Eden, Dawn Read online

Chapter 24

  The overhead sun was now blazing hot, the burning rays catching my head, neck and the top of my shoulders as I crouched in the hole. My chest and back were clammy and wet with sweat, and my hands were soiled with dirt and blood. I didn’t have time to admire my handiwork or appreciate my intriguing conversation with Shumbalic. Shawz’s distressed voice tore through my encounter with this fascinating creature, propelling my heart into my throat.

  I swung around, having completely forgotten about him; the muscles in my shoulders immediately tense. He had ambled halfway towards the hole from his post, but stopped short seemingly unsure of what I was doing. He had an arrow on his bowstring, although it wasn’t pointed at me, and Shumbalic was out of his line of sight. I think the jungle still posed the biggest threat to him.

  “What are you doing? Are you talking to that thing?” he asked.

  “What? Are you nuts? I’m just talking to myself.” I winced at how crazy that sounded.

  “When can we get out of here, dude?” Shawz had one thing on his mind. “The jungle’s freaking me out.”

  “Soon. Nearly done. Go back to your post.”

  “Okay.” He was just a kid without Ruzzell around.

  I waited for him to trudge back to his spot before turning to Shumbalic. “Listen,” I said with rekindled urgency, “now that I’ve patched you up; we’ve got to think about how you get away.”

  “Do you have a suggestion?” she asked.

  “If I help you out of this hole and get you into that tree…”—I pointed to a low-hanging branch ten strides from the pit—“…are you feeling strong enough to carry yourself out of sight? You won’t be able to use your legs.”

  “Yes, I will be slower, but … Rist, the light … my helmet screen is broken.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. It only then occurred to me just how much more Shumbalic was squinting; her eyes were deteriorating fast, the whites becoming increasingly bloodshot. She was no longer the devilish creature who lurked in the darkest night. She was now a friend in distress. Think! “Here…” I tied two strips of what was left of my shirt together, “if you put this over your eyes, it should shield—”

  “Yes.” She tied my makeshift bandanna around her head, and covered her eyes.

  “Will it work?” I asked.

  “Yes, it will have to.” Veiled in the shadow my body cast over her, the waning shade of the hole steadily retreating from the noonday sun, she lifted it back off her eyes.

  “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

  “Yes, if you can keep him from chasing me, I will make my way back to my territory. My family will be wondering why I have not returned yet. They will come looking for me as soon as the sun cements.”

  Cements? Translation malfunction?

  “You mean sets? The sun sets.”

  “Yes,” her head tilted to one side, “when the sun disappears below the horizon.”

  “Sunset, yes,” I felt my cheeks bunch into a smile. “Okay, I’ll do better than keep him from chasing you. I’ve got the perfect plan.”

  Her face beamed in a full smile. “What?”

  “What was it you said to me when we first met? You were scary angry, fierce and yelling at me … kata-something?”

  “Kata-kolo, kata-kolo.”

  “Yes, that’s it. What were you saying?”

  “Rough meaning … I kill you. I kill you.” Shumbalic’s cheeks crimped and she looked embarrassed, if I was interpreting Zikalic face expressions correctly.

  “Perfect. Let me carry you out of this hole, take you to the trees, and then I’ll call Shawz. When he comes over, do your kata-thing again, and let’s see those red eyes,” I couldn’t help the smile broaden across my face. “Even through my shirt cloth, it will do the trick.”

  “I cannot just make them go red.”

  “Well, what if I remind you that Shawz will kill you if he has half a chance?”

  “Okay,” she said coyly, “it will not be too difficult.”

  “Then push me and go berserk, I’ll run at Shawz urging him to flee. I’ll make sure he runs all the way back to camp!”

  “Good plan,” she lingered for a moment, “but what does go berserk mean?”

  “Sorry, it means to go crazy, go wild.”

  Shumbalic nodded. “I can go berserk.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen it.” I couldn’t contain my grin.

  Her mouth turned up at the edges for an instant before giving way to a sober expression as she exhaled. “I will not see you again until I come. I am not sure when, but sometime soon ... in the dark of the night.”

  “Yes,” I breathed, my chest tightening with the tension, “let’s hope I don’t scream.” I meant it as a joke, but a frightened yell wasn’t beyond me.

  “I will be careful,” she touched my shoulder again. I now noticed how warm it felt.

  “That’s comforting,” I raised my eyebrows and smiled playfully.

  We are friends.

  She sighed. “Rist.”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you ... so many thanks to you,” she said, her eyes glowing green.

  “No, thank you,” I put my hand on her shoulder; it felt sturdy and sinewy, “my people are doomed without your help.”

  “Let us do this then.” She pulled the bandanna over her eyes.

  I picked her up carefully, but still nearly lost my balance. Planting my right knee against the side of the hole to steady myself, I was amazed at how lightweight her lissom upper body felt. It seemed that the bulk of her weight lay in her strong arms and powerful legs.

  No wonder they cruise at such remarkable speed.

  With some difficulty, I climbed out of the hole and hastily looked around for her rumbala-dart on the ground. Where is that thing? There was no time for a proper search even though I was sure I knew where I had left it. Never mind! Muscles tight with tension, I carried Shumbalic to the trees some ten strides from the pit, just as I caught sight of Shawz standing to his feet, making his way tentatively towards us.

  “Ristan, what’s going on?” His arrow pointed at Shumbalic.

  “Its legs are badly hurt; I want to see if she … it can hold itself up with her … er, I mean, its arms,” I rambled. Trying to refer to Shumbalic as an it was now impossible.

  “Is that wise?” he asked, lowering his bow.

  “She’s badly hurt, come help me.”

  “She?” His voice pitched north of befuddlement.

  Geez!

  “Come help!” I blurted out hoping to quench any further questions.

  His dark, ruffled eyebrows arched into a question on his rotund face before he coughed it out. “Are you sure, dude?”

  “Yes, please help! She’s getting heavy,” I said as I heard Shumbalic mumbling to herself under her breath.

  Psyching yourself up? Go big, girl!

  Just as Shawz put down his bow, I whispered to Shumbalic, “Now!”

  With a good grip on a tree branch with her right hand, she lightly pushed me away with her left. I fell backwards over dramatising the shove. But what happened next sent a shiver down my spine and made my hair stand up on end … and I was expecting it.

  Shumbalic’s feminine beauty dissolved and in its place morphed a monster. Her green eyes turned purple and then a fiery red; her soft, gentle features gave way to a hideous, terrifying form. And the bandanna did very little to conceal any of it.

  “Kata-kolo-kata-kolo-kete-kete!”

  “Run! Shawz, run!” He didn’t need any encouragement. His hysterical scream dwarfed my fake attempts even though I gave my best impression of terror. I ran hard behind him, making sure that every time his panic abated for a second, I filled him with another injection of fear. “Run … run for your life!”

  And he did. We ran like men possessed, all the way back to camp.

  Perhaps it wasn’t the smartest thing to do. We left his bow where he dropped it, and he shed the quiver and arrows on the route back. And the noise we made could have alerted every pred
ator in Eden.

  Bursting into camp huffing and puffing, I knew my acting skills would be taxed. Shawz, of course, didn’t need to act.

  “It went freaking wild ... mad ... gag-crazy, dude,” he tried to explain to Ruzzell as he gasped for air, “red eyes, it looked like a ... I ... I don’t know, a demon ... I thought it was going to eat us.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Dixan, “that’s what I saw, the first time.”

  “Tricked me,” I said, sucking in air, “It tricked me ... with those soft green eyes.” I had to use all my wits to call Shumbalic an it.

  “Where is it? Just tell me you didn’t lose the devil,” said Ruzzell, his face strained, his eyebrows compressed together. He clicked his knuckles so loudly I fought off a shiver.

  “It’s gone, Ruzz,” said Shawz. “Well … it was in a tree when we ran for our lives ... we had to ... my bow ... where’s my bow?”

  “You dumped it,” I said panting, “but we had to run for—”

  “It got away!” Ruzzell seethed; his fists clenched, and his eyebrows pinched into one thick line framing his wild eyes. “It got out the hole ... how?”

  “I picked it up. I had to get it out of the hole,” I said, feigning exhaustion and terror; my shoulders hunched and my hands on my hips. I was aware that the whole clan had now gathered around us.

  “How did it get to the trees?” Ruzzell clicked his knuckles again; this time, torturing each and every knuckle joint one after the other.

  Geez, does he ever quit!

  “It jumped,” I said, answering quickly, before Shawz could catch his breath and explain.

  “Arggghhhh!” screamed Ruzzell, kicking the ground before shoving Shawz over into the dirt. “Stupid! Stupid! I give you a simple freaking job and you stuff it up!”

  “I’m sorry,” said Shawz, lying where he fell. “I told you not to leave me on my own. I was so scared—”

  “And you!” Ruzzell snapped at me. “You’ve got three seconds to convince me you didn’t plan this.” He stood over me and jabbed my forehead with his finger.

  I stood up straight and defiant. “What? Plan it? Ask Shawz, the thing went mad ... crazy ... demented ... what could we have done?”

  “Those eyes—” Shawz still looked traumatised.

  “Villain!” roared Ruzzell, his nostrils flaring. “You said it was hurt bad. Bleeding or something. How could it leap into the trees, huh?”

  “I fixed her ... it,” I said. “It was trapped, impaled by a spike I had—”

  “Yes, it was bleeding bad, hey?” Ruzzell cut me off, his anger giving way briefly to reflection. “Can we track it, hunt it down?”

  “No,” I said quickly, “I stopped the blood flow. Plus, she’s long gone by now.”

  There have been a few times in my life when I’ve said a word I knew I would later regret, but as that three-lettered pronoun slipped out of my mouth, I knew I’d blown my cover. My game was up.

  “She?” asked Judd, always observant; his question was plainly an innocent enquiry, without malice intent. No doubt, he and the others, having missed out on the showdown pitch-side of the trap, were now brought up to speed.

  “She?!” Ruzzell’s eyes widened as his chest inflated with lungs full of air.

  “Yes, Rist called it a she when he put it in the tree,” said Shawz, having a lucid moment at the wrong time.

  “She, he, it, whatever,” I tried to recover the situation. “I just meant it would already be long—”

  “And I think he was talking to it,” said Shawz as he plucked at his chin fluff.

  Now the dimwit gets smart?

  “What? Do you think I talk them language?” I was floundering.

  “You spoke to it?” Nadalie couldn’t keep her curiosity in check. The bewildered expression on her face told me that she was starting to entertain possible doubts about me.

  “Where’s your shirt?” asked Jordin. I had totally forgotten I was shirtless. With ten pairs of eyeballs glaring, glued on me, I suddenly felt self-conscious.

  “You called it a she!” Ruzzell was beside himself, his cogitation on Shawz and my choice of words coalescing into a sudden moment of whiplash awakening. “And put it in the freaking tree?!” He scratched his fuzzy cheeks with both hands, so hard that a jagged nail on his left hand tore the skin just below his left eye. He stepped towards me. “Villain! You freaking little punk—”

  “Okay!” I raised my voice, snapping the escalating inquest as a trickle of blood ran down Ruzzell’s face. “This is what happened. The creature was going wild when Dixan and I found it. Talking to it seemed to calm the thing down. She ... er, he, it was suffering. You know me; I took pity on the thing. I used my shirt to bandage the creature’s leg. I guess the thing let me help until it was strong enough to take us on ... and we bolted when it started going barmy again.”

  Ruzzell growled. I literally heard his teeth grind. I clenched my fists tightly at my sides and braced myself. His nostrils broadened in an equine flutter, and he hawked phlegm into his mouth before gobbing the wad on the ground.

  Here goes. I prepared myself after shedding a shiver of disgust.

  But to my astonishment, the showdown didn’t happen. Instead, with a stone-faced glare and white-knuckled paws pressed into his paunch, he stomped off.

  Huh?

  After a brief and awkward moment of confusion, and more than a few sceptical looks cast my way, everyone cleared out without saying a word—returning to whatever they were doing before Shawz and I had kicked up all the commotion. I knew it wasn’t over, certainly not as far as Ruzzell was concerned.

  But why didn’t he clobber me? Why did he let me off?