| |
––––––––
Somewhere else
Wilkins opened his mouth to shout, only for it to be filled with water. He twisted and struggled, desperate to seek the surface, hoping there was one in whatever strange reality he found himself. He flailed aimlessly, reaching for some sign there was something other than endless, murky waters. His weight pulled on him, and he kicked his legs to propel himself in the opposite direction. He finally broke the surface and gasped as he drew in precious air.
He wiped cloying, tepid fluid away from his eyes and looked around for Richard. It was dark, but a rising sun was peeking through a tangle of trees and underbrush. Wilkins was never so relieved to see the morning glow. Nearby splashing drew his attention from the sunrise, and he turned as his American friend broke the surface of the water.
“Over here!” Wilkins shouted for Richard to follow him.
Wilkins turned and swam toward the sun, assuming there would be land below the flora obscuring the rising orb. The beacon of light also seemed a beacon of hope, and he wanted nothing more than to be closer to it. Fortune favored his instinct, and he soon pulled himself onto the muddy bank of whatever body of water they had found themselves in. Richard emerged from the murk not two meters from him, crawling fully onto land to collapse in the soft soil.
The cool mud soothed Wilkins’s skin, so much that the usually fastidious Englishman paid no heed to wallowing in the mud like a common swine. He rolled over and laid on his back, looking up at the comforting sight of the azure morning sky.
“Where... are we?” Richard asked around gasps for air.
Wilkins shook his head. “I haven’t the foggiest. I’m just bloody glad there’s a sky above us again.”
“Amen,” Richard said, an unusual invocation from the normally irreligious man. He climbed to his feet after a moment’s rest and began to search the area.
Wilkins remained prone for several minutes longer, needing a bit more time than his companion to catch his breath. He also needed time to ponder the ramifications of what had occurred the night before. He had almost grown accustomed to the quirks of the idol’s machinations; it seemed to either send one of them to what he had unimaginatively deemed in his notes the other place, or it would bring into their world some sort of unnatural creature. Much of it seemed to relate to mythology and folklore—as evidenced by the Norse dwarves and the Irish selkie. But whatever Henri did, it activated some hidden potential in the idol and sent the entire train and its occupants to the other place with grotesque results which defied cataloging. And this raised so many questions.
Was this similar to the rituals depicted in the ruins? Why were both he and Richard spared the grisly fates of the other passengers? And, most importantly, where were Henri and the idol?
Richard returned and squatted next to Wilkins. “Looks like we’re in a swamp. There’s a bit of dry land like this to walk on—if you call this dry land—but it’s patchy. Without a boat, we’d be in and out of the water quite a bit.”
“Do you have any idea where we are?” Wilkins asked. His knowledge served well in the company of the ruins of past civilizations or considering things of a historical context, but his companion was the more worldly of the two and very well-traveled.
Richard rubbed at the stubble on his chin. “If I had to guess, I’d say we’re close to where we had intended to be.”
“Louisiana? Are you sure?”
“Mostly. I’ve been to the bayou before, and if this isn’t it, it would surprise me. I’m still guessing, though.”
“Can’t you tell from the plants?” Wilkins asked with a tilt of hope to his voice as he struggled to his feet.
“Dammit, Wilkins. I’m an explorer, not a botanist. Regardless, that’s still what tipped me off.” Richard waved a hand at a nearby tree standing at the edge of the water. The smooth, slender trunk sloped outward near the ground and gave way to a multitude of humps and ridges, given the impression the tree proper was sitting atop some conical pedestal. “I have no idea what the tree is called, but it reminds me of the bayou.”
“It should,” a voice called out suddenly. “Dat dere be a cypress, da sent’nl o’ de swamp.”
Richard spun about, his hand reflexively reaching for the revolver that was no longer in its holster. Wilkins likewise turned and saw a dark-skinned man squeezing between two of the aforementioned trees from the other side of the tiny plot of land. He had on blue denim overalls and a checkered shirt with the sleeves rolled up. A straw hat topped a head of short, curly hair, and his feet were bare. He held up his hands, palms outward, and flashed a smile at them. The man was probably little more than twenty years of age, but his hands had the calluses and scars of a man who had known many years of labor.
“Sorry, cap’ns. I didn’t mean to scare ya so,” he said, then turned his head to one side as his eyes ran up and down them. “Y’all lost?”
Richard stepped forward; his hands held out to the side as a show of peaceful intent. “Yes, we are.”
“Where y’all’s boat at?” the young man hooked his thumbs in the straps of his overalls.
Wilkins answered, “We don’t have one.”
“Whoa, you be one o’ dem En’lish?”
“I am English, yes,” Wilkins said with a thin veil of patience as he strained the correct pronunciation of the word. “My name is Wilkins Chapman, and my associate here is Richard Jericho. And you are?”
“Lew-ee.” The man touched the brim of his hat and nodded to them. “At yer service, cap’ns.”
Richard shot a glance at Wilkins, and the British man was sure his friend was stifling a bout of laughter at his own expense. The local dialect was not unfamiliar to the well-traveled American, but Wilkins was visibly struggling to decipher the young man’s words. The chap seemed a friendly and helpful sort, though—exactly what they needed right now.
“So, Louis, do you have a boat?” Richard asked.
“F’true, I do!” Louis replied. “How else I be gettin’ drough da bayou? Though, I still unclear how you two ended up to come by here wit’out one.”
“It’s a long story,” Wilkins sighed. “Might we trouble you for a ride to dry land?”
* * *
True to his word, Louis had a boat on the other side of the small island they had washed up on. He had been wading through the swamp collecting traps for something he called a crayfish. They looked like no other fish Wilkins had ever seen, but rather resembled diminutive lobsters. Regardless, with the traps piled up in the bottom of the boat and the two passengers seated in the bow, Louis started up an outboard motor on the back and propelled them toward the safety of dry land.
After about an hour of navigating the twisting channels of the swamp and exchanging small talk, they finally saw signs of civilization, though they were sparse. Small huts sat on stilts over the water, with boats similar to Louis’s bobbing next to simple decks. At first, they saw only one at a time on the edge of small islands, but soon there were rows of them. People who shared the dark skin of Louis sat on some of these docks with fishing poles in hand or simply looking out over the swamp. Most gave the curious trio queer looks, although as they passed from the deep swamp into more developed land, the faces grew less distrustful. Some even shot them a welcoming smile or waved and called out greetings to Louis, although what they said baffled Wilkins as much as the young man’s own words.
Finally, Louis cut the boat’s engine and let it drift up to one such waterside cabin with the practiced ease of one who had performed the task hundreds of times. He stood in the boat’s rear, unperturbed by the sudden rocking that sent a jolt of fear through Wilkins, and reached out to grab hold of the small dock standing before the structure.
He looped a length of rope around a pylon and tied it off smartly, then leaped onto the dock and gestured toward the bow of the boat. “Drow me dat, wuldya?” Richard grabbed another length of rope already tied to a cleat on the side of the boat and threw it up to the waiting man, who moored it to the dock before grabbing two of the cages of shellfish.
“Let us help you with those,” Richard said, grabbing a pair of cages before he stepped off the boat and onto the dock.
“Dat’s most kind. Dank yous,” Louis said with a broad smile, which could soften the hardest heart.
Wilkins looked down into the bottom of the boat as he stood. There was one cage left, covered in green algae and filled with crawling and snapping creatures, seemingly waiting to pinch a bit of flesh from any fingers that might impose upon their newfound demesne. He looked up at Richard with eyes wide, wanting nothing more than to be done with the swamp.
“Just grab it and pick it up, you’ll be fine,” Richard hissed. Louis had already set his own cages down against the small cabin and was shouting at somebody inside.
Wilkins took a deep breath, reached down, and grabbed the cage. His fingers slid across the slime-coated bars like polished steel on ice. The substance was cool to the touch and squished between his digits as he picked up the cage. The scuttling mass within shifted as he raised it, their fury made known to the world by the grasping motion of their claws and the writhing of their spindly legs. With a shudder, he climbed up on to the dock and rushed to add his load to the pile of cages resting against the house.
Richard set his own cages down and slapped a hand on Wilkins’s shoulder. “That a boy! See? Nothing to it.”
Just then, another man joined them on the dock, Louis at his elbow. He also was of dark skin, yet shades of gray sprinkled the tight curls covering his head and face. Fine wrinkles crept out from the corners of his eyes, and deep lines ran down from his nose to frame the edges of his mouth. His hands were gnarled and his knuckles swollen, as if they had seen decades of hard work. He wore a checkered shirt not unlike Louis’s and simple jeans held up with weathered suspenders.
He looked them over with a suspicious squint, a frown curling his lips as he shifted a wad of tobacco from one cheek to another with his tongue. He spat a mouthful of brown fluid out into the waters of the swamp, the trajectory of this a little too close for Wilkins’s liking. “Lew-ee sez y’all come by da bayou wit no boat. Sez we atta let y’all pass by mah house for a tick ta git dry an filled up. Ah reckin’ mah boy be right. Yer both a right mess, f’true.”
Wilkins looked to Richard in hopes of a translation.
Richard simply smiled and patted the Englishman on the shoulder. “That’s most kind of you, sir. We would appreciate your hospitality.”
