. “I think I heard shooting too but…”
“It feels like a dream?” Eran asked.
Dor nodded.
“Yaniv!” Dor screamed. “Handle your shit!”
Yaniv slowly turned his head in Dor’s direction, looking surprised. “I’m a…”
“...a total astronaut.” Dor said. “Yes, we all know that. But are there any new holes in you?”
“No…” Yaniv said without conviction. He looked dazed, as if he’d just woken up from a bad dream. “I thought I was somewhere else…”
Eran looked back at his warlike friend. “Dor, can you see them?”
“No, I can’t see the containers either. Just trees and shit.”
“It’s impossible!” Eran cried. “We ran downhill the whole time!”
Dor glared at him. “Come and look for yourself if you think I’m such a schmendrick.”
Eran crept up to Dor and gingerly peered over the ancient wall. Rocks, trees, hills, a starry night.
“It’s impossible,” Eran husked.
“Let’s think…” Yaniv wet his lips. “Some optical illusion... freak atmospheric conditions… unusual topography...”
“Halas with this bullshit!” Dor said. “Let’s call the police.”
Yaniv sighed. “And complain about a monster inside an invisible junkyard?”
Tamar elevated her butt slightly to pull the phone from her back pocket. “I’ll just tell them we got lost and ran out of water.” She wiped her hand on her camisole and performed an intricate series of finger motions to unlock her device.
“Only idiots run out of water…” Dor muttered.
“It won’t work,” Eran said as Tamar started dialing.
Tamar hissed at him. She frowned as she listened to the prerecorded message. She put the phone down with the wide eyes of a girl betrayed by the thing she trusted the most. “No reception…”
“What did you see inside?” Tamar asked. “I heard a woman scream then saw you running from something that looked like a gorilla or a bear and there was this horrible noise.”
Eran closed his eyes, struggling to resurrect the fading images. “There was a man and a spiky, furry, glowy monster talking to a chained woman. She sounded American. I didn’t understand what they were talking about. It all sounded like gibberish to me.”
“Kus emok!” Dor cursed. “Don’t feel like climbing a hill. They might see us against the sky. That monster is probably some PTSD bullshit, but the shots I heard were real.”
“I didn’t hear any shots,” Tamar protested. “Just weird music.”
“Regardless, we can’t stay in the open,” Eran said. “What if they have drones?”
Yaniv tilted his head. “Don’t drones need reception to work?”
Eran shrugged. He wasn’t going to leave his fate to a YouTube video his friend watched half-asleep two months ago. “Look at the cave over there.” He pointed at an overgrown crack in the stone. “It’s a great place to hide. Plus, it’s higher ground so maybe we’ll have reception.”
Giving one last glance over the wall, Dor replaced his gun. “Yallah!”
It’s amazing how almost getting killed changes the mood of a trip. Suddenly, you’re no longer interested in breathtaking views or wild animals. Instead, you try to determine what just moved behind that big rock or whether this branch is rocking from the wind or from a man’s passing. Every noise causes a mini heart attack. Every shadow is suspected of hiding a platoon of assassins.
By now, the terrain could only be perceived by the absence of stars, so Eran led the party by memory. As they climbed, Yaniv said he saw a colorful rock stuck in the ground, matching in size the indentations they had found earlier. No one paid him any attention.
The entrance to the cave turned out to be smaller than Eran imagined. A grown man would have to squeeze through thorny bushes to get inside. Usually, this would deter him from entering, but high on adrenaline, he didn’t feel a thing as he wrestled through the scratchy plants. The perfect hiding spot, well worth the price in pain.
Eran reached for his phone to see if he had any reception, but just then two events occurred that kept him from completing this simple task.
First, the cave was flooded by bright light from Tamar’s phone. Second, Tamar shrieked. “Mamachka! There is a dead body in here!”