The Red Man
By Alex Meleg
Copyright 2011 Alex Meleg
The Red Man
I opened my eyes and clawed a handful of sand. Cold waves lapped at my legs. The air was still. I rolled over onto my back and felt the hot sun penetrate my eyelids as I drifted back into sleep. A massive wave crashed over my head and salty water rushed up my nose and into my eyes. I sat up, coughed hoarsely and squinted against the over bright sun as I surveyed my surroundings. I was on a pristine beach that appeared endless from horizon to horizon.
Red clouds shrouded the sky in twilight past the dunes that separated the beach from the rest of world. The white beach gradually gave way to ruddy dirt. A primal shiver traveled up my spine as I realized my only option was to walk inland. I collapsed and stared at the ground. I was alone, naked, with no memory of how I arrived here. I rubbed the last vestiges of sleep out of my eyes, stood up, and clambered over the dunes.
Blowing red sand stung my eyes and punctured my skin like needles. After hours of walking, the wind died. The vast desert grew silent. I wiped my face feverishly as the ground rumbled beneath my feet. A wall of sand that stretched as far as I could see thundered toward me like a herd of amorphous elephants.
Blood rushed to my head, my hands tingled. It tore up rock outcrops large and small, smoothed and filed them down as it blasted forward. I frantically ran in the opposite direction.
The mouth of a small cave underneath an outcropping appeared ahead of me. I dove into the inky hole. I hugged the wall and inched towards the back of the cave. Slime covered the walls. The blackness swallowed what tepid light sneaked into the cave.
I sat against the glowing walls. Maybe insects of some kind had colonized them. The light show pulsed up and down from floor to ceiling. The sandstorm raged outside as rocks shattered and splintered. The cave shook as the storm poured over it.
A schritching sound reverberated deep within the cave. I stared into the darkness, not daring to move. A whimper, like a lost puppy, floated out from the blackness. It echoed through the cave, getting louder as the schritching became desperate. The pulsing light in the walls sped up, in pace with the sound.
Outside, the storm broke and the overcast sky returned. A bit of light flowed into the cave. Eyes on the verge of crying glared at me, small moist eyes. Its head lolled against its shoulder, too big for its frail body. It strained wildly in my direction but fleshy protuberances locked it against the cave wall.
I watched it transfixed, the grey lights on the walls arched above my head now, forming a weave of vein like supports for the cave. The creature was harmless enough, humanoid and locked to the wall. What evolutionary process could produce such a creature?
Brief flashes of a lecture hall, writing something on a chalkboard about bones, insects, dates. I backed out of the cave, the creature was at the point of breaking its flesh chains. Its teeth were sharp, its eyes hungry.
I stood outside the cave. Tried to catch my breath, calm my racing heart. Quiet moans and yelps drifted out of the cave. The air became still as the creature gave up.
The landscape transitioned gradually from desert to craggy badlands. I rubbed another handful of sand out of my eyes as my right foot slipped and catapulted me over a hidden cliff edge. My arms flailed for a purchase, three of my fingers anchored into a divot and my foot locked into a small crevice. I pulled myself up and looked out over the cliff.
A vast field of crude huts stretched across the barren plain below. They had to be manmade, someone down there might know what was going on. I was elated at the prospect of talking to someone, just seeing another person would have satisfied me. I glimpsed a path that led from the cliff to the outskirts of the huts.
I followed the edge of the cliff towards the path. Giddy, twitchy energy flowed through me. The path was narrow and steep with parallel ruts running along it. Tall cairns stood off to the side, marking where the path twisted and turned.
The city was claustrophobic and sweaty. The crude mud huts were covered in archaic symbols that didn't resemble any language I was familiar with. They were like something out of Africa but older than anything I'd ever seen in my travels. I ran my fingers across the scripts, my stomach lurched.
Perhaps this was a dead city, an abandoned relic in these blasted lands. Something moved in my peripheral vision and I turned towards it. I recoiled violently from the creature that trotted out from behind a nearby adobe hut.
It walked on all fours, head wrapped completely in thin bandages. A viscous red fluid stained the front of its bandaged head. Its body was black and sinuous, like a large hairless dog. Four long skeletal legs with far too many joints supported it.
It paused and turned towards me. I passed out.
I awoke on a dirt floor in the dark amongst quiet murmuring. Looking towards the source of the sound I saw a group of naked people huddled in a ball. They were all grimy, shivering, and wide eyed. I spoke to them, my voice old and unfamiliar.
"Where are we?"
A woman sitting on the edge of the huddle eyed me cautiously, but gave no answer.
We were all naked, the ground cold. My mind screeched with stories of cannibals and cryptozoological horrors. Perhaps we were going to be sacrificed to an imaginary god? Or would it be quick, a slice here, a cut there, and a quick bloody death.
One of the bandaged creatures entered and trotted over to me. Its legs bent in odd directions while its front legs resembled elongated hands, human hands. It smelled like an old corpse left out in the sun. A cold bony hand wrapped around my ankle.
I flailed in its grasp, fought, and twisted as it dragged me through the streets on my back. It paid no attention when I hit it or tried to pry its hand open.
"Where the fuck you taking me!"
It glanced at me and raised its hand in a shushing gesture, guess it understood what I said.
"Where am I? What are you?" my head smacked against a rock. It continued forward without looking back again.
The creature navigated the twists and turns instinctively. We entered an open area in what I figured was the center of the city. Dozens of the creatures milled about. Many of them wore ornate headpieces embellished with something like tarnished gold. Black veins interlaced through many of their headdresses, as if the creatures' skin grew around them. Others affixed ornate rings to their many fingers. Some were naked like the one that dragged me here. All their heads were wrapped in red stained bandages.
It released me and gestured for me to stand in the center of the square. A creature from the back lobbed a pile of greasy leather clothes at me. None of the creatures wore anything other than jewelry. Where did they get these clothes? I dressed, their eyeless faces watching me.
A creature wearing an enormous headdress galloped out and stood on its haunches in front of me. It produced a blade blackened with rust, no not rust, dirty blood corroded the blade and left the sharp gleaming edge intact. It carried a maligned rodent in its other hand. It held the rodent onto a crack in the ground and gently cut it so black blood flowed onto the cobbles.
Tendrils shot out from a sandy crack and pierced the rodent. It was like a swarm of mosquitoes descending on a hapless animal that couldn't fend them off. It strained helplessly as the tendrils slithered deeper. A lumpy brick shaped cocoon with eyes replaced the rodent in a few moments. The creature licked the blade's edge clean and slid it back into the slot on its headdress.
The dirt I walked on wanted to eat me alive! And perhaps keep me alive. What was left of the rodent vanished into the crack and filled it in like fleshy mortar. But how did these free living creatures survive? Perhaps they were in a symbiotic relationship with whatever lived in the dirt.
The biology of this place kept throwing me for a loop and I still didn't know why
I even cared about its biology. All I could recall is my name, Martin, and even that was a faint memory.
Similar fleshy patches littered the square, pulsing rhythmically. For the first time, I was faced with something far worse than death.
Hundreds of the creatures circled the square. They crept along the ground as if prowling for something. I'd concluded by then that they were thinking animals, probably conscious. It was silent except for the cracking of their joints and quiet footfalls.
One veered out of the pack and approached me. It was smaller than the others. It stopped in front of me, got up on its haunches and gestured for me to kneel. I complied and the creature stroked my cheek.
I fought the urge to jerk out of its reach. The creature embraced my head in its many jointed hands. I sat there, stuck in time. It released me abruptly and trotted away. The other