This story involves nudity and brief mention of love-making.
Basically nothing worse than what you just read but I thought to make a point.
In case you are easily offended by the human body. There is no detail involved.

Bigfoot said Dogman Doesn’t Live Here Any More. Charles Happi had a secret that he kept with him since he was nearly old enough to find the opposite sex attractive. It didn’t fester and show itself for the ugliness that it is, until later in his teen years, but it was there from the start. It was no long-time friend yet they were inseparable from age twelve onward. It was an affliction. The reason he never went more than steady with a girl, never had a long-term relationship and it was why he never married despite being known as someone who usually had a date. He became very good at keeping females at arm’s length. He didn’t want to end up like so many older men he had seen. Either they were in a loveless marriage that was completely dysfunctional or if they made it through most of life with the same woman their reward was to see her go through the change, which was a very correct description. It wasn’t their fault, but it sure wasn’t the man’s fault either. The way he saw it was if you got a woman that was fun in bed and she was pretty then you were fighting an uphill battle. She would always have men hitting on her, being their most romantic and charming selves. She being such a passionate flower and sexual being; not immune to such constant advertisements for how much better life was on the other side of the fence. How nobody had to know. The rekindled excitement that is lost when a relationship grows long, just waiting on the other side of that fence. He imagined it was a lot to ignore those days when everything seemed stuck in a rut. You were reminded you had probably seen the best of your life already, and that this was likely to be a good day, when you looked back on it. He could see how a woman might stray. Perhaps part of the reason he felt relationships were a doomed conclusion was the way he saw the old folks at the bowling alley. He saw long-time relationships melt away like ice cream on a hot sidewalk in late July, shortly after the sex stopped. This just from the couples who were still likely having sex, of course. It was easy to spot the ones that had stopped earlier in their years than was necessary. He was talking about the ones that obviously still were active. They were okay for a while after they stopped, still showing a lot of affection. But catch up with them ten years later and he couldn’t help but notice the percentage of men that still opened doors for their wives, things like that, dropped by about fifty percent or more. As for the other side of the coin he noticed the women bad-mouthed their spouses on a much more frequent basis. What may have been the most interesting thing of all about all that was that they didn’t notice the change in either their spouses or themselves. Charles attributed that to the aging process. As the seniors grew more senior they seemed to revert to their previous selves before their years into puberty. They often seemed to rediscover interests that existed before they discovered the opposite sex. It was really quite interesting and completely terrifying. He didn’t want to become that, or worse, come down with alzheimers, the ultimate fear for old people. Now at the age he had reached, there came an understanding, even go so far as to say an appreciation for the cliche’ statements like, dying like a warrior. Dying with your boots on. Take a bunch of them with me when I go! Go out in a blaze of glory! All of that sounds so much more preferable than “He lost his battle with (insert old person’s disease here). He had come to peace with the idea that he was going to die. Of course, he told himself, easy to say when you haven’t been given the sentence. However any practical thinking man would come to same conclusion when the next birthday was forty one years in this life. What he discovered was that there really were things worse than death. One of them was living too long. He was just starting to get a taste of it too. The thought of losing the rest of his hair, a fair share of teeth, muscle tone and adding a thousand wrinkles was not attractive. How people feared death over living to be an old wrinkled shell of the man you once represented, was the true mystery of life to him. So he decided the intelligent thing to do was stay single and then when and if he lived to be an old man he would at least still have all his stuff. No ex-wife out there screwing all the single men in town. Plus avoid sharing with your woman the inevitable embarrassment which comes with the physical changes the human body endures. No he was better off staying single. Some people might have thought he was a flake, but he didn’t care. He liked himself. He was never mean to anybody, his ego hadn’t made him too important or too smart for him to ever ignore anybody. He treated everybody the same from a janitor to a CEO. Never was a second thought ever given to a person’s status in society or business. That’s not to say he wasn’t friendly, because he was; his father’s first rule about behavior in public was that if an elder ever spoke to him before he spoke to the elder, there would be a butt-whipping when they got home. This was a very intrusive rule especially when he was out with friends or a date and would rather have just let the old person go about their business without embarrassing him and bothering them. Later in his life after graduating high school he was shocked at how often his earlier days of always speaking to an elder before they could speak to him, gained him multiple perks from multiple people either being the elders he had spoke to back when, or their children who knew of him because they had heard their parents speak on him. In short, it was some of the best advice he ever heard, and it came from his Dad. What he learned might not be as good advice today as it was then, he didn’t know. Things were different now. Back then though, it was excellent advice. In the peak of his existence there were few places he could go without seeing someone he knew and speaking with them. Some people might have seen it as a burden but he saw it as a blessing. It certainly helped bring in business. After he outgrew his philandering ways and grew into the businessman his father’s advice allowed him to become, things came easy for a stretch. Then he had to take the reigns of his father’s asphalt business in 2012 after a tragic massive heart attack claimed the old man. He would have given anything for the chance to speak to his father one last time before he left, but it wasn’t to be. His mother had passed two years previous from cancer and while terribly tragic, it did allow time for all the loved ones to have their say, then she was gone. After his father passed there was nobody else. Charles proved he was capable of taking the business to new heights. At age forty-one he surprised everyone when he moved the business to a new location that provided more room to store his trucks and equipment. The timing was actually quite good for him because he was at a time in his life when it was too late to start a family, and when everyone else his age was wrapped up in theirs. Of course, he had his secret to keep him company but it wasn’t much good at keeping a person warm at night. He was starting to lose hair and had gained a few extra pounds and to be straight up honest – quite a few wrinkles. On top of that he seemed to have lost his interest in being charming and now found himself a bit more direct than when he was younger. If he were completely honest about that he would have said he had lost the patience to play the game and had reached an age where he felt like he didn’t have the time to squander playing the game. All that didn’t make for a very good ladies man so he decided in the end that he had lost whatever charm that youth had bestowed and would just stay single and throw himself into his work. The new location was along side interstate five just into the southern part of the state of Oregon. He was excited to see things start off on the right foot and arrived early to greet his employees but instead it was a large hairy beast that surprised him that morning. It was the first day his crew was to meet at the new location to start their day. The sun had not risen to a height to illuminate the location of his business so the atmosphere was grey and saturated with shadows stretched long due to their running from the coming sunlight. He’d sprung for new hats and T-shirts, black with silver writing, that said “Turn grumpy gravel to Happi Asphalt! Ask me!”. It was his way of welcoming the gang to the new base. The crew had all been there before having helped move everything. This was to be the first day they approached business as usual. He had arrived early by about fort-five minutes to hand out the new hats and shirts. One extra large shirt and an one-size fits all cap was left positioned on the front driver’s side fender of each of the dump trucks. They were lined up in a row facing the same direction on the same side of the road. The very road that his crew had created not many days before. He was checking out the quality of their work when suddenly he became aware of a stench that was re-mindful of walking into a pet store, if combined with the sour odor of a stagnant swamp. There was almost no wind so it was nearly impossible to conclude from which direction the odor was coming. It seemed to be all around. If he had an ex-wife, he’d have claimed her lawyer was somewhere close by. That was the trouble with being single. You didn’t have anybody to blame when there was a bad smell around. His smartass side said that you could get a dog to blame for that and it wouldn’t cost you half your stuff when things went south. Then the reserved part of him would kick in and remind the rest that was why he didn’t ever get married. He was selfish. Didn’t want to give up half his stuff. If he was honest though the reason was much darker than that. He wished his problem was selfishness. That was a lot easier to overcome. Although in a way his problem was a selfishness of its own merit. This was not the time to be thinking about that. There was something amiss. Charles felt the hair on the back of his neck come to attention at the same time he felt dread all around. He had a second to think wow, this probably is the worst odor I have encountered in some time. He planned on having a good laugh about that right after he figured out why his danger meter was suddenly sounding an all hands on deck alarm? He set the remaining hats and shirts down onto a truck fender still smelling that awful sour swamp stench and feeling like he was in mortal danger. Then he saw why. His head did a slow upturn as his gaze first met the hairy beast at chest level. From there his gaze did an even motion turn upwards until he was looking up into the beast’s black eyes. It was towering at over seven and a half feet in height. The thing was covered in a black and brown colored fur that was not apparent on it’s palms or face. The bare skin of its face was a dull grey or perhaps blackish tint. It had almost no outward appearing nose though there were clearly two nostrils above its thin-lipped mouth and squarish-shaped jaw. Arms were very muscular and nearly as long as the creature’s powerful legs. It had abnormally large hands with palms that were black though they had no fur or hair. They exposed no claws like you would have expected to see on a bear. It snarled at Charles showing its teeth. They were the teeth similar to those of a dog. Longer canines gave notion this animal was not strictly vegan. After the initial snarl it was just standing there looking at him. Then it would look ahead towards the direction it had been going before becoming aware of his presence. Then back to him. Back to the destination, then back to Charles. The creature had been headed towards the small strip of forest that remained between his property and the interstate. It blocked the view of the highway so that you could barely see the cars racing past but the noise generated could not be masked. Charles wondered if the sound of the cars and trucks out on I-5 were a cause of stress for it? Obviously there was something over that way which it desired, or feared. He thought most likely the former since it was headed in that direction. The creature had come out from between the dump trucks. There were eight of the dump trucks between him and the big hairy beast. Charles stopped moving as soon as he saw it. When the creature snarled at him he fought the urge to bolt, fearing it might trigger the predator instinct in the creature, causing it to give chase and attack. He had time to think to himself that although he never married or had kids, that he still loved bowling on Tuesday nights, watching football on the weekends, and sitting down to a good meal. He was going to miss it all because he was pretty sure there was no way he could get away from that huge animal if it decided to go after him. It probably covered more than twice the ground in its stride by comparison. The muscles on the thing were massive. They rippled under its fur, or hair, which he judged to be about six to eight inches in the longer areas. Around its bare face it was only a few inches and around its feet and hands it seemed to be only a few inches in length. The face was wrinkled above the eyes. Its arms hung very long and the hair or fur from them was long and reminded him of the way the old western scouts looked when they wore the deerskin coats with the long fringe on their sleeves. Both of them, beast and man, stood looking at the other for an extended period of time. The distance between them seemed very small and insignificant to Charles when he looked at the size of the beast. Part of him would have been content to have just stayed there forever or at least as long as the creature didn’t make any moves in his direction. Unfortunately he was pretty sure that would not fly. Somebody had to break the spell. Charles decided to start backing away. His eyes never left the creature as he started moving backwards towards his pickup. A more awkward moment was unimaginable. Making it beyond surreal was the fact that vehicle after vehicle could be heard racing past them just dozens of feet beyond the strip of forest that separated them from being seen by the many cars and trucks on interstate five. Dean Heatherton would be the first of his employees that would be showing up soon but not quick enough. He was one of two second in commands. Dean and Charles had basically grown up together. Dean was a year behind Charles. He had worked for Pappa Happi since high school and knew the business as well or better than Charles. At that moment Charles was wishing he had let Dean bring the caps and shirts. Or at least had him along so if there was a race to get away from the big hairy creature he at least had somebody to try and outrun. He always loved that joke. “Don’t have to be faster than the bear, just have to be faster than you.” This seemed to a be one of those times when no matter what you did it would not buy the time needed. It wasn’t like he had much of a choice however. Charles thought if he made it to his pickup he would be fine. The creature took a step in his direction but did not break into a run or even do more than take the one step. Charles stayed cool and kept backing up in a slow but deliberate manner. “Easy big fella. I’m not the least bit interested in you. We just happened to come upon each other at the same time. This is awkward, I’ll give you that. But its no reason to get defensive or violent. That’s not what I am about. You don’t even see me going for my camera. That’s how uninterested in you that I am. Just stay cool and everybody goes home for dinner tonight. Sound good? I’m all-in on the idea myself.” He tried to stay as monotoned as possible. “Sorry I’m talking so much but you have me a bit nervous and I tend to talk when I am nervous. You probably don’t. That’s cool. I wish I was that way. But like I said I just talk when I’m nervous…” It snarled again. The big beast hesitated like it wasn’t sure what it wanted to do. Then it walked on in the direction it had been going and into the thin band of forest which separated Charles’ property from interstate five. Much to his surprise, Charles never saw the creature exit the thin band of forest and neither could he see it still in there. He waited until he saw Dean drive into the place before he walked over to check out the area where he had last seen the creature. Charles surveyed the area and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just a band of forest which stretched about thirty to forty feet before running into the fence which paralleled interstate five. Inside that stretch were pine trees, and some hardwoods that were very common to the area. A few scrub bushes and some tall grass finished out the lot. It was largely there just to protect the equipment from being so easily cased for theft. So where did it go? More of Charles’ employees were arriving but now his curiosity was paramount. Where the hell did it go? Several things had him in awe beyond the most obvious. If you set aside the fact that he actually saw it. And the fact of how whopping big it was! But that was exactly what had him in such disbelief. How something so big could just disappear? Where did it go? Granted it became camouflaged by the strip of forest between the dirt road and the highway just beyond. But he watched for it to come out on the other side of the strip of forest to see it cross the highway. The thing never appeared. That meant it had to stay to the strip of forest for cover. He kept his eyes close on a spot between where the animal had entered the strip of forest and where the strip rejoined the rest of the wilderness. If it wanted to escape that direction, he would see it. There were fewer trees and less scrub growing there that the creature could use for cover. It would have to cross that spot in order to have rejoined the bulk of the wilderness. In other words where the road they had recently built came to an end. It would either go that way or cross the highway. There were far too many of his employees now gathered at the north end of his property for the creature to go in that direction. Standing at an excellent point to see anything move in the strip of forest, or to attempt to cross the highway, Charles waved for Dean to join him. “What’s up?” Dean asked. “Bear I think. Yeah, most likely a bear. I’d like to make sure things are safe around here. Lets see if we can’t either chase him across the highway or back into the woods. Any place but up here where our people will be in and out.” Never taking his eyes off the strip of forest or the open area the creature would have to pass through if it chose to cross the highway, he explained to the rest of his crew that he wasn’t sure what he had seen. It could be a bear, or som ething just as big and dangerous so for them to be careful. Safety first! But to start walking through the strip starting down at the entrance to his property and come towards where he was located which was nearly at the other end of his property. He kept five men with him, while Dean led the rest down to join the others at the north end. Charles explained to his five where to watch so that if the animal made an attempt to escape the forest strip that it would likely do so crossing that particular area. Or by crossing out into the highway and going that direction. Charles never stopped to think what he was going to do with the animal if they did manage to get it cornered. Mostly it was a combination of the adrenaline that shot through his veins upon first sight of the huge hairy beast, still hanging around, effecting his judgement, and his natural curiosity. Plus he was probably in mild shock. He had been acting mostly on adrenaline driven instinct which if you are in mild shock makes perfect sense. Dean asked him later what was his ultimate goal concerning the creature and he said he just wanted or hoped that someone else would also see it so he didn’t look like a crazy person. Perhaps also to convince himself that his eyes had seen what they saw. He had about a dozen men coming up through an area which four would have sufficed. By the time they reached the end where Charles was standing there was only more questions in his mind instead of less. Okay so it wasn’t hiding in that strip of forest yet he had seen it going in and had not seen it come out. When he considered the effort to keep all the escape routes within view, it left just one big question instead of a bunch of small ones. Where did the dang thing go? It’s one thing to hear about someone having such an encounter but Charles would tell you it is another to actually see one. He said that if you said the thing was ten feet tall you would be taking away from its intimidation factor because people hear a number thrown around which they are completely inexperienced and their minds just sort of shut-off. Like when your average Joe hears numbers thrown around about government spending which is in the trillions of dollars. He can’t wrap his mind around that sort of number. It’s too big and completely unreasonable. Asking to really understand such numbers is nearly impossible because how many pickup trucks would that be? Or cows? or Dominos pizzas? And see when you give an answer which has a word for it such as a billion pizzas, or cows etc. The man still cannot wrap his mind around it. Its too big. So he just says okay and acts like he gets it. But he really cannot comprehend. Most men have trouble visualizing a million of something. When you’re talking height, ten feet or nearly three meters, it is speaking Chinese. You hear ten feet tall and maybe you visualize a basketball rim. But few people can actually visualize the intimidating size of muscles married to something of that stature. People hear the statement about the creature’s odor and they imagine a wet dog. This is something so much more wild, so much more offensive. So much more dangerous. It is an odor and size which offend the imagination and senses of a human being. Encountering a creature that has so much power the muscles mimic the muscles found on the legs of horses, that smells like Satan himself has rose up through the murkiest of swamps, sets a man back. He wants to know what he saw was real. He wants other men to see it too, so they can compare notes and he can be proven correct. That this was a creature beyond the ordinary. That he didn’t imagine seeing it. He wants proof he saw it and the best proof beside flesh and bone is other people also seeing it. Pictures can be altered. The word of a credible eyewitness is gold in this sort of case. In the end the only eyewitness was Charles. The way it worked out he ended up looking rather foolish and he wished he’d never mentioned to anybody about what he saw. The only saving grace was also the biggest supplier of ammunition against him. When he told the crew it was something large like a bear, it bought him a way out by claiming it might be a bear but at the same time his not claiming it WAS a bear left him open to ridicule about did he see a bigfoot? At that point he was practically hoping they didn’t find any footprints. The men would have had a laugh to last the ages if they’d have found a bigfoot print that day. It completely reminded him of the last time he went to a party seeking female companionship. A pair of cute girls asked him if he brought his wife to help fill the job of adult chaperone? Avoiding the opportunity to reply he just smiled and nodded and then slipped off to find his vehicle and went home. A couple days worth of razzing and the whole thing was forgotten. That is, until the day it happened again. Almost in the same fashion. The only difference was that in the amount of days that had passed, the dirt road was becoming a paved one. It was common practice to bring back any unused asphalt and they would dump it out on the dirt road eventually making it a paved road . Once they had enough leftovers. They started out paving from the entrance and then moving back, as opposed to doing it other way. It allowed for parking out of the mud on rainy days so that the cars didn’t have to drive through the muddy road however it did mean if you parked at the entrance you had to walk back to the main office building. That was what Charles had done that day it happened again. It was probably a month later than the first time it happened. It was a rainy morning so much he had done on that first fateful day, he had parked by the entrance of the property and was walking up the road which turned from paved asphalt to dirt about a third the way to the office building.. Once again from between two of the dump trucks came the creature. Charles was slightly closer to it than the time before. Immediately he noticed it had a deer in its over-sized hand. The deer’s head swung loosely from one side to the other. A clear sign the animal had its neck broken. It was not lost on Charles how much stronger a deer’s neck was than his own. No matter if it was completely known to be tame and non-harmful to humans, something with such powerful muscles would be intimidating. Much the same as when you are in the presence of a horse. You just are aware of its mighty potential. Imagine facing the backside of a horse. Knowing that it could not only kick you with those massive hind quarters, but in this case it could also grab you and squeeze you. Or it might decide to throw you. Or perhaps just choose to pummel you in a relentless fit of anger. Imagine what a bloody sack of broken bones your body would be after getting jack hammered by the back legs of a horse. Charles was no fool and he thought about it plenty. He once again began talking to the creature in his best monotone, soothing voice. “Hello again big fella. We just keep running into each other don’t we? You might recall that nothing happened to you last time. Nothing happened to me either. I’d like to see this day go the same way. Sound good to you buddy? I’m just going to stay out of your way and let you go about your day. I hope it is a good one.” The big ape sniffed the air, then grunted, still looking at him. Next it turned and ran into the same area as before. Once again he lost sight of it almost immediately despite promising himself if he had to run into the brush with it to keep it in sight, that was what he would do. But he failed at the effort. It bothered him so much he didn’t go to work the next day, leaving the operation in the hands of his foreman and the delegation of power that filtered down from that position. The day after that however Charles was back out at the location at the same time. Once again he arrived to the coolness of the ultra-early morning air being brisk for a brief period before the sun would climb high enough to erase any coolness the night had provided. Replacing the morning cool with mid-morning stagnation which was just a stepping stone away from full-on uncomfortable heat. That was hours away however. Right now it was still a cool reminder that there would be comfortable times to come again. Charles opened up his quick-n-go coffee and allowed the steam to rise. He stopped at the spot where the beast had appeared and looked towards the spot where it had disappeared. Then he noticed something he hadn’t seen before. Standing in the spot he was at, the sunlight was filtering through the leaves and pine needles down onto the trunk of one of the trees creating a diamond shape that had a half circle under it which was clearly visible on the tree trunk. He stood looking at it. It was so defined it was hard to believe it was a natural occurrence. He sat looking at the … (symbol?) odd occurrence and sipped his coffee. Eventually the men showed up which focused his attention on work. It was a usual day and it passed without incident. Sitting in his office at the end of the day and looking out the window, Charles got a crazy notion. It wouldn’t leave his mind and let hi m think about anything else so finally he gave an audible sigh for the benefit of anybody or anything watching and started walking toward the two trees where he had seen the creature disappear and upon one of their trunks had seen the diamond with the half circle under it. Charles waded through the tall weeds and around the trees blocking him from seeing what he wanted to view. He got to the two trees and walked past them to their other side and was shocked, even though that was what he had went to see if it was there, to view a diamond with a half circle under it. It wasn’t on the two tree trunks he had expected though. Then like a slap in the face he realized why it wasn’t on the two tree trunks. They didn’t get enough shade. The symbol, that was what he decided to term it, was created by filtering down through the shade provided by the tree canopy above. There simply wasn’t enough shade in the right position to make that symbol on those tree trunks. The symbol was further into the forest. It showed up on one of the tree trunks which was closer to his side of the forest strip that was between his property and the interstate. He stayed looking at the symbol made from the sunlight that filtered through the trees; for some time. Then he went home hardly noticing the drive. His mind was on what he had discovered. Could it really be some sort of symbol or sign? If it was then what was the symbol denoting? Approaching it from a standpoint if it was a symbol then the first thing obvious was that it didn’t appear for very long before the angle of the sun made it disappear. The two symbols though not visible at the same time, lined up in a east-west manner. Something that he bel ieved was important to Stonehenge, and several other ancient relics that were determined to have been created to serve an unknown purpose concerning the alignment of the solar … solar something. It had to do with the alignment of stars. If he remembered correctly. Whether that was important in this matter he wasn’t sure and could see no connection other than they both were aligned in an east-west mann er. Apparently though the ancient relics like Stonehenge were no longer functioning, it didn’t mean his discovery was not still being used. To do what? Charles thought he was on to something. If it proved to be anything at all it could be one of the biggest discoveries in the history of mankind. That was a mind-boggling thought. But if those were symbols, or signs, that were created by nature to designate … what? Anyway whatever it is they are hiding if he could find out it would possibly be some of the biggest news to ever be made known to man. Or it could just be a magnificent coincidence but something told him it was more than that and somehow that big beast was involved. Charles arrived back at his apartment and ate his supper alone like he did every night. A lot closer to forty (forty-one actual ly) than to thirty-five, he had pretty much given up on the idea of a wife and two point four kids. Joining the rest of the world and finding a partner and having offspring just seemed like a highway which had c ome upon him and then passed before he had time to react. Like when you come into a new city on a highway, say highway fifty, and there will ultimately be a sign stating “business fifty” which takes you into the downtown part of the city. eventually it hooks back up with the interstate. He felt he had missed his exit to visit the downtown part of the city. That was okay, not planned, but he always went with the flow and that is how things ended up. Usually this was something he examined every night while eating alone. That was after all, the one guarantee when yo u had his secret. You’d spend plenty of time eating and being alone. Other evenings he spent occupying his mind with paper work from his business. Plus there were nights he had to spend time talking with either potential customers or the occasional unhappy camper for whatever specific reason. None of that happened this night. His mind was on one track. What did the sy mbol denote? He grabbed a beer out of the fridge and sat down to an episode of the Simpsons but he never really watched the show close enough to even be able to guess whether Homer had made an appearance? There was too much to think about going on in his life. Approaching the matter from a purely practical angle, if it was a sign or symbol it was one which was only purposeful during the brief time the symbol would be visible. That being sunny days for about an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. After that the angle of the sun b ecame too high or too low to create the symbol. What sort of entity was behind the ability to create that symbol? It seemed to be created by the use of the leaves on the trees, filtering the light so only the symbol was allowed to reach the tree trunk on which the symbol showed. Now lets approach it from the point of view of the beast. Visible only for an hour in the morning, the beast arrives at the same time the symbol is viewable. The beast is drawn to it? Or has reason to go to it anyway. What happens to the beast when it gets near that area? It disappears. Obviously it isn’t harmed since I have seen it after it disappeared. Obviously it did not find the experience so unpleasant that it would choose to not have it happen again or else the big hairy critter would not have returned to the scene of the crime, so to speak. If it is disappearing and then a month later it is seen again, probably doing the same thing, which is disappearing, then maybe it isn’t disappearing at all. It could be hiding. Yet they looked through the area thoroughly so unless it was capable of becoming invisible then it was not hiding. Maybe it is exiting. Maybe it is exiting this world and entering another one. Charles hesitated a second thinking to himself this is some bat-shit-crazy thinking. Yet he could not get away from it. The mystery was too great. The player, too mysterious. But what were the stakes? Perhaps more important than the stakes would be knowing the rules sothe stakes were never at risk. This was just one of the many things going through his mind. Obviously he had already passed the line of whether to cross into the other world if he was able to somehow figure out how to do it. It stood to reason that there would be no rip in the time/space connection. Or no life-ending earthquake or tornado to happen. Nothing of any significance was likely to happen at least in the near future. Otherwise they would have experienced it when the creature crossed over. What was he likely to see or run into if he found a way into the other world? The were endless as they were frightening as they were invigorating. What if there was no way for him to get back? Sure the creature, assuming it was the same one, had crossed back and forth. Didn’t mean he would be able. Maybe it was a one way type of thing and the way back into this world is located somewhere else. In answer to the question of whether it was the same creature, he felt pretty certain that it was. It had the same height. Same colored fur, or hair. And as crazy as it seemed, he thought he felt recognition from … and for, the creature. Charles went through his usual routine before climbing into bed. He brushed his teeth, swallowed a couple of vitamins and poured himself a glass of juice. Before sleep there was one last thought that crept into his mind. He didn’t necessarily have to go into the other place. They made robots and drones which he could send in. Whether it would be capable of sending back any video would be another question? Then there was the possibility if a signal didn’t make the trip back to this world then they could always try using a land-line cable. This was all theory of course. First thing he had to do was find the doorway. The next couple of weeks Charles had an idea. He put a trail camera watching over the property and another aimed directly at the location of the tree trunks where the creature had last been seen before it wasn’t there any longer. He thought that if there was going to be any further clues to this mystery that they would be provided by the trail cameras. Purposefully the property was not occupied until the usual time everyone was suppose to arrive for work. Religiously the trail cameras were checked for any activity. The third week they had been u p, a reward of sorts was provided. The camera definitely showed there had been activity but when the footage was checked it was only partially helpful. It showed the creature had been there again. This time it was carrying a dead coyote. It came into view from the same direction as every encounter had happened. The big ape-like animal came out from between the parked dump trucks. It crossed the dirt road and entered into the strip of forest between the dirt road and the interstate. That was where things got weird. Up until seeing the camera footage Charles had thought the creature was getting into the forest and was disappearing due to its ability to camouflage. According to the the creature disappeared from sight almost as soon as it stepped off the dirt road and into the strip of forest. That prompted an experiment. Charles had set the trail cams back into use after retrieving their cards. He replaced them with new empty cards and took the old ones home to be viewed. When he got into work that morning he immediately followed the same path the creature had followed. The symbol was still up so he figured the doorway was still up as well (assuming it existed). He entered into the strip and walked over to the two tree trunks which the one had the diamond with the half circle under it. Charles walked around the area for a while and then went to the trail cams and replaced their cards with new ones so he could view his experiment. The cam video showed him enter into the strip of forest. Immediately he disappeared from view just as the creature had done. The trail cam he had aimed directly at the two tree trunks showed no activity around them. So there was something blocking the camera’s ability to see into that area. Charles had some paperwork to do so he hung around the office and at noon he tried the same experiment again and this time he could see himself walk all through the strip and come out without any blurry or missing footage. He returned to his office and spent the afternoon staring out his window at that strip of forest. What was going on? This seemed to be beyond any sort of normal suspicious activity based soley on the player involved. Not too mention the weird way the camera is acting at certain times of the day. Namely in the morning. He was going to perform the experiment again in the late afternoon when the symbol was again created only this time it showed up on a tree trunk closer to the dirt road than the interstate. When the symbol was visible, he could not see himself in the cameras while in that specific area. Charles thought about contacting the authorities. Every time someone found something of value or extreme interest if they got the government involved it almost certainly meant they were pushed out of the picture. He had heard of people getting their houses smashed by meteorites, which they should have made bank, instead the meteorite was taken and the people got nothing. He heard about treasure hunters finding treasure and if they were dumb enough to let whatever government that was in charge of that area, know about the finding, the treasure hunter ultimately got screwed. He didn’t know if this was going to result in some sort of treasure but while that would be awesome, whether there was treasure involved or not he wanted to see this through to the end. He was single at an age where he was unlikely to end up with a family. He had a nice business but that was the extent of his claim to any fame. This might be his only shot at something bigger than just himself. If he was going to pursue this on his own he would have to let somebody in on the secret or risk being lost in the other world with nobody aware where he was or where to start looking for him. And it wasn’t likely they would find him without having been made aware of the other world. Of course that was assuming there was another world. It was the most logical conclusion to the riddle though. He couldn’t imagine it being anything else although it could just be a wormhole that spits you out somewhere else in this world. Like maybe China or Australia. They see those things in those places too. Maybe they are the same animals that are moving great distances using these portals. It might have been different if there were any sort of cave or deep hole or something that the creature could have physically disappeared into but that was not the case. The only thing even close to an exit which the creature could have left would have been that hole by the two tree trunks but it wasn’t big enough to fit a small kid down into for very far. Unless when you got to the bottom it opened up and let you through. That was his next planned move. To get something with a camera on it that he could send down into that hole. Maybe when the camera got to the bottom it would open up like he had imagined. Days passed and Charles saw nothing on the cameras to indicate the creature had been back. The symbols were still appearing like , as long as the sun was shining that day. Finally he concluded that nothing was going to further the investigation unless he tried a camera down the hole. The camera arrived on time and looked to be what he needed to do the job. Charles waited until the symbol was lit on the side of the tree trunk and sent down the camera. It was not a wireless camera. Logic suggested that a signal from the other side would not likely make the journey back to this side but a wire might. He took the camera and lowered it into the hole and the rig held up. The camera didn’t magically lower into another realm. It just reached the bottom of the hole and came back up muddy. A complete bust of time and money. He returned to his office and stayed there all day. He was there to watch the last employee pull out of the driveway. Left alone, he walked back out to the hole and stood over it. There was down there. Whatever the creature had done to disappear that day, had to have been something different than what he had tried up until now. A walk around the two trees revealed nothing new. Then he noticed a few hairs stuck on one of the tree trunks about eight feet off the ground. The way the two trees interacted with each other was that one tree trunk angled toward the sky while the other jutted straight upwards. They within a foot of each other at that height of eight to eight and half feet above the ground. As tall as the creature was, he didn’t think it was tall enough for those hairs to have come from it without the creature having climbed up the tree trunk at least a few feet. He climbed the tree trunk to get up to where the pieces of fur were caught in the tree’s bark just to see what the advantage might reveal. Then he discovered the key that opened the doorway to something which would leave him a changed man from that day on. He would never be the same. If you have ever been lucky enough to become privy to knowledge the rest of the world is unaware, and didn’t find a way to turn that into some spending money then you didn’t deserve to be in on the secret. was how Charles looked at things. He wasn’t going to be dumb enough to turn what he had learned over to the authorities either because they would have taken his land from him, shown him the door and told him if he came back he’d be jailed or shot. Screw that! It is too bad that a citizen cannot go to their government with such a discovery and expect to be treated fairly about any wealth to be profited from the gain. To be kept in on the loop no matter how big the finding turned out to be. Such a government could expect blind loyalty from their people but this is the real world. Instead of proclaiming loud and proud so that the situation could be approached in a sensible matter instead it forces people to do what Charles decided to do. Keep his mouth shut until he had time to find out on his own. Nobody would have ever discovered the secret if not for him. Hell he was amazed that he had followed up on the matter. Who would have ever discovered that the leaning tree trunk wasn’t a tree trunk at all. It was a limb. A limb to the biggest tree he had ever seen and that he suspected the rest of the world had ever seen either. Perhaps better said, not seen. Only from the vantage point of being up in the tree could a person have realized they were standing in the top of a tree that was taller than any ever seen in the world. He could tell that much just from the vantage point of looking down. (Only later would he discover that wasn’t the top of the tree). From where he could look down into the other place, was it a world? He didn’t know. It could have been just some weird sort of deep cavern, and by deep he did mean deep. One where trees like that big redwood had their seed take root and grow all those thousands, maybe millions of years until one of them had a limb poke through the ground way above make it appear like it was a tree trunk coming out of the ground. But why you couldn’t see down into the cavern from anywhere but up in the limb didn’t make sense? Plus he could see down in there like light was getting in there so how was the light getting down there? It was too much for him to handle at one time. He let himself down out of the tree (limb) back onto solid ground. The first thing he did was to walk around to where the giant tree trunk came out of the ground looking for a way into the other world, and yet there was nothing. He had to think about this. He left the place with his mind going about a thousand miles a second. The biggest question racing through his mind was where or what was he going to see if he climbed down the tree? Was he climbing down into another part of this world? Ifso why the mystery? Why would the cameras work some of the time and not the rest of the time? And what about the symbols which clearly now he knew they were a small difference between their function and the function of the exit sign found in any school in any of the fifty states. Probably the most recognized sign in the world albeit often denoted in different languages we all know an exit sign when we see it. No, it was not just another part of this world. It was possible it was a doorway leading to another part of this world. But it wasn’t just like a hidden valley or some place you can only reach by going through a cave to the other side of the mountain. There wouldn’t be a symbol announcing the way there. He was just sure this was something more special than even a hidden valley or unexplored cavern. Sure he had never thought he would find the doorway. Now that he had, it was much more than he had imagined. Yes he could send a camera into the place and most likely even use a wireless drone to check out the place. Assuming radio signals worked on the other side. It would be great if they did because there was reason for concern about what he was likely to encounter while over there. The fact that the creature had been carrying prey with it in the direction of it going back to the other world would infer one of two things. Either the food supply over there was very short, or the creature he had seen was not big enough to be doing its hunting on the other side. That was a terribly sobering thought since he was dwarfed by the creature. When he thought about how big that tree was and the trees surrounding it; it lent weight to the possibility that the reason the big hairy creature was hunting over here was because over there everything was gigantic. There were so many angles to be considered about this. Here he was worrying about gigantic creatures when it quite likely might be the ones he couldn’t see that would kill him. If he went over to the other world there would likely be stuff he would not be immune to; and vice-versa. He could unknowingly bring some virus or bug with him to that world and it end up killing much of what was over there. Or him catch something that kills him. Then there was the question of whether he could even drink the water or breath the air on that side? Sure all indications would suggest he could, based on the fact the creature was over here and obviously it ate food from this side so it was likely that it also drank water here. How far down was it to the ground if he did go over there? He hadn’t been able to see the ground from the vantage point. The tree was that tall. He thought he would perhaps need to literally camp out and sleep before going further … down the tree. It wasn’t the only tree that big either. There looked to be a lot of them from what he could see from the vantage point. It allowed him to look downwards and slightly to the left and right which is how he knew there were more trees of similar height. He saw them. Then he had another revelation. When he had been looking down into the other … place, the sunlight was coming from a direct opposite direction than the sunlight was coming from this world. Perhaps it was unimportant and perhaps it could be. Who knew? Just another observation. He figured everything, every bit of info he could gather would possibly be important. He made notes of it all. Every day from the time he discovered the doorway, Charles would climb the tree limb that looked like a trunk, and when he reached the vantage point he could look down into the other world and gather in as much info as possible. The vantage point was not really much of a vantage point but it was of course the only known doorway to the other world. If you looked down it into the other world it was like if you were in a bird’s nest in the really tall trees, and you looked over their edge. All that can really be seen is the limbs of the tree you are in and the limbs of the surrounding trees. The light which was provided seemed to mimic the light in this world with the exception that when the sun was coming up here it seemed to be coming from the opposite direction in the other world. Which gave weight to the idea that perhaps the sun was setting over there when it was rising here, and vice-versa. It was true there wasn’t a lot you could learn looking down into the other world but one thing that seemed to be true was there was no wind. At least not enough to have ever caused the limbs on the trees surrounding to have moved. it was more than that though. He felt like he could feel the stagnation in the air. A little bit like the air you would encounter as a little kid when you climbed under an upside down above ground pool. Or under a boat that had been turned over to keep the rain from collecting inside it. It had a dead feel to it. Stagnant was the one word he would use to describe it. It didn’t fit the other world. Charles associated that stale, stagnant atmosphere with enclosed small areas. Although not a preferred choice, he could do stagnant and stale as long as there was enough oxygen involved. A family member had invited him to their wedding which he couldn’t get out of without raising a lot more questions than he wanted to handle so he dutifully left home and drove to southern California for a three day stay. Before leaving the two trail cameras were set. He just wanted to know if the creature used the doorway while he was gone. When he returned near the end of the week the cameras showed activity. The creature had used the doorway. The evidence would lead you to believe it used the doorway. The way the camera was blocked from being able to see what was going on near the tree trunks aka the doorway there was no way to be sure. Then he was surprised to see something dash into view and then out almost so quickly it would surely have went unnoticed if he had been looking away for even half a second, but that was not the case. The video had to be slowed down to slow motion speed to even get an idea of what it was that had raced past. He was shocked to see a small person, couldn’t have been a short meter in height, dressed like what you would expect to see a gnome wearing, slow-motion running across the view of the trail camera. He had a long beard, red pointy hat and red overalls. His shirt was a dull yellow that might have been an off-white at one time. It was too hard to tell from the bit of video provided. The gnome had exited the doorway area just after the creature. Charles was left wondering if there was a connection between the two? Or for that matter was there a connection between the doorway and the little man? Well he already knew the answer to that question. Of course there was. The gnome was too short to be a midget. Little person, whatever they were using as the term these days. The gnome had a body that was completely in proportion. It was just a very small version of an old man wearing a pointy red hat and a long beard. The bigger reason he knew the gnome came from the other place was the speed at which he was moving. There were no full-size men that could move that fast in this world, so speedy must have come from the other place. He stayed in the office all that day watching the footage and then at lunch he walked out to the tree trunks but stayed on the ground and ate his sandwich. When the day came to its end he waited as the last employee left the driveway. Then he walked over to the tree trunks and climbed the limb that only looked like it was a tree trunk. When he reached the vantage point he shinnied back down the limb to the ground and went to his office. A few minutes later he returned with a long length of rope. The climb back up to the vantage point allowed time to consider what he was thinking about doing. He’d only go down in a few feet. Just down to that next branch. The view should be more revealing and even if it wasn’t that didn’t really matter. What would be important this time would be if he could get back to the other side? He tied the rope off around the trunk of the tree which was growing and rooted in his world, and allowed the rope to fall down into the other world. He tugged on the rope to make sure it was going to hold his weight and then just before dropping down he heard a voice come from above, which almost caused him to lose his balance on the limb he was standing on and to fall down into the other world. He used the rope to catch himself and after righted he said, ‘Excuse me. Did someone say something?”. He had no idea who or even to where he was speaking. That didn’t stop a voice from answering. “I said I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Not unless you want to get mad sick. Might even kill you.” “Who said that? Where are you? I don’t see you down there.” Cha rles replied. “I said it. And I’m not down there.” Charles looked up and was shocked to see the gnome. “How did you get up there? You weren’t there when I climbed up. I would have noticed.” “Aye, you’re a sharp point. Is that what you be saying? If that be true, how come you don’t know b etter than to cross over without protection?” The gnome produced a little corn cob pipe and placed it in his mouth and when he pulled on it the thing began to smoke. “Who are you?” Charles asked. “Aye, so you don’t know your savior when you see ’em do ya, sharpie?” The gnome pointed at him accusingly. “You’d be climbing back up your rope about now all infected and feeling itchy and thirsty the minute you cleared the cross-over. You’d have driven home hardly able to stand not having something to drink. Only you’d be sorry after you had your fill because you can’t get it out of you. And that’s how you die. You live as long as you don’t drink b ut you are constantly thirsty. Tis a nasty way to die. That’s why I came to warn ya. I’d rather you die by my hand, quick and almost painless, than see you die so badly.” “Am I suppose to believe you because you’re a little … person?” Charles had already decided he was going to postpone his trip into the other world. The little man certainly had scared him away of any thought about that now. But he had a means of knowledge about the most fantastic discovery in the history of human kind. One which apparently had already saved his life. “You can’t tell anyone about this either.” The gnome said, while puffing away on his corn cob pipe. “If you do, you won’t be around to see what comes of it.” “Is that a threat?” Charles asked, now becoming defensive. “Just a fact.” The gnome replied. He banged his corn cob pipe against the tree though nothing fell out. “I can find you anywhere. Anytime. Its what I do. … The occasions such things are necessary. Why do you think I am here?” “I don’t know why.” Charles said, as intrigued as he was annoyed. “Stop talking in circles. Get to the point.” “I thought I was. Let me put it another way. If you bring a bunch of people down here and try and show them what you have found: they won’t be able to see it, nor you. When the doorway closes, it takes those in its know. It is and has always been.” “What is the purpose?” Charles asked. “Purpose? There is no purpose. It exists. Same as this world. What is the purpose of this world?” The gnome asked with sincerity in his eyes. “I don’t know. None of us know. It is the greatest question we all strive to know.” Charles said. “It never crossed anyone’s mind that maybe there is no purpose? Or t hat the purpose is above your ability to understand? Charles laughed. “You haven’ t spent a lot of time here have you?” “I prefer the other side.” “If you had you would have known by now that the humans on this side at least, are completely arrogant. Not all humans understand. But there are enough and they have allies. Their allies are fueled by greed for power and they will do anything or risk anything including all that they know, to get it. As such they fund excursions to unexplored places, such as your world. They also fund scientific experiments to try things never before tried. Even if it could result in something happening so terrible it is unimaginable.” “Sound like very sick creatures. Why are they allowed to exist?” Charles sighed. “It is complicated. Those that do the most harm are hidden behind entities which were created to do that very thing. So they are very good at it. I know your next question will be why do we, the rest of us, allow this to happen? The answer to that is because it was out of our hands. Once power was attained, those with it did not want to give it up. So they made deals and accepted money from powerful entities in return for using their power to make certain humans much wealthier than others. That made it possible for the rich to give even more money to those in power and it has become an circle that every time it comes back around it takes a little more from those that cannot afford to give it. It is a perverted world that shows no sign of change.” “You crossing over and not coming back? You’re not bringing much if you are.” “Lets not glaze over the threat. What did you mean the door would take me with it when it closes?” Charles asked. “It won’t allow you to share its secret. Not even about the symbol. I will be the one sent. Or if not me, then another me. You will likely be sleeping, but no matter because you won’t see it coming. We’re too fast. Aye. Would not be a happy day for either of us. We don’t like the work. But if we want to keep the speed then we have to obey.” The gnome turned his head towards the interstate as an eighteen-wheeler hit the horn as it passed just beyond the cover of the trees. The sun was getting closer to dropping out of sight completely. “Can you imagine how long I would stay alive without my speed while in a world short on food that has creatures like the one you saw?” Charles thought for a few seconds and asked, “So how do you get across using as you put it: protection. What does that mean? What am I needing protection from?” “There’s a bad lot that hang around the doorway. They attach themselves to whatever comes through. The only way I know of to cross over safely is if you go right after one of the big apes. They take the bulk of the batch, so to speak. They reproduce quickly though so you must pass very close to the time the big apes get through.” “You said I would get sick. Are you talking about germs? Are there germs that would make a person sick but the big ape gets them first and it is safe until more of the germs are there. I bet that is what you are talking about.” Charles felt sure but what if he was wrong? Then he had an idea. “So any living creature these things would attach themselves and make that living creature sick? “Twood need to be a hearty soul to avoid the sourness I think.” The gnome replied. “And when I do pass through it stinks so badly from the ape that I have to hold my breath the entire time.” “Let me ask this. Is there going to be any sort of trouble with the powers that be: if I were to lower a mouse down through the doorway to see if it survived the germs?” Charles still didn’t know whether to believe the little man about all he had claimed. What he did know was that he had seen how fast the gnome could go, which was just short of lightning. If the gnome wanted to kill him there was little he could do about stopping him. So for that matter alone, he thought, he should inquire about the rules. “Why would you want to do that?” The gnome asked, genuinely interested. “You don’t know about germs do you? I mean, you do, but you don ‘t. Germs can be avoided if you wear the right kind of clothing. If you are careful not to breath them in. Some can enter through the skin others need to enter the body through the nasal canal. The thing is, is that I don’t know for sure that what you are talking about are germs. But it sounds right. What I would like to do is to send down a mouse inside the same kind of outfit I would wear, and then if the mouse survived then odds are good that i would survive. Do you understand?” “I think it is you who doesn’t understand. The things that make you sick, you can’t see them.” “Actually I do understand. At least that part. But I want to make sure. So would it piss anybody off if I were to do that?” Charles asked again. “Aye my friend. You can do that. I’ll take responsibility for that much. But I have to warn you that I won’t be responsible for more than that.” Charles nodded he understood. “So I have many more questions to ask you. So many I am not sure I know which ones to ask first. Based on you have said in passing, to my understanding, is that you, or someone like you, would be sent to kill any human who had stumbled upon the doorway and then tried to bring attention to it. Is that right so far?” “Aye. Close enough.” “But I’m okay if I don’t tell anybody. Why is that? “I don’t pretend to know boy. I gu ess none of us know the whole story about everyth ing. I’m as much a slave to my circumstance as you are to yours. If you want to know my opinion I suspect who or what is in charge of things simply doesn’t appreciate the taking of life if it isn’t necessary. But at the same time trust me on this lad, the worst case scenario has happened every time I have been involved. Tis why i don’t hold much hope for you. Don’t ya see lad? If you were smart you would walk away from this right now. Forget you ever found it. Aye but ya won’t. The only thing you humans can’t stand more than anything else is not being able to tell everyone what it is that makes you so special. What’s funny about that is .. if it isn’t you that is special you are willing to happily settle for being the one to know about that special thing .. . a little sooner than the next guy. Like that somehow makes you special” The gnome shook his head. “Will be surprise of great size if you prove to be different.” “I’ll follow the rules but I’m not ready to just walk away from it.” Charles said, and then he climbed down to the ground and looked back up at the gnome. “I guess you will be around huh?” The gnome nodded. “Don’t you forget what i told ya about not bringing this to the attention of others. Twood be a grave mistake to not heed my warning. Proof of my sincerity would be the fact I have made myself seen. As far as I am concerned, I have already killed you. It just hasn’t physically happened yet. Again, not that it is my desire, just that it is my experience you humans cannot keep a secret. Even when it is your life at stake. Not if the secret is big enough.” Charles nodded back. That was about the only thing he felt he knew for sure about. “Understand, I’m a single man that has seen his time pass. I’m not so old I can’t still have an adventure though. This is the thing I have been seeking to fill the empty hole in my life. At least for now. Believe me I can keep a secret. And I have no desire to be special because I know about a special place sooner than anybody else. If I had any plans of telling anybody about this place I would have already done it. Believe me I considered it greatly.” “Lucky for you, that you chose not too.” “What you don’t understand and apparently t he powers that be: for lack of better description, is that if I told anybody about my discovery it would be taken away from me immediately. That is the government we are forced to endure because people don’t care enough to invest the kind of time necessary to prevent such abuse of power.” He spit and continued. “Governments are necessary evils which must be constantly watched and called when they try to pass their inevitable play to gain more power and mon ey. My country’s people have failed grandly at that endeavor. The worst thing about it all is they have been too ignorant of paying attention to the past because it has alway s taught us that governments always abuse their power and that abuse has so far always resulted in the downfall of that civilization. It will in the states too. Already the discontent between the red and the blue is reaching a point of impasse. As that becomes more apparent the unrest will cause those in power to try and cut back on freedoms which are already far too curbed. Probably the greates t threat to the US is not those beyond its borders but rather those within them. Chapter He would need three mice. A control. One to go into the doorway with no protection. The last to go into the doorway in an air-tight container which he would pull back out before the mouse had time to die. At least from lack of oxygen. Charles stopped in at the pet store and purchased three mice. He went home and had a nice meal and then fell into a dreamless slumber. The next thing he knew the alarm was going off. It was time to go to work. He would get the men off to their jobs and then see if the doorway was still open. It was a beautiful weekday morning but Charles hardly noticed. His mind was on the experiment. So say the mouse did come back unharmed? What was his next move to be? He supposed it wouldn’t hurt anything to just go down and have a look around. Wear a hazmat suit. Should be okay. He thought he might bring a covid mask to wear while on the other side. He had some laying around, might as well be safe. On the drive to the office Charles stopped and got his morning coffee at the quick-n-go. When he arrived he pulled the pickup all the way to the end of the road where his office sat. He went inside and did some paperwork all the while keeping an eye on the other end of the property to see when the last driver was pulling out. When there was just him remaining, he neatly stacked his papers that were on the desk, and started to head out for the cross-over doorway. He stopped at his pickup and retrieved the three mice. They were in a box he had made from some scrap plywood. He grabbed one of the mice and tied a piece of string to its leg. Then he walked over to where the doorway was located and climbed the tree limb that appeared in this world to be a tree trunk but in the other world was actually nearer the top of the tree than the bottom. For some crazy reason you couldn’t see the doorway from the ground. But if you climbed the tree trunk (limb) you could then see down into another world. Charles produced the first mouse and dropped it into a Tupperware container and lowered it down into the doorway. He dangled it there for a few seconds bobbing it like a tea bag. Then he pulled the Tupperware back up and using gloves he opened the container up and allowed the mouse back into the box from which it had come. Then he grabbed the mouse with the string tied to its leg and dangled it down into the doorway. It was dead before he could pull it back up so he just let the string and dead mouse fall into the depths of the other world. “Did you find out what twas you were wantin’ to know, sharpie?” It was the gnome. “My name is Charles. And yes, I did. I can enter the other world without the use of the apes, which should prove to be a lot, lot easier than having to hang around waiting for an ape to cross over.” “Aye you’re a sharpie all right. full of sharpies. Best remember what I said. Don’t bring attention to the doorway or there will be severe consequences. I like you. That’s why I am bothering to say anything at all. But I can’t make you listen. I can’t make you heed. But I can make you bleed. Don’t put me in such circumstance.” Charles nodded. “So what are you’re plans for the near future mr sharpie?” Charles replied, “ going down into t he other world this evening after everybody else has left to go ho me.” He turned and headed for his pickup. He had some supplies to gather. The day was passed purchasing a haz-mat suit, the gloves , overshoes, the whole kit. It was quite possible all he had to do was to hold his breath while passing through the doorway but there was no sense in taking chances. Just in case the disease was contracted through the skin or eyes. He also bought ammunition for his rifle and pistol. Both took the nine mil bullet. There were just too many benefits to having a rifle that could shoot the same shells as a pistol for him to pass up. He had a CZ Scorpion EVO 3 S1 Carbine Semi-Automatic Rifle and a Glock pistol. The rifle actually fit into his backpack. He also packed two hundred rounds of ammunition, a canteen, duct tape, some fishing line, hooks and a couple of jigs, a four ounce container holding a mixture of gasoline and diesel fuel, three separate small boxes of matches wrapped individually in plastic, two Bic lighters, small medical kit, four M-80 fireworks from (said to each be equal to a sixth of a stick of dynamite) which he had never needed to use but he kept them as a discouraging agent towards bears because they were so loud and powerful. A Bowie knife, a small auto-open knife, a flash light which came with a solar charger. An ultra-thin rain coat. An extra pair of socks and a roll of toilet paper. Also tucked away were a few bags of tea and some salt and pepper packets. He bought an additional six hundred rounds of ammunition which he stored in the office safe along with a small bag of those Mexican M-80s. Also stored away was a bag of pot and a smaller bag of cocaine. Leftovers from his party days. He kept the pot because he still smoked once in a while and the coke, well he just couldn’t bring himself to throw it away yet he was pretty sure if he did any more his heart would explode just out of spite for having managed to survive those days and then be stupid enough to start them up again. it had been twenty years and he still had the occasional dream about it and he woke up missing it every time. He was in his office and before he locked up he sat down at his desk and took out a piece of paper. Sitting at the desk in the writing position, Charles hesitated and then started writing in his own hand a note that explained everything that he had experienced and what he was getting ready to do. It went into great detail how to find the doorway and it also explained everything that had happened concerning the gnome. The video of the bigfoot with the footage of the gnome was left on his desk and the note explaining everything was sealed into an envelope and he jotted on the outside of the envelope: “In case something happens to me or I end up missing.” Then he left the envelope and a copy of the video with bigfoot and the gnome sitting on his desk. In the back of his mind he kept hearing what the gnome had warned him. In the end though he felt that leaving a note explaining things was his better insurance than to heed the gnome’s words. After all, as long as he got back nobody would find out and it would be a mute point. On the way out he glanced at the fridge he kept in his office and then opened it up and grabbed two cokes from there. He thought to himself jokingly, better get your last chance at a coke while its there to be had. At the trees trunks the gnome sat waiting up in the limbs. Charles strode up and asked the gnome if he wanted a coke. Of course he had seen the advertising and the empty cans laying about but the gnome had never tasted coke. He was quite taken with it so Charles mentioned he was welcome to all he wanted. Just make sure to keep the door shut so the racoons didnt get into the office and tear things up. Everything he needed was packed into his backpack except sleeping gear, since he fully expected to be back on this side before sleep ever entered the picture. Charles waited for his last employee to leave and then grabbed his backpack, complete with his semi-auto nine mil rifle packed in it, and flung it around onto his back. He checked to make sure his side arm was present and proceeded to give this world one last good look before entering into the next world. When he returned his attention to the gnome he was almost sent into shock because standing there on the ground below the gnome was a bigfoot. Charles let out an audible gasp and took two steps back while putting his hand on the pistol. Then seeing that the creature was not doing anything, especially nothing of a violent or threatening manner, he visibly relaxed and said to the gnome while never taking his eyes off of bigfoot, “He with you?” The gnome replied instead of shaking his head as it was assumed that Charles would not be looking over in his direction at that moment in time. “Aye tis with me. Or rather me with I’i’m. But I’m going over to watch what you do.” “Curiosity sake: how do you summon him?” Charles asked. “Aye He knows.” Charles began to put on his hazmat suit and not even realizing he had done it, he turned away from the gnome when he got ready to pull the hazmat suit up over his pants. When he turned back again to face the gnome, he was opening a second can of coke and had brought a third which he offered to Charles. “Still working on my first one thanks.” He said. Then he leaned over towards the gnome like as if to tell a secret and said, “You can have the extra coke but trust me on this; they are not nearly as good when they get warm as they are cold. Since I have told you that you are welcome to them anytime, I would suggest you just take one COLD one at a time. Mucho grande more refreshing when done that way.” Charles looked up at the vantage point and then swung the backpack onto his shoulders. By the time he glanced back towards the gnome the extra coke was no where to be seen and the gnome was sipping on his coke. “You already put that back?” The gnome nodded, smiled and took a sip of coke. “You guys are fast. Do you get tired? I mean, what I should have said was do you get tired in proportion to the effort put forth? Or perhaps better said, would you be just as tired after running a couple of miles as you would after running say .. three football fields?” “Depends. We don’t feel the expenditure of energy on this side like we do on the other. I’m not saying we are relentless here in your world but our stamina is definitely much greater.” Then he wrinkled his already wrinkled face and said, “And I don’t know what a field of football is so I can’t answer that part of your question.” Charles raised an eyebrow and then began climbing the tree limb. Just before reaching the vantage point he asked the gnome, “You guys want to go first?” “Aye, we’ll be along. Just look after your own.” The gnome replied. Charles tied off his rope and with one last look at the world he was born in, had grown up in, and had spent all his life; he slid down the rope into another world. He held his breath going through the doorway. Once he was clearly on the other side he could see he was in a forest of gigantic trees. Easily as tall as the mighty redwoods, these trees looked like they were a version of Sequoias but they had obviously evolved into something a little different than their other-worldly cousins. As Charles was repelling down the giant redwood he noticed he wasn’t having as much trouble as he should. Usually he struggled handling his weight but this day he seemed to either be extra strong or weigh much less than usual. Looking at himself he concluded he must be extra strong because he didn’t feel like he was thinner. Out of no where the gnome and then the bigfoot went flying past him towards the ground. An hour later Charles finally made it to the ground. His two travel companions were waiting for him when he arrived. “Got pretty tough after my rope ran out.” He said to the gnome. Then he asked the obvious question. “How come you’re not dead?” While waiting for a reply he took off the hazmat suit and stuffed it in between some roots of the tree after placing it into a plastic bag. It hid so well he worried he would be able to find it again. As a helpful sign he dug around in his backpack and found a magic marker which he used to draw a happy face on the trunk of the tree. “Aye you probably got a scare didn’t ya sharpie?” The gnome laughed. “I should have mentioned to you that things don’t work over here the way they do over there. You can fall and you’ll never hit harder than if you jumped from a low hanging branch. Twood not matter if you jumped from the doorway or from any of the tree branches.” Charles thought to himself that the dwarf must be speaking the truth or else how would he be there to say anything at all? He looked the land over. There was not only no sign of any type of civilization but there was no sign of anything alive. Period. “What kind of animals live here?” Then he glanced upwards, past the trees to the sky. Only there wasn’t a sky. It looked like water. Like a sea. It was the craziest thing he ever saw. “You’ll find a little of what you have over there in quantity. And you’ll find a lot of what you have little of over there.” The gnome thought about adding ‘and you can thank the stars for that’, but decided he could figure that out on his own. Then he noticed Charles’ fascination with the sky. “You never mentioned this place had a sky like that? Is that water I see?” He asked. “Aye you’ll have plenty of time to find the answer to that question.” The gnome replied. The reply was off or at the very least very odd. What did he mean there would be plenty of time to find the answer to that question? “What do you mean by that?” “Tis no sense in putting this off. Better I tell ya now than to wait and say it later. I warned you not to bring attention to the doorway. And you did. You’re lucky. If I had got the notion on the other side I would’ve had no choice but to do it. You were spared. Allowed to move over. Tis better than ya deserve.” “So you’re telling me I can’t go back?” “Aye.” “And if I were to try and cross back over?” “We’ve already been through all that. You can probably get back over. You haven’t broken the rule until you have left this world. If you value living you will stay on this side. It is vital important you understand that you won’t even have the chance to beg for your life. You’ll just be there one minute and the next your throat will have been sliced from ear to ear.” “What the hell am I suppose to do over here?” Charles was trying to stay calm. “I mean, … if I hadn’t told you to have all the soda you wanted you would never have seen that note. I would have come over here and then been back with nobody the wiser.” “Aye what you say be true. But it doesn’t change anything. Once I became aware, the powers that be, became aware. You should be praisin’ the Lord you are breathin’ air as we speak. Tis not like you weren’t explicitly warned.” “And I heeded your warning. As long as nothing in the new world harmed me I would have returned to tear up that note. If anybody is to blame for all this it is you for snooping.” Charles became aware he was almost screaming. He lowered his voice at the same time he was told to do so. “Hold your tongue!” The gnome hissed. “You see that?” He was pointing to a spot in the sky where he saw a flock of birds climbing upwards. “Tis a warning of great threat. Ignore it at your own peril. That my friend was a signal. In about five minutes this entire forest floor will be over run by wolves that walk on two feet, nay four. They are a trained military for which actual weapons are a detraction from what they can accomplish without. Get up high into the trees and stay quiet. If they spot ya they will camp below your tree and wait you out or send someone up after you. Understand this, the wolf is always your enemy. The ape can be friend or foe. Just depends on the individual. And you never, under any circumstances want to meet any creatures with antlers. Aye, they aren’t like the furry, fuzzy little cuties on your side. Over here it is unlikely but if you do encounter something with antlers you’ll be wanting to get away fast as possible. Now get up a tree!”. At first glance at the big Sequoia trunks he didn’t think there was any way he would be able to climb them but they had a strange effect in that they seemed to hug him with an unseen force that helped him to actually walk up the giant tree and it was so natural he couldn’t imagine being able to get up there any other way. He wasn’t experiencing the opposite of gravity but at the same time the ease in which he was walking up the giant tree trunk gave that impression. The thought crossed his mind that the wolves might be able to climb upwards with just as much ease. He decided he had better hide before being spotted and finding out how hard it was for the wolves to climb the giant trees. He was far from the ground now. Charles picked out a fat limb and laid down along the top of it so that he could not be visible to anyone or anything looking upwards. Timing was perfect because the air became full of the sound of howls and excited yips. First they came from one direction but just a short time later the snarls, yips and howls were everywhere. Charles became aware of another weird eccentricity about the new world. Sounds echoed and then echoed again. He wondered if it was due to an effect caused by the giant redwoods? He risked a peek at the forest floor. Wait a minute! Did he just see a human being? He did. It was a woman. She was trying to stay ahead of the wolves. They hadn’t seen her yet but she was running out of safe real estate. She couldn’t see that they were closing in on her from two sides. Charles thought he could get to her before she ran into them. if he hurried. The catch was he was going to have to trust the weird gravity effect the tree provided. But if he hurried and was able to get down fast enough … Charles threw caution to the wind and leapt from his position laying on the limb to the Sequoia’s trunk where he would run down the long length of the giant redwood … and that was when he promptly began free-falling toward the ground. He hit with a thump and realized he was still alive and unhurt. He thought to himself that must have been what it was like for the gnome and bigfoot. Next he raced through the forest floor to the spot where he knew he would intercept the woman. She had her head turned looking backwards because she had heard or perhaps felt the presence of the wolves. They were coming after her on all fours but would stop after a few bounds and stand on their back legs. Standing like that they reached seven feet which gave them a good vantage point to locate prey but they hadn’t seen her yet. Just as she turned from looking behind her he came into view and she started to scream. It all happened in a fraction of a second. Charles knew if they heard her scream the day was going to end bad for the good guys so he did the only thing that fraction of a second’s time would allow which would accomplish the all-important goal of maintaining silence. He punched her hard right in the mouth. She went out instantly. He judged she only weighed about a hundred pounds so he threw her over his shoulder and scampered back up the far side of a big Sequoia and was shocked to discover it was the one that he had originally climbed down from his world. He knew this was the tree because he had found the rope he had tied off. The woman was starting to come around. He put his hand over her mouth to prevent her making enough noise to give away their position. When their eyes had exchanged what their voices could not, she stopped squirming against him and he relaxed his grip on her. He pantomimed they needed to stay quiet and wait things out and she nodded in agreement. When they saw the last wolf creature disappear over the crest of the valley both of them spoke at once. English was spoke by Charles and he thought she was speaking french but of course didn’t understand any of it. She went on rambling for a bit so when she finally ran out of words he looked at her and said, “Wee.”. At first she looked at him with a confused, perhaps unbelieving gaze but it quickly broke into laughter and he returned her lightheartedness with a quiet smile. She rambled on some more and he began to become aware of a phenomenon. He was starting to understand what she was saying. How could that be? She was saying something about having been here for unknown amount of time and she wanted to know how he had come to arrive there? He answered her in his native English but she appeared not to understand him. Charles thought about it for a minute and then just started talking about anything he could think of, starting with stuff he could point out. So he pointed at his feet and said, “Feet. Then he showed her his left hand and said, “Left.” Then he did the same with his right. The he said, “Foot. Left foot. Right foot.” He showed his hands, his butt cheeks, anything he had a left and a right of; then came up and down. backwards and forwards. All the while she was speaking in her native language and when he would hear her hit on the right connection he would give praise. In about an hour they were speaking fluent enough in the other’s language to hold a conversation. “Absolutely astounding! The things about this world!” Charles exclaimed. “I’m sure I’ve just seen the very tip, tippiest of the ice berg too.” “In this world would that not mean you would see the big part of the iceberg? I don’t know about the icebergs but I think you’re really gonna freak when you see the water-… ups?” She laughed and then said in her native tongue what would translate into English as being, “the opposite of water falls.” Charles could hardly believe what she was saying because he knew she was saying the truth. What a sight it must be to view a waterfall going up over a steep cliff instead of falling down from one. When they both had a better understanding of the other’s language he made a mental note to remember to ask her if she thought the two of them would be carried up over the cliff along with the water if they were to try? She looked to be about mid-twenties. Shoulder-length brownish-blond hair was tied into a short pony tail with a strip of cloth. She had a nice thin figure and a classic french nose. Not too long but long enough and sleek. A handsome woman he thought. No rings on those fingers either, he noticed. “Oh that’s all I need right now!” She said in an angry manner. “What?” “You think I do not see. I see! I am French dammit! French women know that look from the time they are ten. You fool nobody! The only way I would consider sleeping with you is if you were to get me the hell out of here!” “Good to know.” Charles replied. Then he said under his breath, “Somebody thinks a lot of themself.” Then he felt a twinge, a slight poke in the side from an old acquaintance. They weren’t friends, but had known each other since he was old enough to be attracted to girls. It wouldn’t have mattered to what or whom he was attracted, this was his protection from any hurt they could cause. As long as he listened to it now and not later. He continued to ignore her beauty. “Go ahead! Act like you were not thinking of sleeping with me. See if I care! But I am not stupid. I know what you were thinking.” “if you weren’t so attractive you would remind me of those people back in the real world that are so worried about abortions when as George Carlin put it: they are the last ones anybody would want to screw anyway.” He paused, forced himself to consider the circumstances instead of allowing himself listen to his secret and just tell her to leave him alone. Circumstances called for a little less spoiling of himself and little more practicality. He tried again, ” … I’m sorry. Is it fair to say I can’t help being male any more than you can help being female? Its not like I ruffied you and brought you here. So lets put it aside. What’s your name?” “Annette. Annette Coite’.” “Nice to make your acquaintance Annette. My name Charles Happi, spelled with an ‘i’ rather than a ‘y’.” He gave her his best smile. “How long have you been in this world Annette?” “I don’t know. How are you able to tell the days?” He got a confused look on his face. “What do you mean?” “You haven’t been here very long have you?” She replied. “I don’t know for sure how long I have been here but it has been weeks, and I have yet to see the sun go down or for that matter even move.” “Just to be clear. You came from the other world?” Charles asked. “Yes sir.” She may have been speaking nearly fluent English now but her french accent remained. “Did you come here from the doorway located in south Oregon?” Annette laughed. “I was in Paris. I climbed a tree and when I got up there I looked down and saw an entirely different reality. I became full of panic. It caused me to lose my balance and I fell, and fell, and finally I hit the ground but I was not hurt. I have spent much time here. Mostly I keep moving to stay ahead of the dog people. I fear them very much. I don’t know how I know, but I know they would do me harm. You too. Worse yet, is I feel the dog people, who are evil without doubt, but I fear they are the cover for something even more sinister. Something so evil and so vile it can never be allowed to know there is another world. Our world. What you saw today, this whole valley teaming with dogmen, that was a very small portion of them. From what I have gathered they are or perhaps have become out of necessity, cannibalistic. They act like you would expect a dog to act under those circumstances of not having enough food.” She visibly shivered. Then continued. “I saw it happen. I had no choice. I was too afraid to try and get away. I had been up in one of the coconut trees gathering food for myself when a small pack of them happened along and were hanging out below my perch. I was so afraid they would see me but they were extremely hungry and seemed to be fighting among themselves. One of them had hurt his leg which was why they had stopped near my tree perch. The wounded one was encircled and the group began tearing into him, first from behind and then when he turned to protect his backside the rest jumped in. What was worst was in its last dying breath it was on its back looking upwards and it saw me. It’s last action in this world was to point at me but none of them followed its direction. They ate until there was nothing left and then went on.” Charles grimaced but said nothing. “I cannot guess as to the more domesticated life their females must live but the males have an extreme existence. They are intelligent as you or I with exception that they are prone to being a dog. I would guess their intelligence has helped them overcome the urge to … chase their tails, so to speak, but they still have tendencies which are unmistakably dog-like. The best example I can give is the one just presented. Starving human beings would not have acted in such manner.” “Where did that damn gnome wonder off?” Charles said more to himself than to her. “There is a way out of this place but for me it comes with a death sentence. Unless I can get the would-be-killer to choose not to kill me.” He went on to explain his situation and how he had come to be where he was at. She explained to him that he need not worry about food. A vegan would love it here. There were an excess of berries and fruits and even some vegetables grew wild in this world. That the sunlight provided was a constant. If you wanted dark you had to dig a hole, or find a cave. She said that the patrol of dogmen came at no specific times but that they always scared up a flock of birds which they apparently liked to dine on and the birds always preceded the dog pack. She thought the birds were chickens, or chicken-like, possibly turkeys, in any case if you saw the flock taking off in a chaos of unison then the pack was likely attacking them. Chicken sounded good Charles thought. His stomach was ready for some food although he didn’t feel like he had lost any energy. He struggled with the thought that he was in the right tree to get away but he had no choice but to believe what the gnome had told him. There was no denying that the gnome was super fast. Heck even if the gnome was lying about knowing how to find him in order to avoid being found he would have to disappear into another city. Basically give up all his possessions because under such circumstances in order to be assured that the gnome had no way of finding you it would involve everything you would have to do to hide from the police or authorities. In case the gnome was connected into that network. Plus you would have to figure that as fast as the gnome was, he could literally search every city in the states and find you within a couple of years. So no, the idea of running just didn’t seem like something that had a lot of future to it. “I dont know if I could ever get used to having a sky that is water.” He said, looking up at the sky above them. “You haven’t see it rain have you?” Annette said. “It doesn’t fall from above.” She looked down. “From below?” Charles asked already knowing the answer. “That is astounding. So basically water is lighter than air. In this place. Does that sound correct?” She shook her head. “So if water is lighter than air, and the human body is made up of at least fifty percent water, why aren’t we floating upwards?” Charles found this wildly interesting. “I mean if I were half water, which I am, why am I not floating upwards?” “Because you have on enough weight with that backpack and those guns that you would never get off the ground.” Annette hesitated before giving him that reply, for fear he would put two and two together and come up with… “Naked! I need to be naked to fly. Is that what you’re telling me?” Annette again hesitated and then shook her head. “Have you tried it?” He asked. “I’m not so sure I would be able. Women unlike men, have less water in their bodies. Its not a lot of difference but in this case I’m afraid it is enough”. “I guess it wouldn’t do me any good to go floating up in the sky anyway. What would it accomplish? If you can’t go with me then I see no reason for it.” “I didn’t want to have to carry around all your stuff and your clothes so I’m okay with that decision.” She replied smiling. “That brings to mind a thought.” Charles said, and he grabbed the pistol’s belt buckle that held the holster around his waist and undid it letting it slide down to the ground. “That’s for you. There are more bullets in the belt. You should familiarize yourself with it. It might save your life.” Annette didn’t argue. She picked up the heavy belt and strapped it on. “Looks good on you. Not a high society fashion statement but in this world its the most desired look.” He said with a smile. “If you get good enough with it after we figure out how to go back and forth between worlds we can rob a bank and live like kings the rest of our lives.” Then he calmed a bit and added, “Of course, that’s just a suggestion.” A naughty grin chased the smile. She smiled back and patted the gun. “I’ll keep it in mind. What now?” “We need to find a certain gnome.” He replied. “I haven’t a clue where to start? Well that’s not true. I suppose we can hang out near the doorway and see if he passes through. Its not much but its all I can think of. Other choices are to start exploring which to be honest I don’t know what we would be looking for? Aside the gnome that is; and as I said the best place I know to look for him is near the doorway. I can’t believe he isn’t looking for me? But if he were I think he would find me sooner than later.” “I’m hungry. Are you hungry? We could head over to where the coconuts grow. There are several other fruits growing near them. Pineapples and strawberries. Sound good?” She started humming an old beatles tune. “Sounds great!” His stomach thought his neck had been cut. “Lead on please.” He reached into his backpack and produced the magic marker. “I wish now I had brought two of these. At the time I threw it in as an after thought.” He drew an arrow upwards on a tree when he should have drawn it pointing to the tree he was trying to remember. “In case something happens to me. Any arrow you see pointing up means you turn the arrow to the left and any arrow you see pointing down means turn that arrow to the right. Got it?” She shook her head yes. Then she led off towards the food singing “I want to hold your hand”. “When you get to the tree where the doorway is located, you search among its roots and you will find a hazmat suit. Bring that up the tree with you. Eventually you will come to the bottom of a rope I have tied off in the other world. Put on the hazmat suit before you go through the doorway. Hold your breath as you go through. If you make it through you cannot tell anyone about the doorway. Do you understand everything I have said?” “Yes, but I don’t understand why?” She said over her shoulder. Now she was talk-singing, “Norwegian wood”. “Its not important as to why. What is important is that you follow that exact procedure. Even if it means leaving me down here. You cannot tell anyone about the doorway. He will come for you.” “Who?” “The gnome. And trust me he has the ability to accomplish the job. He’s so fast you will be dead before you hit the floor and he will be back in this world. That’s what is keeping me here now. Hell that is what is keeping both of us here now. Just remember crossing over without having talked to him first and getting the okay, would be suicide. Since you came through a different doorway it might not be him that comes for you but you would die all the same. And in the same fashion. Of course, much of what I am saying to you is based on what I was able to gather from my talks with the gnome. The only things I can say I know for certain are that the gnome is super-fast and that crossing through the doorway without the hazmat protection might kill you instantly or might cause you to be unable to rid yourself of liquids and you would die that way, which is most likely a very painful way to go.” “Agreed.” She switched to Elanor Rigsby in her song. “If you ever did have to go through the doorway and you haven’t talked with the gnome I would strongly suggest you get one of those dog collar necklaces that can’t be sliced through. That might save you.” “I think I’ll just wait and go through with you.” She replied. She finished her beatles melody with “She loves you, ya, ya, ya.” “You love the fab four don’t you? I wish they’d stayed together longer. Who knows? Maybe John would still be with us.” Charles said, just passing the time. “What you talking about? Crazy man. John’s not dead. Shit they just released “Let It Be” a few years ago. There’s still a good chance they will get back together.” Charles had a terrible thought arise and he knew he couldn’t avoid facing it. He asked Annette as casually as possible, “What year was it when you were last in the other world?” “1979.” Then Annette saw where he was going and asked him, “What year was it when you were last in the other world?” Charles had to think quick. Did he tell her the truth or did he lie? Damn he wished he had never opened this can of worms but now that he had there was little choice but to deal with the repercussions. “It was a little later than that.” “So are you going to tell me or are you going to let me worry that I have lost ten years?” Annette asked laughingly. “Its a little worse than that.” She got very quiet. Her face showed fear, frustration and he thought maybe some anger. “It was the year 2003 when I crossed.” Annette swooned visibly but kept her feet. She let out an audible moan but that was all. Charles watched the woman nearly melt. He held her and said the only thing he could think of that might make her feel better. “Boy are you gonna turn some heads at your high school class reunion!” Annette let out a little laugh. She dropped to her knees and said, “Its hard telling how many have died. My parents. My dog! My job. Everything. Everything will be gone.” She wiped the tears from her eyes and stood up. “There is no gain in my crying over things that happened as long as fifteen years ago. I will forge ahead and deal with my losses when they are confirmed one way or the other.” Her missing use of the first letter in the word “happened” was more pronounced than usual. Her “French” was showing. They continued without further conversation until a thought came to him. “I don’t exactly know how long its been since I’ve been here but its been long enough I should be getting thirsty but I still am not. What’s up with that?” “I haven’t been thirsty since I got here.” She said matter-of-factually. “I would guess at this point that it will never be an issue.” They came upon an area where the big redwoods gave way to smaller trees resembling white oaks which were much shorter than the redwoods and in less abundance. The grass covering the ground resembled that found on golf course greens. It was truly a paradise. Pineapples grew here and there and they were surrounded by strawberries the size of small apples. They gorged on strawberries and ate pineapple for desert. Then the two eyed the coconuts. The trees were tall but Annette had climbed them previously so obviously they could again. Just as he was about to try and climb the tree Annette stopped him. “These are extraordinary times and during such circumstances it calls for the ordinary, including manners, to be set aside. Take off your clothes. Lets see if you fly. You’re full of pinapple juice and strawberries which are mostly water. If ever you were to fly now is the time.” She crossed her arms and waited. Charles smiled. It was a shy smile that Annette couldn’t help but find attractive. He began to disrobe. He set down his backpack and his rifle and almost immediately felt himself start to float. By the time he got down to his underwear he was floating upwards towards the coconuts. This was amazing! He found he could lean one way or another and it would cause him to go that direction. The one thing he was finding a bit troublesome was that he didn’t know how he was going to get back down? Just then his upward rise bumped him into the coconuts and he was able to suspend himself using the tree to keep him from floating further upwards. He supposed the effect was what it was like to be weightless in space. He picked six coconuts that looked ripe and started pushing himself down the tree until Annette could reach him and pull him onward down. He dressed and the weight of the ammunition alone was enough to keep him grounded. “I bet you can do it too.” Charles said excitedly. “Its an amazing thing to experience.” “Yes I might be able. But I am not ready to be naked in front of you and it would require at least that I suspect. Even then I might not be able to hit the fifty-one percent water to flesh ratio it would take to float upwards.” Charles didn’t see a big reason why it mattered so he let it go. Clearly he could not fly while toting that rifle and he wasn’t ready to give it up so … She was missing out on an unbelievable sensation however, but that was her choice to make. They stopped and picked up a couple of pineapples before heading back towards the tree that was the only way he knew out of this world. Soon they were back among the big redwoods. They had a valley that ran through their midst which had no trees. It was at the crest of this valley where the birds had first flown into the air in a volley of chaotic feathers and weird calls which were unlike anything heard in the other world. Their appearance announced the arrival of the dogmen pack. “What’s beyond the crest?” He asked. “The water ups.” Annette replied. “I don’t know what is beyond that. I didn’t ever walk over to the ups. It seems to be where a lot of dogmen are living. When I came to that conclusion I naturally went the opposite direction. That’s how I ended up meeting you. From over towards the ups, this direction the sky eventually becomes a much deeper blue color. You can’t really tell from this location, you have to be a ways off. But the sky back over that way” She pointed in the opposite direction of the water ups. “It is much deeper blue in color and I thought maybe it was water all the way down to the ground at some point and that if I walked through or into the water it would prove to be a curtain hiding the entrance back into my world.” She gave him a look that said it was my last hope. “In this place that is possible. But I think knowing what I know, and now you knowing what I know, that it is unlikely to have the conclusion you had hoped. It made sense until you heard that I knew of a doorway which was located in a redwood tree. That changed the odds of your water curtain being an entrance back into your world. Especially if you consider that you mentioned having dropped a long ways. That would infer you entered this world the same way I did. And as mentioned we know that was from one of the big tree tops.” They came upon one of his arrows and used it for navigation back to the tree with the doorway. On the way Charles had an interesting thought. He said, “When was the last time you slept?” “Funny you should ask. I have been so focused on avoiding the dog people and finding a way out of here that I hadn’t stopped to think about it. I guess I haven’t.” Annette got a worried look on her face. “Do you think I’ll be okay? I know its been a long time since I have been here. Or I think it has been. And I haven’t even considered sleep until now. Are you tired?” “Not at all. More like energized if anything. I suspect it has to do with the whole water is lighter than air thing. It feels like every step is like I’m almost weightless. And I am. So are you. Maybe you have slightly more mass than water in you but its still close. If that is the case then we will eventually get tired. Or so I would guess. Who knows?” He shrugged. “This place is so crazy anything could be true.” They came upon the tree that housed the doorway out of the strange world. “Ahh the tree in question. I guess we can climb back up to the doorway and hang around there for a while. If he doesn’t show up I’m at a loss of what to do?” “I guess we’ll climb to the doorway then.” Annette said. “If nothing else I can learn some more about the whole walking up the tree thing.” “Its really easy and unbelievably feels natural. Just don’t try to climb. Just walk up the tree.” He showed her by leading the way and taking the hazmat suit along with them. Both parties stood at a ninety degree angle to the tree trunk and they simply walked up like it was walking on a horizontal grade. “This is a fantastic experience. And I think its much different than the water effect. I can feel a gravity of sorts holding my feet onto the tree. Like it is aware of the water effect and is keeping a person from accidentally floating away from it.” “I can see where you are going with that. This is such an odd world. Eh, did I mention to you about the Apes, Dogs, and Antler-bearing creatures? I might have passed over some of it. Here’s what I was told. The apes can be friend or foe. And you won’t know until you know. The Dogs are always your enemy. They’ll kill you if they can. An observation you made correctly. And then there are the antler creatures. Apparently you don’t want to meet one and if you do the thing to do is run like hell.” “And you got this information from your gnome?” Annette asked, though she was pretty sure of the answer. “Yeah. The gnome. I would holler for him but I’m afraid of what else I might draw attention. I figure those dog people can hear as good as their canine cousins then I would more likely be alerting them to our presence than to be accomplishing our goal.” A large dark bird landed on a limb about forty feet below their perch, which was only about a quarter of the distance up the tree to the doorway. Then came another. Then several more all perched along one limb. They chatted and fidgeted around until finding that perfect spot they wanted to set. All the while more limbs were filling up with the same routine of the birds landing and then jockeying for the position they sought. Charles and Annette stopped their conversation and it only took about two seconds before both of them were looking at the other with horror. No words needed spoke as they began searching the ground below for signs of the dogmen. They decided it was too late to get to the ground and move from this location so they went up. When they were far enough they thought it would be safe they risked talking in a whisper. “What do we do if they start up the tree?” Annette asked. She had a terrified look in her eyes. Almost as if they had heard her, the dogmen began climbing the tree but they were not doing it the right way so they struggled but were coming up. As scared as Charles also felt, it bothered him more that he was unable to make her feel secure. What he would have liked to have done was went charging down the tree with his gun blaring until he’d killed a few wolfmen. He reminded himself he had limited ammunition and their numbers were seemingly a lot greater than his 200 bullets could kill even if he never missed. Plus it looked like it might take two bullets to kill one of those big dogs. Even that small hunting pack he had saved Annette from was probably more than he could handle with the ammunition he had available. Charles had one ace up his sleeve but it was a get out of jail free card. It would be no help killing anything. He motioned upwards and they climbed. They reached the doorway where Charles stopped and took off his backpack. He reached in and grabbed the duct tape. Then he fished around and found the four Mexican M-80s and proceeded to tape all four of them along with a Bic lighter and as an after thought he grabbed one of the box of matches and taped all six items to his ankle. Then he put the hazmat suit into the backpack and taped it to a spot he hoped would not be seen by anyone or anything that passed by this limb. They walked upwards to the next limb where he taped the rifle and pistol and its holster to the upside of the limb, hoping nothing would climb further up past the location of the doorway, if something were to climb that high. He looked at Annette. “Strip. At least down to your undies. We’re going to need all the weight off you as possible.” “What are you thinking?” Annette asked, but she did so while removing her pants. “We don’t have a lot of choices. We can go through the doorway and likely die from infection since there is only the one hazmat suit and I don’t know there is time to hand it back down through. Plus if we did make it across there is the gnome to worry about. Our second choice is to fight, which we don’t have the ammunition to do so. I had been thinking of sending you back to the other side and have you bring back more ammunition but if I did you would have to promise to not tell anybody about the doorway for your own protection. You’re from France. I don’t know that you could find my office, get the place opened up, including the safe holding the ammunition, and get back to me without being caught and if you were caught you would have to end up telling and that would get you killed. I need more time to think this through before taking that approach so we’re going to buy me some time.” Annette finished removing her clothing and stood next to him wearing only her bra and panties. he was in only his underwear. Charles took her hand, and said, “On the count of three we’re going to push off as hard as we can away from the tree okay?” Annette shook her head in agreement and on the count of three the two pushed off into the air and to their amazement even though it was their expectation, they were floating above the trees. Charles was careful to keep hold of Annette because he was the difference in her ability to float above the ground. There was only a slight tug towards the ground but he could definitely feel it was there as could she. Imagine you’re flying and you are holding a kitten. That was about the weight Annette added to his flight. So although she was a full grown woman the amount of weight he had to manage was very negligible. “Please don’t let me go.” She said. “No chance of that.” He replied smiling. The two kissed floating there above the top of the giant redwoods while a pack of dogmen raced along the ground below them in an attempt to follow and see where they might land. Suddenly a bra came falling out of the sky on top of one of them. It was followed by a pair of men’s underwear and a woman’s panties. They made love in the sky above the giant Sequoias with an ocean of blue water above them and the tree tops for a carpet of green below. When they were finished they played around a little with the angle of their bodies and discovered that laying out horizontally caused you to stay at your current height or perhaps climb if Charles were not using his extra buoyancy to help keep Annette up, and if you got into a more vertical stance while still maintaining some angle, you would gain a momentum going in that direction which could be used to get back down to the ground long enough to get hold of a tree limb and pull yourself back into the weird gravity the trees seemed to exhibit. It took them a short while to master the tricks necessary to be able to fly across the area and Charles wondered if that short time was also an effect like learning the other’s language had worked. It was such an interesting world. If not for Annette he would practically be superman over here. He had to remind himself that she was going to be an anchor. if he wanted to keep her alive he had to not allow himself to become too reliant on the flight aspect. Up until the dogmen had spotted them there was no reason for them to have invented a contraption capable of shooting humans out of the sky but that didn’t mean they couldn’t come up with something. The two floating humans hadn’t figured out how to fly to avoid being shot at with high speed projectiles. Plus it made them too easily tracked even if there was nothing being shot at them. Charles wondered if the gnome had seen them and if he had known this was possible? Currently they were in the doorway tree. Just outside the doorway. After mastering the flying they lost their dog pack following by igniting two of the four M-80s. The extremely loud explosions sent the pack of dogmen scattering along the ground in all directions. When it looked like there were none left hanging around they landed and eventually returned to the doorway tree. It took a while to find it but thanks to the arrows Charles had drawn they did find it. While spending that time learning to fly he also gave a lot of consideration to whether or not to have Annette return to his office and get some more ammunition and anything else they might need. That included a small bag full of those Mexican M-80s. If they had to fight the dogmen those would come in handy. Would she be able to get the safe open? The thought crossed his mind if only for a moment what he would do if she decided to take the money in his safe and use it to fly home. She knew she would be safe from the gnome as long as she didn’t bring attention to the doorway. It really was a just a matter of screwing him over. The fact of the matter was that he was having the time of his life but mostly because of her. It would suck to have to lose her but it would be ten times worse if he knew he or rather his poor decision making was responsible for sending her back to the real world and leaving him alone in this one. Geez what a selfish, worthless hump. He despised himself for even letting it enter his mind but that didn’t change the cold hard truth. The truth was that in the real world she was a vibrant, beautiful young woman who could be a model if desired. She had no use for an over-the-hill asphalt business guy. Yet in this world he was her knight in shining armor swooping down and giving her the power of flight. Taking her upwards where it was safe from the dogmen and their cannibalistic ways. How could you compare the one with the other? Simple answer is you could not. Still he was doing this. Maybe he was in love? Surely only someone in love would be stupid enough to do what he was about to do. In the end it didn’t matter. It was his nature to do what John Wayne would have done. As corny as it sounded. He learned a long time ago to not be ashamed of always doing what your heart told you was the right thing to do. It had cost him money, friendship and once a job. Now it might cost him a girl at a time when getting a girl was not easy. He looked at her and couldn’t help but smile. If she screwed him over at least he would know she ended up safe. “Okay the combination to the safe is three, ten, and twenty-four. Right, left then right again. Its a simple enough task. There is a Velcro spot just where my feet would be if I were sitting at the desk. Pull back on that and the flap will reveal itself and you’ll see the safe. Bring all the bullets and the bag of M-80s. Eh .. there’s some other stuff in there from my younger days that may not be your cup of tea. I apologize in advance. I should have thrown it out but never got around to it. That’s not true. I couldn’t bring myself to toss it. It’s a small bag of coke and then there’s a bigger bag of some pot which come to think of it, you can bring that along too. The pot, not the coke. Oh and in the bottom left drawer there is a small tackle box that has some fishing line and hooks in it. Might as well bring that too.” Annette smiled and started putting on the hazmat suit he had taken such care to have around. While she was fussing with it to get it into a better position on her body for travel, Charles reached into his backpack and produced the flashlight. “Since all the monsters are either over here or are on our side, … well indifferent anyways, you shouldn’t have to worry too much about running into any trouble but it could be night time over there, I haven’t kept a very good timeline since I didn’t think to bring a watch or my phone. At the time I was thinking who would I call? And as for time .. I thought I would be back in about fifteen minutes.” “You brought all this for fifteen minutes of time over here?” Annette asked, already starting to giggle. “Hey I believe in being prepared. You of all people should appreciate that.” He answered with a bit of contempt. “Oh I do, I do.” She said, holding up a hand. The giggles were still right there, just looking for a legitimate reason to come out. “You do not. but you should! Go get our goodies. And be careful. Oh I almost forgot.” He reached into his pocket and produced his magic marker. “Let me see your arm?” “Wha…” She decided not to argue. Holding out her arm she watched as he wrote down the length of the inside of her arm. In clear, capital letters he wrote: HELP HER EVERY WAY, YOUR BOSS, … Then he signed in cursive his name. “If its daytime over there and the help is there , you can show them that and you should be okay. If its night time then the flashlight will be all the help you will get .. or need.” She gave him a last kiss before allowing him to help her get the finishing touches to the hazmat suit. A thumbs up later she was climbing out of the strange new world and back into the one where everything made sense, the sun still rose and set, and water still ran downhill. Chapter Annette climbed along the rope and used it to help her through the open portal and up onto the part of the tree branch that led down into the real world. A world she thought she had left a few weeks ago only to find out almost twenty years had passed. It was light on the other side too. She could see it now. She followed the limb as it hooked downwards touching ground in the world where she had been born. The first thing she noticed was how much effort it took to do anything. The walk to the office was so tiring she had to rest when she reached the office building. She passed through the woods and came out where a bunch of dump trucks were lined up, each appearing to be much newer than she was expecting, yet they each looked like they hadn’t been in use in some time. All had a layer of noticeable dust on them, including their windshields. There was nobody around and the place looked completely deserted. She spotted the office exactly where Charles had said it would be. When she got over to it she stood outside the front door and observed the large picture window was broken out and it appeared as if the place had been home to more than a few four-legged fur faces. It wasn’t necessary to use the key he had given her. She pushed (with some effort) the front door open and entered. Inside everything was in disarray. There was a picture of a much younger looking Charles shaking hands with someone that looked to be important. Another on the opposite wall was crooked. It had Charles holding a fish but at the angle the picture was hanging it looked like maybe the fish had him. The desk had a thicker layer of dust on it than the dump trucks outside. There were little footprints racing across it at different angles. Most likely raccoons looking for an easy meal. She walked around the desk where there should have been a chair but if there had been one it was long gone now. The carpet was dirtier than the desk top. She reached down and found the flap where the Velcro was used to hide the cut out in the carpet. A good yank created a small cloud of dust that the desk helped to keep concentrated over the area she needed to see. Annette could see the safe’s combination lock but things were too cloudy to see the numbers. She kept the carpet pulled back away from the safe and gave some time for the dust to settle. She happened to notice there was an old empty box sitting in the corner of the office so she took a couple of steps towards it and saw that newspaper had been used to protect whatever had been in the box. The way the paper was folded it might have been glasses that were wrapped in it. Annette pulled the paper out of the box and began to unwrap it. A date became legible. It couldn’t be! She fell to her knees and sobbed. Maybe her parents could have still been alive if it were 2003, or even 2010, there might have been a chance. Twenty-five years after the turn of the century meant that almost nobody she had ever known was likely to be alive. If they were they would be so old they might not remember her even though she hadn’t aged a day since falling into that other world. Apparently some forty years ago. And that was assuming the paper in the box wasn’t any older than being recent. Outside and in the distance she could hear the cars and trucks honking at each other as they raced towards the end of their ordinary day. The surrealness of the moment was profound. She felt like the female version of rumplestiltskin only she wasn’t old. She still had a full life left to live. Apparently an immortal life if she chose to go back to the other world. Well of course she was going back. She didn’t mean it like that. First she was going to see if there was anything in the safe. Then regardless of whether the safe has anything in it or not: she is going back. Annette grabbed the newspaper page and folded it up and put it in her bra. Then she walked back over to the safe and bent down and started turning the lock. Charles was right. It had been simple. The door came open with a slight popping sound which at least gave the impression the safe had been air-tight. Everything was there. The ammunition. The bag of fireworks. The drugs. There was also a stack of money. Some official looking papers. And a family photo. She looked at it and spotted Charles almost immediately. His hair was long and his wrinkles still a lifetime away. She assumed the older couple in the photo were his parents. Apparently he had either a sibling or a girlfriend who was younger. Robbing the cradle Chuck? She thought. Then snickered at the thought of how she would tease him later. She opened up a file cabinet and found some trash bags. At first only one was taken out and opened but then she reached back in and took the rest of them and tossed them into the open sack. Everything else went in as well except for the ammunition which was in a carrying container all ready. The desk drawers were each opened and checked for anything that might be of help. It looked like the desk had been picked over, probably by kids, but there was one item of interest. One of those travel case sewing kits complete with a little bit thread in different colors. That was also thrown into the trash sack. There was a throw cover covered in dust that was wadded up by the couch. She grabbed it as well. Then gave the place one last quick look around and headed out the door with ammunition weighing down her right arm and the bag of everything else in her left. When she got to the tree trunks she again put back on the hazmat suit and crossed down into the doorway lowering the ammunition down first on the rope. Chapter Charles felt his heart leap for joy. He could hardly hold back the smile across his face signalling that now he knew this woman had feelings for him too. No woman, no matter how upstanding she was: would have come back to this unless she had feelings for the guy. She would have gotten over there and been reminded of all that was normal: was where she had finally returned. That there was still an outside, slight chance one or even both her parents were still alive. They’d be in their late eighties or early nineties so it wasn’t inconceivable. At the very least she would have been a lot longer getting back. She would have had to at least find out whether the date was actually what he had told her. But Annette had returned in less than an hour’s time. Charles held out hope maybe she was unable to find out the date. The poor kid had endured enough. Give him some time to find the best way possible to tell that sweet young woman that all she had ever known was gone. Everyone and most likely everything will have been replaced or removed. Dead people do not pay rent. Living people do not want to rent run-down or old living quarters. In short, she wasn’t going to find much that is recognizable or familiar. Wearing the hazmat suit was a bit like wearing a snowsuit during the winter time. Yes it was time-consuming to take on and off, but when things got real you were glad you took the time. Charles was careful how he handled the suit as it came off her. He didn’t know enough about the germs to feel safe handling the suit such a short time after she had come through the portal. As soon as he had her out of the hazmat suit he was dying to ask, “what did my place look like? Have the boys been working? What time of day was it? If it was daytime you likely ran into Harley. He’s my second in command.” Charles took a few seconds to stash the new supplies. All except two M-80s which he used to replace the two (of four) he kept taped to his ankle and had used to scare away the pack of dogmen which had been following their flying debut. Since they were flying after eating he saw no gain in bringing along the weapons. Their weight was too much when flying. He grabbed a couple of rocks to help keep him from floating away and stashed the rifle and pistol. “Well? Don’t keep me in suspense. I’ve worried the whole time I was here that my business would be in shambles by the time I got back.” For the first time Annette truly realized why he had lied to her about the date. He had a lot worse news to break to her than she did to him yet now that she was faced with telling him she was trying to think of something positive to say. Anything but the truth! Finally so to avoid his being suspicious about why she took so long to answer she just went with the most convenient lie. The one he wanted to hear. “Oh yeah. There were trucks coming and going. It was mid-morning so Harley was probably busy. I didn’t talk with anyone.” “Good to hear. Good to hear! Cause you know when we are able to leave here I was thinking maybe you would consider hanging around? I have some money so I could help you get a small business off the ground. Or you wouldn’t have to work at all. It would really all be up to you.” “Charles. I am so flattered. Beyond response. Truly I am. And I will give great consideration to your offer. But I fear you may not feel so strongly after we are free from this prison.” “You underestimate me my dear. My offer will be as good as it will be enthusiastic the day we cross over as it is now. More so even! But we can talk more about that later. I guess we need to find that damn gnome before we worry about anything else. Lets get down out of this tree and we can swing by the strawberry patch and after that head on over towards the water-ups. I was thinking we could fly over and have a look around. Maybe we’ll spot the gnome. We’ve looked around enough on this side of the ridge. We haven’t even peeked over that way.” “Sure. I love flying Charles air lines. The pilots are so … interesting.” She leaned into him and gave him a kiss. He pulled her closer and when they were ready they pulled apart and he led the way down the tree. “You know what I like about being over here? I mean, beside having run into you.” “The fact we can fly?” Annette giggled. “Yes I suppose that is a very likeable trait. But no sir. What I meant was that there is no wind here. I was reminded while on the other side that the wind can be less than engaging.” He loved the way she chose her words so kindly towards whatever she was discussing. “Yeah, I hadn’t thought about the wind since I crossed. I agree. It can be trying. Of course,” He styled his fingers through his thinning crop of sandy brown hair. “When you have hair that makes its own fashion statement on a daily basis you don’t have to worry about the small stuff the rest of the poor bastards out there fear. No sir! Fabio and me.” He held up two fingers crossed. “That’s us. Two finely-haired individuals. When the wind blows, so does my hair, right into his scalp.” Charles gave a ‘what are you gonna do?’ look and chased it with a shit-eatng grin. Annette, who was walking behind him, gave a little push in the small of his back. “And I can push harder if necessary.” “In a hurry to get me without my clothes on again are you?” Charles quipped over his shoulder. “I understand. I’ve heard about you french women. Starting at the tender age of ten years old. Why it shocked my ears. And then bragging about it to strangers no less.” He changed his voice to mimic a woman’s. “I’ll have you know I am from France and we start at the age of ten. How dare you make such offers to women half your age! Did I mention I started at ten years old?” Then he laughed while keeping facing towards the way down. “I confess tis true what you say oh sexy pilot to whom I cannot say no! I am but a weak female that cannot control her animal … urges.” She said the last word while throwing in a purring sound right after. It definitely did not escape his notice. When it came to ‘urges’, he had developed his own to face down. Charles tried to think baseball and the best he could do was to picture her in a baseball uniform that was tied in a knot above her belly-button and featured cleavage busting through the top of that tied-off button-down. Looking like two softballs rubbing against each other. He watched them jiggle when she bent towards him like she did earlier to get a kiss. The thought brought a genuine smile to his face to match the one on hers. “Keep spoiling me and I may not want to ever go back to that other world. You’d be stuck here. Nothing to do all day but to fly around the sky and occasionally drop down and feast on giant-size strawberries.” Annette sought to bring the conversation back around to more mundane subjects. “Do you think something bad happened to the gnome? Maybe that is why he has not been around?” “I got the impression he has family or some sort of close connection with others living on this side. Really the most specific I think he ever got was when he mentioned that .. and I quote: ‘We don’t enjoy the work but if we don’t do it we lose our speed’ end quote. So I took that to mean there were more like him, either in stature or perhaps bloodline. They have some sort of esp connection with whatever is really in charge of this world. It can connect with them at any time and apparently it is the source of their super-fast abilities. I also recall him stating that they, meaning himself and I assume others like him, stood little chance of survival in this world, without the super-fast powers. Which makes a lot of sense when you figure there are a lot of dogmen predators here. It would most likely just be a matter of time before he was lunch.” “Why don’t you teach him to fly?” Annette asked. “Not sure he can. Not sure he can’t either. I wonder if anybody over here knows about it except us? The wolves obviously don’t have the ability. Seems like i read once somewhere that human beings were one of the mammals with the most percentage of water to flesh, but I could be wrong. Its not like I was thinking I would need to know that information when I was in school. I’m amazed I remember anything about it at all. Anyways you made a good point. Maybe if he can fly he will be less likely to want to kill me.” “Us.” Annette corrected. “No just me. And not even me right now. Just if I cross back over. What a drag. If only I had not left that damn note. Or likewise if I hadn’t been such a nice guy we wouldn’t be in this mess.” “I’ll have to hear that story some day.” “Hell I can tell you now. I gave the little shit a coke and he liked it so I told him he could have all he wanted. I had no idea he would snoop through my office and find the note I had left. The irony is that if he hadn’t seen the letter then nobody would have seen it and there would be no big deal now.” Charles shook his head in disgust. “No sense beating yourself up about spilled milk or found letters. Curiosity question: how does the gnome know you will be chosen to die if you do cross back over? You said yourself that you had no intention of telling anybody about the doorway. So what has changed? You didn’t break your word.” “Technically no I did not. But I don’t think that is gonna help me. What I need to do is plead my case. Explain how that even if something did happen to me and I was not able to get back to the letter that nothing would have come of it. People would have read that letter and maybe they would have checked out the tree trunks and maybe not. But I assure you they wouldn’t have ever pursued the matter to the extreme of actually climbing up that tree trunk / limb and looking down into the doorway. They would have just thought I had lost my mind and that letter was the final rant of a crazy person.” “So technically you didn’t break your promise. You would think that whatever is in charge over here could be wise enough to see that and let you be.” Charles nodded in agreement. “That’s my point! All I need is the chance to explain. I like it over here. I wouldn’t do anything to spoil the chance to come and go between both worlds. For one thing, I strongly suspect we do not age over here.” Annette struggled with the knowledge she had kept from telling him about his business. They had arrived at the strawberries so she made an audible “Yum!” and raced past the first few to some very nice looking ones further into the patch. She let the moment over take her and allowed the guilt to chase and try to keep up. She allowed herself to imagine if she did go back to the real world with Charles and was to stay with him. Of course there would be obstacles beyond what he could currently imagine. Ones she knew already existed in wait for his return. She was still trying to wrap her head around the time she was in this world nearly a lifetime had passed in hers. What was it going to be like to get acclimated to two hundred years having passed? That was her estimate of how much time would have passed if they were able to figure out how to get out of here in a reasonably short amount of time. As much time had already flown past if they escaped tomorrow, or the equivalent of what felt like twenty-four hours having passed, it would still be like close to a hundred years into the future from when she left the real world. For Charles it would be more than he would expect and clearly more than his business could sustain. Charles took notice of her quietness. He let it go though because after being caught lying to her about how much time had passed he didn’t exactly feel like he was in a position to be judging anyone. Plus she may have other things on her mind that have nothing to do with him. He continued to gorge on strawberries til he had his fill. Glancing over at Annette he could see she was ready to go. He walked, almost bobbing because he had let go one of the rocks he was using to counter-balance his lack of weight, over to join her. “Ready to fly my dear?” “Certainly.” She answered smiling. The smile evaporated any guilt that had been there before. For both of them. After all, neither had been the cause for the other’s situation. Both wanted to tell the other the truth. Or in Charles’ case, the entire truth. It was something that could wait in both their circumstances. Right now the all-important part of their forced adventure was to locate the gnome. She took his hand and he dropped the rock and they began to float upwards. As soon as they were off the ground they both swung their bodies into a horizontal position which allowed them to gain elevation much faster. Charles didn’t understand the physics behind the rules in this world but he was starting to understand how they could be applied to every day life. They made love. Something about floating around up in the sky knowing nothing could bother or touch them, was just very stimulating. At one point when they were in the strength of their passion they floated into the sea of water above. Annette was on top and it was her that went into the water where she made a startling discovery that she didn’t even recognize had happened. It wouldn’t be until much later she would remember, or realize, that while her head had been in the water, she had been able to breath. At the time however it was just a refreshing surprise that as soon as Charles became aware of what had happened he straightened into a vertical position which immediately dropped them in a downwards direction. Annette looked quite out of place because her hair, now wet, was lifting upwards instead of hanging down. After some time they finished satisfying their carnal nature and focused on flying over the crest of the ridge towards the water-ups and to see what they could see. The valley that led into the water-ups was largely clear of trees, though they became more prominent the further you got from the center of the valley. You could almost say the area was like a golf course par four hole. It had forest growing thicker the further you got from the center of the fairway (valley) and one the driving end of the hole was where the doorway tree located and at the other end, where the hole was waiting, would be the water-ups. What lay beyond those destinations was unexplored. They were floating along the middle of the valley towards the water-ups. Below began to appear the dog people. Here the bitches and their pups were living in dens, dug into the ground. Some of them were coming out of their dens and pointing towards the strange flying duo above them. Then they saw what were obviously the males. They had been congregated but upon seeing the flying pair the congregation was breaking up. No sign of any other living creatures besides the dog people. When they got close to the water-ups, as Annette called them, Charles thought water-climbs was more fitting, but in any case they were next to a hillside which had what he thought were probably the dens belonging to the pack leaders. Outside one of the dens, the most prominent appearing den, was a stake driven into the ground which held a chain attached. And on the other end of that chain stood a frozen gnome. As concrete looking as any gnome found in any garden back in the real world. It appeared to be their gnome. But their gnome was flesh and blood. Or something of a nature that allowed it to move. Very fast in fact. This gnome was frozen. Clearly concrete because it had enough edges worn off to see that what was underneath was made of concrete. Still it was so damn familiar. Charles studied it but just out of curiosity. Was it some sort of monument to the little guy? Were the dog people in awe of his speed? And why was the statue chained to a stake driven into the ground? Was the dog people leader prone to having his statues stolen? It was a very curious thing to see. By the time the two left the area they had quite a following. The dogmen had gathered up a posse or perhaps assembled a military team, whatever you wanted to call it, but a pack of them followed the flying duo staying under them as much as they could keep up. Charles knew he could lose them in the big redwoods but he had sort of made the doorway tree as their home base so he didn’t necessarily want the dogs roaming around the forest that day so instead of trying to lose them he allowed them to congregate under them and then simply lit an M-80 and let it drop. It was quite obvious the dogmen did not like loud noises. He sent down a second M-80 just to instill in their minds to expect a second one after the first, so they would learn not to stick around after the shit started. After the pack had been dispersed from following the duo flyers they stayed air-born long enough to make certain the dog pack wasn’t trying to fake them out. Then finally they landed not terribly far from the doorway tree. Sleep they had found was not really necessary but you did have periods where resting was definitely beneficial plus they had discovered that even if you don’t get tired physically that eventually your mind just sort of shuts down everything but the basic senses. A sort of meditation that refreshes and invigorates. Charles just called them naps. “A nap is when you actually sleep.” Annette had countered. His argument being that they accomplished the same goal. “Yeah but when you’re actually asleep you can’t be talked to, or talked with, like we are doing now.” “That is true. You know its weird, but when we do this at the same time and then talk, I can feel you on a level unlike any other and that I fail the words to use to describe the sensation.” “I know what you mean. I would have brought it up before now but I too, lacked the ability to express the sensation. It feels like I know what you’re like deep down. The deepest. I understand the depths of your capabilities, what motivates you to consider those depths, and perhaps something you don’t even know for certain about yourself.” Charles came out of his meditative state fearing she had seen his lie. He asked. “What would that be?” Annette still in her meditative state answered, “Yes. You would.” “Would what?” She answered still in that state of matter-of-fact truths. “You would do whatever it takes to ensure the safety of your family and your country and your world. You’ve been asking yourself that for a long time. Long before you came here. It is perhaps why you had never married and had children. But it wasn’t a question like you were afraid you wouldn’t. but rather that you were afraid you would. There is no shame in doing whatever it takes to ensure the safety of those things.” “Its not shame. Its rather just a fear of seeing such catastrophic damage done on such a grand scale. Wait a minute! How the shit do you know about that? Or what i mean to ask is what do you know?” Charles was completely awake and at attention now. Annette seemed to sense it and came out of her meditation. Because she was still lucid through it all she was able to involve herself without anything missing a step. “I just picked up on a vibe from you that you have carried a long time. Almost as if you had known you were coming here on some level and that you know what, or rather how it will all end. Is there something to that Charles?” He was silent. He thought about something that was living on the very edge of his sub-conscious. He couldn’t see it but with his peripheral vision. He didn’t know what it wanted, or what it was about but he got the feeling that although not evil, that it was a messenger of sorts, and when it finally brought its news, that the news would not be good. Like he had a vulture hanging around just out of his ability to see it clearly .. and that it was just waiting for some tragedy that it knew about before hand, but was unwilling to share the knowledge with him cause it might delay the creature’s dinner. It was not his friend. Just because something isn’t your friend doesn’t make it your enemy however. Even if that something is seeking to benefit from a bad circumstance on your part. In other words a vulture is neither evil or your enemy just because it happens to get fed when a creature dies, even you. So having it hang around in the shadows is no different than if it waited a thousand miles away. It still isn’t going to bother you until you are past caring. So why waste emotions or energy on a benign character? The question that haunted him though, that scared him beyond all imagination, was if he could survive the loss of a loved one. He suspected not, which was the biggest reason he had always shied away from any sort of relationship. Because there was no question what he would do to ensure the survival of a loved one. He would raise Heaven or Hell. The problem was that he knew he lacked the ability to do it and there lies the problem of a relationship. He didn’t want to be in such a vulnerable position. “When I was a teenager I used to have some dreams that were really vivid. They always ended in the world being set on fire. The sky burned. Trees were on fire. I thought I was dreaming of Hell. And maybe I was.” He looked around the world he was currently inhabiting with a bit of a suspicious gaze. “And is this world anything similar to the one in your dreams?” Annette asked, genuinely curious. “That’s what I have been asking myself about this place since I first arrived. this has all seemed like such a dream. Right down to you. What guy is lucky enough to end up in a world that is basically a paradise and then to top that off he meets the only other human being which happens to be a beautiful woman that in any other world could be a top fashion model.” “Oh Charles. You flatter.” “No I’m not. I’m telling the truth. Its so surreal that I am constantly asking myself if maybe I’m really sitting in some insane asylum somewhere in the middle of Oregon. Just imagining all of this as a way to pass the time. Gnomes, bigfoot, dog people. and a super-hot girlfriend. Am I really still just twelve years old and have slipped into some fantasy world that they can’t get me to come out?” Annette laughed wholeheartedly. “Oh Charles, if only that were true. I could go home tonight and wake up tomorrow back at my old job. The beatles would still be alive and all would be well.” She went and got the trash bag sack and fished around inside it producing the couch cover and that little travel sewing kit. “What are you doing?” He asked. “We’ve no underwear left, and I suspect that the situation may arise again, so I am making us some clothing to wear. Stuff we can afford to lose while in mid flight, should the idea appeal to us. It will also be very lightweight. I knew that would appeal to the pilot in you.” “It does indeed.” he replied. “I guess I will go for a fly and maybe a swim. Keep the gun handy in case something comes up the tree. “No problem. I will blow them away.” She laughed, giving him a thumbs up. He returned the hand sign and then leapt off the limb pushing out and away from his perch. Laying out horizontally he quickly gained elevation above the big redwoods which stood between him and the valley beyond. When the water-ups was reached Charles decided he would fly into the ups and ride them up to the sea above. But just as he was about to enter into the water he averted and instead circled back over the area he had just covered. There was something different about the gnome. The one that was sitting outside the big den which probably belonged to the leader of the dog people. What was it that was different? Then it dawned on him. The gnome wasn’t standing. This gnome, which looked exactly like the other gnome, the one that was standing, was sitting down and looking up. You know when you see a gnome that is living, that you then see later and it is a statue, that you then see later as a different statue but the same character. You gotta ask if there isn’t something connected? Especially when you never see any of the two of them at the same time together. He wanted to swoop down and have a better look but caution got the better of him. What if that was some elaborate trap designed to catch him? Plus what if there was something more to the gnome statue? Its not like he could fly away with it. He wondered if he could get the attention of the dogmen by having them chasing him one direction while getting the gnome from another direction. It would probably work but again, to what end? So the statue looked a lot like the gnome he knew. And so what if it had changed positions? That meant very little in the larger scheme of things but he had no other leads and something about that statue was interesting. But not interesting enough ot risk his life over. The dog people were out of their dens looking at him. The encampment was barren of any sort of food and all the inhabitants looked emancipated. Charles felt sorry for them even though he knew they would attack and eat him on the spot given the chance. They were for better or worse, canines and they simply had too much of it ingrained in their essence for them to ever be anything else. They were intelligent creatures but much like his own species, unable to overcome the very obstacles which they themselves created. In this particular circumstance the unchecked breeding of the animals has resulted in an over-population for the food resources to be able to provide. Flying above everything gives an advantage in being able to see what is going on across a vast area. He had climbed back up to a height which provided an interesting view. On the outskirts of the dog people community he saw a bigfoot stalking a dogman. The muscled ape came out from behind a tree and was on the dogman in a split second. It was the bigfoot he had seen at his property. The dog’s neck was easily broken and the bigfoot began to disappear under the canopy of the big redwoods which lined the valley. Charles followed from above staying out over the open part of the valley until he reached a point he could no longer avoid the barrier of the redwoods. Flying among them was tricky at best because of some weird gravity they exerted. It was just easier to walk once you got among the big Sequoias so he landed, found a couple of rocks to weigh him down enough he wouldn’t go floating upwards every time he stepped to vigorously, and continued following the big ape on foot. They went further back into the redwoods and finally the ape became aware of his presence. It stopped and set down the dead dogman and faced Charles as he walked up. The bigfoot said nothing, just stood looking at him. “Uh, hello there. I recognized you from having seen you in the other world. Do you remember me?” Charles asked, not sure the creature was understanding what he was saying. Still it hadn’t attacked him yet, so that was good. He continued talking as he marveled at the creature’s powerful muscles. “I have been trying to find the gnome.” He gestured with his hand to show a height that approximated the gnome’s height. Bigfoot shook his head in agreement so Charles took that to mean he understood what or rather whom the subject of the conversation was about. “Have you seen him?” The bigfoot pointed towards the water-ups where he had just left. Then it made a sitting gesture and held his hands together. Charles felt it could mean only one thing. The statue gnome he had seen chained up outside the big den of the dogmen’s leader. “Is that our friend, the gnome? The statue that is chained up outside the big den? The bigfoot nodded yes. As they were talking or as Charles talked, the bigfoot was continuing to walk further back into the redwoods. After some distance the view ahead became dark and he could not see beyond a point. It was too dark blue. The color of water that hadn’t seen sunlight in some time. As he got closer he realized what was going on. It was raining. Only the rain was coming upwards out of the ground and climbing to join the sea of water that was above them. The further back into the redwoods they went, the harder it was raining. They came to an area where he could see there was another water-ups. The bigfoot stepped into the sheet of water climbing upwards out of the ground. Charles did likewise and when he came through the sheet of upwards climbing water he was introduced to yet another world which he had been unaware existed until that very moment. On this side of the water-ups there was no rain. He became aware of being watched by many eyes. Looking around at first he didn’t see anything but when they stepped out from their camouflage one by one it soon became clear he was in bigfoot ground zero. This was where they lived and there were many of them. They had what Charles supposed some scientists would have termed nests and others might have called them crude huts, created all around. Each was probably within ten feet of another nest and they went on as far as he could see. There were a million questions he would like to have answered but looking at the sheer numbers of these creatures drove one question to the front of the line. How were they feeding all these numbers? But then the answer came to him. It was quite simple, elegant, and there could be no other. He had forgotten that on this side of the world you didn’t really need to eat. Oh they did, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t a requirement. Maybe, in fact probably there was a food requirement in order to survive over here. But in the time he had been here, which he was completely unsure of now how must time that had been; he hadn’t ever really felt hungry like you would get back in the other world. His body had craved vitamin C, ie, the strawberries and other fruits. The need for protein seemed to be lost however. Or at least very subdued. Primates such as what he was viewing were likely mostly vegans. He would have guessed that if they reacted anywhere close to the way his body had reacted to the living conditions over here, that they too needed much less protein. Probably the majority of what was brought back to the camp was fed to the children as they probably needed the increased protein for growing. Immediately he was overwhelmed by the odors created by the many apes camped in such a small area. Or rather it seemed a small area compared to the number of hairy bipeds walking around. There were conversations being carried on which were in a language nobody in his world could have translated, yet he was already starting to understand some of what was being said. Very quickly it became apparent to him that the differences between these creatures and human beings were the reasons the two parties had never been formerly introduced and why it was unlikely they would ever be two worlds that could come together and sit down and have a beer together. The best way Charles could think of to describe the species gap would be that the apes considered human beings to be absolutely untrustworthy, which we are, and to be what we in our world would call flaky with a side of criminal genius but our general controlling motivation would be criminal insanity. Consider that the apes have a very unsophisticated sense of humor if they have any at all. Complex satire is completely lost on them. They would laugh at slapstick comedy. If you fall down, they would think that was funny. But a joke about why the chicken crossed the road would be completely lost on them. They would hear that and be unable to find humor in it despite what the answer to the question might be. They’re approach to everything is in a similar manner. For instance they do not understand what it is to lie. The concept of lying has no place in their world. Almost everything about a human being is in direct contrast to the way these animals live. Even though he was starting to understand their language he was also starting to understand how vastly different each party’s world was in comparison to the other. Charles wondered if he was better off to have not tried to make contact with the big ape. Strangely the big ape had turned and looked at him when he had that thought. Presently they had come to what appeared to be the community gathering area, or perhaps it was a sort of farmer’s market? In any case the dead dogman was thrown onto a flat boulder. Immediately what Charles assumed were the women folk, went to work at skinning the dogman. Charles placed a hand on the big ape’s arm and said, “I’m going to leave for a bit and I may return with my woman. If I come back it will be to see if you will help me to rescue the gnome. To be completely frank, I mean honest with you, I want to talk things over with her before making any decisions concerning the rescue. I don’t know how much you understand what I am saying, but the only reason I and her are still here is we are afraid if we leave that we will be killed. Now it looks like the gnome may be in a situation where he can never come after us. So we could roll the dice , I mean take our chances that we would not be bothered if we left here.” The bigfoot continued to look at him but made no sound and took no action to infer it had understood what he had said. “Look I like the gnome. He most likely saved my life or at least saved me from becoming very sick. I would like to return the favor which is why I am even considering a rescue. But I probably do not have to explain to you the amount of risk involved in a rescue attempt. My guess is the reason the gnome is chained up like that is because they want us to try and rescue the gnome. But I have a couple of tricks I haven’t used yet and that they do not know about. So a combination of their over-confidence and my explosive surprises might be enough to pull this off. Let me talk things over with the woman. And thank you for sharing the knowledge of your campsite with me. It will go no further.” Bigfoot grunted. Charles took it as a sign of approval. He gave the bigfoot a nod and turned and headed back for the water-ups. He passed through the sheet of climbing water back into the place where there were many giant redwood trees, including the one he and Annette had started calling the doorway tree. Back the way he had come when following the bigfoot. Charles felt optimistic. At least he had an idea of what should be done to get them out of this mess. There was really just one big question which he wanted to present to her and involve her in the decision process. Did she want to try and rescue the gnome and go about exiting this world in the proper manner so there would never be a need to look over their shoulders? Which would involve rescuing the gnome from its current location and captors. Or they could assume the gnome was caught there for life and as such they could ignore his threat and just cross over and live happily ever after. Which would she choose? Chapter Back at the doorway tree Charles was met by Annette at the bottom. They said their hellos and eventually Charles got around to what he wanted to talk to her about. “I know you haven’t gotten to know him like I do. Being honest I don’t know him very well either. But what I do know is that he could have let me go through the doorway without telling me about the germs. He stopped me and because of him we have the haz-mat suit available to us now.” “So you’re saying we’d either be dead or very sick, or unable to cross if not for him?” “Pretty much. If we’d have had the knowledge we could have used the big apes to cross but we wouldn’t have known.” “Huh?” “Oh it has to do with them crossing through first. Apparently they take the brunt of the assault from the germs and you slip past while the germs are reproducing their numbers. Or something like that. It isn’t a process which I had much faith in thus the haz-mat suit” “But back to the gnome. I think you owe it to him to try and rescue him. After what you’ve told me, I also think he was sending you in particular, a message by looking up when you saw him next. Does he know you’re flying?” Charles thought about it for a while and then replied, “No, I don’t think he does. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t sending me a signal. After all, if you were looking for where I came from, and you were him, you’d look up.” “So Charles, what’s the plan?” “That’s just one of the things I love about you. You don’t waste time dancing around the spot we are going to end up on. I thought you might ask me something like that and so I decided to see if we could get some help? So I flew around until I saw the big ape. Then I talked with him, as best as I can.” He held up a hand and said, “Side note: I have learned to understand their language to an extent. What I learned was that we will always only be able to communicate with them on just a base value because our differences in everything, right down to our very existence, is so far apart that they just do not line up at any level or approach. They view us much the same way we view artificial intelligence.” “Artificial what?” Annette asked, looked confused. “Oh I forgot I am ahead of you a few years. There are robots that were invented that have been given the ability to teach themselves and make their own decisions. There are actually flying robots that use a technology that looks at those in front of them and decides if they are friend or foe, and then kills them or lets them alone, all dependent upon what a computer decides. That is called AI, artificial intelligence. Its basically the terminator movie, if you saw that?” “No I do not recall such a movie. But it sounds terrifying.” Annette said. “It is, at least that is, to those with any respect for common sense. AI can solve a lot of problems we face but it isn’t worth giving something that is that powerful and by that I mean that much smarter and that much more capable in every respect including speed, strength, and intelligence, a foothold into our world because that is all it will take to lose our way of life forever. Unlike human beings, these creatures are smart enough to realize that just because they can, doesn’t mean they should. That has been a fault of human beings all the way back to Eve. Some day it will be our demise.” “You sound so certain. Human beings have avoided many terrible possible outcomes. Most often from trouble caused by their own arrogance and greed. Perhaps they will dodge that bullet as well.” “Perhaps. In any case, my point is that the big apes are not willing to take that sort of chance. However, he, the ape I sort of know, seems to have chosen to team up with us, but on a temp-type basis. Which I am okay with because they are not what you’d call conversationalists and they all smell really bad.” Annette broke into a hushed giggle which she quickly replaced with a knowing smile. “So, lets get started.” “Right after I grab that bag of M-80s and the weapons.” Plus one other thing he knew they would need. Actually it was going to be two things, because one might not burn long enough. He made a mental note to stop and roll two joints out of that pot she had brought along with the other stuff. “Are you thinking of walking in there and fighting your way to the gnome and then fighting your way out? Annette asked, looking very concerned. “Charles there are too many of them. You’d never make it.” “I am aware. I’m no hero. If I can’t figure out a way to do this with some sort of odds it will be successful then we won’t even try. But I’m thinking we can get the majority of them, the pack, to chase us, while the big ape strolls in and grabs the gnome. There does involve some calculated risk.” “Charles I don’t like the way you looked at me when you said that.” “I’m sorry baby. Its the best way of an only way I know of to do this. You see, I could fly in and drop some M-80s, frightening many of them. They would scatter in all directions which really wouldn’t help our cause since we would have to travel through that scattering to get back to our safe part of this world. We could, you and I, strip down and fly out. But that wouldn’t help the gnome and what is carrying him, in my plan its the big ape. But in my plan the big ape carries out the gnome through infested landscape because all the pack is busy out chasing something else, somewhere else.” “And we are that something. Is that what you are trying not to tell me?” “Its like I said, I could fly in. I could probably even get them to follow me like they did the other day, well a portion of them anyway. But if we want them to really commit to our plan we need them committed to chasing us. We take them one direction while the big ape grabs the gnome and goes the opposite direction. Simple and foolproof.” “So where is the big risk for me? Flying with you is no more a risk for me than it is for you. Well, assuming you won’t choose to let go of me.” She smiled. He smiled back. “I’m afraid they are a little more aware of things than that. They won’t commit to following us unless we give them a reason to believe that they have a reasonable chance of catching us. One of us anyway.” Now the smile was gone. He looked very sincere. “I wouldn’t ask this if there was another way I could think of that would have even close to the success rate this will have.” He hesitated and then finished by saying, “But if you aren’t agreeable then we will figure out something else.” “I trust you.” Annette said sincerely. Charles stopped a second hearing her say that. He thought about how he had left out the fact that she was twenty more years behind than she thought she was. While he was lost in that split-second attack of guilt, she could not help but feel her part in not telling him that his business had already went out of business and that the only action going on there was involving vandalizing human beings and perhaps some four-legged intruders satisfying their curiosity about abandoned buildings. Then they both remembered they had their reasons and came back to life. Charles went after the supplies he was going to need while Annette adjusted the top she had sewn out of that sofa covering. Charles had also put on a pair of either long shorts or short-legged pants, depending upon if you were a long shorts type of personality or the short-long pants type. He didn’t say anything to Annette but he figured he must be the optimistic version, to be wearing those pants, whichever version that might be. Although to be honest he was getting used to running around this world with very little on, if anything, so even these simple pants were feeling restricting. He had them loaded down with brass bullets to fit the rifle and pistol, which explained a lot why they were feeling so restrictive. Suddenly he had a revelation. He realized how awful it would feel to not be able to rid yourself of the weight holding you down from flying. In short, how awful it would be to go home. This was something he had never contemplated before now. Up until that moment he had focused solely on getting back to a world where he could sleep. Where he actually got hungry on a regular basis. Where if he didn’t get back soon, there would be no reason to go back. He… “Charles.” Did somebody say something? “Charles!” Annette waived her hand across his face. “Hello, hello … Earth to Charles. Well whatever this place is …” He came back to the present like a diver out of a very cold pool. As fast as possible. “Yeah. I’m here. Just was thinking about all the work I’m going to need to do to the place when I get back. We need to get back ASAP, because time goes by so fast when we are over here that …” “Charles.” Annette interrupted. “Charles there is something we need to talk about concerning the other world and how fast the time is passing.” He interrupted right back. “I know Annette. I know. I’ve been putting it off but the whole time I knew you knew. I don’t know how you know but I think I always thought you could read between the lines.” “That’s not it Charles. Its not about me reading between the …” She wrinkled her nose and got a confused look where there had been a kinder, perhaps even guilt-ridden face. “What do you mean I could read between the lines?” “What do you mean about it not being about you reading between the lines?” He quipped back. Charles was confused now but he wasn’t about to give up what he thought might be the better position. Not too mention he really did want to know what the hell she was talking about? He thought she had seen the actual date when she went back for the extra ammunition. That she had figured out he had lied about how much time had passed since she got over to this side. But if she didn’t figure that out then what was bothering her? His mind raced back through the recent past searching for what she could possibly have been hiding from him? He was at a loss. The only thing she could possibly have a reason to hide something from him would have to do with their world. He could not find a connection. “What did you mean about having been ‘putting it off’?” Annette had replaced her confused look with a more aggressive tone that caused Charles to make the decision to put this off until after they had rescued the gnome. As bad as confusion might be to a plan, anger was much worse. “We have a mission to accomplish that might well involve our complete commitment in order for it to be successful. I suggest we shelve this discussion for after the mission is completed. It seems to me that to go any further now merely risks further loss of trust at a time when we will need to trust each other.” Annette nodded in agreement but said nothing. “Because you still haven’t heard the worst of the plan yet.” Charles handed her the pistol while keeping the rifle. “Come on and I’ll tell you about it while we’re walking. You’re gonna get to see another water-up. And then we’re gonna enter the ape camp. Don’t be afraid, they mean us no harm. Its like I said, they view us as we would view AI. Or perhaps a lesser quality comparison would be to say they view us the same way we would view hanging out with a rattle snake. Only in this case its hanging out with a rattle snake that you have a mutual goal to achieve. Which makes it okay to be hanging with, but you never forget that if you accidentally forget they are there and step on them, that you’re gonna get bit. It makes for an uneasy assembly at best.” “But we couldn’t do this without them?” “It’d be tough. Because, for one, somebody is going to have to carry the gnome. If the frozen one weighs as much as a concrete gnome from our world, its going to be a considerable burden to tote across the landscape to some place safe. Or safer, anyways. So if we did it by ourselves, it takes the angle of flight out of the equation, and that is our greatest advantage.” “Why couldn’t I carry it out while you did the flying?” “Now you’re getting into an area that is saturated with bad possible outcomes. Think about it. You’d be carrying something that is a huge burden to your size. It would greatly slow down your progress and make you nearly defenseless against any sort of opposition. A pup would probably be able to take you out. But in the arms of that beast it is barely a consideration. A weapon if need be. Where you can barely swing that much weight, the beast can use it like a battering ram or wrecking ball.” “Okay. So I’ll be the bait. That little man better prove to be the kind of friend that is worth all this trouble.” She said with a nervous smile. “Aye.” Charles replied, mocking his smaller-sized friend that awaited their rescue effort. They made their way through the big redwoods in silence the rest of the distance until reaching a point when the water-up was in view. “I don’t know if they are more beautiful than a waterfall, but they definitely deserve honorable mention.” Annette said, after stopping to view the site which could not be found anywhere in her world. “Yeah I know what you mean. Waterfalls are pretty cool, so its a tough choice which I think is more beautiful. I know I am more privledged, getting to see these, because I have seen their opposites. Then add in the fact that no other human being has seen the ups version, and it makes it all that much more special. But having said that, I have to remember the awe I felt when first hearing the falls at Niagara. Just hearing them and the obvious power behind their roar, was an experience I would have to say that drew me closer to God than any other natural wonder I have encountered.” “You say that so romantically, Charles. Niagara I have heard. It is for the new to weds. Is that not so?” “Newly weds, and yes, many who have just married go to Niagara for their honeymoon.” “Is that why you were there?” He laughed. “No, nothing like that. I actually went with my parents when I was very young. Perhaps that is why it made such an impression upon me.” “Perhaps. I would like to go there with you some day.” “Some day you may get that wish.” His reply reminded him of what he had been thinking earlier. How going back to the real world was going to suck. The whole flying thing, the beauty of the giant redwoods, the way the ground was covered with what could have passed for a golf green, the lack of wind, never being hungry or thirsty. Which cut way down on the bathroom situation too. This was a paradise. On top of all that, plus the theory that they didn’t age while here, was that he thought he was getting his hair back! While that might not mean a lot to a large part of the population, it was only because they had never experienced losing their hair. Then his mind jumped to another possibility. Could he be losing those wrinkles? “Charles. What are you thinking about? You seem lost again.” “Oh, it was nothing.” But that wasn’t true. What had dawned on him was that it was possible he had stumbled upon the fountain of youth. No wonder whatever was running this place didn’t want any further attention from the real world. If word got out that a trip to this place would restore your hair, remove wrinkles, and who knows what else? It could literally make you young again. He sure felt like a younger man. It wasn’t something he had given any thought until just now but when he stopped to think about it, it was possible. “I dont think it was nothing.” Weighing nothing had the effect which probably mimicked, or better stated, gave the illusion of becoming younger. When it takes hardly any effort to spring from one spot to the next, and that is when you are carrying extra weight, it probably does fool you into thinking you’re young again. When really you’re not younger, or stronger. you’re just lighter. “Charles.” “I’m sorry. I got sidetracked in my thoughts. I guess I should explain how I plan on getting us out of the way of trouble once we get the pack to chasing us huh?” “No, I understood what you said. You will merely scare the dogmen away with the explosions and then come down and get me and we will be on our way.” “I guess you do understand the plan. I hope it works like it sounds.” “As hard as you are concentrating on it, I feel if there is a problem that you will spot it before things go too far astray.” She smiled confidently at him. “My hero that saved me from the dogs. Did you think I had forgotten that?” Charles couldn’t help but feel a rush. He hadn’t experienced that feeling since he was a young man and a girl that had shown him attention said to him she hoped to see him again that summer before school started in the fall. He remembered how his face had felt like it was going to explode so much blood had rushed there at one time. “The ups are not far ahead now.” He replied, using the matter-of-fact statement for time to cover what would have been a stuttering reply at best. Annette chose to let him off the hook so she went along with his statement. “Oh I can’t wait to see my second ups that I have ever experienced.” Charles laughed and said, “Well I doubt they will have the effect the first ones had on you but at the same time I would imagine that would be extremely hard to do. Maybe if they were going sideways this time.” Annette laughed. “That would do it.” Charles stopped her for a second. “Hear that? In the far distance? It is the sound of a water ups. They are not far away now. I suppose now would be the time to break the bad news to you.” “Go ahead. I’m going to have to know sometime.” “Yeah. Well like I said earlier we want them to really be chasing us. Like they think they are likely to catch us if they stay at it. The only way to ensure that happens is to dangle bait that is very tempting. By now they have likely figured out that the reason you stay holding my hand and just below me, is because I’m holding you up. Plus if they didn’t make that connection they will when I accidentally drop you while we are getting away. Since you will be stripped down to nothing you may not be able to fly but you will be very lightweight. As such when you come down to the ground you have to time it just right and kick off the ground so you climb back up a ways into the air. They will see you do that and after several bounces and them seeing you didn’t get as far back up into the air each time after bouncing; and they will think you are grounded.” “Which I would be.” Annette added. “True. But by then I will be waiting for them with the M-80s. When they have run a distance after you and are down to about half their remaining energy, I will drop the mother load on them. They will scatter in every direction but after you because of where I place the bombs.” “Sounds easy enough.” “There’s one more thing. I realize it won’t be easy to do, but if you are ever needing to be able to fly and I am not there to help, if you can find you way to one of the waterups and you have something to catch the water, you can use that water to counter balance your slight extra weight that keeps you from being able to float upwards.” Charles said. “B.T.W. totally worth it!” “What is that?” She asked. “Whatever it takes to keep you looking just like you do. Totally worth it!? He smiled. “Get ready to see something for the first time in your life.” They came into view of the water-ups and a short while after that they crossed through the sheet of upwards climbing water and came out to see the campsite of the bigfoot. To Annette it seemed like probably every bigfoot to ever exist was in that camp at that moment. As soon as the big hairies saw the weapons there went out a shrill whistle that at the same time caused both humans to become ill-feeling and anxious. Charles caught wind of some of the conversations and realized the weapons were making the apes too anxious. They had to go. So he reluctantly took both of them and crossed back to the other side of the water-up and found a place to stash the two guns. He left the ammunition with them as well since he saw no gain in lugging their extra weight around. The M-80s he kept on his person. He counter-weighted himself with a couple of rocks. Careful to keep his fireworks dry, he crossed back through the water-up into the big ape camp. Apparently once the guns were removed the young apes lost all fear and had approached Annette to check out her hand-sewn bikini wear which matched the short-pants he wore. While the clothes would not have made even honorable mention in any fashion show back in the real world, the young ape females found them to be quite interesting. Annette began to pick up their language and it wasn’t long before she understood what Charles had meant about the communication only going so far; due to the fact that each species was so different from the other. There were similarities too however. Both species loved. Both species did not want any bad fortune to fall upon their loved ones. That seemed to be the spot which both parties could find the most agreement. Annette learned that the dogmen and the apes were at odds. Both ate the other whenever possible but the apes just ate the liver of the dogmen. The rest of their carcass went to those apes not able to feed themselves. The liver was considered the highest of treats. She could hear Charles now. Does that mean they are doggy treats? She fell in love with the young female apes almost immediately. They were so open and sincere. Annette had a necklace and a couple of rings which were big hits among them. She ended up giving away the necklace to one of the young ape females. The youngster went chattering off into the the beyond with a handful of her friends tagging along. They could be heard chattering long after they had become lost to all but the most trained eye. Charles had joined the males of the camp. Annette glanced over every once in a while. It didn’t look like he was having the best of times. Her most recent peek revealed Charles being held upside down by one of the bigfoot. It had hold of his ankle holding him like that while the other males looked him over. Annette let go a little giggle before she was able to turn her attention back to the young apes gathered around her. They learned a couple of dances from the apes. Charles struggled but Annette helped him to at least fake his way through the festivities. He learned that this was a traditional ceremony that was conducted whenever one of them went on a mission that might involve death. There was even a part of the dance where it slowed down and the death was mimicked; finishing with a great dying scene that both Annette and Charles thought took forever to be done. Perhaps it was their way of showing death that they would not go easy into the darkness. Charles wondered how often this ceremony took place? It was anybody’s guess. Especially since time was so hard to keep track on this side. The apes seemed to take the time seriously and much time and attention was spent on the ape by many of those in the community. The love that was felt was obvious. Charles wasn’t sure how many were his children but he got the impression that there were quite a few which either knew he was their father or that saw him as a father figure. Annette watched Charles watching the big ape accept all the well wishes and hugs. It was strange yet heart-warming to watch the apes hug each other. They did not hold back showing their emotions. Charles thought human beings could learn a thing or two from these creatures. For such powerful creatures they could be so caring and so tender towards each other. The party eventually wound down. When they left to start their journey everybody had their chance to say their parting words, or however these creatures communicated. They didn’t speak once they started out on the journey. Charles figured it was for the best since they would need to be quiet once they got close to the dogman camp. This way it solved the problem of getting everybody to shut up when the time came. Annette was thinking about Charles’ business. It was going to break his heart when he found out. There was simply nothing she could do about it since she was unaware also until she had went back for the ammunition and saw the business was clearly defunct. She wondered how long the banks would keep his money for him before he was declared dead and his possessions either sent to relatives or turned into the state fund. Either way it would do him no good. Charles had his mind on what they were going to do when they arrived at the dogman camp. It was going to be a tight situation but he thought if they were smart about things they could get in and out without getting themselves killed. He was more than a bit concerned about the big ape. Would he follow the plan? Would he even understand the plan? Communicating with them is so hit and miss that he never was sure they were on the same page. So far he had guessed well enough to manage to get them to where they were, but when the chips were down he didn’t know if their communication was going to be good enough for this to work like it should. The ape wasn’t thinking too much of anything. He wasn’t as stupid as the humans thought however. That had always been their biggest advantage, was the humans thinking they were stupid brutes. It had worked well for them. Since the time when the humans had appeared on the horizon until current times, very few humans had ever even seen him or his kind and that was a good thing. In the beast’s mind he was at peace with the possibility of death. He had lived a long and fruitful life and he did not relish the thought of being feeble. Death was a much preferred option. Especially if he could die as an ape that was king of all for as far as he could see in any direction. Which currently he still held that position. Someday not far off if he was still around he would be challenged by one of the younger males. If he lost the battle he would not be killed, just demoted to a position not terribly unlike the royals in England. Until the time of his passing naturally he would enjoy status as the king in all but the actual running of the camp and the troop. But to a warrior king that was the equivalent of hell. The ape was the first to become aware they had reached the outer limits of the dogman camp. Charles guessed the big ape had smelled them. The ape gave a signal to get down behind a bush or boulder and then took them out along the outline of the encampment until they reached a spot where they could see the gnome sitting in its spot looking up. There were males all around going about whatever business it was that interested a seven foot tall half dog, half man, creature that walked on two legs as easily as on four. This part of the landscape was barren of the big redwoods so there was nothing to worry about running into when Charles took to the air. He grabbed Annette and dropped the rocks and they began to float upwards. As soon as possible they swung their bodies into a horizontal position which greatly helped them to climb upwards. Little time passed before the dogmen became aware of what was flying over them. The pack formed and was directly below the flying couple. Charles took them away from the spot where the gnome was chained. Once he was out ahead of the pack a ways he kissed Annette and let her slip away which took her down towards the ground. The pack saw what happened and turned their full attention to chasing Annette. They completely ignored Charles who had gained more altitude. From his crows nest viewpoint he could see the pack taking certain paths. Charles pulled out the first joint he had rolled and lit it up. Then he produced three of the M-80s. He twisted the fuses on them until they formed one big fuse and then did the same to another three. After that he flew over the spot the pack was coming up to, and lit the big fuses. As soon as the fuse was sparking he let it drop. Then he moved over slightly and lit the second set of three and let them drop. While that was happening Annette came springing back up into the air and Charles swooped over to grab her and took her back up into the safety of the sky above. As they floated upwards to safety the first set of three explosions went off one right after another after another. Then almost no time was allowed between the last explosion of the first set of three and the first explosion of the second set of three. The six separate explosions going off one right after the other down the line turned the pack backwards sending them in all directions away from Annette’s former location. Chapter The big ape covered a lot of ground when it desired. Right now it was doing double time. He reached the gnome and with one might arm yanked the chain out of the ground along with the long spike that had been driven in there. He tucked the gnome under one arm and began his rush out of the area. Not long after having yanked the chain out of the ground something happened to surprise the big ape. He began to feel a struggle coming from the gnome. He set it down and the gnome was no longer in that frozen stature. It appeared he was trying to talk but his face still seemed to be somewhat in that stoned state. The ape studied the gnome in an attempt to understand him. Suddenly the gnome stopped trying to communicate and instead pointed behind the big ape. When the ape turned to see what was happening the gnome took off using his lightning speed to get away as fast and far as possible. Only his speed didn’t last for very long. He recognized the thing standing behind the big ape. It was what had given him that speed way back at the start. He had never disobeyed the antler creature but that was because he knew the consequences would be severe. This time he didn’t even wait to see if he was in trouble. He figured he better use that speed to put some distance between him and the antler creature before the speed was gone. He was lucky to have gained the head start and he took full advantage. He headed for the doorway redwood sparing no effort. It proved to be a wise decision assuming the creature was intending him harm, because he lost his speedy power just a short time after seeing the antlers. The big ape let out a roar when it saw the antler creature. A face that was covered with a tight dried skin that had flaps which had torn lose from the rest of its pelt and they hung loosely. It had very wide shoulders that slimmed to a very thin waist. An off colored white robe that looked to be made of feathers covered the creatures torso but if the robe opened it revealed ribs exuding from its torso proclaiming starvation was no stranger to its razor-sharp teeth that made a permanent snarled smile because the lips had been shrunken to nearly nothing. Long sharp claws still had pieces of flesh stuck to them due to the blood that had been spilled by some kill of unknown origin. Its eyes were dark holes swimming in pools of blood. They seemed to be bottomless in their depth and very willing to take you down all the way to see what awaited new arrivals. Strings of saliva swung down from its razor teeth and it smiled at the ape just before raising both of its twiggy-thin arms and pointing those clawed hands at the ape. Lightning raced from its fingers and exploded into the big ape’s chest sending him reeling backwards into an motionless pile of smoldering fur and limp limbs. Laughter sliced through the air like a cold wind blows off the great lakes in the winter time. Unforgiving and just short of being demonic. The antlered creature disappeared into the background of the forest. The big ape wasn’t dead yet. He stumbled to his feet and followed the path of the Gnome. Bleeding and struggling to stay on his feet, he pushed forward leaving a trail of blood behind him. Chapter The gnome felt his body slowing down. Eventually he came to a stop. Terrified a dogman would spot him, he kept an adamant vigil for any sign of trouble. The antlered creature gave him the speed but he did have a natural defense system which would keep him safe but it took about two minutes to take effect. During that time when he is hardening into a statue if he is made to bleed he cannot turn to stone. Therefore he becomes dinner for the dogmen. Or whatever it is that causes him to bleed thus be unable to transform to stone. He needed to get back to his people to find out if they had all lost their speed or if it had just been him. If it was everybody then he had to get his family out of this world, or see to the destruction of the dogmen and the antler creature. Not a likely scenario. What rotten luck. And the antlered creature. The big prick never even gave him a chance to explain. He just started blasting. Poor ol’ ape. He wasn’t so bad. Just wasn’t one to to spend a lot of time flapping his lips. The gnome could appreciate that. Especially now that he no longer could get things done in a fraction of the time. Keeping a sharp eye for any dogmen, he slipped from one cover to the next, staying out of the middle of the valley where there were no trees for cover, he steadily made his way back to the doorway tree. Not far beyond it was where his people were located. They lived inside one of the big redwoods that had been partially hollowed by an unknown force and the little people did the rest. They hollowed out an entire community in the tree. There were many like him and they all could have enjoyed the speed, or had enjoyed it, he was unsure if the others still had the gift or not. As for the rest like him that he mentioned, they continued to exist in the other world as pieces of stone. An army of gnomes happily watching over countless flower, vegetable and even rock gardens all over the planet. He wouldn’t have traded places with any of them for all the riches in the world. Don’t think he hadn’t thought about the rest of his kind having turned on him at the demand of the antlered creature. He figured there was about a sixty percent chance the others would have turned on him. If they did, and they still had their speed, all was lost. Worse is that antlers knows where they live. It would be sending the dogs. Their best soldiers would lead the pack. Howling and snarling and excited yelps would be heard ahead of their actual arrival. His people would be trapped inside the tree. If antlers was with the pack it might set the base of the tree on fire using its powers. He couldn’t even begin to let himself start imagining what kind of horrors would be endured by his loved ones. He tried not to think about the mad rush there would be to the top of the hollow. The outer part of the tree that remained was its sole means of transferring nutrients from the roots up to the top and that meant the area remaining of the tree in the hollowed part was much damper than the rest of the tree which would result in steaming his loved ones to death when the fire reached that part of the tree. He had never been so afraid in all the many, many years he had existed. Flying over the middle of the valley Charles hoped to see the big ape and the gnome making their way back towards the doorway tree. He was unfruitful but Annette was not. She spotted the gnome darting from one area of cover to another. He looked like he was rushing but at the same time he wasn’t doing his usual speed thing so Charles was unsure what to make of it. He watched the gnome for a good five minutes to make sure it wasn’t some sort of a trap. Where was the big ape? Why was the gnome moving so slow? He had mentioned one time about losing his speed if he didn’t do what he was told. Charles could only assume that had come to pass. Perhaps it was because he had froze. When Annette finally saw the gnome she excitedly pointed which didn’t make Charles too thrilled though he was happy to have their location. If anything was searching for the gnome and had been looking up; they now had a good idea where to find him. Charles decided to do a fly around once to have a better look at what was surrounding the area where he planned on landing. The gnome couldn’t shake this feeling that something was just about on top of him. Most times he would have went straight to stone but this day he had more than his own butt to think about. Until he had touched base with the other little people he wouldn’t know whether the loss of speed was just on him, or all the little people. He stopped to rest by sitting down on a boulder about the height of his shoulders. Suddenly he no longer felt the sunlight on his back. The gnome turned quickly to see what was making the shadow that fell on him. he could see its outline where his should have been. Then oddly the shadow grew smaller instead of larger like he expected it to; but then he learned just because a shadow is getting smaller doesn’t mean the thing making the shadow is going away from you. Almost on top of him came down Charles and Annette. “What the blazes?” The gnome cried out. “You flew down on top of me? Is that correct? You bloody flew? Aye that’s amazing!” “What’s happened to you?” Charles asked. “Where’s the ape?” The gnome answered his questions but never took his eyes off of Annette the whole time. “Aye, I’ve lost my speed. Got you to thank too. Now its just a matter of time until they catch and eat me.” “Maybe it won’t be that bad.” Charles replied. “Aye, you’re right. I forgot to add in that they’ll likely be eatin’ my family as well. Also have you to thank for that one.” ‘Keep moving or we’ll all end up lunch.” Charles said to the Gnome. “Ape’s dead. Saw ‘im killed. Damn sorry bout that too. I sorta liked the ape.” “How? We had all the dogmen following us. What could have killed that mighty beast?” Annette said. “Aye was a mighty beast indeed. But he was no match for the antlered creature. It shot lightning from its clawed hands and struck down the ape.” The gnome had a sincere look of sadness on his face. “i guess I grew fond of the big stinkin’ furball.” “Listen! Anybody else hear dogs? a lot of dogs!” Annette said. “They’re a long ways off. We have time.” Charles said. “Then get moving! I have to move my family out of here!” The gnome prodded. “We are getting closer. Its on the way to the doorway tree.” Annette took the lead and the gnome fell in behind her. Charles brought up the rear. “Why the rush all the sudden? He asked. “Because of you! I appreciate your effort but twas either bad timing or the creature knew and was waiting. I don’t know which. I am cut off which is why I dont have any speed. When I saw the creature I knew my life wasn’t worth a plug nickel but I still had my speed so I used it to put as much space between me and the antlered creature as I could until my speed stopped. Now I am defenseless.” Annette stopped leading for a second and looked at the gnome. “Why isn’t he floating?” “A good question. Why aren’t you floating gnome?” Charles asked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The gnome replied. Charles tapped the cone shaped hat on top of the gnome. “Concrete.” He began to laugh. Annette joined in. The gnome began to push past Annette. “I don’t know what you are talking about but I have to get home and save my family.” As he pushed past Annette she reached out and grabbed his pointed hat and took it off his head. Almost immediately the gnome began to float off the ground. He struggled by kicking his feet but to no avail. He just kept floating upwards. “Help me!” Instead of helping both Annette and Charles laughed until tears came from their eyes. The whole time the gnome drifted higher and kept kicking his little feet and then he tried a swimming motion which brought his body up into a horizontal position and that was when it became clear that the real flyers in this world were the little people. Almost instantly the gnome was zooming much faster than Charles had ever achieved. The gnome began to laugh as he zoomed across the sky. The he started doing loops and backwards loops. Then he seemed to lose all interest in his sky escapades and he flew over to where he was just above the two friends still on the ground. “We’ve got trouble sooner than I expected!” Charles dropped the rocks he had been using to counter-balance his weight and began to float upwards. The gnome quickly joined him and together they accended until reaching a height that Charles could see what the gnome was talking about. Just on the other side of the ridge the dogmen had been assembling just out of sight of anything that might have been watching from one of the very tall trees in the redwood forest. He noted they seemed to know just exactly the cut-off line of where they would be in view from a lookout up in the redwoods. What they didn’t count on was anybody being able to have such a high view point. When this dawned on him he quickly said to the gnome, “C’mon. We’ve got to get out of sight.” The two used their flying abilities to get back down to the ground or close enough to it they could grab ahold of a bush or in the gnome’s case Annette’s outstretched hand, and pull themselves back down to the ground where they quickly counter-balanced their weight with rocks laying about. “They don’t know that we know they’re about ready to send a full on attack. I’m assuming they know the location of your world, and I’m guessing they must know where the apes are camped as well.” Charles said to the gnome. Then he looked at Annette and said, “The numbers are staggering. I didn’t have any idea there were that many of those things over here. No wonder they’re starving in a world where you hardly ever need to eat.” “I have to get to my family. Twas a grand thing you did for me. I am in your debt.” The gnome said. “Wait a minute.” Charles replied. “Lets think this out a bit. They were still gathering so we have a little time. You should go to your people. Teach them to fly. The hats are not there for your protection. They are your shackles. We’ll go to the ape camp. I don’t know how but I will convince them they need to flee. Perhaps go with us. And your people. If you want to come. We can all go back across. Then we’ll destroy the doorway before they can come through.” “Tis a plan. Tis a plan.” The gnome thought hard about leaving this world. Here they didn’t have the mundane worries that would exist in the other world. They would need to eat. They would need to stay warm. That meant a place to live. He didn’t know a lot about the other world but he knew it was cruel to those that couldn’t care for themselves. “I’m not so sure we’d better for it if we did cross over permanently.” “But what about the dogmen?” Annette asked. “Sometimes the devil you know is better opposition than the one you do not.” The gnome replied. “And sometimes it isn’t.” Charles added. “Look bud, I’m not gonna lie to you. Its not easy over there. You will have to get work, so you can earn money, which will make it possible to have a place to live and stay warm, and to eat regularly.” “How often do you need to eat there? Seems like that’s all you people do over there.” Annette and Charles laughed but Annette’s laugh was short-lived. She very much had his defaulted business on her mind. He didn’t know it, but he also had nothing in the other world any longer. In fact she feared as much time had passed that by now even his bank accounts had been done away with; or handed out to relatives. Whatever they did with money belonging to people who went missing for extended periods of time. “You can get away with eating just once a day. But most people eat at least three times a day. That’s why there are so many fat people over there. That, and they don’t get exercise like they should.” “Some day you will have to explain exercise to me. Right now I need to get going.” The gnome replied. “Yes you’re right. So what are you thinking? Do you want to bring your people across?” “How? We’d need more than just a single suit to get everyone across before the dogs showed up.” The gnome said, then added, “Besides, as I mentioned I am not so sure I would be doing my people any favors to bring them over there. I will ask after teaching them to fly. I don’t think we will have that ability over there on the other side. I want my people to experience what they have been kept from all this time. Then I will explain, after they have flown to see for their selves, that there is another option. One where things would be vastly different but possibly more rewarding and certainly no worry of being hunted down and turned into dinner for the dogmen.” “I just had an idea. You need some time. I think I can buy you and the apes some time. Annette, you were around the apes long enough to be able to somewhat understand them right? I don’t know if there is another ape among them that understands what you will say however. Speaking in their language is too hard. I thought of trying it and couldn’t even begin to make the noises they do. But they need to be warned. I guess the only chance is to hope you can teach one of them to understand our speech. Meantime I will fly over the assembling dogmen and drop some M-80s which ought to scatter them for a while. It will at very least destroy any organized search of our side of the valley. That won’t mean they won’t be everywhere but at least it might cause them to miss nooks and crannies that an organized search would have revealed.” “What about the weapons?” Annette asked. “The apes could use them as a means of keeping the dogmen at bay.” “Yeah, I’ve been thinking bout them since I saw the dogmen. I get what you’re saying and find myself confused. One hand yes it would keep them at bay, at least for a while. Unless they chose to rush the ups. But otherwise yeah you could set up a defense right in front of the ups and keep them from coming through for a while. The thing about that is: I’m not so sure the ape’s hands and fingers are small and agile enough to be able to fire a gun and then be able to reload it when the time comes. I don’t know they have the finesse for that stuff. Not too mention I am betting it would be hard to get one of them to consider using a gun. They think so differently than we do. Its as likely they would get flustered and take the other end of the rifle and use it as a club, as it is they would actually reload the magazine when the time came.” “Aye. He’s right on that missy. Twood be tougher than teaching a dogman to meow.” The gnome gave a wave goodbye and let go his rocks. He floated upwards and then was gone. “I’ll meet ye at the doorway with those that want to come across.” He hollered behind himself. Then there were two. Charles smiled at Annette and said, “I love you. And for the first time in my life I don’t think I could ever be jealous of you. We’ve been through too much. I know with you that no man could ever steal what we have. I just wanted you to know that in case something does go sour.” He had changed since coming over to this world. He had discovered what was important in life. He no longer needed his lifelong companion that wasn’t his friend, wasn’t even the emotional protection he had once attributed it. He was saying goodbye to jealousy. He had finally outgrown it. An ugly emotion that was based on fear but liked to hide itself behind words like love and commitment. Loyalty and trust. It was a weasel hiding in lion’s pelt. And he finally outed it. Amazing. He never dreamed it would happen, let alone so easily and all at once. They kissed. When they pulled apart, they shared a smile that only two whom are in true love, can understand and appreciate. It was more than a smile. It was a strength that each could draw upon. An infinite well that nothing or nobody could access but those two. When Annette finally let go of Charles he floated upwards into the sky and then turned his attention to the ever-growing crowd of dogmen that awaited him just over the horizon. Superman could have done no better (although granted much faster) taking a flying stance and zooming toward the legion of dogmen assembling just over the crest of the ridge in the valley. The absence of wind in this world was never more a blessing than when it came time to lighting the M-80s. There was almost zero chance of making an error when you took the wind out of the equation. He lit firework after firework then allowing them to fall into the sea of brown and black that moved around below like some sort of twilight zone version of an ocean made of fur. There were so many of the dogmen that even after the explosions began they could not get away because they were running into each other as the miniature bombs fell among them. Charles knew they were doing damage because he had felt very unpleasant consequences the time he did not get far enough away from one that exploded. You needed to be at least twenty feet away to avoid getting hurt. The rush of hot air that he experienced was all he needed to ever know about why you didn’t want to be near any place that an explosion happened. Even without shrapnel the percussion was horrible. There was yelping and howling. The dogmen were scattering in every direction. Whatever the plan had been it was now defunct. Charles caught sight of something out of the ordinary just before he began to fly back to check on his friends. He saw the antlered creature. The robe, as the gnome had termed it, was open revealing the wide shoulders and emancipated ribs of the antlered creature. It had its clawed spindley arms resting on its hips as it looked up at him with that permanent razor-sharp teethed grin that those ultra-thinned lips could not hide. He felt a chill tickle his spine looking down at the antlered creature. Then he was shocked when he saw the off-colored white robe open up further to show it was not a robe at all but rather wings. They began to beat and the creature rose up into the air but by then it was in the sky alone. Charles had split the scene. Chapter Shit! Shit, shit, shit! Just when you think you got a chance to maybe win one, they pull this shit on you. Charles was pissed. He didn’t know at what, or who, but isn’t it always the way? What is the deal with crapping all over the parade the second it starts to look like somebody might actually enjoy themselves. Or make something of themselves. He once read somewhere that it is theorized that human beings cannot survive under perfect conditions. That they need conflict and obstacles or they will become undone. He didn’t think the experiment had ever been done on a human scale but they tried it with mice one time. The mice were given everything they could possibly need or desire so that they never had any problem to solve. Can you guess what happened? It surprised Charles to find out they all went crazy and killed each other. He also read that the experiment kept the mice in what was equivalent to a prison since while they had plenty of food and water they didn’t have anything else to do. They didn’t kill each other because they couldn’t stand the perfection. They killed each other out of boredom. That was his opinion on that experiment. Charles always said you give me all I can eat and drink and plenty of women to mingle and I will show you how long a human being can survive under such circumstances. In fact, as far as he was concerned, that was what we all work so hard to accomplish and if it were true by now somebody would have discovered as such and word would have spread to aim for something different. Just hasn’t happened. He was hiding under the cover of the big redwoods. It was unlikely the antlered creature would spot him since he couldn’t see the creature. Charles began working his way back to the doorway tree where he would decide whether to go to the ape camp or wait for Annette at the doorway tree. He also needed to find the gnome so the gnome could be warned the antlered creature was able to fly. Chapter The ape was severely hurt but he forced his way through the pain and began his way back to his camp. He didn’t know what had happened to the gnome but his body wasn’t at the location where the antlered creature had zapped the big ape nearly into the next life. When he came back around the antlered creature was gone as well as the gnome. There was nothing left to do but to try and make it back to his camp. He would be careful to avoid the packs of dogs that could be heard, not too mention smelled, all around the landscape. He knew he would be lucky to avoid them due to their quantity but had little choice to do otherwise. He wondered if the humans had been successful in avoiding trouble? He was able to sense from the first time he saw Charles that the man was not concerned with the ape. Probably what impressed the big ape the most was exactly a point that Charles had made the first time they met. He didn’t pull out a camera and start clicking. The ape didn’t know what a camera was actually for, but he had seen plenty of them pointed in his direction. What the owners of the cameras didn’t know was that apes of his kind sent out a defense vibration that made humans along with many other living creatures, feel anxious and a desire to be anywhere else but where they are, and it also just happened to be enough to cause all video and photo taken of the big hairy creature to be blurred if even usable. A trait that continues to frustrate bigfoot hunters and always will. Plus just getting a clear photo or video of any animal when they are in their element and not wishing to be seen, is a very hard thing to accomplish. So it is of little wonder why bigfoot remains such a mystery to so many. The cameras and phones taking video are as much a mystery to the apes as they are to humans. Sometimes they are shot at with bullets, other times they are just pointed at but nothing is shot. They do not appreciate the difference because they think the cameras just miss wildly and are quieter than the other things which are pointed at them. Technology such as video is completely lost on their species. It is one of those biological differences which is nearly impossible to overcome. Apes have no sentimental compartment in their brain. They may recognize you as enemy or friend, but they would not have cause to sit around and recall the time the two of you hunted down a dog pack. They would however remember you helped them if there came another time where they needed to do it again. The big ape was lost in his thoughts about the humans and their effort to help the gnome. He came around the trunk of a giant redwood and ran smack into half a dozen of the dog soldiers that were lounging about lazily. He tore the head off the first one before it knew what had happened and then he grabbed the second and ran it head first into the redwood trunk, splattering dog brains all over. The third and fourth dogmen stumbled backwards into number five and number six respectively, and that was enough for the big ape to be able to get a hand around their hind legs which he proceeded to slam them against the redwood trunk until they had no movement left in their bodies. The remaining two dogmen ran off which meant it was just a matter of time before they were back with reinforcements. The ape had to be quick. The stench of the dogmen was becoming thicker in the air. The ape decided to go up. He was at the advantage in the trees. Though not his first choice of travel, the trees were never the less a very safe mode for his kind. Few of the animals ever look up which gives the apes a great advantage when hunting or trying to stay out of sight. On the few times they might get spotted the apes could manage a tree to tree exit, something no other animal could accomplish in the world where he currently existed. His kind were the reason the doorways existed. While they mostly lived in this world at times they would cross over, bringing back food and often times the reason there were such fantastic fruits and vegetables growing was due to their seeds having been spread about thanks to the waste from the apes. they were largely vegetarian but at times they needed meat to satisfy areas of nutrition which plants failed. Mostly the young apes feasted on the meat the elders supplied. It had been this way since the beginning, although back toward the start there were many more of the apes. Both on this side and on the other side of the doorway. As time passed in the real world the population of human beings grew to a point that it no longer was possible to keep any sort of large community of the apes. So most decided to spend the majority of their time in the other world where their needs were fewer. Back then the population of the dogmen was much less than current times. They have been spotted in the other world but the ones over there must have arrived by accident otherwise if they had discovered a way to cross back and forth there would be total mayhem in the other world. There would be packs of the dogmen running rampant across every continent they could reach. The ape reached a hieght that you couldn’t see the ground and began going out on one of the big limbs until he reached a limb reaching over from a neighboring redwood. Switching from one limb to the other he left the tree he had climbed and was now in the tree next to it. Because of his severe wounds he had to stop after getting over to the next tree. Here he was relatively safe for a while because the dogs might track his scent up the tree but they wouldn’t track it over to where he made the jump to the tree next door. No scent to point up the tree he was in, he was very unlikely to be found. He allowed himself to rest for a while and soon had fallen into a deep sleep atop one of the wide limbs of the giant redwood. The ape also enjoyed cover from being spotted from above because of the canopy of the redwoods. Chapter Annette arrived at the ape camp hearing the explosions going off back over the valley. They signaled that Charles had been successful in getting the fireworks to do their magic. She imagined that by now the valley was saturated with dogmen scattering every which way trying to get away from the sting of the explosion that surely must be excruciating to their sensitive hearing. Capable of picking up many more levels of sound than a human being, unlike odors which the strength of which matters very little, the strength of sound very much changes the effect a sound will have on a canine. This behavior stretches back to their roots and has not changed up to current times. All canines are extremely sensitive to loud sounds and they absolutely cannot stand them. Annette wasn’t too fond of them herself. She reached the water-up and crossed through to the ape encampment. She felt very much like the stranger she was; and the warmth of the community seemed to have left with the big ape that had befriended Charles. She stood looking at the community and just walked over to the first female that had children around her and she began talking. She taught the same way that Charles had taught English to her. By pointing and then saying what she called it. Showing the right hand, then they left. Right foot, then the left. About five minutes into the lesson the mother bigfoot began to chatter back at Annette. Another ten minutes passed and the mother bigfoot seemed to be understanding entire sentences from Annette. When they reached that point Annette thought they had reached a point where she could tell them of the upcoming attack and at least get an okay, or a yes or no answer as acknowledgement. So she began by stating to gather the other mothers so she could translate. Then Annette began telling the crowd they were possibly going to be attacked by the dogmen in full force. That they needed to move to safer locations. There was chattering among the bigfoot. At one point the females involved some of the big males and Annette thought they decided to move the entire camp over to the other side at least for the next day or two (other side time) and then come back. Annette said she would be happy to lead the way to the doorway tree. While the apes took a few seconds to organize, Annette passed back through the water-up and located the weapons. She strapped on the pistol and stood ready with the rifle to kill the first dogman she saw come into view. She didn’t have to wait very long. It wasn’t like what she had expected in that she had thought the first time she killed one it would be when they were charging the ups, but in fact it was just one of the dogmen that had first been scattered by the explosions and now he was just wandering about, in no hurry to rejoin his peers. The animal would have spotted her in another second. She really did the only smart thing, she took her shot. It hit the dogman in the right side of the head sending blood and flesh flying backwards from where the rest of the dog’s face remained. The body toppled over with a surprise look still on the part of its face not splattered into fleshy cottage cheese. Annette took the offensive and went over to the dog’s body. She looked further back up the trail for any sign of his friends but saw nothing. Then to her amazement she saw something with dirty-white colored wings that were possibly as much as twenty-five feet in span. It had antlers and the head was deer-like but the skin on it looked tightened and there were flaps of it in places hanging loosely like sticky notes on some perverted college announcement board. Large dirty appearing feathers came out of its wings when it flapped which gave the assumption the thing was not in good health. if you were close enough to smell it you would have sworn it was dead and had been for some period of time. Its ribs showed in such definition you would have sworn the thing was severely starving. Only when it turned its ghastly head in your direction revealing those razor-sharp teeth would you believe anything so well-equipped to kill could ever go so long without eating. Saliva dripping from those two blood-stained canine teeth at the front of its mouth serve notice it is open for business and can begin on a whim. Annette was unclear as to what to think about the creature then she remembered something Charles had said to her. That the apes could be friend or foe, but the dogs were always an enemy. If she ran into a creature with antlers to run as fast as possible. She had the thing in her cross-hairs. Part of her urged to squeeze the trigger but another part reminded her the entire ape camp was just on the other side of that wall of climbing water. If she took the shot and it turned out that it only managed to really piss off that antlered son of a bitch then it decided to show her how it could turn everything on this side of the valley into hemmroid cream applicators : she wasn’t going to be very popular at the anniversary reunion. Instead of taking the shot she slipped back into the cover of the ups, coming out on the other side. The apes were ready to move out. The females and children would go, the males would remain and if the dogs did come for the camp they would lead them in an opposite direction to buy time for the families. Or that was the best translation Annette could muster. In any case it sounded like the males would not be coming directly but might catch up later. Another possible translation was that they were going to another world, which may or may not have been the one Annette and Charles had originated. She thought to herself, ‘… and they might be trading recipes on how the best way to boil a french girl too. Who can tell?’ Just before she led them out through the climbing sheet of water she noticed something very heart-warming. Something that immediately launched the entire ape community up to the same level she considered herself and her kind. The males were doing the bigfoot version of kissing their mates goodbye. It wasn’t a long ceremony. But the emotion and sentiment was undeniable. Suddenly she felt like a voyeur and looked away ashamed. Then she was missing Charles. The feeling was upon her before she had time to dodge the unmistakable empty feeling in the pit of the stomach. She risked a glance among the apes and saw none had noticed her momentary revelation of unexpected emotion. Odd. She never felt that strongly about anybody or anything. But just then she felt like a lot more than she had thought was riding on the success of this adventure. She realized she didn’t really care how any of this turned out if Charles was not there at the end to see it with her. Chapter Charles kept working towards the doorway tree. He figured that if neither the gnome or Annette had reached the doorway tree by the time he got there he would head for the ape camp. Just then he caught glimpse of the antlered creature flying across the sky back in the direction of the dogman camp. Back to where once it crested the horizon just on the other side was where the dogmen were again trying to assemble their numbers for a search and destroy mission to cover the entire valley and beyond. Flying up to view the progress of its army, the antlered creature hovered in the sky flapping its dirty wings. Every push of air provided by them was accompanied by a barrage of loose feathers and probably some fur mixed in as well. The stench of death that permeated from the creature and its dirty off-white wings easily would have choked a human being. Forcing their eyes to water and triggering that natural urge to be far away from things dead and in decay. The canines despite having the ability to smell about a million times better than a human being, showed no sign of revulsion to the terrible stench. Someone once explained dogs in relationship to their scent ability approached odors and “saw” them not as a mixture of scents but rather they see odors like humans see things. So they do not get offended the stronger an odor is, because to them an odor is akin to a red ball on a green pool table. You can try to hide the odor by placing other stronger odors next to it. But it would only result in the equivalent of adding a thousand white balls on the table with the one red ball. Yes there are more to go through, but in the end it was quite clear which was the red ball. Human beings on the other hand would have been racing to be anywhere else but where that awful stench was originating. The dogmen used it similar to a dog whistle. Though the explosions had sent them blindly racing from the noise, now the stench of death was calling them back. While that was happening at the redwood tree which housed the little people there were about a dozen hat-less gnomes with long beards floating around the base of the tree. Charles approached and when he had joined the others floating around the base of the tree he asked the gnome, “This is your family? “Aye. Tis.” “I had pictured something different. Aren’t there any women in your people?” “Aye. Tis.” “Well … where are they? I mean if you don’t mind my askin?” Charles replied. “Nay. Not at tall” The gnome produced his corn cob pipe, puffed on a couple of times, produced some smoke, and when exhaling the smoke he finished with, “It never occurred to you to wonder what I was doing over there on that side? Do you think that world of pollution, greed, corruption, ridiculousness and apathy would be some place I … or anybody that didn’t have to go there … would choose to visit thta place? The booty is in the bad place.” Charles smiled. “Really? You cross over for the most noble of reasons. … Pussy. I have a whole new level of respect for you bud. Hey, what’s your name anyway?” “Fernsoft Perriwinkleingerisonstein.” “Really?” Charles laughed. “I’m afraid to ask what the names of the women are.” “Not too worry. I wouldn’t give you a head start with any of our women. Get your own.” The gnome replied. “Say that’s a bad case of jealousy you got there Fernsoft. I jest with you on many levels but I do not joke about jealousy. Its a life killer and a solitary existence. I let it keep me from ever having a meaningful relationship under the guise that it was protecting me from getting my heart broke. When in fact it was breaking my heart a little every day by keeping me from having relationships or falling in love.” “What are you talking about?” The gnome asked. “Since we’re waiting for Annette and the apes I will be happy to tell you my finally floating friend.” Charles said. “I am talking about I would get jealous inevitably which would in short time ruin the relationship. So I learned I could not have a relationship or accept the idea that at some point I would make a scene and the result would be the end of the relationship and me being heart broken. The simple, smart thing to do in that case was to simply not have any sort of relationship. Wanna know what that kind of genius thinking got me?” “Aye.” “I’ll tell you mr Found Flight. It gets you a lot of nights at home by yourself, or a lot of nights out with brainless, but usually bra less, bimbos, either of which is not very satisfying come Christmas and other holidays. But you see that way you are never in a position to be hurt. Or just as bad, embarrassed. Its terribly embarrassing to be cheated on. It shouldn’t be. But it is. Its the worst of places to be, because everybody knows you were not ready to move on, but the one who cheated sure was, weren’t they?” “Aye.” the gnome replied. Then he added, “You have mentioned the “little people” to me. You think there are females my size, our size, whom are waiting for us on the other side. Would that be correct sharpie?” He pointed at the other gnomes and himself. Then he motioned to one of the other gnomes, one who had a jet black beard and hair to match. He floated over closer to Fernsoft where he was told, “Take yer wise self down toward the ape camp. See if they aren’t headed this way?” The jet black-haired gnome flew off and was quickly out of sight. The gnome continued. “We aren’t a people. We, are the bastard children that for whatever reason, perhaps the one I am about to share with you, were born looking as we do. Now I will get to why we are not a people. You didn’t see any females because there are none. We cross over to your world and visit lonely women who do not shun the attention. Ya see we may be born bastards, but we are also blessed in a way that many men would give anything to have. We can sniff out a lonely woman from miles away. Not the kind of lonely that wishes for that certain prom date or future spouse. Nay. We can sniff out the ones desperate for that moment in time. By being available, we get all the attention we desire. I never gave it much thought until now but I suppose we are the reason we exist. Our fathers went before us and obviously in same fashion. More bastards are born. No fathers to raise them. Throw in their odd size and they end up finding each other and this life. The cycle is continued.” “Interesting.” Charles said. “We’ve become family over t he years. I love these guys like brothers because that’s what we are; in many senses.” “Perhaps on more levels than you realize. Did it not ever occur to any of you that it is very possible all of you are related? I mean how many short guys with the ability to sniff out the desperately lonely, have been catting-around these parts back when you were all conceived? I’m thinking it might have been two or three. If it was that many then considering their physical attributes, the one most prominent, that being the shortness, then it would be likely that they were brothers, or in some fashion related. They fathered the majority if not all of you, so … there you go. Brothers.” The gnome hollered, “Brothers!” and was echoed by the other small men that were flying around nearly running into each other at times. “I guess I don’t have to worry about you guys now. But you should know the antlered creature can fly. It is once again assembling the dogs just beyond the ridge for what I assume will be an attack on anything not dog. You were the one that pointed out that the tree home was not a safe place to continue to stay. Perhaps that has changed now that you guys are flying?” “Aye. We’ll be fine. You’ve opened us up to another way to protect ourselves from the dogmen. This will be a different approach but one we can adjust.” Just then the gnome with the black hair and black beard came flying up. “They’re on the move to this location now.” “Well, I guess I better say my goodbye now.” Charles said to the gnome. They shook hands. “What will ya do now sharpie?” “Things have changed about fifty times since we started out to rescue you. What with you guys becoming such amazing flyers so quickly. Then the apes, well for right now my most driving point is to escort the apes into the other world. Now that it looks like I will be able to come and go without incident, the whole thing is changed.” “Aye, not everything. You see, while I have been teaching these guys to fly, something else has been teaching me. First, I no longer believe it is the antlered one that has been supplying us with the speed. I think I misinterpreted the signal sent to me when I went racing off leaving the ape to fend for his own. Now I believe I was suppose to help the ape, and I lost my speed for running away, not because it was bound to happen and my running away only helped me to take advantage of the power for the short time it remained.” “I suppose the one makes as much sense as the other.” Charles replied. “Aye. Tis an encouraging thought that something else is in charge of things here instead of the antlered creature. But to get back to my point, that some things have not changed.” Then it hit Charles where the gnome was going with that. “Ahh shit! You’re not telling me I still can’t cross back over are you?” Then he realized there was a part of him that was actually happy about it, if in fact that was the point. “Aye. I’m sorry. If only I knew who or what was behind all this I would make the case on your behalf. But it doesn’t work that way. I am given what you might term a ‘push’ in the direction that I am suppose to go. Its strong enough that I have never misunderstood the message except that one time. Why everything has to be a damn mystery I cannot say, but anyway I got my ability of speed back at the same time I got the urge to protect the doorway. So what I think is happening, what I am pretty sure I understand the reason for this to be happening, my protecting the doorway again, … is that it is for everyone’s best interest here in this world. That there needs to be a wall between the two worlds, and if one spills over into the other the result would be catastrophic for both worlds. Think it through. If the dogs got access to the other world there would be an invasion of seven foot furry killing machines running in packs across the land. You cannot bargain or reason with them. Yet they are intelligent and resourceful. If they were to get loose in the other world the amount of chaos and mayhem that would be unleashed would be precedent setting.” “You paint a bleak picture sir.” Charles said. “Aye. I’m not through. The antlered creature seems to have some sort of control over the dogs. The only thing more frightening than thinking about packs of those killing machines roaming freely would be if they were organized into a functioning army. Then they are capable of tumbling governments. Plus I bet even the antlered one has no idea of how well he will be able to control the packs once they have been exposed to so many easy kills. I don’t have to tell you what most dogs will do if they get into a chicken coup.” Charles sighed. “They kill all the chickens. Even though they cannot eat that many. I know that because when I was a kid I had a rescue dog that turned out to be quite the pooch. Next to our farm was another farm about two miles away in distance. The dog, we called it Stinky, because it was when we found it. Anyway Stinky would go raid their chicken coup and she only would kill one chicken at a time, so as long as I would be willing to pay them for the chicken the dog killed, they didn’t kill the dog to protect their chickens. It was really very kind of them considering every farmer has the right to protect their animals. So yeah, I am aware of what usually happens when a canine species is turned loose in a place where they can kill at will.” “Aye, not a thing anybody wants to see.” The gnome, who was floating at face level with Charles, shrugged his shoulders. ‘So you can see why the need for keeping the doorway something that is not open for all to come and go as they please. I’m sorry lad. And I’m not just letting it go. I am trying to gain an interview with whatever is behind all this. I do this by thinking I need to speak with you.” “How’s that going?” Charles asked. “I have to admit a bit slow.” The gnome flew around in a circle. “Okay its frustrating. Like I said a minute ago, why the hell does everything have to be a damn mystery?” “So the apes are coming. I understand I cannot cross. Can they?” “Of course. That’s why they exist. I don’t know if they exist for the purpose of evacuation but they will certainly serve that purpose. To be honest though, I doubt their is even a need. The apes can climb to the height of the trees. The dogs won’t go that far up. This whole take them to the other world idea is strictly yours. What did you think they did in the past to avoid the dogs? This world has been here for as long as I have been. And I have been a long time.” Charles thought for a minute. “How many women have you known in your time?” He thought that might be the one way to put some sort of a time line to this place. “Many, I didn’t ever bother to count. Its not like we are desired as long term mates. We’re the shortest of the short men. Women like their men tall. They don’t care when they are horizontal, but they care very much when vertical. Since we can sniff out the lonely, we seldom are wanting for companionship, but long term relationships, pretty much do not exist.” Charles thought about it then came at it from another angle. “When you started out, the women you visited, did they wear a lot of underwear? I mean by comparison the women nowadays wear a thong underwear, often times anyway, and the women from a long, long time ago wore underwear that probably took five minutes to get off their body.” “Aye, now that’s easy. Yes the styles have changed dramatically from when I first started as a young man.” “Now we’re getting somewhere. Okay, the United States has only existed for the last two hundred and fifty years. So I don’t see why you would have needed to guard this doorway any sooner than probably the last hundred, maybe hundred and fifty years. So my next question is: is this the only doorway you have kept watch over? Now Charles thought we’re going to find some stuff out. “Nay, before this doorway I watched over your lassie’s doorway. Or the one she came into this world from anyway. She never tried to revisit it which made it easy for me.” “Wait a minute. You just started watching this doorway after she came in from another doorway?” “Aye. That doorway closed up when I was taken from watching it.” “Or you were moved to another doorway because that one was closing up. You said yourself everything is a mystery. Unless you know different then either is a possibility.” “Aye, I suppose that is correct.” “How do you know the other doorway is closed?” Charles asked. “I just know. There are some things I am privy to; and I am able to understand that there is a lot more knowledge just out of my reach but standing ready to be given to me if the need ever arises. I can even discern that of that knowledge, there is some above that level which I am not privy. I am not even privy to know how many more levels of knowledge there are, to which I have no access. Just that they are there.” “Well, that puts you at least one step ahead of me. And I wouldn’t be surprised to find out it is several steps ahead of me. As I am speaking to you I am thinking about how maybe I should have been more open-minded to all that yoga, meditation bullshit but its just so damn limp-wrist ed. But I guess I need to change my attitude to how I perceive the whole approach. Obviously it has reach.” “Aye. But I understand your mindset. I’m not big on a lot of that stuff either but I cannot deny some of the results.” “Yeah my point exactly. Getting back to Annette’s doorway. You say it closed. Could that be because of a time constraint, or do you think it was because she fell through?” “Twasn’t because she fell through. Twas because others saw her fall through. It had to be shut down immediately to prevent the other world from spilling in.” “I see. Why didn’t she catch the disease when she fell through the doorway and was unprotected?” “Not all doorways are infected. The infection is not there intentionally. It is just one of those things that happens. Your doorway was infected. That’s why I warned you. Nasty way to die.” The gnome punctuated his statement by giving Charles a knowing shake of the head. Suddenly they could hear howls and yips and a semi-bark that would then turn into a yip. It came from across the length of the horizon making it sound like there was an entire countryside of dogmen ready to march over the crest of the hill and begin slaughtering everything in their path. The excitement was palpable. “I guess I better figure out where I am going to sit out this big purge of dogs we’re about to endure.” “Don’t ya mean float out? I wouldn’t be on the ground when I could be in the air.” “You’re forgetting about the antlered one. It may be flying when the dogs attack.” “Aye. So the place to be is near the tops of the trees, where if you see the antlered creature you can easily drop down into the cover of the tree tops before it has a chance to note your location.” “And if I am forced into the tree tops, and the dogmen are about. And I have no choice but to cross over to avoid observation, will I be killed later?” Charles made sure to keep the gnome’s eyes while he waited for an answer. “Ah cannot and I hope I never have to make that decision so as a friend please do not put me in such a position. Now you know my family is not a traditional one but I love them all the same and do not wish to see any harm done to them. All that would be factor in my decision so again I beg you do not put me in that position.” “I may not have any choice. But I will do everything possible to avoid such a confrontation. And yes, I know you’re very serious about the matter and then so should I be.” He smiled at the gnome. The little guy was the reason he didn’t die right from the beginning so naturally he sought nothing but blue skies for him. “Aye you should be. I am quite serious.” The gnome held up one finger and pointed. Charles could not help but smile. Truth be told he was starting to think the old gnome was a lot more bark than bite. Out of respect though he did not give away his suspicion. It was actually rather cute the way he tried to be so gruff and really was a teddy bear underneath. Of course it would also have killed the little fella if he found out that Charles knew about that fact. So he just smiled at the gnome and was agreeable. “Well, I guess I will go meet Annette and the apes. No sense in coming all the way back to the doorway tree if they are going to just sit this out un the tops of the trees. You guys remember the antlered one can fly.” “Aye. You remember it can shoot bolts of lightning from those nasty long claws. They were strong enough to put the big ape down, so they’ll send you straight to hell. Twood be a bad day indeed.” “Don’t do anything stupid.” Charles gave the gnome a little wave and flew off careful to avoid the lower limbs of the big redwoods. Chapter The big ape had finally made it to the doorway tree. He could hear the dogs just beyond the crest of the hill yipping and howling, getting their courage built up. Every few minutes the crest of the horizon would reveal another dogman having a look at the hunting ground ahead. Then they would shrink back beyond view. Sometimes two or three would come up allowing just their heads to show along the crest of the horizon. If the ape had a set of binoculars he could have seen in the distance there was a new wrinkle to their old game. The dogmen had found a way to fly. They had used the bladders of animals they had slain, the majority coming from their own packs, and filled them with water from the water-up by their encampment. They tied them to their bodies until they had counter-balanced their weight. Some looked re mindful of the hunchback of Notre Dame. All of them were clumsy flyers in one aspect or another. This was because they did not have their bladders strapped on in equal counter-balances so one side would be lighter than the other, or their front lighter than the back or vice-versa. Plus they were apparently going to learn to fly on the job, if they planned on attacking sooner than later. After a while had passed the sky became noticeably less blue below the water line and was taking on a brown hue. It was chaos in an uncontrolled environment about to hook up with a long time lover, mayhem. Together they birthed an entire skyline thick with floating seven foot long dogmen. They hung in the sky at all different heights, many struggling against their buoyancy rather than mastering it but there were enough of them that the sheer numbers alone guaranteed they would have a few good flyers among them. If you could not see well enough to be able to see their long, razor-sharp teeth, emancipated upper torso with the ribs showing so profoundly the first thought that came to mind when seeing it was that this creature was starving to death, then it might have been comical. From a distance they might have seemed pretty harmless seeing them floating in an uncontrolled mass of chaos. Feet kicking, arms swimming in an attempt to find some control over their weightless predicament, with their odd look of those water-filled bladders strapped to their various body parts. Nearly as many of them were falling out of the sky as there were being added do to mistakes made in mid-air or just the simple explosion of a bladder unable to hold that pressure any longer. Whenever a bladder would rupture it would send a dog into a struggle to stay afloat which was resulting in them crashing into the dogs nearby which would rupture their water bladders and it was just a complete fuster-cluck which as mentioned would have been funny if not for the serious killers playing the part of the screw-up bad guys. It was necessary to respect the dogmen based on their numbers alone. There were other reasons for those that were not as tall as seven foot and that didn’t have inch-long razor-sharp teeth and sharp claws. Reference the apes, Charles thought. They could handle any dogman one on one. Probably handle several of them. Him, not so much. He put the thought to the back of his mind because he saw the group up ahead. Annette was out in front. She had two younger apes keeping pace and their mom looked to be just behind them. Charles came swooping down and Annette instinctively reached out and grabbed his hand to help him get back down to the ground. “They’re about ready to come this way. It appears the best way to ride this out is to have the apes climb to the very top of the redwoods. The dogs won’t go that far up and if they do they are not going to enjoy the advantage of their numbers when fighting up in the limbs. The fall might not kill them but if nothing else it will take a while for them to climb back that for up. So far they have not exhibited the knowledge of knowing how to walk up a redwood. They are still trying to climb like you would a normal tree and the result is what you would get trying to climb a normal tree. Gravity kicks in and they fall. So its ultra important that they do not see any of us walking up a tree. As such we should get started moving everybody up now.” “Well, how far are we from the doorway tree? Its just a few more trees over isn’t it?” “Yes, but its become more complicated since we parted. I’ve found the gnome and he informed me that now he can’t let me cross over like before. Something about him misunderstanding the message sent to him, or actually I think he might have said he misunderstood WHO it was that was sending him a message, and as such, he misunderstood the message. Now however, he has figured this out to at least the extent that he knows he can’t let me cross. He very sincerely went on to say he was doing all he could to make a case for me to be able to cross back and forth but so far it has either fallen on deaf ears or the answer has been no. The bottom line is that I could hold my own with the gnomes over here but on the other side I have no ability to protect myself, or anybody else, from their speed. It would be a suicide mission to cross without his assurance he wouldn’t come after me.” “You saved his life. Doesn’t that count for anything?” “It does. He’s very apologetic about the situation. He begs me not to put him in a position where he has to choose between the safety of his family, such as they are; or the health of someone who has been warned in no uncertain terms what would happen if he crossed. Obviously by the way he worded things it sounds like I would be the loser in that emotional tug-of-war. I even understand why. Of all the parties involved, I am the only one with a choice of how their fate works out. On top of that I am basically deciding their fate also if I choose to ignore the generous offer to live out my time on this side. I suspect the alternative would not be one I would choose to move up on the list of possible outcomes for me.” “Okay love. We’ll do it your way.” She turned to the female ape she had taught to understand her and proceeded to explain the plan. The female ape translated the plan to the other apes and they began breaking into groups and walking up the redwoods on the side of the tree opposite the direction the dogs would arrive. Watching how organized they were about the way they broke into groups, and then got themselves up the trees making certain to do so from an angle where the dogs would not be able to see them at all, caused Charles to shake his head. No wonder they are seldom seen in the other world. There may be entire communities living in the woods in places like the national forests, without human beings being aware. After all if you thought about it, the apes had little to lose if they did get spotted. What were the humans going to do? Tame them and teach them to do tricks? No, they were going to run for their lives. Especially if the apes put on a show to scare them. But history has proven they are too stealthy when in their own environment for a bunch of arrogant pricks to ever have a clue as to the extent of what was happening right under their noses. Humans are too thick and too lacking in the areas which nature gifted them long ago; to be able to use those gifts successfully in locating their elusively shy evolutionary cousins. Perhaps that will not always be true but for now; humans are so outclassed by the apes that we haven’t even yet been able to prove the apes even actually exist. Many of us know they do. Proving it however has been elusive as the creature itself. In a very short while the apes had disappeared like they had never been there. Charles thought he would drift upwards and have a look towards the enemy encampments to see what they were doing. Annette joined him. He held her and allowed himself to being floating upwards and when he was clear he positioned his body into a horizontal direction which helps the body to rise faster. It was especially helpful when he was taking Annette up with him. So they both arranged themselves into a horizontal position and climbed to where they could see the sky on the other side of the crest was in fact saturated with floating dogmen hovering at all different heights. Many were unable to control their flight and were running into others which was causing their water-bladders to burst. That sent the dogman straight down or sometimes it would be just enough to cause them to not be able to control what they were doing. It continued to be a comedy of errors but at the same time they had the air full of their kind, it would be just a matter of time before they managed to master flight enough that their sheer numbers alone would make it hard to fly through them. “Wanna have some fun?” He smiled at he and she at him. “Sure. What do have in mind sir?” She replied with her french accent. “Well we still have an ample amount of these M-80s. Four of which I currently happen to have taped to my ankle. I thought since we’re up here with a few minutes to spare, maybe we’d fly on over and help our canine friends out by setting off a couple of fireworks to help set the mood.” “But sir, there are so many of them. Might it cause a chain reaction which could cause their entire ‘fleet’, such as it were, to crash into each other? A tragic consequence of too many in too small an air space. I think you are right. Better they address the elephant in the room now than to wait until it might really matter. So I vote yes! Lets go help them.” She giggled which made him smile. Together they flew towards the armada that filled the sky on the other side of the valley. It wasn’t really even necessary to drop the M-80s to crash their party. But they did anyway. Soon the half of the valley which was full of dogmen preparing to attack the other half of the valley became a duplicate of what had happened last time Charles had attacked with the explosives. Only this time a good part of the debacle happened in the air instead of on the ground. As soon as the first boom crashed the quiet the dogs were scattering in every direction. The ones floating crashed into each other in their effort to avoid the explosions which resulted in about half the sky falling from burst water bladders. On the ground things were no better, the dogs ran into each other, tripping and rolling across the ground. Some were darting back and forth, this way and that, attempting to find open pathway for escape. There were too many however making escape impossible. After the initial train wreck of a reaction by the dogs, there were of course a share of them which were injured. As Charles and Annette flew back towards home they could hear the savage attacks on the wounded by the rest of the pack. Charles thought to himself they probably hadn’t eaten that well in a very long time. So many injured at one time. Yet the numbers lost were so insignificant to the larger picture that they very literally would not be missed. Charles hoped it was their better soldiers that were attempting flight and that were injured but of course he could only speculate. The dogmen did not approach things in the same manner as human beings. They were as different to both the apes and the humans as the latter two were to each other. Each group though intelligent, victim to the ways of their species. The dogs unable or unwiling to embrace technology, the apes were definitely unwilling so unable was rhetoric, however both of them still capable of using the considerable gifts provided by nature. So they may have lacked in technology but their hearing and sense of smell provided them with powerful tools which human beings lacked. They were of course, physically superior by such a considerable gap that it was a given that if it came down to hand to hand that the human would be dead so fast there was really no sense in even talking about the matter. Whether he was suppose to ever fit into the scheme of things in this world never crossed his mind. They were there, it currently could not be changed and he wasn’t giving up so this world was going to have to learn to deal with the fact he was here. “Well we probably bought another forty or fifty minutes before they are re-organized enough to come over the hill in force. What can we do to kill forty minutes?” “Charles, you’re terrible. I think its being around all these animals, it has effected you.” “I should have known better because you’re French and French girls know from the age of ten ..” “Oh shut up Charles.” He allowed the rocks he had been using for counterweight to drop by the wayside. Reaching out he grabbed her by the hand and they floated upwards in an embrace that concluded in them taking a horizontal float pattern which took them up as they made love. When he had Annette with him he found that he could reach the water above with her in tow but the circumstance seemed to want to keep them just below the water which was perfect to satisfy their needs. He laughed deeply. “We’ve come a long ways. I would say in a short time but I fear that might be the greatest understatement of all time. I’m starting to worry my business will be gone. Which brings me to a subject I have been needing to discuss with you. There’s something I have held back from telling you about the timeline.” Annette felt her face fill with blood. She was so embarrassed she had not told him about his business. “About that Charles …” “No, I need to tell you. The time that had passed was actually more. The date i came here was the year 2022. John Lennon was shot by an assassin’s bullet in 1980. You must have crossed over shortly before he was killed.” “I know Charles.” She produced the piece of paper she had found in the box in the corner of his office. “I found this in your office. I’m sorry to tell you this love, but your business is gone. The trucks are still there but they look like there’s an inch of dust on them. The office was broken into; the front window broke out. I’m so sorry.” She began to cry. “Hey, hey, hey, no need to cry. It wasn’t your fault and I’m sure you didn’t tell me for the same reason I didn’t tell you.” “Look. Some of them got back in the air. They’re coming this way. We better get down.” Charles turned just in time to see the antlered creature come swooping across the horizon, gathering its soldiers for the march to begin. It was flying back and forth along the crest of the valley. He and Annette glided into the comfort of the redwood. They happened to choose the doorway tree. Almost as soon as they came to a landing on a wide limb they saw the big ape. He was looking pretty rough but he was alive. “I’d like to stay and chat big fella but I’ve got to go round up your females and get them to the other side. We were going to have them hide up at the tops of the redwoods until the dogs moved on but things have changed. I just saw the antlered one, flying and getting ready to lead his army of dogmen to attack the valley. When we decided to have the females ride out the attack at the top of the trees nobody knew the antlered one would be leading the attack in flight. He has some of the dogmen rigged up so they too, can fly. But it is not a very graceful dance across the sky. Its more like a flight plan you would see from Woodstock, Snoopy’s bird friend. However the combination of the two might prove effective so i thought it would be better to go ahead and move the ladies over. You stay here and rest and I will bring them to you. Then you can lead them across.” He put his hand on the big beast’s shoulder as a sign of unity and then ran to the end of the limb and jumped into the air and began flying over to the tree tops that were nearby. In short time he had gathered the apes to head over to the doorway tree and they were after all, going to cross over. Quickly and in organized fashion the apes made their way down the trees they were in and then up the doorway tree. The did this while the dogs were howling and yipping their way across the valley, searching every place they came upon, looking to destroy. The apes stayed to the cover side of the big tree. The big male ape that had helped save the gnome stood ready to take the group the rest of the way through the doorway. As he took his troop over to the other world the humans kept an eye on the dogs. They had covered about half the distance to where the doorway tree was located. “Maybe you better go over too.” Charles said to Annette. “I want to stay here and help you fight.” “Yeah but you also know you’ll only hurt me by staying. I will be too worried about your safety to be able to focus on the fight. We both know I am right. Besides, somebody should go with the apes, keep them out of trouble in the real world.” “Be safe Charles.” Was the last thing she said before turning and heading up the doorway tree. He watched her until he couldn’t see her and then turned his attention to the dogmen. He taped more M-80s to his ankles while keeping the lighter in his hand. Then he pulled out the remaining pot that Annette had brought over and rolled up a couple of joints. He put the rest back into the backpack. Might need it again. Then he let the rocks that had been keeping him grounded, loose from containment and he began to float upwards. Just then he was surprised by a team of floating gnomes. “Twas going to take on the mighty antlered one all by your self are ya sharpie?” The gnome smiled. His ‘family’ was there too, also smiling. That wasn’t all though. The gnome had arrived with big surprises. Big hairy surprises. The male apes had come and they were in full force. Charles was shocked at how many there were. He also saw many females among their masses. At the far back of the crowd of apes he saw the females were sending their young up the trees. This was apparently their normal mode of defense. If they had ever had one before? He didn’t know and that wasn’t something he would likely find out from one of them. All speculation. It seemed easier to acknowledge the gnome. “Naw, I wasn’t going to do anything more than just piss it off. Get it in a mood to take on the real fighters. It appears I will not be getting that opportunity. Great to see you all!” The gnome laughed sincerely. “Ahh sharpie, maybe twas my fault it has come to this, perhaps it was destined to happen long before you or I ever existed. Who can know these things? Like I told you once a while back, I’m as much a slave to my circumstance as are you.” “I guess I will head out and drop some more bombs on our hairy friends. See if I can’t speak to that extra sensitive hearing of theirs.” He allowed himself to drift up into the sky. Down below he could see the apes. They were coming towards the dogmen who were in turn, coming towards them. There was going to be a huge fight. Across the distance was the antlered one. It had just turned to fly back toward his direction which meant he had time to swoop and drop. He lit his joint and flew across the front line of the dogs, dropping three of the M-80s which sent the dogmen scattering in all directions which to some of them was a death sentence because they ran straight into the apes. At first it was all apes. They killed dog after dog, but the sheer numbers of the dogs were helping them to win over. It was obviously helping for Charles to keep dropping the explosives. The effect never lost strength in the way it sent them into a disorganized mob seeking nothing more than to escape the vicinity. However on his second flight over the mayhem that was carrying on below, the antlered creature began to fly his way, giving him its full focus. On one hand was Charles, not requiring wings to fly. He merely wanted to go a direction and he did, though it was to do with miniature body movements that actually influenced the flight rather than thought process. His movements were quick, decisive and capable of being graceful or abrupt. The other hand was the antlered one. A wingspan that was probably twice its seven feet in height. To fly it had to beat those big wings in a flurry proving that its flight was more of a resistance of the air flow than the smooth glide achieved by Charles. The real flyers though were down below dodging in and out of dogmen who were sporting the water-bladders as a means of getting off the ground. They were clearly no match for the little gnomes that had also taken to using their pointed sticks and antlers on the dogmen that were in much greater numbers on the ground. On the ground at the front lines the apes were tearing the dogs apart but the dogs were getting in their damage also. Several of the apes were dead and several more had been forced to retreat back to the doorway tree. A pack of the dogs had managed to slip past the front lines and they spotted the injured apes walking up the redwood where the doorway was located. Now the dogs were aware of how to get their numbers up the trees in full forced fashion and the pack followed the injured apes upwards. Still learning the rules for walking up the trees the dogs did not catch up to the apes. However they did see where they crossed over and the dogs didn’t slow down when they reached the doorway. The first one crossed through. A shot rang out. The dog came flying past the other dogmen missing an eye and spewing blood as it raced toward the ground where it made a heavy thump as it hit. From above, came the sound of another shot ringing out. Again another dogman came falling past his peers who were in line to go through the doorway. Another shot rang out as another dogman attempted to cross over. This went on and on and on until finally there was only a few dogmen left of the pack. They turned to run down the tree but not respecting the rules for walking up and down the trees, the remaining dogmen lost faith in the process which caused them to react like they were climbing rather than walking which caused them to all free fall to the ground. Their bad luck didn’t end with the fall because there were apes waiting for them when they reached the bottom. None lived to tell how the proper way of walking up a redwood was done. The apes tore them to pieces in a matter of seconds. While that was all going on the antlered one was trying to get the better of Charles. After another swoop across the landscape dropping two more of the explosives, he came too close to the creature and it shot lightning bolts from sharpened dirty claws striking him and leaving him unconscious. He floated vulnerably in the sky while the antlered one beat its mighty wings so to position itself to do further harm to him. Suddenly the big winged beast was caused to become flustered, sending feathers into the air as it struggled to keep its position. Then the reason was apparent. Two of the gnomes had flown from below and when flying past had reached out and yanked big handfuls of feathers out of the creatures span. Then they disappeared into the cover of the trees below. But before the creature could regain its composure another pair of gnomes came from its backside and attacked in same fashion, sending the creature into a falling spin. While that was happening two more of the gnomes flew up to Charles and led him away and down into the cover of the tree tops. When he was struck by the lightning it knocked him unconscious. The gnomes had been fighting the dogmen when they saw Charles take the hit. Immediately the gnomes broke off their fight and they quickly organized an attempt to get Charles out of the way of harm. He was just up there floating completely vulnerable. When they got him back to the safety of the cover of the redwood where several of the female apes took him and they ultimately ended up taking him over to the other world because the dogs were at the bottom of the tree and would be climbing up. The decision was made to bring everybody across to the other side and they would draw the line at the doorway, killing any dog that comes through. Most of them fell back through the doorway but a couple of them made it through before dying and their bodies were dragged out into the woods rather than haul them back up to the doorway and drop them back through. On the ground below the big redwoods the battle raged on. Neither side seemed to be getting the better of the other but the dead were piling up for both sides. The antlered one had left the battlefield gone to points unknown. In areas where the apes were winning the dogs were retreating and the opposite was true in the parts where the dogs were seeing the advantage start to tip their way. Eventually the battle began to segregate and from there it began break down completely with each side having their kind make their way back to their respective lines. The dogmen cleaned up the dead bodies. It was assumed they were eaten. When the battle was completely done and each side had retreated to their respective camps the valley was again quiet. The chicken / turkey birds had returned in force and occasionally there would be a sign the dogmen were in the area because the birds would fly up in unison. Annette crossed back over with the apes and they brought Charles along who still had not woke up. The gnome was there to help make sure he and Annette got across without any worries of the germs. There were plenty of apes going back and forth during the time so there was no worry of getting infected. The valley had cleared of both armies. A few dead still littered the grounds but they were becoming fewer and fewer. The dog pack had to eat and this was a bounty compared to anything in recent times. There were probably more dogman heads laying about than anything else. Apparently not a favorite chew toy for the pups, they had been parted from their bodies by the bigger apes when the battle raged. Charles woke up to find himself laying on the ground and Annettte within view. She was saying something to one of the apes which he previously knew did not understand human speech but now obviously did, which was frightening on the basis of how long had he been out? He figured at the best case scenario it had been close to a few hours and worst case he could have been in a coma for who knows how long? Then again he thought, it was unlikely the apes would have made camp under the doorway tree so they were probably still hanging out from the battle. That meant he hadn’t been out too long. He would have his answer soon, Annette was walking over. “Well you may live after all. Welcome back to the living.” She said. “What’s going on?” He asked. There were rocks tied to him holding him down. He re positioned them so they were not so uncomfortable. “After the battle. Some are being treated for wounds, some are being comforted because they lost a loved one. Some decided to sleep through the worst of it.” She smiled. “I feel like I was hit by a Mack truck.” He said, rubbing his head. “What happened?” “You were playing hero and got zapped. That poor excuse for a deer was flying around getting into a position to end you when the little people came to your rescue. They risked their lives and were able to get you to safety. “Any of them hurt?” “No, you can stop any guilt trip you were thinking of starting. They are all fine. Why do you think this war came about?” “Dogmen are carnivores. They will always try to kill anything that bleeds. Simple math.” “Do you think so? I wonder? You said yourself they are intelligent. To what gain is it to go to war and end up with a bunch dead? Wouldn’t it make more sense to work out a treaty with them?” “Sure. If they would be agreeable. But I don’t see that happening. Why? They’re dogs. They think with dog mentality. Dogs although said to be man’s best friend, are actually pretty much just loyal to whatever suits their needs. It is in their makeup to protect the home from strangers, so you have nature on your side, but if that same dog is around the opposition for a while and they start feeding it, the dog can no longer be counted upon to announce the arrival of the opposition let alone attack them. So what I am saying is that the old saying about ‘men are dogs’ when referring to their promiscuous behaviors, is also true of the loyalty that can be counted upon by a dog.” “So you don’t think they would honor a treaty?” She asked. “They might start out strong. But no, I don’t think they would hold up their end of the bargain. Eventually one of them would give into their nature and attack, most likely a child or elder. I think the apes recognize it and that is why they ultimately came to the rescue. They realized they would have to fight the dogs at some point, so they decided to join us rather than make it easier for the dog packs.” “How does Antlers fit into the picture?” She asked while pointing back towards the horizon it had first appeared. ‘That is an excellent question. I gathered from the gnome that he thought the antlered one, as he calls it, was the one in charge of this world. The one that had given him his speed. He ran when he and the ape came into view of it, thinking the creature was going to destroy him for helping to free the gnome. As fast as they are: he must have been half way across to the other horizon by the time his speed was taken from him. That probably cemented the notion that the antlered one was the one in charge of his fate / speed.” Charles pointed in the direction of the big apes. “If I understood them correctly, there were mentions of a giant reptile which they do not fear because they never go near the water but that they are aware it could choose to come down and attack which would be something they feel they would be helpless to stop. Understand that is my best guess at the answer to something they do not want to talk about, at least with me. It is like they are superstitious that talking about it to someone who doesn’t know about it is going to bring about bad luck or bad things. If I had to offer it to you in a nutshell I would say it is the opposite of what religion is in our world. Where we come from religious people are all about spreading the word. They are supposedly rewarded for that. In this world the opposite is true. You don’t talk about the big salty, if I am translating correctly, because it might decide to visit and shut you up.” “How horrible. That is to what they pray?’ She asked. “Understand I am not very gifted in understanding them. But that is my take on things. What the big salty might be is a complete unknown. Perhaps its a giant dry-roasted peanut. Or a cantankerous old sea captain.” “Or a giant margarita.” She laughed. “”You don’t suppose it could be Jimmy Buffet, by chance? That actually makes sense.” Charles said also laughing. “It would surely be my idea of heaven if the one in charge was Jimmy Buffet. You probably don’t know who that is because he might not yet have been heard of in your time. He was famous for a song about margaritas and was a really laid-back dude. I could dig a guy like that being in charge over a lot of other choices I can think about.” “Do you suppose?” Annette said. “No not likely. But it is fun to think about.” Charles looked toward the water above them. “Perhaps it is about the water itself. Maybe they are aware that it should not be overhead. That if it ever realizes water is heavier than air, that it will come splashing down.” “Wouldn’t that mean we’d no longer be able to fly?” Annette asked. “We”” Charles teased. “In answer to your question, yes we would no longer be able to take flight.” He watched across the horizon to see if he could spot the antlered one. It was likely trying to get the dogmen back into an organized attack squad. When that happened they would come again. This time it is likely they would void the bother of checking everything between where they were now and where the battle had not gone further which was exactly where they were standing. “We’ve got to get our forces relocated. We need to get the apes into a flanking position and take the chance the dogs won’t bother to look at what is hidden between them and where we are now. It is a calculated risk but if it works we can make a severe dent in the dog population. I’ve got to find tall and hairy and see if he can organize the apes.” Charles announced. “Be safe darling and if I do not get back here in the next twenty minutes, go with the females back to my world. If I or one of the little people don’t come and get you then take the apes and find them some place they can live out their lives in peace. Then you do the same.” “I’ll be waiting Charles. Here, not in the other world.” She said. “Promise me?” He said, “There isn’t time to argue. And I will be at a great disadvantage if I am worrying about you. Promise me?” “I promise I won’t be killed. If it becomes necessary I will lead the females into your world.” She promised. “Great. I’ve got to load up with my M-80s and find tall and hairy. See you after the battle.” He said over his shoulder. Charles found his stash of M-80s and filled his shorts with the explosives. Almost to the point he had trouble taking off. He climbed up to where he saw the big ape and stopped long enough to talk to him. He told the big ape to get their forces split into two groups. Have one group flank from one side, the second group flank from its side. After the main purge of dogs have passed, then attack from the sides. Meantime Charles planned to attack from above. He soared upward so he was high in the sky. As he had expected, the dogmen re-organized and were now ready to attack again. He watched and was pleased to see the dogs did just as he had expected. They raced across the land separating them and the portal tree where the battle had left off. The dogs paid no attention to all the little nooks and crannies they had searched the first time they attacked. The exact places the bigfoot had placed his forces. Next the antlered one made its appearance. Rising high into the sky over the hordes of dogmen that were racing across the landscape. It flapped its way across the line of dogmen that grew closer toward his loved one and the female apes she was leading. Charles swept across the sky and then stopped, hovering above the spot the dogs would soon reach. He lit up a joint and began lighting the M-80s. The explosions did their job, sending the lead dogs into a chaos of panic. They went every direction and as they lost their attack mode and went into a fearful retreat the apes attacked. They came from both sides and closed in on the dogs now racing for their lives. The apes tore them into shreds roaring as they went. The sound of roaring apes and yelping dogs filled the air the way a marching band might be expected. Up above the turmoil Charles kept up his barrage of M-80s. A line of floating dogmen came upon him but just as they came into view the little people went racing toward them. They again used whatever they could find to rip into the homemade balloons of water fashioned by the dogmen. It was a futile effort. The antlered one saw what was happening and began flapping its way toward Charles. He easily out flew the creature as it shot lightning toward him. The two danced across the sky, the creature shooting lightning at Charles while he would zig-zag this way and that all the time dropping the M-80s. Below the apes were taking full advantage of the chaos caused by the explosions. Annette watched from the upper part of the portal tree. She waited in ready to take the female apes that had chose to not fight, mostly due to having children or being pregnant, into the world where Charles had originated. Looking down she saw that some of the dogmen had made it to the tree and were beginning to climb up. Meantime Charles and the antlered one continued to race across the sky. Charles out in front, the antlered one chasing. Suddenly Charles was caught by one of the lightning bolts and he went unconscious. His body began to float toward the water above. The antlered one flapped its wings to get upwards to where it could get a good kill shot on the floating body of Charles Happi. Charles began to come around. He looked up just in time to see the antlered one reach a position just below the water, a perfect angle to make its kill shot. As the antlered one began its lightning strike suddenly out of the water came a splash revealing an extremely large, saltwater crocodile, which opened its huge mouth and clamped down on the antlered one and then drug it back into the water. The big salty and the antlered one both disappeared into the water and were not seen again. Charles having come awake immediately changed his course of flying into the water and he dove back down toward the fighting below. He continued to send down the M-80 bombs after lighting another joint. Then he happened to look over toward the portal tree and saw the dogmen were climbing and getting near the portal height. Immediately he flew across the distance and began dropping the M-80s on the dogs. They began dropping from the climb until there were no dogmen left on the tree. Down below their bodies accumulated as they hit the ground. When the battle ended the apes were victorious. The dogmen which survived ran off. It would be a long time before they had repopulated to the point of being any sort of threat to the inhabitants of the world Charles Happi found so accidentally. He found Annette and kissed her. They threw off the rocks used to hold them down, along with any clothing the still had on. Up, up into the sky they floated, making love and laughing. Charles finally found out what the big salty meant. He never saw it again but all the many, many years he and Annette spent living in that world, they always felt it was up there in that water, looking down, satisfied with the outcome that had changed that world forever. The End.