Doom turned to take her hand. “Come on.”
They remained in the higher mountains as they searched. Clarity was watching the landscape for any sign of not only life but also shelters. The mountain was riddled with crevices and small holes children could hide in. Places where people Doom’s size, or the hybrids, could never fit.
The forest was quiet until eerie whistles began to gain in tempo. Left, then right the pitch increased or decreased.
“Hybrids?” Clarity whispered.
“Not unless it’s their young. Doubtful. The tone is close, but I can tell the difference. I’ve only ever seen hybrid offspring once out here alone and not in this area.”
An arrow hit the tree next to where Doom stood. He glanced at it then scoured the area. With lightning speed he stopped the next arrow aimed near Clarity. Doom snapped the weapon in half over his knee. Before he could toss it to the ground Clarity stopped him.
“What’s that on the arrow tip?”
Doom held it up but refrained from touching the stone end. Clarity pulled it closer for a better inspection and squealed.
“Doom, this is sandstone. The goo is that blue substance you showed me at the beach. Of course! Sandstone. I bet the arrow that killed the hybrid was coated in it, too. I thought it was, but wasn’t sure.”
“There is a great deal of this rock. I thought it was useless.”
“It’s perfect.” She gazed up toward where the arrow originated and yelled. “I’m human. My name is Clarity and I’m from a planet named Earth. Are any of you from Earth?”
“If you’re from Earth you should know if you stay with him you’ll be killed. He’s a murderer.”
The young girl was above them on a ledge. Her gaze was stormy and directed at Doom. A cheep to her left and Clarity saw the young boy wrap his arm around the T-rex’s mouth. He was still filthy but healthy enough. Clarity crept from Doom’s side to move closer.
“Doom doesn’t kill anyone,” Clarity said.
“He leads people to their deaths. What’s the difference?”
The girl held her bow in her hand with quivers in a leather tube on her back. Clarity wondered if the bottom of the tube held sand. She felt her heart race, ideas formed at a quick rate. There was no fear on the girl’s face, only contempt for Doom, and curiosity when she gazed at Clarity.
“What’s your name?”
“Kiki. My brother is Luke. And the dinosaur is his.”
“How long have you been here?”
“A few years.”
Clarity was amazed. “How did you survive? Who taught you?”
“Nick found us, and he taught us how to survive,” Kiki replied.
“The young man we saw,” Clarity said, turning to Doom. “He looked feral.”
“Is he with you?” Doom asked.
“Us or the others,” Luke said.
Kiki scowled at him. “Shut your mouth.”
“What others?” Clarity asked.
“Why so you can kill them?” Her words were spat, vicious. “Nick didn’t come to this planet alone from Earth. He came with an older brother. He watched a village while his brother kept him hidden. His brother knew you weren’t as you seemed, he was no sheep, and so he snuck Nick food. Found a place right in your village. Nick watched when you led his brother to the slaughter. He ran after that and hid. His brother was right; you and the other village leaders are killers. Not to be trusted.”
“That’s impossible,” Doom shouted. “We would have found the boy if he was in our village.”
“You didn’t,” was her response. “You killed his brother and left a six-year-old boy alone on this planet.”
“Six?” Clarity whispered horrified. “Oh my God, he was little more than a baby.”
“I didn’t know,” Doom said. “How old is the boy now?”
“Sixteen, and he hates you; we all do,” Kiki yelled and with a hand motioned to Luke. They both took off into one of the low cave openings.
Chapter Eleven
“No wonder he seemed more feral than wild,” Clarity said. “What an awful thing to happen. Six years old. I’m going after them. I need to hear more.”
“Wait.” Doom grabbed her arm. “They might kill you.”
“They could have already.”
She yanked her arm from his hand and crept toward the dark opening. There was a small amount of light. Doom climbed in after her but after a while, he couldn’t fit further. Clarity stopped, made him a fire, and with her flashlight she continued on. The cavern was tight, but the T-rex was muscular and fit, so with a few crawls and climbs she inched her way deeper.
The further she went the darker it became until her small light wasn’t much help. The dead end caught her by surprise. She wondered if a place in the rock moved but when she lifted her palm to press against the hard surface she realized it was the heavy black stiff hide of a mammoth hybrid. She pushed with effort and soon was rewarded with light.
Small dirty wary faces greeted her. A girl of about eight stood near Luke holding a bow, an arrow in her hand was ready. Two young boys of perhaps four, fraternal twins, held slingshots. Wary yes, but deadly no doubt. The room contained the rocks which lit when touched. Numerous furs covered the floor. It was a large room made up of beds. It was cleaner than she would have guessed with so many young children. The children must know too much scent in one area was dangerous.
Over an open fire a haunch of raw meat cooked. Dripping bladders hung, the liquid clear, pooled at the base where a tin can sat. Clarity blinked hard. The can wasn’t of this world. It was also rusted. She moved forward a bit to peer inside; leather lined it catching the water. Other weapons sat in various places and stages of creation. On a mound of sand sat five blue balls she remembered dotting the shoreline. These children were thinkers.
“Want her dead?”
Clarity spun and noticed a young girl of maybe thirteen, her small breasts under her hide shirt, the only indication puberty set in. Her wild black hair hung below her shoulders, brown eyes gazed daggers. She reminded Clarity of the young cats. The girl was all legs.
“She claims she’s from Earth, Nina,” Kiki said.
“The real one or the dumb one?”
A few of the children giggled. Clarity wondered at her statement. She had also wondered at one time if some of the people, the other humans, were from her world. She wondered if these children were from Heath’s Earth but doubted it.
“Show me your arm,” Kiki demanded.
Clarity knew for certain then. There was a mark the girl wanted to see. Clarity held up her smallpox inoculated scared arm. Kiki grinned at her.
“You’re the first adult from our Earth I’ve seen. Nick doesn’t have the mark but he’s from our Earth all right. He knows about wars and stuff.”
“Then it’s true.” Clarity slumped on a fur-draped log. She then glanced at the children. Each one were sleeveless, all of them bore the same mark high on their left arm. Mass inoculations in the civilized world. Her mind was racing. Not all Earth’s humans bore the mark. She glanced at Kiki.
“Do you lead this group? Are there more?”
“There were more but the other children don’t learn like we do. If they haven’t got the mark, we know it’s a matter of time before something gets them. They don’t think like us, they aren’t able to kill. They’re like human Care Bears.”
She went to hop up on a mound of furs. The youngest boys curiously approached Clarity. One touched her arm.
“That’s Blue,” Kiki said. “The other is Cole. Fraternal twins.”
Blue had light red hair and vivid blue eyes. His brother was a little taller, Blue was stockier. Cole’s hair was dirty blond. His eyes almost as blue as his brother’s. Cole held back and Clarity saw immediately the alpha of the two. The young girl, Nina jumped down from her perch and went to sit with Kiki.
“How long have you all been here?” Clarity asked.
“Too long,” Nina grouched.
“Does Nick stay here?”
“Sometimes. He’s busy this time of year collecting the kids who get sucked down the holes into this crapper of a place,” Kiki said.
A high-pitched cheep caught Clarity’s attention and she turned to look at the T-rex. His small tail waved back and forth indicating he was anxious, annoyed, or pissed. Clarity’s head was reeling.
“I’m sorry, but a dinosaur as a pet? A T-rex? You children should know what a T-rex is.”
“Ha,” Kiki scoffed. “We sure know what one doesn’t look like now. I never saw
his
kind in a museum.”
Clarity agreed.
“He’s my friend.” The indignation dripped from Luke as he scowled at both his sister and Clarity. He went to drape an arm around the dinosaur. “Rex is my friend. I found him as an egg and raised him.”
Figures, a boy and his dog…
“I came to propose an idea,” Clarity said.
“We’re not going anywhere with you,” Kiki said.
“I plan on killing those hybrids.”
“So do we,” Nina said, and with lightning speed fired off an arrow barely missing Clarity’s head.
“The sandstone was genius,” Clarity said, un-rattled. “I have found material to make bombs and steel for swords to penetrate the hybrids’ thick skin. All I ask is you be ready in the spring. I can show you how to make weapons. Yours are fine but you don’t have the firepower. I want the hybrids dead.”
“I want Doom dead.”
Clarity hadn’t seen Nick come in. There must be entrances and exits throughout the mountain. The young man was two feet from her, seething, fists balled. If what Kiki said was true she could understand the boy’s hatred. Because of Doom he was alone. She had no idea how he could have survived.
The young man wore a breechclout and nothing else. Nick was tall and gangly, wire thin with muscles. His gaze was ancient. Nick’s arms appeared odd at a second glance and a noxious odor caught her attention, wafting toward her, radiating from him. He wasn’t exactly dirty but he was smeared with—something. There were scars on him. One long gash on his chest drew her attention. He sauntered closer and she wrinkled her nose.
Holy putrid, he must stink the dinosaurs to death.
“The mark, bad,” he began and with a closed fist smacked his chest indicating his scar. “I six. Doom took brother, others in jungle, left,
he left
.” Nick’s voice rose an octave as he struggled with emotions. “All alone. But we not alone. Monsters come. Big, scared me. Brother taken. He kick, screaming, crying. I try help. Filthy beasts, cruel, angry. I slashed. Blood. Hurts. Brother gone. One day I kill the monsters, for brother. The monster you walk with dies, too.”
The other children were eerily silent. His words were clipped as though he struggled to speak. Some words were slurred, juvenile. She wondered if he went for years without speaking to anyone. Her heart ached for the lonely boy he must have been and still looked to be.
“I won’t deny Doom has done some horrible things in the name of his people. Like you, all they want is life.”
“I want death, his and monsters.”
Again, his words were stilted as though he hadn’t spoken in a long time. A young Tarzan of the dinosaur age. His unruly mat of hair was past his shoulders and cut in an odd fashion. Piercing eyes, green as emeralds, filled with unshed tears. He was a handsome young man, full of rage. Betrayal. The way the others were staring Clarity imagined he was normally quiet. Kiki rose and went to place a hand on his arm. He shook her off and narrowed his gaze onto Clarity.
“Get out and not come back. Not need you. Not want you.” He was pointing and screaming.
Clarity rose and for a second saw something flash on Kiki’s face, her eyes were sad.
“Nick, she says she can show us how to make bombs. Bombs are things that can explode and kill lots of hybrids. We can fight,” Kiki said.
Nick shoved the girl hard enough to send her onto a mound of furs. The youngest girl began to cry and Nina glared at him. The twins ran and hid. Luke balled his fists. Kiki jumped up, eyes blazing.
“First rule,” Nina shouted. “We do not hurt one another.”
“Out,”
Nick screamed and waved a fist.
There would be no reasoning with the young man. Clarity turned and went back through the hide. The inside of the cave had been warm and the cavern temperature dropped. Goosebumps dotted her arms. She was going to have to warn Doom. A bomb in the hands of that young man would be aimed at him. The boy
was
wild. Wild with hate.
****
Doom wanted to pace, but the cave interior was too limited. He couldn’t stand and he didn’t feel like crawling. The ground was cold under his ass. He flexed his fingers in front of the small fire which did little in the way of warmth. In his odd way, he felt by keeping his shirt removed the sacrifices could see. He knew the idea battled a more pressing inkling, he needed to see the victims to know in some strange way they were safe with him. Rarely was he cold. He wondered if it was worry that drew the goose bumps.
Doom tossed the remainder of his tinder onto the small blaze. There were too many crevices to heat. He was anxious for Clarity. His thoughts wandered to ten years prior. He remembered a young man, just turned a man. A fidgety, creepy, strange man. Doom rubbed at his face. The man—Chris, Chase? No, Chaz, his name was Chaz. They found him almost dead babbling at the end of the cold season. He was nursed back to health, and the villagers were grateful; their quota was met. He’d had little time to make an impression on anyone.
The young man was always creeping around. Things went missing around that time, furs, food, pots and pans. Doom wondered if he had been stealing for the boy. He wondered why the bulwarks never found the child. Then he remembered. The bulwarks were young. Muffin was only just born with a sibling that struggled to live. Her mother was killed during delivery. Her alpha father gone as well. An accident had taken the life of the grown beta male. Only one female bulwark was left, and her pregnancy made her tired. It was little wonder a small boy could be kept secret. Without the aid of the older bulwarks, the hunters needed to go out often. The village women were kept busy as well. Chaz was with them for at least six weeks. He hid his little brother for six weeks, and then his brother watched him being led to the slaughter.
Doom wondered if Nick and Chaz met up in the woods that day. The hybrids would have been in full force. They wouldn’t have wanted the boy; he was too small. He would have been chased away, or forced. The idea of the child watching his brother killed, or worse, would have eaten at him. All these years. Doom was amazed he survived. Earth children were a sturdy lot.