The Black Seas of Infinity (9 page)

“Al?”

It was throaty, but young. A female, probably
in her mid twenties.

“Is that you?”

I dove in the room and crawled under the bed.
The voice grew closer.

“Al?”

A pair of feet entered the room, attached to
slim legs ending in pink bunny slippers. They lingered in place for
a moment, slowly turning and leaving. A few minutes later, I heard
a knock at the door.

“Well, hello?”

“Ma’am.”

This was a similar tone to what I heard in
the woods. Maybe the same person. Definitely some form of
military.

“You’re…police?”

“Special unit, ma’am. Have you seen anything
unusual around here lately?”

“Well, I… No… Just?”

“Anything at all?”

“Well, I thought maybe I heard a noise.”

Instantly I could hear them brushing by her,
a surprised “But...” escaping her lips as they pushed her aside. I
had to get out of there. I crawled on hands and knees to the
opposite end of the bed and glanced up. There was a small latticed
window. Crawling up, I pressed on it. Unlocked! I pushed it up.
Gently depressing the pull-tabs on either side, I lifted the
screen. Peering trepidatiously outside the window frame, I could
see that the soldiers had already made their way into the house.
Scrambling over the sill as quickly as I could, I barely skirted
the line of bushes as I tumbled into the lawn. Jumping back up, I
gently pulled down the window and then the screen. The tabs clicked
as they fell into place, and I froze.

I can swear I just felt chills going down my
spine, even though I know that’s impossible. Turning around, I
bolted, crossing into the neighboring lawn, darting around the
house, and dashing through the backyard. Once in the relative
safety of the next-door neighbor’s premises I glanced at the house.
Nothing. They must have still been inside. I peered over at the
wood line and could make out a cluster of figures, four in total,
dressed in black and discussing something. If they turned around
they would have seen me, but luck was still on my side. I started
running, picking up speed as I plowed through a sandbox. A kid had
left his Tonka truck nestled beside a yellow plastic shovel that
cradled a small mound. I leaped over it, in the process nearly
flying into the swing set. Landing in an almost perfect acrobatic
stance, I circled around the bars and kept going. I had no idea who
might be spying me through back windows and needed to get back into
the shelter of the trees. Following a brief level stretch of grass,
the ground fell away, sloping downwards and into the woods below.
Dropping out of view of the soldiers and peering eyes, I set foot
back into the leafy shadows. I broke into a sprint, plowing through
the forest, the coarse terrain barely slowing me down as I bounded
and skipped through the dying foliage. The woods deepened, the
noise of human activity fading away into the distance as I rejoined
the off-road trail.

A brief jog later and the trees opened up
onto a small paved road. Just as I slowed down my foot hit a root
and I tumbled, falling into a roll. Bouncing out of the leafy
coverage, I spiraled through the small shoulder, managing to regain
my footing with a huddled crouch in the middle of the street. I
looked up to see the ballooning grille of a Chevy Blazer bearing
down on me! Just as the horn squealed, I jumped, springing into a
forward dive that ended with another tumble and me on the opposite
side. The truck bowled through, evidently ignoring my strange
appearance altogether. Dashing back into the woods, I realized
things weren’t looking good. The kids, the truck—it would be too
easy to piece together a route. I kept scampering down the rocky
trail, navigating between the trees as the course penetrated the
forest. Near the North Carolina-Virginia line was a descent-sized
body of water. I could probably cross it without resorting to a
bridge, and that was something they probably wouldn’t expect. At
the very least it might throw them off.

The forest floor was dotted with bright
splotches of light, the earthbound rays waging an all-out assault
on the shade of the overhanging foliage. The sun burned down from a
cloudless sky. I couldn’t discern the temperature, but it felt warm
for autumn. Everything was brightly lit. I could see a mountain
biking trail snaking through; in a small clearing on the left a
shifty plank straddled a log to form a makeshift ramp. A gnashed up
tree in the background was evidently the recipient of riders that
didn’t quite make that jump. I concentrated, extending my hearing
farther, past the trees and into the streets and houses beyond.
People talking, vehicles in motion, a distant interstate. A little
softer than I would expect, but it could have been a more rural
area.

The trail passed another paved road, a well
lit river of bleached concrete, the double lanes silent and barren
in the bright midday sun. I stopped to scan the horizon. Nothing.
Dead silence. No traffic on what should have been a major
thoroughfare was a bad omen. I jogged across with a growing sense
of trepidation.

The dirt path looped in and out, making it
far from direct, but keeping it away from civilization. This was
too narrow for a truck, probably more of a mountain biking trail. I
thought the four- wheeling track went all the way to Virginia.
Maybe not—or maybe I had stumbled onto a different route—but
something drew me forward, a half-buried sense of self-assurance
smoothing out the anxiety and urging me on. I knew houses often
were not far away, but the forest had the comportment of
wilderness. I used to play in woods like these as a kid. It all
seemed so long ago, when I was still young and naïve. I used to
envisage surreal worlds, making up my own fantasies and landscapes.
I could be anyone or anything, but always the hero, pursuing some
fateful mission, the lord of some lost kingdom. A gentle warmth
saturated the landscape, and I gaped at the myriad twists and
throws of nature with a mix of awe and enchantment. In my
adolescent imagination it was all so real. Then you grow up and get
slapped in the face by the cold, hard ways of the world. People
grunting and competing like animals, all trying to win their
position in the pack, mark their territory. Hormonal animals
capable of treacheries and delusions unimaginable to a child. You
have to fight, to struggle tooth and nail to get anywhere. It’s a
cruel place, filled with fleeting victories and crushing defeats. I
felt I had evaded looking the tiger in the eye, escaped some part
of it, at least for a little while. It’s a rat race, and we all die
in the end. Except for maybe me.

By this point I had passed a few more small
roads. The woods were relaxing and expanding as I approached the
lake flanking the Virginia border. The sides of the trail sunk into
steep sidewalls of packed dirt, the passage grew rockier, and large
mossy stones fought for territory with scraggly bushes, all buried
under the shade of overhanging branches. The sounds of civilization
had languished, the forest deepening into a sepulchral ken.

Another half-hour, and the route hit a thin
grove of trees before abruptly turning to the right. Directly
ahead, right through the thin line of timber, was a small
escarpment. Stepping from the sandy path, I walked across the gray,
shadowed peat and up to the edge of the bluff. The short cliff
dropped a few feet, a small swath of sand below stretching out to
the lake. Who needs to swim when you don’t have to breathe? I
backed up, broke into a sprint, and sailed through the air.
Pummeling the water with a huge splash, I felt foolish when I came
to a jarring halt, my crouched legs sinking barely up to mid thigh
before an impact with the lakebed ended my grandstanding. The water
swirled and eddied in an aggravated state of confusion around my
torso. I pulled my feet from the muck and started walking. The
water ascended in gentle waves as I trolled forward until it
covered my head. The light started to taper off, the thick
bluish-green slowly suppressing the luminosity until I was
smothered in dark, shifting currents. I could make out almost
nothing, and it only grew more impenetrable as I descended. My feet
kept bumping into obstacles, the water impeding every move. I could
step over almost anything that was in front of me, but a couple of
times my feet wouldn’t rise high enough to surmount the wall of
black that blocked my path. I’d feel around with my hands,
discerning some submerged impediment, move sideways until I got
around it, and stagger forward. I sensed I was headed in the right
direction, but a nagging anxiety insinuated that for all I knew I
could be following the lake lengthwise.

The ground started to slope upwards, followed
shortly by a tint of color filtering into the sable miasma. The
water was growing lighter. My head broke the surface, and a glance
over my shoulder confirmed I was on the opposite side. Looking
across the expanse, I could see long, shimmering plateaus of gently
heaving waves, but no boats. A line of trees, the distance reducing
them to a scraggly parade of olive shards, rolled up and down the
uneven bank skirting the opposite side. I kept moving, rising out
of the water and plodding up the small stretch of beach into the
waiting woods. It wasn’t far now. I started jogging again, darting
through the underbrush. The pines here were fewer, the trees
flaunting more flamboyant autumnal colors. The ground was a bed of
fallen leaves, mostly decayed into moribund browns, the rigor
mortis making them brittle beneath my footfalls. Reds and yellows
rustled together in a loose canopy, the last hard-fought vestiges
of fall, thinning and tumbling almost as I passed. Soon enough.
Everything dies eventually.

I was almost to the car. The clearing was
just ahead. Tall brown wild grass bordered a pitted circle of
asphalt. The Mustang slouched at the far corner, obscured by the
shadow of overhanging branches and half-buried under a pile of
fallen leaves and cones. The muscle car’s faded blue paint was
cracking, further marred by rust spots near the wheel wells. It
looked as if it had been abandoned years ago, the rotting carcass
blending into the slowly decomposing backdrop. As long as it still
fired up, that was all that mattered. I strolled up to it, the
windswept sand of the lot crunching beneath my feet. The afternoon
sun was blazing, sheathing the entire area in an almost palpable
torrent of heat and light. I stepped into the shade of the car and
brushed the leaves off the windshield, noticing the passenger side
window was broken in. I opened the driver door, which shouldn’t
have been unlocked, reached under the dash, and popped the trunk,
already knowing what I’d find. All the camping gear and tools were
gone. Slamming the trunk, I traipsed back and pulled the driver’s
seat forward. Digging into the worn carpeting, I lifted the fake
plastic floorboard. The stash of money, multi-tool, knife, and gun
was still there. So were the keys. They were necessary to open the
hood, thanks to a lock I had welded into place, so I assumed
nothing had been stolen from the engine. I knelt down, felt
underneath the car with my hand, and extracted the key I would have
needed had the window not been broken. Walking around front, I
unlocked the hood and reconnected the battery. Climbing into the
driver’s seat, I pulled the choke lever. A flick of the keys in the
switch, a pump of gas at the pedal, and it roared to life. It was
then I noticed the gaping hole in the dash where my CD player had
been. Nice. Digging under the passenger seat, I could feel the
clothes I’d stashed. At least they didn’t steal those. I climbed
out, dragged the clothes into the driver’s seat, and slipped into
the jeans and black T-shirt. Tying my sneakers and doffing a
trucker’s cap, I ducked back in and slammed the door. The clothes
felt strange and out of place on my skin. I could sense their
roughness, the constricting fabric feeling stiff and antiquated. A
necessary evil. I spun the wheel and slowly circled as I drove out
of the lot. Crunching over a row of weeds, I crossed from worn
asphalt to a badly paved road. It looked long abandoned, cracked
and pitted by years of neglect, the bleached tar wandering off
toward the highway in a twisting route of weed-obscured bends.

I doubt anyone had roadblocks this far up.
The authorities had no way of knowing who I was, where I was going,
or even that I had a vehicle. That is, unless they managed to
ascertain some identity from my headless corpse. I do have a few
tattoos that could act as markers, not to mention my fingerprints,
but how could they know I was in the alien body? Most likely my
former shell was just an unfortunate victim. I was headed to
upstate NY, to a cabin in the boonies I had purchased under a bogus
name. I had more money and supplies stashed there, which should
give me a little time to plan. The only tricky part would be buying
gas. I originally had fuel containers stashed in the back, but
those had been stolen, so I would need to make a few stops. That’ll
be fun. This vehicle was fast, but it got horrible gas mileage. I
didn’t think they could trace the cabin back to me. I purchased the
property with cash using a false name, but nothing is certain and
the government is only getting more paranoid. If everything went as
planned, I was hoping to stay there for a week or so. I probably
wouldn’t need longer than that.

CHAPTER VI

AND NOW THE HARD PART

I hadn’t made extensive plans beyond getting this
body. I didn’t even know if my plan would work. Now that I’d gotten
this far, I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do next; I just
had to figure out exactly how to accomplish it. In this
increasingly organized and high tech world, it would be difficult
to elude detection for very long. I needed to go somewhere
relatively uninhabited, like the jungles of South America. I also
needed to figure out a way to acquire income and materials. Buying
a Jeep, a Mustang, a cabin, a daily driver, and various other
expenses had left me broke. But all this was minor. I had the body
now, I just had to plan a future course of action.