Chapter 3
The Long Road Ahead
I awoke, not to the regular beating I was used to, but to a burning sensation on my back. Lucky I had kept my armor on to keep the cold out. That sun would have burned me crispy if not. It has risen high in the sky before I wake up to its belting heat. I woke up unsettled a few times in the night. It had been really cold, not unlike the deserts on Earth, in the hours of darkness.
It was rapid re-radiation of stored heat in the ground. The sun belts down immense amount of heat in the daylight hours but later on in the night, with no cloud cover and nothing to insulate it, that heat spills out back into the atmosphere in the night time.
I hadn’t been too bothered by it though. This armor I stole from one of the guards had kept me reasonably warm and I was just happy to wake up looking at the sky. To see the millions of stars and not just the base of some other guy’s bunk above me.
It’s no surprise that Kolt is up and around before me. I don’t even remember him falling asleep. His breathing is calmer now at least. I thought he was going to pass out and die last night carrying those bottles of water.
I feel a little guilty about it. That sensation is burning away in the pit of my stomach. But I’m glad of it. I’ve not had the time to feel anything in such a long time that I’m glad just to feel at all.
Whether it’s anger or guilt, sadness, joy or love. I don’t care. He is sat atop one of the larger dunes. I can just about see him by his black silhouette against the strong light of the morning desert sun. He is facing the other way. I can hear, in the calm of the barren space, his regular and controlled breathing. In and out through his tight gas mask. I feel for him. It must be constant stress to have to think, and probably worry, about the simplest task of breathing.
I can just about make out his twin needles and tube kit. The water bottle he is ingesting intravenously glistens against the rising and powerful sun. I decide to make my way over to him. I want to ask him about his cryptic comments from last night but I’m not sure I’ll ever find the best moment to do so.
The sand is soft, unreliable, and sinks around the depression I make with every press of my heel as I try to walk up the dune. As I look upon the sand, it doesn’t look like a difficult task to walk upon it, but the reality is very different. The ground is inconstant and flows with every pressure placed upon it. I try to look poised and collected as I walk towards Kolt. But I stumble and fall regularly. I have to put my hand down to the ground just to keep my fragile balance.
The sand is hot to the touch. Not just warm, but insensitively hot. It feels as though each fine grain burns a new and individual puncture mark into my hardened skin. I hope this desert does not last long and we find shade soon.
Kolt stirs when he hears the gentle cascade of fine grains of sand as I approach, leaving my dignity behind, with clumsy ape like steps. By the looks of him, his eyes, I guess he probably hasn’t slept at all. He turns to face me. I can’t tell if he is happy to see me or not. Or even if he can just about put up with me.
‘We have a long day ahead.’ He opens the first conversation of the day bleakly. I’m not offended. I’m not exactly used to being woken gently by the rocking hand of a lover or anything. I’m used to waking up to some moron or another blasting me for whatever reason they can think of right there on the spot.
‘Just the one?’ I ask rhetorically and sarcastically. I don’t think Kolt understands my dry and mutated humor. Maybe he doesn’t get much of that back on Earth and on the original Russia.
‘Many days in fact.’ He says and pulls the needle out of his bleeding arm. His mouth must be dry constantly. I know he’s at least getting the fluid he needs to survive but it’s not the same. Shoving it straight into your veins can’t give you the same sense of satisfaction as quenching your powerful thirst with a gulp of icy cold water. Washing it around your dry, sand filled mouth and teeth.
That thought has me thirsty. I don’t know how much water Kolt managed to get from the escape pod floor but it can’t possibly match the amount we will need to safely trek though what looks like an endless desert. I take the bottle from the sandy dune, the one he has used to feed himself through his needles, and take a swig from it. The bottle is surprisingly full. I don’t really want to swallow it knowing where it has been and what Kolt had been using it for. But my thirst is strong enough to overpower that reaction.
I remember, just in due time, how many times I had to drink from water deposits built up on the mine floor. Conditions really could be that bad.
He obviously wants to ignore my stab at humor and carries right on into an account of the horror that lies ahead. He stands slowly from the sand and pulls his sleeve down over his many wounds. He stretches a while and I take a few more mouthfuls of water from the warm bottle. It’s not exactly refreshing but it does the job.
‘The desert will last another day.’ He began ‘But soon it will give way to a large body of water that I think we can swim. I did. Then the water will give way to the trees and a great forest beyond. The forest will make us lost and is a dangerous place to be. At the end of the forest we will meet some foothills and be forced to climb a great mountainous peak to reach the crash site.’
He says it all with an absence of emotion. He remembers the journey but seems distant. He’s lost in his thoughts again. I follow his distant eyes for a moment but I can’t bare the effort.
‘That’s how far you came?’ I ask him. For a while he doesn’t reply and I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to.
‘Yes.’ He answers but gives away no more detail.
The thought of enduing another day in the baking heat of the desert has me frustrated but I should have honed in on the other thing he said a little faster. We had collected our few supplies together and pilled them back into my fragile backpack before it occurred to me to ask.
‘Why is the forest such a dangerous place to be?’ We had taken the first step on our epic journey before I finally got around to asking him. I took the backpack this time. He had exhausted himself yesterday trying to carry it all that distance. I feel strong today. Stronger than I have in a while. Those painkillers had worn off in the night and my body still aches and screams in pain from the impact of the crash. But I’m used to being beaten around like some kind of stress ball. So I still feel like I’m up for this. I feel like a day’s walk will do me good.
‘There are predators there.’ Kolt finally answers. That was no surprise really. But nothing prepared me for what he was about to tell me.
‘Are you aware of dinosaurs?’ He asks. The creatures had roamed the Earth millions and millions of years ago. But there were no records of them ever having been found on any other world. No one on the colonies had ever found fossil records in our own soil, but in all honesty, I have no idea how many people actually went out there looking for them.
People were obsessed at all times with what was in front of them. That seemed like the prevailing feeling of the time I live in. No one really cares what came before them and how their current situation came about.
I dared to be excited at first. To be able to see them in the flesh, if that was what Kolt was actually telling me. But that short and indeed short-sighted feeling passed quickly and paved the way for fear. I have to admit that a bit of panic slipped in there too. I know nothing of dinosaurs and all of the childish excitement disappears from my mind as I start to imagine enormous brutes capable of tearing me apart without having to even try. I hold off on getting too hung up by it though. I guess we have no choice but to go back the way he came. It would be what it would be in the end.
Our walk gives me time to think about things. I have no way of getting off the planet without trusting in Kolt. I don’t know him. I have faith in him though and I don’t even know why. He is distant and aggressive even though I’m sure I’ve done nothing to offend him. Every time I try to start a conversation he makes it a short one and bulldozes me into a corner so I can’t think of anything else to say to him.
I still don’t know why he said he didn’t want to be rescued. Logic tells me it’s because he’s given up and doesn’t want to live anymore. But if that was true, this barren planet must have presented him countless opportunities to take the easy way out and get himself killed. So logic might be lying to me.
He said he didn’t desire rescue. That means he doesn’t want to go back to wherever he came from. Does that mean he has some horrible fate awaiting him if he returns? Is he afraid to return? My heart jumps a little at the possibility that we might be kindred spirits. I can’t go back either.
But that makes no sense either. I know I’ll never get it out of him so I don’t think there is even a point in asking him about it again. If he had some kind of punishment or something worse waiting for him then why would he be helping me at all? He could have just let me die for that matter. Or if his conscience wouldn’t let me die, then he could have saved me just like he did, but then just give me directions and a map of how to find his ship.
I’m starting to obsess. Everyone I’ve ever known has told me, at some time or another, that I do that. My mind overreacts and hones in on any small detail. It looks for evidence to support a theory I probably just made up in some pit of my own imagination. It takes things and twists them to look like evidence to support some bull hypothesis.
But I’m like a dog with a bone who just won’t let go. I need the answers like I need air to live. I’m not nosey. Just if it feels like I’m affected by what is going on then I feel like I need to see every angle of it. Sometimes I wish that I could just turn it off. I wish that I could be normal and just go with the flow. Whatever the flow might be.
The only trouble is that I’m usually right. If I smell something’s off. It more often than not is. On the flip side of that though. I can never see the wood for the trees. I look at detail and miss the picture. That’s how I got trapped in that job. That was a dumb decision for a reasonably smart guy. I messed up. And I paid my price.
Back to the problems at hand though. For now I have no option but to trust in Kolt, even though I know he’s on the wrong side of psycho street. Maybe, hopefully, I’m misjudging him. Maybe the baking desert sun is clouding my judgment. It beats down on my exposed face with every split second that passes. It feels so hot that I might as well be in an oven. I can’t look up to the sky. It’s too bright. There isn’t a single cloud to rely on for cover and we have only been walking a few hours. In silence.
The sand has heated up and I can feel it burning through my armored boots with every step. But I only have the sand below to look at. The sun’s light reflects off of it too well. It’s like staring into a mirror. The reflected light is burning holes in the backs of my retinas and it’s making it hard to see anything at all. I feel a little lost and very disorientated. I can’t make out the various textures in the sand and I can’t read the undulating dunes well enough to make for steady progress.
So far I’ve been able to keep on my feet but I can’t imagine how undignified and how very un-cool I must look. I can just rely on following Kolt and his unwavering pace. It’s like he drifts over the sand. It looks like he isn’t feeling a second of the torment that I am. He is tough, hard as nails, that’s for sure. He steps artistically over the sand and strides on despite it’s ever changing resistance.
I can hear him breathing still. It’s all there is to focus on. It’s making me sick. I use all the energy I have and run to catch up with him. I tap him hard on the shoulder and he stops to face me. His face is burned, what I can see of it through those ominous eye holes in his gas mask, and his eyes remain tired, wide, and bloodshot.
‘Would you like a drink?’ He asks. His voice is kind and that shocks me a little. I nod. I have no energy spare for talking. I could have just got it myself but Kolt drags the backpack away from me and digs inside for the water bottle we had been drinking from that morning. He unscrews the cap and hands it to me. He keeps a gloved hand on the top to steady it as I take gulp after gulp.
I hold up my hand to say “thanks” and he pulls the bottle away. He’s still stood tall above me. I enjoy the brief moment of relief from the heat as I duck behind his sizeable shadow. I use it to refocus my eyes and give myself a stern talking to. The day is only middle aged and we still have a long distance to go. I comfort myself with the thought of a jungle to hide in soon. But I’m careful not to let my thoughts dwell at all on the monsters that the jungle hides.
Kolt slowly reaches under his apron and reveals a large hunting knife. It’s long and sharp. The blade is curved at one edge and reaches a pointy tip. The other side is fashioned to be used as a saw with a serrated edge. That would be used to hack through bone no doubt. I recoil in a brief, and regrettable, moment of terror. He casts me a judgmental and deeply hurt look. He must be fighting the urge to have a go at me and instead places a single raised finger over his lips. Or at least the snout of his mask in front of his lips.
My heart starts beating faster as all kinds of thoughts race through my mind. Had I been wrong to trust him? With the lack of food evident on this planet, maybe he was planning on killing me right there and then, and grinding my flesh into paste to have for supper! My body urges me to run but doesn’t provide the means. My legs have gone stiff and I am oddly frozen to the spot. He brings the knife up to eye level and I finally spot his target. If I had been more aware of my surroundings, I could have saved myself that brief but intense moment of embarrassment.
A gruesome, oddly long, and green patterned snake washes through the thin flakes of sand about my feet. I remain calm, rested a little by the knowledge I wasn’t on the menu, and keep my foot still. Any sudden movement could have resulted in a strike and there was no telling how venomous it was. Kolt threw the knife down with scary precision. It strikes the snake just behind it’s muzzle shaped head. An instant kill.
He knelt down and I’m suddenly hit again by the burning relentless sun. It knocks me for a second but the break has done me good. I don’t feel quite as sick right now. He digs the knife right behind the snake’s skull and successfully, effortlessly, beheads the thing. He pushes the head deep into the sand and starts unraveling the lengthy beast from it’s sandy home. I remembered some of my basic survival training. The one good thing to come from that job. It is always a good idea to bury the head as it remains poisonous for some time.
The snake is at least two meters long, a good two inches thick, and rubbery in texture. It is a sandy green color and I’m not sure, what with the blue and green spots dazzling over my eyes from the sun, how the Hell Kolt spotted it at all. Maybe his gas mask lenses had a tint on them to keep the light out. For the first time ever I’m jealous of him for them.
‘I have never done anything to make you afraid of me.’ The rising intonation at the end of the sentence almost makes me think he is asking me a question. But I think he’s actually just surprised. Maybe a little offended too.
‘I’m sorry.’ I say after a few seconds to think. I came up short. That was the best I could manage. But for me it was still pretty good. He was right though. He had never done anything to make me afraid of him. I just was. But there I was regardless making up things he might be thinking. I leave the issue. Nobody wants to talk about it. I can sense that.
Maybe the two of us are quite similar in our stunted emotional development. Neither of us wants to hold hands and talk about our feelings. Even though I know I’ve hurt him. Instead of dwell on it or make an ass out of myself making up some bull excuse, I decide that I’m just going to try to make more of an effort to understand my new accomplice. It looks as though we are going to have a lot of time together anyway.
He reaches the end of the snake and starts to squeeze. He rolls his tight fingers right around the dead animal and pushes all of the brown, murky innards out of the gaping hole he had stabbed through it. The rest would be meat and good eating later on. The bile he forces out stinks in the desert warmth. It smells like fresh sick and makes me gag. I manage to hold it togethe
r, mostly out of pride, and swallow to keep my water down. Kolt casually throws the snake carcass over his back, draped around his shoulders like a scarf and picks up the backpack.
‘I though I was going to be on the menu.’ I just can’t resist. I try to use humor to mask the fact I upset the man.
‘You might have been. Had I been able to eat solid food.’ Was that a joke? Had I finally dragged a sense of humor out of him. He turned around and gently tapped his soldered gas mask. Of course. How could I have been so stupid. The poor guy couldn’t even take in water. He must he been surviving on liquid supplements ever since the crash.
I get sick of all of the walking before I even know it. I’m tired of falling over in the sand and stumbling like some uncoordinated ape. The effort of getting through the desert is sapping every bit of strength that I have.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was supposed to come here and before I knew it life would be getting easier. I shouldn’t have to do this. I should have an easy life by now. Those kinds of self indulgent thoughts flash through my mind as I slowly start to see the sun crest across the horizon.
I can see the water sparkle in the distance. I’m sure I can hear it lapping against the sandy shores but I don’t know if I’m just hearing things. I feel sorry for myself. I know it’s silly but I can’t help it. I was naïve to have come here. Naïve to have thought life was suddenly going to be easy without any kind of effort from myself. That’s just childish. I was right to get away from my employers but I should have known that even greater hardship was afoot.
Kolt hasn’t said anything all afternoon. It’s irritating how collected he is. It’s annoying how he doesn’t have to try and doesn’t seem to be affected at all by the painful desert heat. I want to take my armor off and cool down but I know that if I do I’ll just get burned to a crisp.
I can smell the snake cooking around his back. The heat bouncing down on it’s fragile flesh, reflected and intensified over his disgusting apron, and the thing is cooking in it’s own skin. I want it to make me sick. I would feel more normal if it did. But it’s just making me hungry. The flesh is sizzling under the scales and I can smell the meat as if it was a barbeque.
Maybe it’s just that I’m so used to eating that crud they forced down my throat for the past five years of my life. All you can eat snake buffet sounds, smells and looks appealing right now. I can’t help but to stare at it. Swinging back and forth with each of his gentle steps.
The sun is low in the sky and its hard to see. The light is calmer though and ebbs away with each passing second. As the powerful, evil sun passes down into the night and stops belting us all day long. I feel as though I can’t take anymore. I stop, shout to Kolt, and start frantically tearing at the shell of my armor. Kolt turns. I though he was going to stop me and complain that I was slowing down the pace. But instead he waits patiently as I clamor at the sticky armor.
My skin is wet and clammy. The soft texture of the armor underneath sticks to my arms as I pull and tug at it relentlessly. The sudden exertion makes my heart beat faster and I feel like I’m about to pass out again. A few deep breaths settles me and my armor finally relents. I pull my arm free and take off the torso cover like a sweater. I fall to my knees, panting for breath from the dry desert and sandy air, and watch as sweat drips down my ridiculously hairy chest.
The air feels cool. And the sun dries me gently as the day slips, finally, into old age. I take one last deep breath and open my eyes. My chest hair tingles as the sun caresses me dry. I sigh. Happily.
‘We are almost to the body of water.’ Kolt raises a weary arm to the setting sun. I watch him in silence. I’m only half interested in what he has to say. I’m watching the gorgeous rays of orange colored light wash across the darkening sky as the sun dips below the dunes. I turn to see the three moon’s of the planet rise in the pale sky behind me like silver discs in the sky. The view clashed as night met day and day was defeated by night.
I can see the stars again over my shoulder and I could not be more grateful of it. I know the night will be cold. I know that as the heat disperses I will beg for the sun once more. But I don’t want to let that thought drive me crazy. I don’t want to feel like I’m in some kind of perpetual Hell. I just want to feel cool and dry as the sun finally gives in.
I can’t even be bothered to reply to Kolt. I just get to my feet. He locks eyes with me and just waits to see if I can carry on. He is much kinder than I have judged him to be. I feel guilty and ashamed of how I reacted to him. I thought I was better than that. To judge a man because he looks, simply, terrifying.
‘You want me to carry the bag.’ I ask him. I am surprised at how croaky my voice sounds. I haven’t used it much all day. He shakes his head but carries on without looking back. ‘Or maybe your gun if it’s getting heavy?’ I offer. It must have sounded like a threat. Or a ghastly attempt at diplomatically disarming him. He doesn’t rise to it. Even though the bait was completely unintentional.
‘I can manage.’ He says in his rugged accent.
‘Where did you find that thing by the way?’ I have wanted to ask him that since the first second we met. I thought people had given up on projectile weapons long ago. I should have been more considerate though. He has lost his memory and is, like me, trapped on an alien and unfamiliar world. I didn’t mean for my question to cause him any offence.
‘It was on my ship.’ He looked, more sounded, distant again. I can’t see his eyes. But I doubt they’ve changed and still look as distant. We walk side by side for the first time since meeting. If I could see them I’m certain they would be the windows to his lost soul and would be searching his broken memory for the answer to my question. But he continues.
‘I found it after the fire finally went out. I’d not thought about… what it is? Is it old?’ He asks me and sounds pretty genuine too. He sounds confused. He even glances over to me. I can only see his eyes for a second but they look horrified. He looks like a broken man, hiding under his impressive shell. For the first time in our short relationship, I feel deeply sorry for him.
‘Yeah man.’ I reply. I don’t want to upset him. But he is freaking me out a little again. I try not to let it show and think back to how silly I was to be scared of a man who saved me. ‘Nobody uses projectile anymore. They’re noisy, inefficient, offensive weapons.’ I try to explain to him. He draws it from his back and studies it as though he was picking it up for the first time ever. He holds it nervously but grips around it with his open palms a few times. Its like he is reassuring himself of something.
‘I like it.’ He finally says and throws it back over his shoulder. He strides forth again. He can walk as fast as he likes, he isn’t escaping the reality that he is lost. Perhaps more so than I.
I’m sure now. I am sure I can hear the water. I can see the light reflected from the celestial moons against the lapping and undulating waves ahead. It’s pretty much dark, and our conversation about his gun is a distant memory for us both by the time we finally make it to the shore. The lapping, gentle and caressing sounds eventually turn into crashing and slapping waves as we draw closer. I can see the blackness of the water ahead and the breeze rolling in cools me to a more comfortable level.
The water can’t be deep, or the stretch of it between land masses long. I can see, in the very distance, tones and hues of green on the horizon and the washing shadows of trees swaying in the wind. I want to drink so bad. I remember my survival training and I know that I can’t drink salt water. I can smell the saline in the air as we finally stop.
The sand about my boots is cooler and damp here. I pull my armor back on in the brief recess. As I expected, the night brings the cold with it. I remember watching instructional videos about drinking salt water and how it dehydrates you quickly. It sounded easy back in what passed as a classroom back at work. It sounded obvious. It was almost insulting that they would have offended our intelligence and overstated it.
But the video didn’t mention how hard it
was. To stand in front of a stretch of water and not be able to drink when you are, literally, dying to quench your thirst. I envied ignorance. I wish I could just drink and not know what torture my body would go through because of it. But I can’t and I don’t.
Kolt stops too and places our bag of meager supplies on the cool sand. I know we can’t swim this mass of water in the dark. I have to face another cold night in the desert. He takes the dead creature from around his neck and snaps the snake clean in half with his bare hands. He, kindly, gives me the larger half.
‘Other half for breakfast.’ I could swear he is smiling. Even laughing. Under that garish black mask of his. But I’m so grateful I don’t stop to analyze it. I wolf the meat down without stopping to feel sorry for him because he can’t even eat. He stabs his needle back into the water bottle and again into his already battered and bruised arm.
The meat is chewy, tough, and tastes like overcooked pork. But I couldn’t care less. I wolf it down, tearing into the gristle and flesh with my back teeth. I yank at the snake and tear it apart like a possessed wild animal. I have left any manners behind, and did so long ago, and don’t stop until the meat and skin are all eaten. It warms my stomach and I feel a gentle, soothing build up of energy that builds like a crescendo inside of me. I feel alive again. I feel like I could swim an ocean with ease, find the biggest dinosaur on the planet and punch it right in the snout.