First Trip: Get Up and Walk the Land 6
“We’re not going in there.” Yaniv crossed his arms and planted his feet firmly in the ground. This image of manly defiance was somewhat spoiled by the blue Pokemon towel he wrapped around his face against the stench.
Tamar nodded. “I’m sure we can find fireflies in places that aren’t cancer.”
Dor frowned thoughtfully. “Yeah… this doesn’t look safe. These needles could be anything.” The towel on his face didn’t keep him from burping with might and majesty.
“May the Name preserve us, was this a burp or a Wookie serenade?” Yaniv exclaimed with pure admiration.
“Nu... don’t be like that!” Eran whined. “We came all the way to find these lights. Now we did… Besides, aren’t you curious to see who lived here?”
Dor looked Eran straight in the eyes. “What makes you think they don’t still live here?”
“Yeah, it must be those cannibal Bedouin Yaniv is so concerned about...” Eran chuckled in an attempt to broadcast business as usual. However, the risk was starting to dawn on him. Only a few weeks ago, an entire Jewish family had been slaughtered in their home by terrorists who came from those hills. Meeting them on their home turf could end poorly for a teenager armed with a penknife that could barely defeat a blunt pencil. Then again, it seemed unlikely that any person of any nationality would live in such squalor.
“No…” Dor said. “Just junkies or towelheads who will slaughter you.” He glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the town. “Yallah, let’s go back. It’s getting dark. I want pizza. We can come back next week. Maybe I’ll buy a drone and we’ll fly it over this dump, you know, observe the valley from a distance instead of marching in like a gay pride parade in Tehran.”
“Dor is right,” Yaniv said. “Next time we’ll know where to go straight away and arrive early. Besides, if we don’t get Dor his pizza very soon, he will eat us and blame it on the Bedouin.”
“Nu… Just five minutes!”
“Stop whining!” Dor shouted. “You’re a big boy. Wanna go? Go. I’ll tell your mom you died a hero. Yallah, go! No one is holding you. Just halas with the whining already, Allah yostor!”
“Stop daring Eran,” Tamar said. “This isn’t a game. He could get seriously hurt.” She frowned at the containers. “This place is disgusting. Why would you even want to go there?”
Eran felt the blood rushing to his face. Now he had to go, and he had to go alone. If he changed his mind now, he’d never hear the end of it.
“Hey!” Dor shouted in Eran’s wake. Eran hoped it would be a conversational life preserver. “Make sure it really is five minutes, or we’re going home without you.”
No, it wasn’t a life preserver. It was an anvil.
“A body was found in the hills,” Yaniv said to no one in particular, “too mangled to be identified…”
Tamar glared at him. “That’s not funny! Eran, please, this place looks dangerous. Let’s do the drone thing instead. There are so many pretty places around, why do you have to go into this… pile of shit?”
Eran shrugged and started shuffling toward the containers, his brain punishing him with vivid images from his future. Crazy people with knives jumping from the rubble and slicing him like goulash. A needle piercing the sole of his foot and infecting him with a deadly, or worse, embarrassing, STD. A bear trap hidden under the refuse snapping his shin like a dry twig. Ooh! What if he tripped and it literally ripped his face off? Just peeled it off like the skin from a clementine. Yeah, that’s a nice one!
His head felt like a hot air balloon trying to escape his body. His hands were freezing even though his fingers were so sweaty he couldn’t unlock his phone. The worst part was that there was nothing interesting or frightening in this impromptu landfill. Just trash mushed by rain and petrified by sunlight. And the smell, oh, it was all he could do not to vomit.
To avoid losing face in both the metaphorical and literal sense, Eran decided to speedrun this. A quick turn, a few pictures, and all would be well with the world. In the end, there would be pizza. That is, unless he fell into a pit and drowned in shit…
What was that huge hole anyhow? A massive sinkhole? A hutta pit? There were plenty of hutta pits in the Galilee, so named for the sound tax collectors made when thrown inside by rebellious Druze. He’d never heard of any hutta pits in Samaria though.
Ignoring a sudden urge to go back and pee, Eran approached the spot where the fireflies hid. He prodded it with the tip of his shoe but nothing came out.
He looked back at his friends. Tamar was out of sight. Dor was walking about, playing on his phone. Yaniv was watering a tree, boy-style. Both were barely visible against the darkening landscape.
Eran peered inside the first container. There was more garbage inside; old machines, shattered computers, lots of cables. He walked on, keeping his eyes on the ground, looking for syringes, knives, snakes, anything that could kill him. The next container was no more interesting than the first but far more disgusting; someone with the diet of a recycling bin had used it as a toilet for a very long time.
Eran wrinkled his nose. He took a few more steps and looked into another container. Inside was a large pile of old newspapers in Arabic and some broken glass Eran suspected had something to do with drugs. A device similar to a giant microscope lay in a puddle of luminescent goo, similar to the stuff that spills from broken glowsticks.
This actually was interesting, but Eran could not force himself to step into the nauseating space. The next container had a door that was slightly ajar and squeaking in the breeze. Eran heard a groan from inside. It was all he could do to keep the contents of his stomach from becoming the contents of his pants. Steeling himself, he tiptoed toward the opening and peeked.
By now it was bonafide dark. Nevertheless, when you're a teenager, you can recognize an attractive woman even in the light of a single photon. Light-skinned and dark-haired, with a tattoo of a dragon made of stars snaking across her body, the woman was handcuffed to the wall and looked like she’d seen better days. In fact, it was hard to imagine she’d ever seen worse days.
Her arms and thighs were all shades of red and purple. One of her ankles was swollen to the size of a tennis ball. Her right eye was bruised shut. Her shorts and blouse were stained and tattered beyond recognition, as if she had spent the whole day rolling downhill through thorns and rocks.
Someone hidden from view was talking to the woman in a deep yet piping voice. They were either speaking some foreign dialect of Arabic or trying to cough out a furball. Eran shifted so he could observe the speaker. He stifled a scream.
Opposite the woman stood a bulky creature at least half again as tall as Eran. Jagged spikes protruded from its luminescent blue fur. It had the sharp ears of a wolf, the broad back of a gorilla, the massive claws of a bear, and the commanding presence of a Gestapo officer interrogating a partisan.
Eran could not see its face, but it was just as well: he doubted his sanity could take much more without shattering. He knew how these things played out. He had read Call of Cthulhu.
A man in skinny jeans and a plaid polo shirt stood by the creature. His jet-black hair was combed back with about a kilo of gel. His neck was tan and his limbs were wiry — the body of a man who works outside and works hard.
“Listen, lady,” the man said in English with a light Arabic accent. “I know you came because of the placeholder. It isn’t here. This is the wrong hole.” The man chuckled. “We heard you talk to your friend about it—”
“I swear,” the woman croaked in perfect American English. “We were just talking about a colorful stone we saw near the excavation.” She swallowed and grimaced. “Jesus, we thought children painted on it. Then you—”
The man sighed. “Who are you protecting? The Jews? They will—”
The woman whimpered. The man shook his head. The creature just breathed. Its breath sounded metallic, as if a flute was stuck down its gullet.
“Look,” the man said reasonably, talking as if there wasn’t a heaving mound of flesh and spikes by his side and a woman beaten into a pulp in front of him. “You ran from us like a ninja. Twice. Without any Sigils. The little green guys didn’t even slow you down. Tough men bow to them without questions but a little girl like you is tougher? Bullshit. Don’t tell me you’re just a tourist.”
The woman sobbed. “I am…”
“Bullshit!” the man cried, causing the woman to flinch and rattle her chains. “You couldn’t have found the stone by chance! This is not possible! That colorful stone had only the Third Key. Third!” He shoved three fingers in her face. “There were no humans on the Third Day. Unless…” The man tilted his head thoughtfully. “Hmmm…”
He turned to the monster, as if elucidating a point to a colleague. “My cousin could be near. She has all the Keys you can think of, the little whore.”
“Please.” A tear streaked through the grime. The woman wet her cracked lips and winced. “At least give me some water…”
“Yeah, sure.” The man crossed the container and disappeared from view. “You like watermelon water? It’s without sugar. Good for the figure, yes?” Eran heard the sound of a plastic wrap torn open. It always made him cringe. “If my cousin is nearby then wallah we have a problem. Anyone can just find the—” The man stopped speaking abruptly. “Hear that?”
Shit, did I cringe out loud?
The creature tensed and peered over its shoulder. Eran saw one of its eyes. It was the color of an oil spill and had a W-shaped pupil, like the eye of a cuttlefish.
As the creature turned, slid across the woman’s torso. She gasped and her head slumped. Something warm and gooey embedded itself under Eran’s eye.
He ran.
Wait, what slid across the woman’s torso? (Nothing good, obviously.)