Return to Celio (3 page)

“Maggie,” I finally whispered, hoarsely.

“C’mon Maggie, let’s get going. I’ll keep you safe, I promise. It’s what I do.”

I nodded and followed him. What choice did I have?

He peeked out from between the boulders. He turned to me and pointed to another set of boulders about fifty yards away.

“We need to get to those rocks. We have to run. Are you ready?”

I inhaled sharply, closed my eyes, and thought of my aunt and my brother. I nodded. Darrios offered his hand but I just looked at it. He let it drop and peeked out from the boulders again. He lunged out and ran, with me right on his heels.

We squeezed between the boulders just as one of the beasts came running up behind us, snapping its massive jaws. The terrible sound of its teeth gnashing together echoed in my mind.

Darrios grabbed me and pulled me in further. I covered my ears and scrunched my eyes shut, thinking of the blonde woman again, praying this was all just a bad dream.
Darrios gently place his hand on my shoulder and I reluctantly opened my eyes.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded, too terrified to speak. He pointed to a rocky area with a few sparse trees that could’ve come out of a Dr. Seuss book. Lines from
The Lorax
popped into my head.

“Maggie, do you see that small opening there, the one that looks like a little cave?”

I nodded again, trying to stop shaking. The arid wind of this place had blown sand in my mouth, in my eyes. The grit crunched between my teeth.

“We need to get through that opening and then we’ll be safe from the moltergs.”

Terrific, except for the fact that we had to run about twice as far as we had the first time. My heart raced and my whole body trembled with fear. I shook my head back and forth, tears welling up in my eyes.

“We can’t...I can’t,” I sputtered, “It’s too far. They’ll get us.”

Darrios looked me right in the eye and spoke softly, but firmly. “Maggie, you can do this. I’ll help you. We can beat them, I promise. Look at me. Take a deep breath.”

I took several.

“
If this is a dream, now would be a good time to wake up,” I told myself.

I didn’t wake up.

This time when Darrios offered his hand, I took it. We crept toward the opening and I waited while he looked out both ways. I could feel myself quivering. I closed my eyes and told myself everything would be fine, desperately wanting to believe it.

“They’re chasing something,” Darrios said quietly. “Just focus on the opening. Don’t look to the left. Look only to where we’re going, okay?” He tipped my chin up and looked into my eyes. “Okay?”

I nodded again.

“Maggie, breathe. You can do this.”

He looked again, nodded at me, sprung out of the crevice, and we ran. It was as though we moved in slow motion. I did what he said, focusing on the opening we were running toward, but it seemed like we weren’t getting any closer...and then suddenly we were there.

Screaming and snapping and growling off to the left made me wince. I smelled blood again, but I didn’t look. Darrios shoved me through the opening, leaping through immediately after me.

The space we occupied was smaller and even more cramped than the last one, pressing us together awkwardly. Regardless of how bad Darrios smelled, I was thankful he was there.

“Once we pass through here, we’ll be in Midland, out of the Outer Rim. The moltergs won’t be able to follow us. They’re too big to fit through the opening,” he said reassuringly.

I exhaled, relieved, eager to get to the other side. Silly me. I believed the danger had passed.

Chapter Two

The tiny, cramped space opened up into a much larger tunnel. The cold, damp air chilled me to the bone, but at least we could stand and walk upright. The entire length of the passageway only stretched to about thirty feet. We could see daylight coming in at the far end, which gave me hope.

We heard nothing from the opening at the other side. I took that as a good sign. The only audible sound was our breathing, and, I was sure, my heart pounding.

A whoosh of air hit me as we approached, cleaner and fresher than the air reeking of the death and decay of the Outer Rim. I inhaled deeply.

As we stepped into this Midland, a weight lifted off me and floated away. I definitely preferred
not
looking over my shoulder for flesh-eating monsters around every turn.

My new sense of security quickly vanished, however, when I noticed Darrios glancing around warily and taking slow, careful steps. I followed his eyes with my own, regarding the considerably different terrain from that of what he’d referred to as the Outer Rim.

Trees sporadically covered the area. They sported more foliage, but none of them were very big. A lot more brush covered the land, and the ground seemed sandier and less rocky, much better for walking. The sky didn’t seem as overcast, with less cloud cover and more sunshine...or whatever it was that was shining in this place. I glanced up and squinted. Bright, round, yellow. Sure looked like the sun to me.

I looked at Darrios. If we were free of the moltergs, why were his shoulders so tense? Why did he carry himself like a jungle cat ready to pounce, and why was he holding my hand so tight that I was losing feeling in my fingers?

“Darrios?”

He jumped. I apologized and he softened, turning toward me, but still glancing around.

“What is it?

He shushed me, listening for some unnamed peril. Finally, he answered me. “There are no moltergs,” he explained in a whisper, “but until we get to Inland, there is still some degree of danger. There are scabras and viocomen. There aren’t as many of them and they’re easier to fight, but they can be just as deadly, and the viocomen are worse than the scabras.”

Confusion now compounded my fear and anxiety. I shook my head and just stared at Darrios. Sighing, he elaborated on his explanation as we walked.

“Scabras are a little bigger than humans. They walk erect, but they’re covered in fur. They’re not very smart or agile, so we’ll hear them coming, but like the moltergs, fresh human is a delicacy to them. They love it...and you’re a fresh human. When they get that scent, they go crazy to get to the source. It’s like a frenzy.”

“Well, aren’t you human?” I asked apprehensively.

He chuckled. “Yeah, but I am definitely
not
fresh. I’ve been here so long, I barely ever think about my life before I came here. Once you’ve been here awhile, your scent will blend in with the rest of us.”

I gasped audibly. The thought of being stranded here made me appreciate that little Podunk town in Missouri where I now lived.

I stared at him wide-eyed. “I’m not going to be here awhile. I need to get home,” I said, trying not to sound hysterical.

Darrios just nodded. “Okay,” he said soothingly, “Let’s get you safe first. Then we’ll figure out how to get you home.”

I nodded, wondering how long it would take us to get where we were going. We walked in silence for quite some time, and then I remembered something.

“Darrios,” I said quietly, knowing he was listening for an impending attack. “You told me about the...scabras, I think you called them. What about the vico, vio—”

“The viocomen.”

He hesitated, and then he explained, speeding up his gait as he spoke. “The viocomen are...well, they look more human, but they’re not. They’re savages. They’re bigger than humans, like the scabras, but they have human features except they have no body hair; no eyebrows, no eyelashes...nothing.” He hesitated again before continuing.
“If one gets you, it will eat you...but not before...”
He took a deep breath and exhaled heavily.
“It’ll torture you first...for fun. And then it will eat you alive.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. I didn’t even know how to wrap my head around this...around any of this. I swallowed and nodded, halfheartedly.

“Trust me, Maggie, if they get anywhere near us, either one of them, we’ll know it. Stealth is not their strong suit.”

Darrios took a step toward me and looked into my eyes. He squeezed my hand. “I won’t let them hurt you, Maggie...any of them,” he promised.

“Why?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. “You don’t even know me. Why would you risk your life to save mine? Why did you?”

Darrios stared at his feet, obviously uncomfortable with the question.

“Why did you save me instead of that other woman...the blonde woman?” I asked.

He looked into my eyes with such intensity I had to look away for a second. He answered me in a voice just above a whisper. “It’s what I do. I saw that thing running toward you and I couldn’t let you die. Not when I knew I could save you. I couldn’t save you both...and I was closer to you.”

He shook his head and started walking again. I had trouble keeping up.

“I don’t get it. Why risk your own life to save strangers? That sounds kind of foolish to me.”

“Foolish? Maybe it is, but let’s not forget, you wouldn’t be here right now if I had your attitude. And I’m really good at it.”

“Yeah, thank you for saving my life. You said you would keep me safe. I appreciate that and I get it. It’s what you do. I just want to know
why
you do it. Is it lucrative? Do you get paid a lot of money?”

He laughed. “No, it’s definitely not about money.”

As he turned, facing me, something flashed in his eyes for a second. I don’t know, rage maybe, regret? Then it changed to a raw pain.

“Let’s just say I owe it to someone to kill every last one of those motherfuckers if I can.”

The look on his face told me the conversation was over. We went back to walking and not speaking. The silence hung over us like a cold, wet blanket.

I longed to hear something; birds chirping or insects buzzing, anything to make things a little less crazy, a little more regular. Something to take my mind off of my current circumstances.

Darrios startled me when he spoke. “So, how old are you?” he asked.

“Wow, that’s kind of rude, isn’t it?”

Darrios laughed. “You’ve already mentioned that you thought I was rude.”

“Fine, I’m twenty-five.”

“Where are you from?”

While it seemed strange to make small talk when strange, murderous beasts lurked in the shadows waiting to attack us at any moment, it soothed me somehow to speak about everyday things, normal things that didn’t involve monsters or death.

“I’m from St. Louis, Missouri. Well, I was until we had to move to...well it doesn’t matter where. It’s a place where time stands still.”

“You sound kind of bitter. It isn’t like you were kidnapped, right? I mean, you weren’t forced to move...”

“No, of course not, but I did go against my will, in a way.”

Darrios stopped and looked at me, smiling. I found that very irritating.

“What?” I demanded.

“I’m just waiting to hear the rest of this.”

“There is no rest of it,” I snapped, walking past Darrios and taking the lead.

He loped up next to me. I sighed.

“We moved there because my boyfriend, Gregg, had a job offer that was too good to pass up. It was still in Missouri, just a much smaller town. The plan was to stay for a couple of years then go back to St. Louis.”

I hesitated sharing anything more because I didn’t feel comfortable discussing the probable demise of my relationship, and truthfully, I didn’t want to think about it either.

A snuffling noise caught my attention. I immediately recalled Darrios saying if those things came after us we’d hear them. I froze. Darrios stopped, turned, and cocked his head.

“Maggie, why—”

“Ssshhh! Listen,” I hissed as I noticed the bush up ahead wavering and the leaves quivering. I pointed, rooted where I stood, halted by my fear.

Darrios turned to where I pointed. He started to say something when a large animal charged out from behind the shrubbery. It had the face of a cat, except with a pig-like snout. Large, floppy ears adorned its head and thick, coarse hair covered its bulky body, stubby legs, and feet. I screamed as it rammed into Darrios, knocking him to the ground.

“Tell me what to do!” I shrieked, my voice laced with panic.

“Maggie, it’s okay,” Darrios hollered, laughing.

Confusion clouded my brain for a second as the strange pig-cat creature butted him with its nose in between licking his face and grunting.

“This one’s harmless, Maggie. He’s friendly.”

It took a minute for me to comprehend what Darrios was saying, then several more minutes for my breathing to get back to normal. Darrios scratched the animal’s ears and patted its head.

“Hey Rufus, how’s it hangin’?”

Rufus rolled over on his back and expelled gas.

Darrios chuckled, turning his eyes to me. “This is Rufus, Maggie. He’s a draggle.”

I narrowed my eyes, blinking them a couple times. I shook my head just a little and hunched my shoulders.

“A draggle is kind of like a big over-affectionate dog, only with less manners and less self-control.” He rubbed noses with Rufus. “Huh, buddy, isn’t that right, Rufus? Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?”

I rolled my eyes. “Are you freakin’ kidding me?” I asked, even more shrieky-ish than before. “The big bad monster hunter talks baby talk to cat-pi...I mean to draggles?”

“No, not all of them.” He rubbed Rufus’ head with both hands. “Just my buddy, Rufus,” he gushed, in extreme baby talk. “Huh, buddy, who’s my buddy?”

Rufus slurped all over his face. I breathed deeply...twice.

“Really? Murderous monsters are waiting in the wings to torture us and eat us, and you want to play fetch with this...cartoon animal?”

Darrios frowned, cupping Rufus’ face in his hands. He said, still clinging to the oh-so-nauseating baby talk, “Don’t listen, buddy. She’s just grumpy.”

Rufus gave me an almost whimsical look, and then he made a coughing-like noise. I glared at him. He cocked his head to the side and let go of more gas.

“Maggie, when draggles are near, the monsters won’t come around. We want to encourage them to stay, not drive them away. C’mon, he’s really very sweet. You’ll like him.”