A Multi Leveled Planet

CHAPTER EIGHT

A MULTI-LEVELED PLANET (working title)

Chapter Eight (will edit this tomorrow)

As the girls came into their view, they could see Shelby struggling with something in the water. It was dragging her in! April had her by one arm trying to pull her out of the stagnant pond, now screaming her head off alongside Shelby. From Shelby’s arm, which was being held by something still beneath the surface, long, bloody streaks scored her pale skin from her elbow to the water line, where a shiny, blue-black nose showed.

In seconds, Jason spurted ahead of Kevin, raced around the pool and stepped into the pool to grab her around her waist and yank as hard as he could. He ignored her louder screams from the pain his sudden yank caused her. Kevin took Shelby’s other arm from April, pushing April back to safety, and added his strength to Jason’s. All the while Shelby’s screams echoed while April slipped to her knees with wracking sobs of horror.

“Give me your stick!” Jason gasped out, reaching for it. Kevin had forgotten he still carried it, he handed it to Jason. “Keep pulling!” Jason gasped again as the stubborn thing from below gave its own yank on the girl’s arm, causing more agonized groans interspersed between the screams.

He took another step into the frothing water, forced the stick down toward the thing’s mouth. He had no trouble feeling its sharp pointed teeth, and rammed Kevin’s stick between them, jabbing it as hard as his one arm could. Instantly part of the creature surfaced, looking like no fish he'd ever seen before, it finally gave up and turned loose of Shelby’s mangled hand.

In an instant he had them back from the pool’s edge onto dry land. Shelby, without another sound, collapsed to the ground, holding her mauled limb tight to her chest.

“Shelby,” Jason knelt beside her, breathing heavily from the exertion, “let me see it. Please, we have to know how bad it is.”

With a small groan, she pulled it away enough for him to take it gently. Being careful not to add more hurt, he pulled her bitten fingers open, hearing her quick gasp as he did so.

“I’m sorry, Shel,” he murmured, “I’ll cause as little pain as I possibly can, I promise.”

“I… know,” she whimpered, trying not to cry out as he checked the multitude of cuts for deepness.

Finally, he sat back on his heels, unmindful of his own injury that was bleeding again.

“I don’t think any of the bites are too deep. It’s pretty well mangled the skin of your fingers and your wrist, but all in all, I think if we can keep infection out, it will be okay.”

“You don’t think that thing was poisonous?” Kevin had to say. Jason twirled back to glare at him. “Oops,” Kevin muttered, and helped April to rise. He urged her back to the wall while she constantly kept looking back at Shelby, worried about her friend.

“Do… do you think it was p… poisonous?” Shelby asked.

“No,” Jason shook his head, “I really don’t, but of course there's no way to be sure. Still,” he met her eyes candidly, “I really doubt it.”

She nodded, believing him. “I just wanted that bath Kevin talked about last night.”

“I know, but didn’t you notice the water was stagnant?”

She shook her head, “No, I was busy talking to April, trying to get her to join me but she was afraid.”

He nodded without saying anything. He wound his arm around her rib cage and put her unhurt arm around his neck. Together they limped back to the wall.

* * *

“Where’s Kevin?” Were the first words out of his mouth when they reached last night’s ‘nest’ and he realized that only April sat there where they'd slept the night before.

“He… I think he had to… you know.”

“Bathroom?”

“Yeah.”

“Easy Shelby,” he cautioned as he eased her over the wall. “Let's clean those wounds up and see how much real damage has been done; where are those moist cloths you keep?”

“In my bag,” she leaned over to grab her backpack but Jason reached it first.

In a moment he had the handi-wipes out, and in another moment the first-aid kit from his own backpack. Methodically he began to clean the remaining blood and some of the pond’s muck from the wounds. He noted the deeper cuts were on her wrist, no doubt the result from yanking her, and trying to get her away from the scaly beast. He paused, thinking.

“What?” April asked.

He shook his head, looking at her. “It was scaled, wasn’t it? The creature I mean, it was scaly like a fish?”

She nodded, “Yes, it was. It was a huge, ugly fish that had something like… like feet instead of fins under it. I got a good look at it when it lunged up to grab Shelby’s arm. The first half of it came clear of the water. It looked…” she paused a few seconds to remember that instant as the thing  flung its body above the water. “It looked something like one of those African lungfish."

“African lungfish? Are you sure?”

"That what it looked like, yes. I'm not saying it was an african lungfish, but it looked like it."

“What would one of them, or anything resembling one of them be doing here?” He whistled softly in amazement.

“I don’t know,” naturally she answered though he was talking more to himself, than to her.

“My primary Major is Biology, if you remember,” he glanced at Shelby, she seemed to be about half unconscious.

“Shelby?” He shook her shoulder, the one with the unhurt limb. “Are you okay? Do you hear us talking?”

“Umm-hmmm,” she managed, then, “go on talking, please, it keeps my mind off the pain.”

“That makes sense,” he muttered, and then resuming their discussion he looked back up to April.

“As I was saying, my primary Major is Biology, mostly primitive biology, if you will. The African Lungfish is the extant, or living remains of the lobefin fishes that probabl were some of the first  creatures to lumber out on land.”

“Wow,” Kevin announced his presence. “Go on, I’ll just squat here and listen too.”

“Well today they, the lungfish, are more evolved. Now they can live months in their hardened mud burrows when the land suffers from a severe drought. Not only do they have well developed lungs, their heads and their bony mouths are well suited for their role. Once they had tiny teeth but today’s have only the hard, bony palates they use to crush their prey. Those are  mostly shrimp-like creatures; millions of years ago, however, they had tiny teeth with a bony palate, nothing like the  ones of today.”

“Are you saying this one is more like one of the ancient, extinct kind?” Kevin asked.

“I didn’t get to see it myself, but if April’s description is accurate that is what it seems to be more like, than anything else I can think of.”

“Why,” Kevin whispered, then he emitted a soft whistle before saying slowly, “Why would something from millions of years ago be alive here and now?”

“I don’t know,” Jason sat back, satisfied now that he’d done all he could to clean and bandage Shelby’s wounds. He had applied a thick cover of triple antibiotic salve from one of the two tubes his Dad always made him carry when off on one of his treks.

“Here Bro, you need some bandaging of your own." He pointed to Jason’s bloody pant leg. “If you get that leg infected…” He didn’t have to say anymore, Jason nodded, and pulled up his pant leg so Kevin could  administer the antibiotic after cleaning the pond's stagnant water off.

“I can do that,” April rose to take Kevin’s place.

“No, you’ve done enough; let me take care of it.” As she hesitated, Kevin added, “Please April, I need to do something useful for a change.”

“What do you mean something useful,” Jason sat up, “I don’t know what I’d done if I’d been here without you.”

“Thanks Buddy,” his friend chuckled, “but the one who opens mouth wide and shoves his rubber leg all the way in to his hip, is me.” Still chuckling, he shook his head as Jason started to protest. “You know it’s true. Now let me do this, ok?”

Giving up, Jason gave him a lopsided grin on his darkly handsome face.

Shelby stirred, surprising them since she seemed to have been sleeping. “Tell me I wasn’t bitten by an extinct, millions of years old fish!” She demanded, and then started chuckling, “Ain’t it just my luck?”

“There you go, son,” Kevin pulled Jason’s denim pant leg down. “All fixed and ready for… for… uh, whatever comes next,” he finished lamely.

“Thanks, Kev.” Jason looked at the girls, remembering the valley they were sitting well above. “Uh…,” he glanced down at Shelby, seeing her eyes staring up at him from under her bandaged arm where it lay over her forehead.

“Kevin and I weren’t here because we wanted to see a bit of what was out there, a ways from the wall. I really expected to poke my head beyond the shadow of this, uh, cave we’ve just come out of, and see at least a partial bit of blue sky.”

“But… you didn’t?” Shelby asked in a soft half mumbled question.

He shook his head, “No, we didn’t, but…” he glanced toward Kevin who nodded at him to go on. “But I think if we were to follow this valley we saw, we will find the open rift from the surface. In fact I know it is there.”

“You know it?” Shelby lowered her bandaged arm to raise her head, and he could see the hope beginning in her eyes.

“Yeah, it has to be up there, we could see the brightness coming from behind some tall hills. We just have to reach it. Right, Kevin?”

“Only possible explanation,” his friend answered him with a somewhat forced grin.

“You look like you sort of doubt it,” April  was quick to judge.

“No, no,” Kevin waved his arms, “Jason has stated the only possible conclusion. I mean, when you look out there you can see the a sun is there, somewhere. Like he just said, we have to find it.”

“Okay,” Shelby pushed herself up by her good arm. “What’s the catch?”

“What do you mean, ‘what’s the catch’?” Jason heaved a sigh.

“I mean I can catch something in your voices. Something you aren’t too sure of, what is it?”

Both young men caught the other’s eyes, again Kevin nodded. Jason heaved another sigh, wondering why he had to be the one to explain everything.

“Well, for one thing we are on a high point over a wide valley, a long, wide valley. It has a river running down the middle of it. You can see it in the distance. You can also see sunlight coming, from a distance. That’s what we have to find, the open break in the surface of the ground, where the sun's rays are getting through to shine down here.” As he finished, he swallowed, his throat was awful dry.

For a couple of minutes no one said a thing. They were thinking over what Jason said, and then the questions started.

“You mean we still have to go down?” April asked.

“How far down?” From Shelby now, “That explains why the growth outside here is sickly, it isn’t getting enough sunlight.”

Jason opened his mouth to agree with her when April interrupted. “How did an extinct fish make it up here, then?”

“I have no idea about the fish, April, but you’re right Shelby, about why the trees and bushes here are yellowed and sickly looking. They’re sun-starved.” He spread his hands wide, shaking his head.

“Anyway,” he continued, “we will have to go down to the valley floor. If,” he added, “for no other reason than to find food and water. We are already getting dehydrated, and starvation isn’t far behind.”

“Do we start tomorrow morning?” Shelby asked, her wrist and hand were probably still throbbing with every beat of her heart.

“I’m sorry, Shelby, we have to start now. If we wait another day and night we might be so weakened from dehydration we’ll never make it down. We will die from lack of water long before we starve to death.”

“I know, I know,” she groaned.

Jason looked up at Kevin, who had risen from his squat at Jason’s words. Kevin gave him the silent nod of agreement. April, catching the two men’s glance, also rose and began to collect her backpack and rope.

“Shelby,” Jason bent over her, “let me help you up.”

“No,” she answered, pushing herself to her knees to reach with her good arm for her backpack. “My arm is hurt, my legs are fine. Let’s just get going, okay?”

* * *