The Whispers (5 page)

“I’m a d-d-d-delivery boy!” he shouts, hardly able to even deliver his words. “Put the craft down! Now! I’ll tell the authorities if you don’t! You’ll be expelled! You’ll—”

“Well,” I say, cutting him off and trying unsuccessfully to steel my own shaken nerves. “If we can manage to find a spot, delivery boy, then we’d be happy to land and let you out. Really, it’s a total accident you’re here. There’s no sense in you coming with us if—”

“We can’t,” calls John from the front.

I look ahead, watching the buildings and spires fling past us, the ship hurtling ceaselessly towards the edge of campus. “Why not?”

“They’ve been notified,” he says. “Authorities, I see them.” The view shifts leftwards, rightwards, upwards. My guts somersault, somehow unable to register the erratic movement. “If we turn back now, we face certain, harsh criminal charges. Prison for life. I can’t even think. We’ll be branded thieves, Jennifer. Endangering lives. It’s too … It’s too late to turn back,” he says and realizes, perhaps not having truly considered the consequence of his committing to my insanity until just now.

I look at Marianne from across the cabin, surveying her as she desperately clings to the copilot’s chair and stares back at me, a look of utter loss in her colorful eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, unsure if my words can be heard.

Mari hears them. She gives a wistful shrug, then says, “Hell … I can’t remember … the last time … I had … this much fun …”

“I’m not having fun,” the uniformed boy lets us know, still clinging to the crate with all his precious life. “You’re all criminals. I shouldn’t be here! Let me off! NOW!”

“Can’t,” I say sadly. “You’re coming on the fieldtrip of a lifetime, apparently. Hope you remembered to get your permission slip signed by a parent or legal guardian.”

“Fieldtrip to where??” he asks miserably.

Through the front glass, I watch as the campus flashes out of view, and all that sprawls out ahead of us is sand, the ocean looming ahead like endless blue silk. The boy’s question goes unanswered. The fear of what we’ve done washes over all of us, just as certainly as the blue of the ocean meets our eyes and the world of the Living falls to our backs. The silence between us speaks the worth of a thousand crippling words.

I wonder if we’re all thinking the same thing. Our faith is certainly being tested now. Is the other side of the world
really
depleted of all life, ruined and decayed from the centuries? Does the Sunless Reach even exist, or is it all ocean out there? Is it truly …
the realm of the Dead?

If time were an endless plain, the ocean is the chasm cut deep in the earth, its watery yawn spanning far beyond what light can reach. This awesome rift, we will never know for sure how wide it is. But on the other side, as sure as we are that there
is
another side, that’s where our story truly begins. Not where the land ends, but far, far beyond its lazy shores … in a realm beyond the sun’s reach, where the Dead live and the Living …

… the Living …

“Are you okay, Jennifer?”

I turn at the sound of John’s voice.
My father would have wanted this
, I tell myself again, desperate to believe the words I’m forcing through my mind, now invaded by a tiny doubt that wasn’t there before.

The crazy lady Dana summoned his spirit from the world beyond, remember? He’s here with you, wearing that silly beige suit. It doesn’t matter what your last words were to him.

Honor him in the only way you can …

“When we return with our proof,” I answer, “we will be celebrated. The president will honor us. You know, my dad always used to ask me, ‘What did you do today?’ The question never before held such weight. This day, my friends … This day, we write
our
chapter in the Histories.” I face my roomie. “Mari, you’ll be revered for your new findings in Biology and Human Anatomy and Blood. The Living Dead, Marianne! You will know them as certain as you know the colors of your cheeks and eyes. They will talk about your discoveries for years to come …”

“I’ve forgotten which color I put in today,” Mari moans, bringing a sorrowful hand to her face, mourning the lack of a mirror.

“We’re the new History,” I declare, happy with my dream. “Isn’t that a worthwhile way to spend your day?”

“Yes,” agrees John, “given we survive the journey.”

The four of us stare ahead, a view of the ageless ocean meeting our eager, dreaming eyes with its silent eternity of unknowable depths and greedily-kept secrets.

I wake to the shriek of an alarm.

“John! What’s happening?!” Marianne cries out.

“I don’t know, I don’t know. We were cruising just fine, but then—”

“The window is clouding up!”

“Anti-fog!” shouts the delivery boy. “Turn on the—”

“What is this stupid indicator indicating?? Everything’s blinking! Make it stop!”

I stagger to my feet, bracing myself against the wall. The only thing in view is still endless ocean and nothing. I have no idea how long I was asleep, how much time has passed, how far we’ve traveled …

“We’re losing altitude,” reports John, inspecting dials and poking buttons.

“I don’t want to drown,” the delivery boy mutters to himself, eyes glued to the pilot’s console with a look of utter loss. “It’s a horrible way to go.”

“At this rate, we’ll explode before we drown,” mutters John with a grunt. “See? Bright side to everything.”

“NOW’S NOT A TIME FOR JOKES!” shrieks the boy.

The alarm keeps spitting digital bullets into our ears, flooding the cabin with aural panic. Marianne sucks at her fingers and tosses fruitless suggestions on what to do, to which John irritably explains that they’re not plummeting into the ocean; we’re merely descending at a miniscule rate. Something’s clearly wrong—hence the alarm—but he wouldn’t have a first clue of what. The delivery boy wonders aloud if the craft might float in water. “Just what we need,” moans Mari miserably, “to turn our adventure into a lost-at-sea nightmare.”

“Land.”

The three of them turn to me, their arguing ceased. Mari and the boy are confused while John stares at me, brooding with dark resolve.

“Land,” I repeat, hurrying to the front and pointing at the foggy glass.

The others look. With the farthest reach of our eyes, we see a strip of darkness so thin we’re likely all doubting it’s even there—a mere illusion, this thread of shadow stitching together the distant horizon and sea. Watching in utter silence, we hold our breath as the hovercraft floats across the air, the ocean rushing past us beneath our toes. Is the shadow growing closer? Is it real?

Mari whispers, “It looks …”

“Ugly,” finishes the boy in fear.

“Mysterious,” agrees Mari.

With the crawl of each second that passes, the needle of darkness that separates water and sky begins to grow tiny stems that almost don’t exist. The tiny, tiny stems grow sluggishly taller, taller, taller … until they become the smallest skeletons of dead, leafless trees I’ve ever seen. What at first looks to be an innocent cloud soon reveals itself as a thick, wooly blanket of mist that sleeps atop the trees. This mist doesn’t stir or move or swirl. Neither do the trees seem to sway. It looks like a painting against the sky. The thorny terrain grows and grows until it becomes something as promised and imminent as death itself.

John rushes to the controls, gently pressing his palm to the touchscreen while the alarm incessantly barks. He pokes about the console, searching for something.

“He doesn’t know how to land the craft,” the delivery boy realizes in horror. “We’re going to crash!”

“Of
course
I don’t know how to land the damn thing. Do I look like a pilot to you?” John growls at him, his ire causing his hand to flinch, which in turn causes the craft to twitch. He literally holds the vehicle in the palm of his hand—and all of us with it. “If I can’t get it to slow down, I’m going to guide us to a plain or flatland of some sort. If we crash, we’re going to crash
gently
, damn it.”

Land rushes towards us much quicker now. In stark contrast to our own beach, the sands here look so grey, it’s like they’ve had their color extracted somehow. The shore comes closer and closer and closer. The mists …

“I can’t see anything,” John realizes, and the fear in his voice does nothing to reassure the rest of us. “That thick fog, I can’t see through it. I can’t see where we’re landing.
I can’t see anything!”

Before we can count the fingers on our hands, the shore is behind us and yet another vast blanket lies in all directions, except this blanket is made of an unmoving, opaque, grey-white haze. I daresay the view inspires far more fear and mystery than the ocean did.

I’m at John’s side. “You can do it,” I cheer him on. “Maybe you can pull back against the oncoming wind to slow us down,” I suggest, “like this.”

I put my hand on his. The touch of our skin breaks the tension in his face, if just a little, and his lips part. I move my fingers to guide his. Isn’t it strange, that even in a time like this when our lives literally hang in the balance, I find myself longing for his attention? Why do John and I have to play this game? I get no thrill in the chase. It makes my stomach writhe, worrying and recalling every single time my heart’s been broken or neglected or betrayed. Can’t we just say what we feel and
know
the relationship we have? Or does he
enjoy
the endless, emotional mystery?

“We can use the wind,” I whisper calmly. “Then, the moment we break through the mist …”

The ruminating mind of John shows in the tensed furrowing of his brow and the locking of his chiseled, stubble-dusted jaw as he clenches and unclenches his teeth, chewing on nothing but his worries.

“Then we’ll let the hover propulsion stabilize our fall,” he says, finishing my sentence, “provided there aren’t too many trees.”

“Yes, that’s it,” I encourage him over the wailing alarm, my small, pale hand still resting on his rough one.

As the belly of the craft flirts with the fog, the hum of its engine grows louder. Then everything starts to shiver, from the walls to the tied-down crates to our very feet, as if cutting through the cloud is its most trying endeavor yet. The white blanket rises, rises, rises … until white is all we know.

Instantly, the dark trees emerge through the blinding white, appearing as ugly, crooked thorns jutting out of the earth and whipping past us. Too soon, the craft grazes the tips of the trees, snapping them right off and showering splinters down below. Shaking, jostling, we all clutch our nearest savior—a crate, a chair, a person—and brace for a less-than-tender landing.

The ground rushes to meet the vehicle faster than any of us can scream, but before we crash, the propulsion of the hovercraft makes us bounce off the ground, then ricocheting sideways off a thicket of nearby trees, and then the whole craft goes belly-up, all of us flipped upside-down. Losing my footing, I clutch John as we tumble to the ceiling—our new floor—and are met with the slam of Marianne’s body to my right. The three of us squeezed against the screens of the ceiling that blink and flicker and flash, we hold on tightly as everything slows to an abrupt and noiseless stop.

The lights flicker off, the alarm ceasing with it.

In the merciful silence, we hear the engine breathe its last, almost like a sigh, and then we are truly in a silent nothingness. Even our breathing seems trapped in a vacuum, my heartbeat turned silent as we lie in the dark.

Mari is first to speak. “Jen? John?”

“I’m alive,” I answer quietly.

“I’m good,” John returns too. I feel his body shift, perhaps to lift his head. “Delivery guy? You still with us?”

He responds with a miserable and meek, “Mm-hmm,” before he, too, squirms in the dark to right himself.

I lift my own head, looking in all directions, hungry for a sign of light. Even the front window lends nothing; everything in all directions is pure black. When my eyes adjust, I catch a dim red glimmer in my peripheral and turn toward it to find Mari’s glowing cheeks staring back at me. With a grunt, I pull out my device that still lives in my pocket. The miniscule light that emits from its screen casts a ghostly glow that fills the cabin.

“Can we get a better light?” asks John. “I don’t want you to waste its energy. We may need it.”

“This is all your fault,” whimpers the boy, his voice quivering. “We’re all dead and it’s your fault.”

I’m not quite sure to whom he’s assigning said fault, but I’ll assume it’s me. I’m about to say something when John answers instead. “We’re not dead,” he tells him, like it’s good news. “We’re all safe, all alive. I know you didn’t plan to do this when you woke up this morning, but we’re all in this together now whether we want to be or not.” When the boy doesn’t answer, John sighs and says, “I know you’re scared. We all are, but if you stick with us, you’ll be safe.”

“Safe,” repeats the boy quietly. The cabin is silent for a moment. Then, he says, “You needed a light. I have this.” He crawls over the ceiling to hand John a wristlet, of which he holds two. John takes one and slaps it on his wrist, wrinkling his brow and jabbing a finger at it, confused. “You press right here on the top,” he tells John, demonstrating, “and then it—”

A beam of light pours out, stabbing the opposite wall.

“Bright,” John grunts—or maybe complains, I can’t tell—then climbs to his feet to survey the cabin. “Why’d the hovercraft just shut off like that?” he asks himself.

The boy answers the rhetorical question. “It’s just a defensive feature of any hovercraft. They aren’t meant to be upside-down ever, so it shuts off to p-p-prevent further damage and ensure the safety of its passengers. Thrusters are only on its underside.” He scrounges in the dark for his lost cap, reclaiming it near the back of the cabin.

“So you
do
know a thing or two,” remarks John. “Wait. Are you telling me we have to flip this whole thing over for it to work again?”

“I don’t
know
,” the boy grumbles tiredly. “The four of us alone can’t dream of budging a
hovercraft
. Look at me! I struggle to even carry a simple shipping crate! That’s why they left me behind to watch the ship!” On his feet now, he gives the wall a frustrated kick. “Great and wonderful job I did of that. I’m
so
fired.”

“You can’t lift a crate, and they hired you as a delivery boy?”

The boy’s pouty, resentful eyes are his only answer.

Impatient, I push forward to the controls, which now rest on the ceiling. Looking up at them, I spot the button that once closed the ramp and reach for it.

“Jen!” hisses Mari. “What are you doing??”

I smirk. “Opening the door. What’s it look like?”

“Stop! No!”

I sigh and stare back at my friend. “What’s our plan, then? Huddle in here all day and braid each other’s hair? Why don’t we see where we’ve landed, at the very least? Explore our surroundings. Then, we’ll come back inside and close up for the night, using this craft as our … base. Hell, it’s stocked with enough food for weeks, isn’t it?”

“A month, maybe more,” the boy agrees, counting the crates with his eyes. “Split among four of us, hmm …”

“We may need to seek out a source of water, too,” I point out, itching to have a look around. “I can’t believe we’re here,” I murmur with exhilaration, half to myself. “The realm of the Dead. The place I’ve only heard about since I was a child. The place of—”

“A source of
water
…?!” cries Marianne, exasperated. “Did you leave your brain back on campus?? A complete and utter
lack
of resources is the very reason this place is what it is! No food anywhere. Every river has run dry. The shore is toxic. The trees are dead. I’m worried even the
air
out there is poison.”

I don’t share her worries, and she clearly doesn’t share my excitement. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.” I reach for the button.

“JEN!”

A faint groan comes from the engine, then the door above us opens up, spilling in a hazy light from outside.

“See? We’re not dead yet,” I tell Mari. “The craft is just sleeping, not powerless. She’ll open and close when we want. Let’s have a look around, then we’ll be back to eat some dinner. I could go for a little bit of what we had before we left. How about you?” I put on a chipper smile, then climb atop a crate to reach the exit, ignoring Mari’s utterly stupefied expression.

When I raise my head through the threshold, my eyes are met with splinters of darkness and grey. The thick blanket of mist, which looked so bright from above, casts quite a shadow underneath that is bleak and heavy. I take the splinters to be trees, and not inviting ones at that. My excitement, quite quickly, becomes apprehension. This is what it looks like … during the day?