Jigsaw World (13 page)

Bailey found Charla about a moment later, and
leaned against her to get his obligatory head pat. After she had
performed her due penance, he decided that it was time to share the
riches. When she finally focused on his prize, she let loose with
an unrestrained scream, putting the dim image of primeval panthers
and bobcats to shame.

Bailey was dumbfounded. Why would anyone react
by making unpleasant cat noises, when presented with the chance to
play one of the most fun games in the world; the game of Throw the
Finger? He had really mourned the loss of the last finger, and he
was very happy to finally have a replacement.

Everyone gathered around the voluptuous
Charla, and Bailey noted that Tom surreptitiously stuck the finger
into his pocket. Bailey was uncertain as to whether he should feel
relief that the precious finger was being preserved, or jealous
that Tom intended to preserve it for his own enjoyment.

By this time, the sun was just finishing
setting on the horizon, and it had been a long, long day. Tom
brought up the question of if they should immediately get on the
road, or should they take advantage of the presence of an abandoned
house on hand to stretch out in luxury for one night, before
continuing on? It took a few minutes to complete the argument, and
the votes for and against split almost entirely along gender
lines.

Everyone admitted that there was some small
danger here from the unknown forces or entities that had conducted
these dissections, and of course from the roaming lions outside,
but the men thought that the number of members of the group should
provide adequate protection against the danger. With certain
assurances of being cautious, the group decided to stay the
night.

Fifteen minutes later, the group had all
immigrated en mass into the vacant house. There were four bedrooms
in the house, and in tacit agreement, the men all called dibs on
the bedrooms, leaving the women to either bunk up with one of the
men, or camp out in the kitchen or living room. As it turned out,
the women were okay with that, and Sally nonverbally indicated that
Tom was an acceptable bedmate, while Charla would of course go with
Sidney, and Vera started heavy flirting with Markus.

“
George, Bailey was playing with a
finger earlier.” Tom mentioned. “If you ask nicely, I think he
would bunk with you tonight. It would be about the same
size.”

In a fitting retort, George also threw a
finger, but with a different intent to Bailey’s play. In a matter
of moments, all had moved into their assorted accommodations and
the supplies and assorted drinking and smoking stocks were
distributed appropriately. George did have a bedroom to himself,
which was a sad situation, but on the plus side, George had a
bedroom to himself.

By the time that everyone had settled in, and
had found, cooked, or begged a good meal, the time was between 9:30
and 10:00, and everyone was anxious to settle in for whatever
pre-sleep rituals they wished to engage in, followed by a luxurious
sleep in a non-cramped bed that they didn’t hang over the edge of,
or hit some obstruction while attempting to adjust their
positions.

Tom retired to the bedroom with Sally, and
with minimal persuasion, he managed to talk her into a very heavy
petting bout that morphed into something much better in due course.
He first used his hands and fingers, then his tongue, and finally,
other bodily parts to satisfy itches and urges that Sally never
knew she had. Tom was quite happy with her body, slender and soft
and curved in all the right places. Her breasts were small but not
too small, maybe C-Cups, and just what the doctor
ordered.

Sally was a very energetic and enthusiastic
bed mate. She claimed to have little experience in the sexual arts.
If that was true, then she had a surplus of imagination, because
there was
nothing
boring about her performance. It took
them a couple of hours to get down to the cuddling and sleeping
stage, which took the form of them spooning.

Tom thought himself to be quite noble, in that
he resisted the urge to dock his probe in her airlock all night, a
real temptation when that gorgeous ass was pressed up against his
body. Tom reached around her to cup her breasts, a nice and
sensitive replacement for more sex. He wasn’t what he would call a
practiced sensitive sort, but this cuddling thing could catch on
big!

Tom tightened his arms around this body that
his instincts were insisting on claiming as his, even though he
knew that the vagrancies of existence would doubtless prove that to
be a lie in the near future. For tonight, it was not a lie, and he
was delightfully tired. He felt the blurry edges of sleep take
him.

I stand on a small hill
overlooking the battlefield. The grass beneath my bare feet is soft
and slick with the blood of the fallen. The moon is risen, and the
bodies glisten beneath her in her light, and some are hidden in the
shadows. The full extent of the carnage is partially concealed by
the stacking of the bodies in blood filled midden ponds.

Some of my brethren are near,
standing in vigilant poses in the midst of the devastation. The
Rakshasha and the lower ghouls are here, and the eyes of Yama flame
redly from where he stands beneath the Olive tree.

I know that many of these fallen
fell to my hand, and to this staff that I carry, given me by He who
sees all to the horizon, and who sees that which must be, be it
tomorrow or five centuries hence. The song my staff sings is death,
and with her song I am almost equal to Yama in the dealing of
death.

I look to my right, and there
stands she whom I await. In my memories I see her flowing red hair
and the brightness of her green and inviting gaze. In my past,
perhaps I knew her, and in my future I see her. She is with me in
these times of blood and death, in the mirror of events she visits
me, but I must go to the place which is beyond my certain gifts
before I may meet her at last in the flesh.

I am saddened by the wait, but I
have waited for many years, and I will meditate upon the centuries,
if I must in order to claim her at last.

Tom woke to a call in the distance, behind the
walls and down the hall. It is Charla, doing what Charla was good
at doing, which was the emission of pointless noises. He felt
something on his head, and he reached up and removed Sally’s golden
dragon-scale panties from where they were parked on his head like a
cap.

He got up; pausing to get in a few pawing
motions at Sally’s bodies which was part humor and part playing
with his current favorite toys. When they were both finally
appropriately dressed, they left and found the source of the noise,
where she stood in the window of the bedroom that she was sharing
with Sidney, facing the North side of the house. Beyond the window,
the moon softly lighted the backs of grazing cattle. It also lit
the sight of several animals running in obvious terror.

There were a couple of almost nebulous light
blobs floating around above the fleeing cows, and Tom could just
make out a suggestion of a vaguely circular shape in the light.
Under the lights, he could see small objects chasing the cattle
about the fields, appearing to be two to four feet off of the
ground, and about the size of your typical motorcycle, if his
perspective wasn’t off.

Markus came in, and handed Tom a pair of
binoculars, staying next to the window to extend the time he got to
check out Charla’s well-lit and badly concealed breasts. Tom
focused the glasses on the field, and what he saw was unusual, to
say the least.

Each of the three small floating objects that
he saw was occupied by a diminutive humanoid shaped...Something. It
certainly looked like one of the ‘grays’ that the UFO people kept
talking about. Big black eyes and small gray bodies were all there,
but it was hard to believe that those delicate looking creatures
could ride even this floating version of a motorcycle. If Tom had
to put a name to what these little aliens seemed to be doing, he
would have to apply the term ‘rustling’.

As if the idea of gray aliens rustling cattle
wasn’t strange enough, they didn’t seem to be restricting
themselves to just cows. With the binoculars, Tom could also see
sheep, goats, llamas, camels, horses, deer, and far in the rear, a
Galapagos turtle plodded in mild panic.

“
Okay, guys. This is so fucking
weird; we just have to wade in!” Tom reported. “It looks like
aliens are rounding up different grass-eaters, and we
have
to
check it out close up.”

The night was just strange enough that nobody
thought of an argument against risking themselves in a pointless
investigation. Tom did notice that everyone chose to arm themselves
with the most deadly weapons that they possessed, and Tom grabbed a
revolver and an SKS to go with the Moon Blade.

Everybody piled into the RV and they bounced
across the intervening field toward the bizarre scene taking place
in the moonlit field. As they approached the alien activities, the
dog barked quietly from his secure position behind Tom in the
driver’s seat. They passed a group of the animals that included two
goats, a horse and a cow, and with the turtle showing dimly in the
rear view mirror of the RV, they raced forward toward the nearest
‘motorcycle’. One of the light orb vehicles floated almost directly
overhead, while the second one seemed intent on landing in front of
the approaching herd. The near alien vehicle gunned toward the
lander, and Tom gave the vehicle even more gas.

As they came close enough to the aliens to
have to decide whether to get out and interact, or ram them with
the vehicle, everything went dark for a second. Even the cows and
the field were hidden, as though everything was suddenly inside a
deep, dark cave.

Suddenly, the moonlight was back, and several
cows grazed calmly in the field. There were no longer any
indication of aliens, or that they had ever existed. Of the more
exotic animals that had appeared in the roundup, there was no sign.
Tom regretted the disappearance of the turtle; he thought that he
might genuinely have enjoyed having it around for a
while.

The group returned to the house to gather up
their belongings. Soon enough, they had loaded the RV, and they
were prepared to continue their journey. Fifteen minutes later,
they were at 63 miles per hour on their way to whatever place
destiny decreed.

******

Sally was enthralled by the vision of the
endless stretch of blacktop which shared the nature of the British
Empire; it seemed as if the sun never set on the Interstate, or was
it rose? Whatever it was, you would think that six hours of
bright-eyed observation on her part would have removed some of the
fresh off this particular rose, but apparently not.

It was normal in this world that the trip
would extend so long, so much so that Tom had nearly forgotten to
be astonished by not yet having gained the Arkansas border.
Everyone had settled back into their favorite road trip activities,
which for Sally was apparently to gaze out at the world like a four
year old deer in the headlights. For Markus it was reading, for
George it was strumming lightly on the guitar, and for Bailey, it
was gnawing on the finger that Tom had slipped him. Tom knew that
Markus had noticed the finger, but none of the women had noticed
yet.

The RV passed a sign which claimed that a town
named Walkin, population 1869, was just seven miles ahead. Tom
wasn’t sure how far that would be in Interstate miles, but it
looked to be the next available resting stop, and so he planned to
have a stop there when they got to it.

Another sign claimed that the Arkansas border
was 211 miles, which was interesting, since that meant that six
hours of travel had only eaten up a hundred miles or less. He knew
that time could pass slowly when on the road, but he really doubted
that the RV was making less than twenty miles to the hour. Maybe
this effect is what happened to the French Napoleonic invasion of
Russia way back when. The cold coupled with the miles that never
ended could have defeated any invading army.

For the last few moments, it felt as though
the Interstate had begun to navigate a grade. Soon it was an actual
and steep grade uphill. Not only was this stretch of highway
nothing that Tom remembered to exist along this stretch of
Interstate, but it had already been a good 15 minutes or more after
they should have found the good town of Walkin.

Thirty minutes later, they were still chugging
up a mountainous incline. An hour after that, the road finally
flattened, and the RV was driving down a gently curving road in a
mildly rolling landscape. It was now very chilly, almost cold, and
it was difficult to tell where the clouds ended, and the fogs
began.

About forty-five minutes more passed, and
suddenly the road was blocked by what could only be described as
the edge of a glacier. Tom parked the RV, and they discussed the
situation. Everyone agreed that such glaciers did not belong
anywhere close to their location, and everyone understood that this
had to be another one of those schisms that were connected to the
existence of the monstrous incursions in the real world.

Having no other options, they decided that
they would have to backtrack the way they came, and find an
alternate route. With that decision made, Tom put the vehicle in
gear, and swung her about in a ponderous about face. As the vehicle
finally was aimed back in the direction she came from, the part of
the group that was gazing out of the windshield was surprised to
see an igloo, and a man in a parka getting out of it. It had
blended in very well with the white of the snow and ice, but the
movement of the piece of cloth that served as a door served to draw
attention to the igloo shape.