D. MacHale - The Reality Bug

And that’s exactly what it was doing, because clasped in its jaws was another human arm. Blood ran into the beast’s mouth and down its chin. If I hadn’t been so scared, I would have gotten sick. We held eye contact. I could feel this monster sizing me up. Its eyes were red and angry. Without looking away, it closed its jaws, crunching the arm like a dry twig. The sound made my stomach turn. The monster flipped out a green tongue and sucked the shattered arm into its mouth. One gulp later, the arm was gone. Swallowed. Bone and all. Gross. It turned back to me and broke out into a bloody grin.

I was next on the menu.

Welcome to Eelong.

It was a quig. It had to be. Every territory had its own quigs that prowled the flumes. They were somehow put there by Saint Dane, but I haven’t figured out how that happened, yet. On Denduron they were prehistoric-looking bears. On Cloral they were killer sharks. Zadaa had snakes and the Earth territories had vicious dogs. Veelox was strangely quig-free, but I think that’s because Saint Dane was already done with that territory by the time I showed up. Now it was looking like the quigs on Eelong were mutant, dinosaur-like reptiles. One thing was certain, it was a meat eater. Human meat. The bloody arm at my feet was proof of that. I didn’t want to know where the rest of the body might be.

The beast locked its red eyes on me and drew back its lips, revealing yet another row of pointed teeth. Swell. Its long green hair spiked out, like an angry cat. It hissed, and I got a whiff of something nasty. It was sending out a disgusting scent that smelled like rotten fish. This thing was going to pounce, and it was going to hurt. I was totally defenseless. Worse, the giant tree was behind me. It was like being trapped in a dead end. I took a tentative step to my right. The beast mirrored my move. I took a step back. So did the beast. It felt like I was playing basketball and this monster was playing defense. Only, it didn’t want to steal the ball. It wanted to steal my head.

That’s when I saw a flicker of movement to my left. I looked quickly, afraid that another quig might be circling in. But what I saw was my salvation. Poking his head out from the hole at the base of the tree was a person! At least I thought it was a person. The guy had straggly hair and a long beard. I only saw him for an instant, because he popped his head back into the hole like a scared turtle. He must have poked his nose out, seen the quig, and changed his mind about coming out. Good thinking. I wished I had done the same. But seeing him reminded me that I had an escape route. The trick would be to get to it before the quig got to me.

The two of us stood facing each other like gun-slingers. I hoped it didn’t realize that I didn’t have a gun and wasn’t prepared to sling anything. I knew that if I bolted for the hole, the quig would leap at me, and it would all be over except for the chewing. All I needed was a couple of seconds for a head start. But how?

An idea came to me. A hideous idea. If I hadn’t been so desperate, there was no way I would have been able to pull it off. But if there was one thing I learned since becoming a Traveler it was that self-preservation is a pretty strong motivator. Without taking another second to talk myself out of it, I slowly bent my knees and reached for the ground. I saw the hair on the back of the beast grow higher. It was waiting to see what I was going to do. I cautiously picked up the bloody arm that lay at my feet. I know, how gross can you get? I grabbed the arm at the elbow trying not to think about what it was. When I touched it, I almost gagged because it was still warm. Whoever it belonged to had been using it not long before. I had to push that thought away or I’d have lost my lunch… and probably my life along with it. As soon as I picked up the arm, the rotten smell from the beast grew stronger. I think the sight of the bloody arm was getting it psyched, like blood in the water does to a shark. That was okay. It meant I had a chance. I slowly stood back up and held the dismembered arm out to my side. The beast’s red eyes followed it like it was some tasty morsel. Gross.

The next few seconds were critical. They meant the difference between buying myself the time I’d need to get to safety and experiencing total failure, which meant the quig would eat me and then get the arm anyway. It all depended on how stupid this quig was. I waved the arm, tantalizing the beast, which stayed focused on it. The horrible smell grew stronger. Oh yeah, the quig wanted the arm, all right. I reared back and flung the arm off to my right.

The beast went for it. The instant it moved I bolted for the hole like a base runner stealing second when the pitcher goes into his windup. I could only hope the quig would keep going for the arm and not decide I was more interesting. I didn’t stop to look back, because every second counted. I ran for the hole and dove inside, headfirst. I hit the ground and scrambled to crawl inside. I thought I had made it, when I heard a bellowing howl from outside and a burning sensation in my leg. The beast was back and it had me by the ankle! It was too big to follow me inside, but that wouldn’t matter if it pulled me back out. I kicked for all I was worth and felt its sharp talons rake across my skin. No way was I giving up. The beast was going to have to work for its supper. With one hard kick, I yanked my leg free of its grip. I was loose! I tried to bend my leg and get it inside, but couldn’t. A quick look back showed me that one of its talons had caught in the braided twine that held my cloth boot on. It still had me!

I frantically wriggled my foot, trying to pull it out of the boot. I actually cursed myself for doing such a good job tying the twine with half hitches and square knots I had learned in Boy Scouts. Why did I have to do such a good job? I expected to jaws clamping down on my leg, biting me like some giant Buffalo wing, but that didn’t stop me from squirming to get away. Then suddenly I felt something snap. It wasn’t my leg, I’m glad to say. The beast’s claw must have severed the twine, because my foot slipped out of the cloth shoe. I quickly tucked my knees up to my chest to keep my feet out of reach. Looking back, I saw the long, green, scaly arm of the monster reaching inside the hole, groping to get at me. Its sharp talons whipped back and forth blindly, finding nothing but air and a few dangling vines. It was pretty charged up, and the rotten-fish smell got so bad, it made me gag. But the beast had lost. With a final bellow of frustration, it pulled its arm out and gave up. I suppose it went back and got the arm as a consolation prize.

I lay inside the dark space, breathing hard, trying to get my head back together. Now that I was safe, the reality of what had happened finally hit me. I had picked up a human arm and used it as bait to save myself from getting eaten. How disgusting was that? I looked down at my leg and saw three long scrapes that ran from my knee to my ankle. I gingerly touched them and found, luckily, that they weren’t very deep. They would just sting for a while. Eelong was shaping up to be a nasty place.

I had to find another way out of this tree. I wasn’t about to stick my head out of that hole. For all I knew. Little Godzilla was waiting outside, savoring its arm-snack and waiting me out. As much as I wanted to flume out of there, it wasn’t an option. I had to get away from this tree, away from the quigs, and find Gunny. So I got on my hands and knees and started to crawl around, pushing my way through the dangling vines, looking for another escape route. I figured there had to be one. If not, where did the guy come from who poked his head out of the hole? He sure wasn’t down in the flume-cavern when I was there. And for that matter, who was that guy?