Author: Kirk Straughen
Synopsis: A Sunday outing for Adam Rand unexpectedly and dramatically turns into a nightmare ordeal as he is mysteriously transported to an alien reality inhabited by outlandish and hostile monsters. What terrors await him there and, trapped in this nightmare world, how will he return to Earth? Only by reading this wild tale, if you dare, will you know the answer to this burning question.
Edit history: Minor changes were made to this story on 2 July 2021.
It was a warm summer’s day, and the cloudless sky looked down upon a land drenched with bright sunlight. The wilderness was one of scraggily trees and ochre soil; an arid plain, sparsely vegetated, from which rose many jagged towers of dark grey limestone, their rugged and seamed faces streaked here and there with bright markings of orange and reddish hues that stood out vividly against the naked rock. It was a stunning landscape despite its harsh and unforgiving nature – a landscape characteristic of the vistas surrounding Chillagoe, a small mining town in north Queensland, Australia.
A narrow road – the only sign of humanity’s presence in this wild country - wound its way between two dark grey limestone towers of imposing height. It was an unsealed track; one little used that snaked from the town to the untamed wilderness and ended abruptly ten kilometres from its starting point, as if suddenly intimidated by this ancient, brooding land. But now the silence of its dusty solitude was broken by two Land Rovers that rattled noisily along the way.
Adam Rand wondered who the driver of the vehicle fifty metres in front of him could be. Rand was an industrial chemist employed by Eureka Mines, Chillagoe’s small and only mining company. The population of the town numbered a little over two hundred permanent residents, and the young man felt sure there was a good chance he would know the person in front of him.
Rand grimaced. It was Sunday, and he sought the solitude of the wilderness in which to paint – to capture the harsh yet beautiful landscape of the Australian outback. The thought of an unwelcome intrusion and with it the need to erect a facade of banal sociability left him cold.
In truth Rand was a bit of a loaner, the odd man out. The majority of his workmates would be at the pub, swilling beer and working themselves into a state of rowdy drunkenness. Rand had nothing against alcohol; it just wasn’t his scene. He hoped that if he had to meet the driver of the other vehicle his box of paints, artist’s brushes and canvas wouldn’t be noticed. The fellows he worked with were an earthy crew, and if his hobby was discovered he’d cop a ribbing over what to them would be effete pretentiousness.
Rand, despite his artistic bent, could never be mistaken for a fop - he was tall, broad shouldered and rugged in appearance. He was, however, a quiet man and this often made him a target for bullying. Several town rednecks had made that mistake with the newcomer, and had been knocked on their arses by this seemingly meek fellow who suddenly became a wild fighting machine.
Thoughts of the brawl came to Rand’s mind. He’d been in the town only six months and already he’d made enemies. He hoped the driver of the Land Rover wasn’t one of the thugs whose jaw he’d busted. Rand wasn’t afraid, but he wasn’t one to seek out trouble if he could help it. As he mulled over the possibilities the vehicle ahead disappeared around a sharp bend in the road, and was lost from view behind a massive limestone outcrop. The young man followed and as he made the turn his eyes went wide in amazement at what he saw.
The road ahead was shrouded in an emerald fog – a swirling cloud of unearthly mist in which danced winking flecks of crimson light. Rand slammed his foot on the brake, but it was too late – he was right on top of the weird phenomenon. The Land Rover skidded on gravel, slid within the strange vapour. Everything went green. There was a sudden lurch, a sensation of sickening vertigo and a wild plunge. The vehicle crashed, rolled. Rand’s head struck something and he passed out.
**********
The man groaned and opened his eyes. The Land Rover was on its side. Smoke was coiling from the engine and the air was heavy with the odour of spilt petrol from broken fuel lines. Rand knew he had but seconds to spare. He fought free of his seatbelt, threw open the door. As he climbed out flames licked from under the bonnet and he flung himself clear of the vehicle as the vapours ignited with explosive force.
The blast hurled him through the air. Flames licked his clothes. They caught alight. He hit the ground, rolled to extinguish his burning apparel and in the process fell within a hollow. Above him a pall of black smoke twisted skyward and then a second explosion ripped the air as jerry cans of fuel erupted in a thunderous blast that sent waves of heat and flame rolling over him.
Rand thanked his lucky stars after the blast had died away. The first explosion had nearly killed him, and the second surely would have if he hadn’t fallen within the deep depression. He had escaped with only singes and contusions. The chemist rolled on his back and all thoughts of luck quickly vanished when he beheld the frighteningly unnatural heavens.
There was no comforting azure vault arching over him. The sky was a sullen green, glowing darkly like the embers of a dying fire, and in it rippled rings of crimson flame that formed ever changing patterns like raindrops striking the surface of a pond.
Rand staggered to his feet, stumbled from the hole and looked wildly about. The familiar landscape of Chillagoe had been replaced by one of utter weirdness. Before him was a vista of unsettling strangeness: a hilly country of ebon rock that stretched in all directions. It was a scene of black stone that glistened like volcanic glass, but unlike obsidian was veined with glowing amber minerals.
From the thin black soil that had gathered in the valleys of the hills arose strange forms: domes composed of ivory hued antler-shaped projections whose thorny limbs flared to tips of darkest rose. Other growths of sombre purple were also there: rumbling clusters of hollow pebbly cones webbed with white striations whose widest ends thrust heavenward as if they were megaphones shouting at the burning sky. And then there were fan-shaped things of crimson as dark as garnets whose lacy limbs quivered in the breezeless air.
Rand stared aghast at his surroundings. Where he was he didn’t know, couldn’t even begin to imagine. His mind was numb from utter shock. Indeed, he probably would have stood staring mindlessly for many minutes had not a sudden cry for help jerked him from astonishment.
The chemist turned about and looked behind him. The ground sloped to his left to a beetling cliff that formed a vast wall of towering rugged rock that marched across the land, and at its base was the Land Rover he’d been following. Again, Rand heard the anguished pleading cry that was like a dash of cold water in his face.
Rand lost his torpor. He scrambled and slid down the declivity to the vehicle. As he neared he saw it, too, had rolled on its side, but thankfully neither smoke nor flames were rising from the wreck.
“Please help me. Oh, please help me.” The voice was feminine, tremulous with fear and pain.
“It’s all right. I’m here,” soothed Rand. “I’ll get you out. Are you badly hurt?”
“No,” replied the girl, slightly calmer now. “But the doors are jammed and I can’t open them.”
“Then shield your face,” warned Rand. “I’ll break the rear window.”
When the girl complied Rand found a heavy rock and hurled it with all his might against the pane. The window broke with a tremendous crash. Using another stone he knocked away the remainder of the glass and crawled within the wreck. The girl met him half way and even in the dim interior he could see she was slim and more than just attractive.
“Thanks,” said the girl. “I ran into green fog, couldn’t see and crashed. It was the strangest thing – that fog. Did you see it? You must have. You were in the car behind me, weren’t you?”
“Yes. That fog was strange all right, but not as strange as where we are right now.”
“What do you mean?” asked the girl, her brow creasing in puzzlement.
Rand almost uttered a derisive reply, but realised just in time that being trapped in the vehicle under the beetling escarpment had prevented the girl from getting a good look at her surrounds.
“You’d better come and see for yourself,” he replied as he assisted her from the wreck. “It has to be seen to be believed.”
The girl gasped as she emerged from the vehicle and shrank against Rand when she saw the alien landscape, then turned to face him, a look of utter bewilderment upon her face.
“Where are we? How do we get back?” said Rand, anticipating her questions. He shrugged his broad shoulders in helpless ignorance. “We might be in the fifth dimension for all I know. And as for getting back – well, that emerald fog may hold the key. It brought us here; perhaps it can return us, too. My name is Adam, by the way. Adam Rand.”
“Julia Smith,” replied the girl. “I’m Doctor Morton’s new receptionist. I’ve only been in Chillagoe a week and decided to see the countryside. My outing, it seems, has become more interesting than I anticipated,” she added with a wry smile. “Come on,” she continued. “We’d better have a look for this emerald fog.”
Rand smiled. She was certainly reacting to the situation with more nerve than he had at first, and he admired her for it. Both of them climbed the slope to higher ground, and from this vantage point surveyed the weird landscape, but of the strange phenomena that had brought them here nothing could be seen.
The chemist’s gaze was drawn to the brooding sky. Something was happening there. He drew the girl’s attention to it and both stared as the frightening heavens became more terrifying: The rippling rings began contracting to form huge vortices of swirling fire in the sullen green of the unnatural firmament, and from these gaping maws of flame lanced shafts of emerald light that struck the ground in coruscations of flaring radiance.
One deadly beam struck earth nearby and the booming concussion of the blast flung the awestruck pair painfully to the ground. Rand lay dazed for a moment as lancing rays stabbed all about the landscape in a wild volley of blasting energy; then he gathered his wits and strength and crawled to Julia.
“Come on,” he urged as he helped the girl to stand. “We have to get under the shelter of that overhang.”
Both stumbled down the declivity, the man shielding his companion as best he could from flying debris kicked up by half a dozen lances of furious energy that struck in narrow misses all about them. The buffeting explosions spurred them and they quickly gained the protection of the beetling cliff, only to have another danger thrust itself upon them: From the furiously swirling vortices of fire began to fall a heavy silver vapour.
Rand looked about, aghast. Everywhere he gazed he could see massive flows of scintillating mist dropping to the ground. They were like monster waterfalls that sent billowing clouds of silver gas across the black landscape in shining tidal waves, one of which was heading straight towards them.
“We’ll be smothered in its vapour,” gasped Julia, who quickly recognised the rapidly looming danger.
Rand looked frantically about, spotted a cave-like void about ten metres above them in the cliff.
“Up there,” he gestured. “Hurry.”
Both dashed to the rugged cliff-face and began to climb the soaring wall of rock whose roughness provided ample hand and footholds. They were half way up when Rand glanced back. The roiling vapour was coming closer, and in but moments would be upon the pair.
“Faster,” he gasped to Julia as she climbed beside him.
The shining wall of mist poured down the steep declivity, struck the cliff. It rose, billowed about the ankles of the frantic couple, driving them to Herculean exertions. They barely outdistanced the rising tide, scrambled within the cave and collapsed in utter sweat drenched exhaustion.
Rand, still breathing heavily, managed to find enough strength to peer over the edge. Chill fear came upon him – the gas was accumulating in the declivity’s depression. It was rising higher. He watched in horror as it crept up the cliff, now a mere metre below the entrance to the cave.
“What’s wrong?” gasped Julia as she saw the grim faced man struggle to his feet.
“The gas is rising,” he replied bleakly as she stood beside him. Julia staggered and leaned heavily on Rand for a moment and the worried chemist saw her weak condition precluded further climbing. “We must move to higher ground – the rear of the cave, perhaps,” he urged.
Both stumbled on shaky within the dark interior for several metres only to be halted by a wall of impenetrable rock. Rand swore – they were trapped. He turned and cursed again for the gas was now flowing within the cave. It crept in, slow, insidious, unstoppable. It rose to their knees, their waists. Then it was beneath their chins.
Julia clung to Rand. She buried her face in his chest, sobbed as he embraced her. The end was near. Then the gas was above their heads, smothering them. Rand tried to hold his breath, but it was pointless. He gasped, purple faced. The silver mist rushed into his lungs, diffused into his blood. Searing pain struck him. His body seemed on fire. Julia screamed. Her cry was the frightening prelude to utter agony.
Rand collapsed in unbelievable torment. It felt as if white hot needles were penetrating every cell in his body. Scream after scream of unbearable agony was torn from his throat. Beside him Julia echoed his wild cries as she was slashed by searing pain. Rand feared they were going to die, but the agony continued in unabated torment until all rational thought was swept away in a torrent of endless pain that reduced the pair to mindless whimpering animals.
Slowly, the gas condensed to silver fluid. It drained away leaving two limp and silent figures lying upon the stone. For an age neither moved, the only evidence of life the shallow breathing of the bodies.
More time passed. Rand coughed, opened his eyes and stared blankly at the cave’s roof for a moment. There was no pain, only a sense of lassitude, as if he had been drugged by some powerful soporific. Thoughts of Julia made him turn and at the sight of her a jolt of fear drove away his stupor.
The girl’s entire body, both skin and hair, was a startling shade of pewter. Her clothes – a white blouse, denim shorts and hiking boots- were the only things unaffected by the silver mist. Rand glanced at himself and gasped: He, too, had undergone the weird transformation. Despite his strange condition he felt entirely well and his fear for the girl’s health lessened somewhat.
Rand moved to her side and felt her pulse. Her heartbeat was normal, her skin was soft and warm; yet there seemed a strange robustness to it which hinted at a strength akin to steel. Julia opened her eyes at his touch. She gasped at the sight of him, but didn’t recoil in revulsion – a fact that he was strangely grateful for.
“I feel fine,” he quickly said. “The gas has penetrated us, combined with the matter of our bodies to produce some kind of alchemical transformation. Don’t ask me how. This is completely beyond the chemistry I’m familiar with. But more importantly, are you okay?”
The girl raised her hand and stared at it in silence. “Well,” she said at last with forced humour. “I’ll certainly outclass the bearded lady at the sideshow.”
Julia’s sense of wry humour made Rand grin despite their situation. “We’d better keep looking for the emerald fog,” he suggested. Then more soberly: “When we get home perhaps something can be done about our condition.”
Julia kept her doubts to herself as she rose, followed Rand to the cave’s entrance and gazed with him across the strange vista. Lakes of sliver liquid now dotted the landscape, and from them steamed clouds of sparkling mist that spiralled up towards the emerald heavens. The vortices of crimson fire had calmed to rippling flame with the passing of the weird storm, and quietness lay upon the strange world in which they found themselves.
Below them was a large lake of the shining liquid which had condensed in the hollow at the foot of the escarpment. Rand grimaced at the sight. They were cut off, and the Land Rover from which he’d hoped to salvage something useful was submerged many metres below the mirrored surface of the fluid.
Out of curiosity he picked up a rock and tossed it down to see what would happen when it struck the liquid. The stone hit, bounced several times, then slowly sank beneath the surface, which then began to boil furiously at the entry point. The boiling cumulated in an explosive roar. A silver geyser spurted high into the air, lancing rays bursting forth from the shining column to strike the frowning cliff with blasting light that sent stone flying all about...
“Well,” observed Julia with forced lightness as both picked themselves up from the cave floor. “I guess we go up rather than down.”
Rand nodded glumly. “That liquid will take days, maybe weeks to evaporate, and we can’t afford to wait.”
They began their ascent, and Rand was amazed at the ease with which they made the climb. He could only attribute it to the transformation of their bodies which, in some strange way beyond his understanding, had been infused with the weird elemental gas of this outlandish dimension. Fear came upon him at the thought. Was he still human? What other changes were happening to his body and that of Julia’s?
These unsettling thoughts were still foremost in his mind as he gained the cliff top, hauled himself across its jagged lip and turned to assist Julia to the safety of the rugged ground, which was extremely craggy when compared to the rolling hills of the lowland. The girl thanked him as he helped her over; then, as she stood, her eyes went wide in alarm. She gasped, stared at something. Rand turned. The man stiffened in cold fright for a moment, then grabbed the girl and quickly pulled her down behind a large bolder.
Motioning Julia to silence, he cautiously peered around the screening rock to better view the fantastic things that had suddenly come lurching into view. Rand saw that each outlandish being stood at least five metres in height. Their bodies’ resembled pinecones supported by four stilt-like legs emerging from the base, and between each leg was a long and many jointed arm, four in all. Tough convex discs grew just before the wrist joint of every arm, which terminated in tremendous claws studded with vicious spikes. Six eyes, black and glassy, were spaced evenly about the base of the conical body. The only difference between the monsters as far as Rand could see was the colour of their armoured exoskeletons – one being burnt orange, the other darkest yellow.
Both monsters were engaged in a titanic battle in which Rand suspected no quarter would be given and none expected. The yellow creature swung its mace-like pincers in a flurry of wild blows, but the orange beast swiftly blocked the crushing strokes, catching all upon the natural shields of its arms. Back and forth across the stony ground surged the huge combatants, the air booming with the thunderous blows of their brutal strikes that they rained upon each other with berserk abandon.
The two humans stared at the wild scene in a mixture of fascination and horror, caught up in the spectacle of the savage drama. The orange being saw an opening, swung a tremendous blow that pierced its opponent’s guard. The spiked claw crashed brutally against the foe. The yellow creature reeled back, colourless gore oozing from its cracked integument. The thing, though badly wounded, was far from finished: quickly regaining its balance it charged its orange antagonist. Two arms swung like mad windmills, the third thrust like a leaping spear; the forth arched over its body to strike like a deadly scorpion’s sting.
Both beings crashed together in a whirl of furiously hammering limbs that sent chips of natural armour flying. At close quarters they clinched like demented boxers, long arms tangling, bodies rocking to and fro in a savage wrestling match. The yellow monster, with a surge of desperate strength, wrenched free an arm, clamped its claw on an orange stilt-like leg and sheared the limb away with terrible strength.
The orange beast, despite its dreadful injury, tenaciously flung its remaining legs about the other, tripping it. They fell to earth, rolled and crashed heavily against the boulder which hid man and girl. Julia screamed. Rand shielded the girl with his body. Above them the monsters limbs rose and fell as the savage combatants continued to rain wild blows upon each other in unrestrained combat.
A limb whipped over the boulder and crashed against the ground, nearly striking the cowering pair. Rand stifled an oath. They couldn’t stay here, but to flee was just as dangerous. The giant limbs of both creatures were flailing about like madly cracking whips that could easily smash them down. Another deflected claw hammered the bolder, cracking it in two. Julia cried in fear as one side crashed to earth, exposing them to the madly battling monsters.
Rand swore. “Run,” he cried.
Julia needed no urging. Both sprinted clear. Rand vaulted one twitching arm; the girl dodged another and the man went cold when he saw how close it had come to striking her. Then they were free and racing across the rugged earth, vaulting pools of silver fluid and slipping between huge outcrops of twisted rock that thrust their tortured spires towards the flaming sky.
The ground rose steeply before them and as they negotiated the craggy slope a mighty din impinged upon their ears. Rand slowed and cautioned Julia to silence as they vigilantly made their way to the summit of the hill, not knowing what new and weird peril might await them.
They crawled the final distance to the top and from this vantage point gazed down onto an area of relatively open country upon the vast plateau. Rand looked on aghast at what his eyes beheld: The entire landscape was swarming with thousands of yellow and orange beings locked in a huge whirlwind of deadly violence – the battling antagonists they’d left behind had merely been a minor spectacle when compared to the unrestrained savagery now before them – so wild that even the raging storm couldn’t halt it.
Body parts were strewn across the ground, and the earth was thick with corpses that, even in death, were locked in frozen combat with each other. Julia gagged: The air was thick with death’s foul stench – acrid vapours that fumed from gore splattered over the rocks, earth and frenzied combatants who battered and tore at each other in a violent melee of indescribable savagery.
But perhaps even more astounding was the towering structure that formed a backdrop against which the ferocious battle swirled. It was a rugged grey cone whose base was a vast ellipse from which snaked root-like buttresses that braced its stupendous height. To Rand’s eyes the thing resembled a branchless ossified tree of conical form that raked the wild sky with its audacious loftiness. Clearly, though, it wasn’t organic in nature, nor could it be a natural landform, for about the base and between the mighty buttresses were vast portals from which poured hoards of orange monsters to ferociously defend their startling abode.
Julia shuddered at the sight. This outlandish reality, with its weird and violent creatures, its horrid sky and frightening storms, was so unlike anything she had ever imagined in her wildest fantasies that to her it was as if some madman’s drug induced nightmare had been brought to horrid life.
“Come on,” she whispered urgently, “let’s get out of here.”
Rand mutely nodded. But as both prepared to retrace their steps a sharp crack made the couple start – unbeknown to them the solid rock upon which they lay was in fact a thin shelf of stone undercut and weakened by ages of erosion, and that their weight had been the final straw.
The stone cracked further. The girl gasped, clutched the man. She screamed as the rock completely broke away and precipitated the couple in a wild plunge to the rugged ground below where the savage monsters raged.
Julia and Rand crashed upon jagged teeth of stone. Both screamed in agony, slid and tumbled down the sloping rock in a series of jarring bounces until at last they struck the bottom in an avalanche of pelting debris that almost completely buried them.
Rand lay stunned for a moment then struggled to his knees, stones rolling from his body as he rose, sneezing from the dust. Julia lay nearby, half buried beneath a mass of rubble. Her clothes, like his own, had been ripped to shreds by the roughness of the rock, and what little remained of her apparel was useless as far as modesty was concerned.
The girl lay still, unmoving, bereft of the evidence of life. Wild fear beset the man as he dashed to Julia’s side and tore away the stones upon her body. He calmed a little as he freed the girl from her rocky shroud – although her clothes had been ripped to pieces the skin beneath showed no evidence of injury, and Rand’s suspicions were confirmed - the silver mist had transformed their bodies to something far tougher than mortal flesh and bone could ever be.
Julia coughed and opened her eyes as Rand cast aside the last of the rocks. “Thank God you’re okay,’ he said as he assisted her to rise.
Julia smiled her thanks, then gasped as she saw the condition of her clothes and quickly covered her naked breasts with her arms. But the girl’s concern with propriety was dashed to inconsequence when she glimpsed three yellow monsters, attracted by their crashing fall, rushing at them with the swiftness of a racehorse.
“Look out,” cried the girl in wide eyed alarm.
Rand turned and swore bitterly. His worry for Julia had made him negligent of the danger posed by the raging battle into which they had been so unexpectedly precipitated. He swiftly grasped a stone and hurled it with all his might at the foremost creature. The fist size rock crashed against the monster with a tremendous impact that cracked its bony hide. The thing staggered, but came on undeterred as did its fell companions.
Julia snatched up a stone and swiftly followed Rand’s example, her nudity quite forgotten in the extremity of their desperate plight. The couple flung a barrage of hammering rocks at the charging foe. One creature went down beneath the rain of missiles; then the remaining pair fell upon them in a rush of wild violence.
A limb whipped down. Rand tried to dodge the savage blow but couldn’t. The spiked claw struck him, sent him flying. He crashed against a bolder with such force the impact cracked the rock. Then the thing was on him, gripping him in its massive claw before the stunned and battered man could defend himself.
As he was hauled aloft he heard Julia scream, her terrified cry penetrating his reeling mind. Rand turned and fear beset him. The girl, too, was in the grip of their monstrous adversaries. She struggled wildly as she was lifted up as effortlessly as a man lifts a babe, and indeed they might as well have been children when compared to the enormous strength of their savage captors.
Rand desperately battered the claw that had him in an agonizing hold, but his wild and pounding blows were useless and he couldn’t free himself to aid the girl. The thing had him in a vice-like grip that was unshakable – a grip that would have cut him in two with frightening ease but for the amazing toughness of his transformed body.
The yellow beasts, having seized their prey, began a hasty retreat, as did all the others of their kind in response to some signal imperceptible to humans. Rand gave up attempting to loosen the hold of his alien captor and looked anxiously about, fearful of losing sight of Julia as the invading hoard, still numbering in their thousands despite their terrible losses, raced over the rugged terrain in rapid flight, some bearing body parts of the foe clamped in their claws.
“Julia,” he shouted wildly. “Julia, where are you?”
“Over here,” cried the frightened girl.
Rand glimpsed her for a moment through the mass of rushing creatures as he was borne along in the living flood. Then the monsters carrying them were swept far apart by a wedge of orange creatures snapping at their heels in violent chase. The separation sent a shaft of dreadful fear through the helpless man, and for many anxious minutes the girl was lost from sight. Then, when all hope of seeing her again seemed gone they came together side by side as the racing beasts funnelled through a narrow valley, and formed a column that slowed to an ordered pace as the creatures traversed a well worn path, the orange foe having given up the chase as the invaders fled the victor’s territory.
“Are you hurt?” cried Rand in undisguised anxiety.
“Oh, thank God,” cried Julia upon seeing him for she had been struck with terror at the thought of being alone upon this dreadful world. “No,” continued the girl in answer to his question, “at least not seriously. Where do you think they’re taking us?”
“I’m not sure,” replied Rand, not wishing to alarm the girl whom he could see, despite her bravery and fortitude, was labouring under the strain of the frightening ordeals, each of which had come so swiftly on the heels of the other.
The conversation lapsed into silence as the hoard of creatures made their way along the valley floor, and with the passing of half an hour Rand’s suspicions were confirmed as an enormous buttressed cone came in sight when their captors climbed out upon a countryside of bleak and rugged hills.
As the marching hoard advanced upon the enormous spire that was their strange abode, Rand looked on aghast at its mammoth size and the frightening thought of the vast numbers of monsters it must contain, for it towered skyward with all the impressiveness of a soaring mountain. As they drew near the man saw masses of other creatures scaling its mighty flanks – monstrous workers by the thousands resembling their enormous captors, but ones with trowel-like claws that were engaged in repairing and expanding their titanic city.
Other creatures were also there – giant cones with stubby legs and huge limbs with nozzles at their tips instead of claws, and from which spurted a foaming cement-like secretion that the workers shaped with appendages nature had modified for that very purpose. The scene was a hive of focused activity – each creature adapted to its task like the cogs of a vast machine. Indeed, there was something machine-like about this vast concourse of outlandish entities, and it suddenly dawned upon the wondering man that he had seen no sign of their captors using any tools apart from those with which nature had gifted them.
“Why, they’re like social insects,” observed Julia, who had independently reached Rand’s own conclusions. “Not true insects, of course,” she amended, “for no true insect could grow to such enormous size.”
“Yes,” agreed Rand. “They must be operating on pure instinct rather than intelligence as we understand the term.”
Rand had hoped to be able to reason with them, to appeal for mercy, for assistance. But now, in the face of what he saw, and the conclusions it forced upon him, that seemed utterly impossible. Initially, he had thought the creatures intelligent for their method of fighting, which resembled a combination of boxing and wrestling, had led him to the erroneous conclusion they possessed faculties higher than mere beasts.
But if the things were not reasoning beings that had captured them out of curiosity, then what could the creatures want them for? Only one possibility came to mind, and a frightening one at that – food. Naturally, Rand kept this grim and unsettling thought to himself as his mind spun futile plans of escape as they were borne within a vast and heavily guarded tunnel, one of many, that gave egress to the teeming city of the hoard.
Man and girl were carried along the spacious burrow which ramified into a maze of branching ways, all illuminated by chunks of luminous minerals cemented in haphazard patterns upon the walls. The hoard dispersed through the branching passages to take up guard positions until only those carrying the couple and the dismembered corpses of the orange foe remained, this party plunging down a twisting way that led deep underground.
After many minutes of travel they emerged into a vast subterranean chamber teeming with the colony’s worker class who tended strange growths that sprouted from the cavern floor – spongy twisting columns of an ivory hue whose apex terminated in translucent tendrils tipped with crimson spheres of a gelatinous consistency. Rand saw that the plants (if such a word could be applied to them) secreted a clear liquid from pits in their boles – a fluid that the workers sucked up with proboscises which uncoiled from their undersides.
The balm of vast relief spread itself across the worried man – the monsters, despite their ferocity, weren’t carnivores. But Rand’s sense of reprieve was quickly shattered as he and the girl were cast upon the ground with violent unexpectedness. Before either could scramble to their feet a rain of body parts fell upon them as the other creatures dumped their gruesome loads.
Rand heard Julia’s muffled scream of horror as they were buried beneath the butchered corpses. The acrid smell and taste of alien blood filled his nose, his mouth. Rand gagged as he struggled free of the steaming nauseous heap that pressed upon him with its horrible weight. He broke through, rose gasping and trembling. Rand looked wildly about and saw a limp hand protruding from the stinking pile of bodies that towered above him. He raced to the girl, flung aside a dozen corpses and dragged her clear.
Julia coughed, retched as the fresh air revived her. She clung to Rand and sobbed hysterically, and who could blame her after experiencing the horror of that gruesome ordeal. Rand swore as he held the trembling girl – the hoard of worker monsters was swiftly converging upon the heap of body parts.
“Come on,” he urged as he hauled Julia to her feet. “We’ve got to run for it.”
But before either could take a step the things were on them with the speed of leaping tigers. Both were seized, hauled aloft and carried towards the outlandish plants. Rand saw one worker drop a body part upon the nearest growth’s crown of translucent tendrils. Instantly, the tendrils closed over the remains and their crimson globular tips began to secrete powerful digestive juices.
The corpse smoked, hissed, dissolved to liquid like ice in a frying pan. Horror struck Rand with all the force of a wild blow. They were food after all – not for the monsters, but for the carnivorous plants they cultivated. The struggling man knew their bodies were as tough as steel, but as an industrial chemist he was only too aware that even tempered steel could not withstand the corrosiveness of fuming acid.
Julia screamed; her piercing cry tearing Rand’s eyes from the horrible sight to one even more terrifying – the girl’s captor was dangling her above a growth. The thing sensed the nearness of food. Its tendrils twitched, rose like swaying cobras towards her, oily fuming juices oozing from their tips.
Rand struggled fiercely as the groping tendrils reached for the screaming girl while his own monstrous captor moved to an adjacent growth. At any moment the creature dangling Julia above the horrid plant might release its hold and send her plunging to a torturous and gruesome death.
The girl stared in horror at the squirming tendrils of the fiendish plant as she clung with fierce strength to her monstrous captor’s claw. The claw snapped open. Julia screamed wildly, hung on for dear life. The beast shook its limb in a violent bid to dislodge her, to drop her within the glistening nest of wriggling oozing tendrils.
Horror choked Rand at the sight as the dangling girl was swung wildly about. He threw all his strength against his captor’s claw in a savage frenzy of utter desperation, oblivious to his own peril as he was suspended above another twitching plant. The worker’s pincer, not as strong and massive as those of the soldier class, gave way to the mighty power of his fiercely straining thews and split asunder like the cracking of a branch. The frantic man, who saw the shrieking girl was on the verge of falling, swiftly swung himself up upon his captor’s limb before it could react and with a mighty leap hurled himself through the air.
Julia’s fingers slipped. She screamed; fell towards the monster plant’s hungrily reaching limbs. Rand struck her, the impetus of his wild leap carrying both clear of frightful danger. They plunged, struck the ground with jarring force. Rand fought through the ache of the crushing claw, his fall. He swept up the stunned girl, dashed away in wild flight, dodging beasts and plants as he raced away with the swiftness of an Olympic champion towards the exit of the vast chamber.
Rand threw a glance behind him and was stabbed by cutting fear when he saw that half a dozen creatures were upon their heels with the tenacity of a wolf pack. He increased his speed, his heart pounding wildly with the strain of his frantic pace, but the racing monsters were swiftly gaining on him.
“Put me down,” cried Julia who, now recovered, also saw the danger. “My weight is slowing you.”
“No time,” gasped Rand as he fled through the maze of tunnels, for the creatures were closing fast and to pause now would give them even more advantage.
He rounded a bend and uttered a silent curse – before them was a group of towering soldiers, one unit of tens of thousands dispersed along the passageways to act as sentinels. Instantly, the creatures were upon him, the foremost swinging its spiked claw in a swift and crushing blow. Rand dodged the wild strike only to be confronted by another towering foe, and if that wasn’t bad enough the pursuing creatures charged into view, their swift arrival cutting off retreat.
Rand made a desperate bid to evade the second monster, but its swinging claw struck him a savage blow that tore the girl from his arms and sent him crashing against the tunnel wall. He heard Julia scream as he slumped to the passageway’s floor. Rand struggled up and gazed in horror at the scene before him – three of the brutes had Julia in their vicious grip, their huge claws digging into her flesh, wrenching and tearing as they tried to rip her limb from limb.
With a wild cry Rand leapt to aid the girl, only to be swiftly sized by the other monsters. Rand screamed in agony as his body was mercilessly assaulted. The beasts had clamped their claws upon his limbs. The man screamed again and again, his howls echoing that of Julia’s tortured cries that were another torment to him. Then all coherent thought dissolved in a sea of agony as he was wildly jerked in all directions with such force he was sure he was going to die from the pain alone.
Then, when he thought he could bear no more the agony suddenly stopped as his fierce tormentors relaxed their grip upon him. Rand crashed to the ground in a state of semi-consciousness. It was quite some time before he regained sufficient strength and coherent thought to stir himself to motion, prompted as he was by biting worry for the girl.
Rand rolled painfully on his back. Towering over him were his monstrous tormentors, now as motionless as statues, and above them was a huge ventilation shaft down which poured a wavering yellow light from the outlandish sky. From what he could see of the firmament through the yawning aperture the weird heavens were now alive with dancing cubes of golden radiance that shed their slumberous glow upon the alien landscape.
Was the strange phenomenon the equivalent of night time in this bizarre reality that had neither sun nor moon nor stars? Was the yellow light a sleep inducing radiation to which these creatures were attuned? Rand put aside his speculations, realizing he had to swiftly take advantage of the opportunity for escape that this situation now presented.
He stood on shaky legs and staggered to Julia’s side. Rand gazed at her, his face bleak with worry. What little of the girl’s clothes that had remained, like his own, had been completely torn away in the violence of the assault, revealing all the ugly black bruises on her silver skin where the savage claws of the monsters had laid violent hold of her.
No human being could have survived such savagery, and yet he saw by the rise and fall of her shapely breasts that Julia still lived. The sight, erotic under any other circumstances, was lost on Rand, for it reminded him that they weren’t quite human anymore. Conflicting thoughts arose within his mind – relief that Julia wasn’t dead and worry on how they’d be treated upon return to Earth. If we ever get back home, he grimly thought.
The girl moaned as he knelt by her. She opened her eyes and stared wildly as he saw the monsters towering over her. Julia screamed, clutched Rand in sobbing terror. Quickly, he picked her up and carried her swiftly away from the sight of her inhuman tormentors, uttering words of soothing comfort to the girl. Shortly, she settled sufficiently for him to let her stand.
“I’m all right now,” confirmed the girl with a brave smile, and in response to his query as she wiped the tears from her face. “Those monsters seemed paralysed. I wonder what happened. But more importantly, which way is out?”
Rand quickly explained his hypothesis concerning the soporific nature of the golden radiance he’d seen through the ventilation shaft, and then admitted rather ruefully:
“I’m afraid we’re lost. In my eagerness to escape our captors, and with the mad flight through this maze of tunnels I’m afraid I’ve become completely disorientated, and now I’m not even sure which way is up or down. Some rescuer I turned out to be,” he admitted with bitter self-recrimination.
“You look a pretty good hero from where I’m standing,” observed the girl, who then laughed in embarrassment at her admission – a thought that had slipped out as she’d gazed in admiration at his muscular nudity. “Well,” she continued, somewhat flustered, “we’d best be moving on before those things wake up.”
They continued along the passageway, which seemed to have a slightly upward slant that gave some hope it was the right direction. After about a kilometre of travel they came across another group of slumbering sentinels, and as they edged their way passed the monstrous guards Rand noticed several dark holes in the tunnel wall, each about one metre in diameter. They were far too small to accommodate the bodies of their gigantic foes, and the man gave them little thought as he passed them by until a scrabbling sound made him jerk about.
At first Rand thought the sentinels had awakened, but then saw the noise was being made by other creatures – each about waist high - that had scurried forth from the blackness of the holes. The things, dark crimson, resembled armadillos in general appearance. Their heads, though, were more like those of ants than any other animal Rand could think of and their legs, six in all, were equipped with powerful claws capable of digging through the concrete hardness of the walls. A thick muscular tail that ended in a spiky sphere completed their outlandish appearance.
The five things fell upon the sentinels. Metre long tongues tipped with dagger-shaped metallic stings shot out from between their scythe-like jaws and stabbed through armoured skin as if it was cardboard. The victims jerked spasmodically, crashed to earth and the killers began to feast, their shearing mandibles crunching horribly as they gorged upon the foul repast.
“Nocturnal predators of some kind,” speculated Rand to the girl. “Come on, we’d best be going before they try and make a meal of us as well.”
Both turned, only to be confronted by another beast that had emerged from an unseen hole to the fore. The thing lunged at Rand, its long tongue darting out like a thrusting spear. Julia swore. Rand dodged aside and with lightening speed grabbed the tongue before it could retract. The monster swung its tail, smashing the mace-like tip against the man.
Rand was knocked to the ground by the savage impact and lost his grip upon the creature’s tongue. Julia flung herself on the monster to distract it as it lunged at him with snapping mandibles. The thing halted, hissed, and swung its tail with terrific force. The girl cried in agony as the spiked tip struck her like a slapping hand and hurled her aside with contemptuous ease.
As the girl struck the ground Rand was on his feet and racing for the beast as it now scuttled towards Julia, dripping mouthparts horribly agape. He thrust his brawny arms beneath the monster’s belly and with a surge of desperate strength and cracking muscles overturned it. The thing rolled, six legs kicking air helplessly.
A grim smile of satisfaction was on Rand’s face. But the monster, though on its back, was far from helpless – its deadly tongue flicked out like a curling whip and struck at him with all the swiftness of a viper. Again, he managed to grab the darting organ and, in a moment of inspiration, bent it over and thrust the envenomed tip into the only vulnerable spot upon the creature’s body – the softness of its own tongue. The thing was racked by spasms. Its legs jerked. Its tail pounded in a paroxysm of agony. An explosive hiss of agony jetted from its gnashing, foaming mandibles, and with a final shudder it died.
Rand, meanwhile, had leapt clear of its death-convulsions and helped Julia to her feet, and as he assisted her up the badly shaken girl saw another danger.
“Look,” she cried. “The other things are attacking.”
Rand turned, swore. The remaining monsters, alerted by the fray, were rushing at them in a fury. Man and girl swiftly fled; the things in mad pursuit, their shearing mouthparts snapping furiously. The couple sprinted along the way. Rand began to feel the toll of his frenetic exertions – his strength was rapidly giving out with every racing step as their deadly foes gained upon them.
Julia stumbled. Rand caught the panting girl. The man was frantic. In but moments the rushing monsters would be upon them with darting tongues and rending jaws. He looked desperately about, spotted an unlighted tunnel to their left.
“Down here,” he panted. “We’ll elude them in the dark.”
Julia nodded, too breathless to speak. Both bolted down the stygian passage, hand in hand. Then the floor fell out from beneath their racing feet. Julia cried out in terror. Too late Rand realised his mistake – this was no passageway, but a horizontal ventilation shaft that connected with an aeration chimney.
The girl clung to him as they plunged in a wild tumble through utter blackness, her screams echoing in the confines of the flue. Then they hit the bottom and the deeper darkness of oblivion engulfed the pair.
Rand groaned and opened his eyes. His body felt as if it had been run over by a heard of stampeding elephants. Julia lay upon him for at the last moment he had managed to twist his body and cushion her fall with his own.
“Julia, are you okay?” asked Rand worriedly as he placed his hand on her shoulder and weakly shook her.
The girl muttered incoherently as she stirred, then came to full consciousness and looked dazedly about. Far above them arched the domed roof of a large chamber perforated with many ventilation shafts that aerated the nexus of the hive. Julia turned her gaze form the high ceiling, her amazement at having survived the wild plunge cut off as she beheld a revolting sight, her cry of terror drawing Rand’s attention to the horror.
In the centre of the room was a vast cone of convoluted pulsing flesh, pus white, slimy, and webbed with veins of sickly yellow. Dotting its repulsive body were bony plates that had separated to accommodate its growth – a growth so gigantic that the spindly legs, too weak to support its mass, were splayed out on the chamber’s floor like the arms of a monstrous starfish.
On it and about it were swarming workers, all frozen in a strange tableau of slumber by the weird soporific radiation as they were going about their duties of cleaning and feeding the gruesome brain, and transporting to the nursery the endless stream of translucent nymphs the creature birthed.
Julia shuddered and turned her face away from the nauseous monstrosity and Rand could well understand her feelings, for there was something horrifying about the thing that was more than a mere outrage of the senses: it seemed to radiate an aura of utter foulness that was a pollution to the very essence of Humanity.
“We’d better get out of here before these things awake,” urged Rand as he struggled up beside the rising girl.
“I couldn’t agree more,” replied Julia with a shudder.
Both turned away from the gruesome sight and as they did gazed upon another source of danger. Encircling the monster brain and its attendants was a deep dry-moat, and as the couple drew near the ditch they saw that a dense mass of vegetation filled its bottom – carnivorous plants identical to those their captors had tried to feed them to.
Rand peered cautiously over the edge and saw several carcasses enmeshed by the growth’s corrosive tendrils – the partially digested remains of the armadillo-like creatures from which they’d fled. Instantly, he realised the moat and its growths were the means by which the hive’s master intelligence protected itself during the equivalent of night in this weird reality.
The couple began circling the perimeter of the trench, searching for a way of crossing it as their strength slowly returned. After a time, they found the means of doing so – two widely spaced poles bridged the gap. The nocturnal predators couldn’t cross the rods for they were too thin and far apart for their cumbersome feet to get a grip upon. Not so the yellow beasts whose bird-like claws and lengthy stride could easily secure a purchase.
“I’m no tightrope walker,” observed Rand, grimly. “Those rods are glass smooth. One slip and we’d be finished.”
“Yes, agreed Julia, “and if we monkey crawl across our dangling bodies would be in reach of the acid secreting tendrils of the plants. Oh, look,” she pointed. “If only we could fly.”
Rand turned and was amazed at what he saw: Four creatures, each about three metres in height and metallic green in colour, were feeding upon the plants, their gleaming integument immune to the corrosives of the growths and the soporific radiation. The things were ovoid in shape. Four finned limbs terminating in three fingered digits encircled the beak-like mouth at the pointed base of the body, and about the circumference of the ovoid were an equal number of evenly spaced eyes, each mounted in a conical turret and capable of independent movement. But perhaps most astounding of all was their method of flight – not wings but biological rockets in the form of four mobile nozzles mounted around the apex of the body that belched forth jets of hissing flame.
“Julia,” you’re a genius,” cried Rand excitedly. “Those things must have flown in through the ventilation shafts. If we can grab one of them we might be able to hitch a ride out of here. Our combined weight should quickly tire the creature thus forcing it to land soon after. It’s a desperate chance, but the only one we’ve got. Are you willing to take the risk?”
“We’ve got no choice,” gasped Julia as she gripped his arm and gestured with her other hand.
Rand turned and swore. The monsters had awakened from their strange slumber – not a gradual return to consciousness, but a sudden spring to instant activity like the restarting of a movie that had been paused. Indeed, the couple had been spotted instantly and several creatures were at that very moment rushing to capture them.
Desperately, Rand looked quickly about, mind racing furiously – they’d never reach the flying creatures. What he needed now was a weapon. Inspiration struck him. He dived for the moat, thrust his hand within and grabbed a bunch of tendrils by their non-corrosive stems. Julia screamed. Rand felt a claw clamp savagely upon his ankle.
The tendrils were torn from the plant as his captor jerked him away, and it was only by sheer luck that he managed to retain a hold on them as he was hauled violently aloft. From his dangling and inverted position he glimpsed Julia struggling in the grip of her monstrous captor as he and the girl were carried towards the pulsing brain. Rand struggled to remain calm, to rein in his wild fear. There was no point in lashing out blindly. He only had one chance and he must use it wisely.
They drew near the pulsing brain and Rand was nearly overwhelmed by disgust. From a distance it was bad enough, but at close range he could see every detail of the slimy, repulsive horror. One staring eye, gleaming with malefic intelligence, fixed itself upon them. Rand gazed into the depths of the inky orb. Something cold and utterly alien seemed to creep into his mind.
A scream welled up in Rand’s throat, but he managed to choke it off as he battled the creeping darkness that threatened to engulf his sanity as waves of foulness washed over his reeling mind. With utter horror he realized the creature was invading his brain with the uncaring ruthlessness of a callous burglar. As Rand fought desperately to retain his sanity he glimpsed the monster brain reaching for Julia with its spindly arms. The girl screamed wildly as it touched her, shuddered at the foulness of unwanted contact as it explored her body without regard for any decency.
Rand roared savagely at the sight. He hurled the plant’s tendrils into the eye of the vile beast with every atom of his raging strength. They struck and their globular tips burst, drenching the staring orb with fuming acid. A high pitched scream, like a steam whistle’s blast, erupted from the creature. Its limbs convulsed in tortured agony, striking the human’s captors, sending them pin-wheeling.
Julia screamed in fright, cried in pain as she struck the earth, her shattered captor crashing down upon her in a welter of sickening gore. Rand hit the floor some distance away. He struggled free of the smothering corpse and staggered erect. All about was utter chaos – some of the brain’s servitors lay in heaps and jerked spastically. Being extensions of the intelligence they too could feel the monster’s agony. Other workers ran wildly about seeking to escape the frightful torment, many plunging into the moat in their blind and unreasoning flight.
Rand staggered towards Julia, nearly deafened by the brain’s unending shrieks of agony. He dodged one of its flailing limbs and a lurching servitor who nearly ran him over in its pell-mell flight. Reaching the girl, he hauled the corpse off her and slung her unconscious form across his shoulder, then swung towards the moat. The flying creatures, disturbed by the wild commotion, were soaring up towards the ventilation shafts.
In an instant Rand was bolting towards the lowest one, which hung above the moat. The man knew he had to make a wild leap to reach it, and if he missed he’d plunge within the lethal plants. Such a death would be agonizing, but still preferable to the horror of the brain. The flying creature rose higher, Rand put on a burst of desperate speed, tightened his grip on Julia. He leapt and caught one limb. Then his hand slipped on the thing’s smooth exoskeleton. For a moment wild terror stabbed him and he clutched the limb with savage strength stopping the fatal slide.
The creature, already frightened by the turmoil in the chamber, roared skyward under the added terror of the unknown thing dangling from its arm. Rand clung desperately to both limb and Julia as the beast hurtled upwards, its flaming rockets blasting him with fiery heat.
They thundered into the bleak mouth of a shaft, its blackness driven back by the roaring flames of the living rocket. Rand sweated. Their velocity was terrific and if the thing collided with the chimney’s wall at this speed they’d be finished. A rush of terror surrounded him as they hurtled through the claustrophobic way. How could the thing navigate safely in these constricted conditions at such speed? He didn’t know, but at any minute expected to be hurled to his death.
His thoughts were diverted by Julia: The girl had regained consciousness; revived by the gale force wind of their frenetic flight. She screamed, struggled wildly in unbridled fear. Rand tried desperately to clam the terrified and disorientated girl, but his words were whipped away by the violent rush of air. Julia kicked, thrashed about. She slid from Rand’s shoulder, fell screaming. Rand managed to grab her about the waist. Julia flung her arms about him, clung with the strength of utter terror.
They burst out into open air, but Rand’s relief was short lived when he saw how high above the ground they quickly rocketed: In but moments the weird landscape was like a surrealist miniature, the vast hive of the monsters an anthill. Above the threatening sky was alive with streamers of emerald flame. Silver threads of hissing energy crackled across the heavens in lacework patterns as another outlandish storm, one different from the first, began to brew in the witches’ cauldron that was the nightmare sky.
Winds buffeted them like the fists of an invisible giant. Their areal steed dropped sickeningly to escape the wild storm. They plummeted like a stone, spiky balls of blazing light flashing about them in a barrage of fiery death. The mountainous hive seemed to leap up at them like a springing leviathan as they plunged in screaming descent down its flanks, trailing out behind the diving monster like a ribbon tied to the tail of a plummeting dive-bomber.
It took all of Rand’s strength to cling to the diving beast as it hurtled towards the ground in terrifying descent. Julia buried her face in his shoulder, sobbed. A spiny crimson ball of raging energy – the weird lightening of the alien storm – exploded against the hive’s flanks with the force of an artillery shell, peppering them with stinging rock fragments as they hurtled passed. Rand swore, clung for dear life as the earth rushed up with horrific speed. The thing’s nozzles rotated. Flames roared from its jets with braking force.
Somehow, Rand and the girl managed to retain their grip despite the terrific stresses of sudden deceleration as they were whipped about like a lashing scourge. But then the monster swept towards a huge bolder and deliberately smashed the clinging man against it. Rand screamed in agony, lost his hold and with Julia crashed against the ground as the beast, freed of its unwanted passengers, darted off and quickly vanished among the rugged outcrops of the weird landscape.
Rand lay in a stunned heap. Above him the demonic sky was living web of crackling energy from which plummeting spheres of blazing light fell to exploded against the earth with bomb-like force. The ground trembled with their concussions. Fragments of rock rained from the sky, were swept about by the screaming wind and flung against the couple. Then, through the gathering murk of the raging storm he glimpsed towering shapes stalking towards him – the yellow beasts, goaded by the mental emanations of the monster brain now hell-bent on revenge.
Rand could hardly move as he struggled up. He looked wildly about. They were trapped, boxed in by massive ebon boulders veined with purple metal and the creatures would be upon them at any moment. Beside him Julia groaned. He tried to lift the girl, but to his horror found his strength giving out. Half a dozen monsters emerged from the gloom – frightening apparitions of towering menace. They rushed towards him, claws snapping with vicious eagerness and Rand knew there was nothing he could do.
As the monstrous beasts charged towards the helpless couple a blazing spiky sphere of crimson light struck one boulder. Rand flinched, threw up one arm in fearful expectation of the deadly blast, but instead of an explosion a strange reaction swiftly manifested: The veins of purple metal absorbed the crackling force and instantly vaporised to form a swirling cloud of unearthly mist in which danced winking flecks of crimson light.
Rand gasped in joyful amazement: it was the emerald fog - the weird phenomena that had brought them to this world of endless horror. The sight filled Rand with hope; the rushing monsters now so near assaulted him with stabbing dread. Terror was a spur to his waning strength. He clasped the girl, staggered up and bolted for the glowing mist, the hurtling monsters now mere seconds from the racing man.
As Rand sprinted for the emerald fog a new source of terror manifested. To his horror he saw the mist was rapidly contracting, falling in upon itself with alarming rapidity, and in but moments he knew with sickening certainty the gateway to freedom would slam shut in his face. He heard the charging beasts gaining swiftly upon him. Rand glanced at the unconscious girl. Her weight dragged upon him like an anchor, but never for a moment did he think of casting her aside. Indeed, her helplessness fired his manly strength and with a heroic burst of speed Rand leapt within the shrinking mist as the foremost monster’s claws darted for him.
**********
Rand stirred. Dappled light fell upon him through an arching canopy of trees and all about was strongly scented with the earthy smell of profligate life. The man opened his eyes. His head was pillowed in Julia’s lap. The last memory he had was of leaping for the glowing mist. He must have passed out, or so he surmised, from the strain of his final effort. The forest odours made him smile and his heart quickened.
“We’re home,” he said to Julia with a broad smile of vast relief. But then a touch of fear came upon him when she showed no sign of shared enthusiasm. “What is it?” he gasped as he rose. “What’s wrong?”
“Look carefully at the trees,” she replied.
Rand stared and hope faded at what he now beheld. The trees were massive – at least sixty metres in height. Their spreading branches were enormous and from them hung curtains of load bearing aerial prop-roots as thick as tree trunks. The bark, umber in hue, was fissured in a net-like pattern. The emerald leaves were heart-shaped with crenulated edges of deep crimson and veins of chrome yellow. The growths were in full bloom, bearing huge orange and purple flowers that resembled conch shells. Clearly, they were not the trees of Earth.
“Oh, God,” groaned Rand as he slumped dejectedly to the loamy soil. “The emerald fog – it’s a gateway not just to Earth, but to multiple worlds. I’ve failed to get you back, and even if the phenomena manifests again there is no guarantee it will lead to home.”
“Please don’t think you’ve failed,” said Julia, moved by the sight of his distress. “This world may not be Earth, but it is much like home – far better than that nightmare world from which you save me. Come, she continued with a smile as she took his hand. “Let’s have a look around.”
Rand could not help but admire her positivism as he rose and walked warily beside her through the waist high undergrowth of red and yellow plants whose giant leaves resembled those of elkhorn ferns. Indeed, after experiencing so many terrors in rapid succession he expected at any moment a drooling horror to leap upon them from concealment. But as the minutes passed without any sign of danger he began to feel more optimistic.
Shortly, they came upon a mighty river whose further bank was lost in the haze of distance, so broad was its vast expanse. The sight made Rand gasp with wonder as did the racing waters that plunged in a roaring cataract down rugged cliffs and broke in hissing spray and dazzling rainbows far below upon a glistening lake of vast extent.
From the vantage point of height the couple saw below an open countryside of rolling plains carpeted in fern-like plants bearing exotic blooms upon the midrib of their fronds. The scene was an artist’s palette of pastel hues more inviting than the oppressive confines of the riotous jungle – an alluring sight that infused the pair with the wonder of its vibrant gorgeousness.
“Let’s go down,” said Julia eagerly.
With the passing of an hour both had made the arduous descent and now stood by the vast lake’s verdurous shoreline. Rand, tired, naked and soiled with the grime from his multitudinous ordeals, wiped the sweat from his brow as he gazed upon the cool and inviting water.
“I could do with a bath,” he murmured to himself.
“You can say that again,” observed Julia with a grin, her playful nature having been aroused by the fecund beauty of the beneficent environment.
Rand, too weary to see the humour, raised an eyebrow as he looked her up and down. “You’re not exactly the epitome of cleanliness yourself,” he replied somewhat testily.
“Grumpy,” she laughed as she mischievously lunged against him. Both toppled, fell with a mighty splash in the water. Rand emerged spluttering to confront the laughing girl. But his anger faded at her smile. He grinned, caught Julia. They wrestled playfully at first; then a more interesting game began as mutual contact aroused their youthful passions. Later, both lay in each other’s arms upon a soft bed of vegetation, pleasantly exhausted from passionate lovemaking.
From the azure sky golden sunlight bathed them in its drowsy warmth. It was a peaceful and relaxing scene, but even so a trace of worry still troubled Rand and he voiced his concerns to the girl.
“Do you think you can be happy here, Julia? Just with me I mean. After all we are cut off from Earth forever as I’m sure you realize.”
The girl was silent for a moment as with her finger she traced the well defined muscles of his torso which, like her own body, was as argent as metallic silver and no longer wholly human.
“If we’d made it back to Earth,” she replied. “Scientists would want to prod and probe us, and then there would be the media, not to mention the stares of people as we walked down the street, if the government let us out of the confines of the laboratory, that is. No ... I don’t fancy that existence.” Then the girl looked at him and smiled. “You’re a wonderful man, Adam. You’ve proved that well and truly. Here we have our freedom and each other, and that is the most important thing of all.”
**********
Many years later Rand and Julia, still alive thanks to the longevity of their transformed bodies, sat upon a bench beneath a shady spreading tree in the plaza of the populous mud brick village that had sprung up near the lake’s shoreline. Beside Rand was his homemade paints and brushes, and a painting of the scene he’d just captured.
It was summer, and the sun spread its gentle warmth upon the land. In its beneficent radiance the children of their children’s children played a game of chase. The youngster’s silver bodies flashed like darting fish as they pursued each other back and forth across the dusty square, and their laughter was the pleasing symphony of wholesome youth that made the couple smile, for it was a joyous sight that left both well content.
THE END