Samhain Publishing

In the search for home, sometimes you find more than you bargained for.

Awakening to find himself deposited like a zoo animal on an alien world, all Carl wants is to find a way back to Earth. But he’s stuck on a peninsula, hemmed in a small paradise by sea monsters and an impassable desert.

His fellow villagers, also specimens plucked from Earth, live in primitive conditions, paralyzed by superstitions that keep them from venturing beyond the peninsula. To complicate matters, Carl has fallen for Tanya, the witchdoctor’s enchanting daughter. If she would just stop refusing his advances, he might almost—almost—be content with his new life.

But Carl arrived with something the rest of them lack—memories of home. And a growing suspicion that the “desert ghoul” the villagers fear could be his ticket back to Earth.

Copyright © 2008 J. H. Wear
All rights reserved — a Samhain Publishing, Ltd. publication

The next day Malcolm managed to enlist several of his friends to join the ones Rog and Carl had solicited to help dig where the tunnel hid under the earth. With eight people digging in the sand, rocks and soil, it wasn’t long before a large pit developed. By midday, someone shouted he had found a barrier.

Carl and the others hurried over to look at the grey barrier that gently curved away from where it was exposed. It lay ten feet below the surface, looking like an old dinosaur bone brought to light for the first time in millions of years. For several minutes they just stared at it in awe, waiting for something to happen.

“Congratulations, young fella, you were right.” Malcolm put his hand on Carl’s shoulder. “Now what?”

The “now what?” turned out to be using the sledgehammers again on the newly exposed wall. The barrier turned out to be fairly resilient and resisted efforts to break it. But small chips of the grey material broke away after the strongest men took their turns swinging at it. It wasn’t until the next day that cracks actually formed on the surface before the larger pieces came loose. Towards sunset the grey wall finally gave in and a hole in the three-inch thick material appeared.

The third day of work made the small hole larger, and eventually large enough that a person could fit into it, assuming someone wanted to drop into the dark hole with an unknown bottom.

“Tomorrow I’ll bring a rope and lower myself into there and find out where it leads to. Does anyone want to join me?”

One of the men holding a sledgehammer stared at him. “You must be crazy. Demons live down there. Maybe ghouls too. They’ll eat you alive.”

Another helper stepped forward. “We should ask the Elders first if we should go inside. Maybe we shouldn’t have broken inside that wall in the first place.”

“We should set up guards until the Elders get here.”

Carl couldn’t believe his ears. “What’s the matter with you people? There aren’t any demons down there. It’s a tunnel, nothing more.”

The argument went back and forth with voices rising. Carl was being outgunned and out-shouted until Malcolm stepped in.

“Hold it, hold it!” He held up his hands. “Does anyone really expect the Elders to walk all the way down here to look at a hole in the ground? Come on folks, Sorbital has never stopped anyone from going on a Quest, or any adventure they choose. If the young fella wants to do some exploring, let him. We all know the ghouls live in the desert where it’s hot, and this is too cool for them for us to be concerned.”

There was more talking back and forth, but it became apparent no one was going to oppose Carl in climbing down.

“Thanks, Malcolm.”

“That’s alright, son. Just be careful.”

Carl glanced around at the departing men, and then noticed Tanya observing from the beach. Their eyes met for a moment before she turned and disappeared into the bush.

* * *

The drop into the tunnel wasn’t difficult, both Carl and the reluctant Rog slid down twenty feet to the floor easily. The inside looked much like the outside as far as the walls were concerned, grey and smooth, though the inside was coated with clear plastic-like coating. The two men used torches to light up the surrounding area, the flickering light showing bulges, pipes and odd rectangular objects sitting randomly along the curved walls. The floor was flat, approximately twenty feet wide, matched by the ceiling a dozen feet above.

“Which way do we go?”

“That way, I guess.” Carl pointed down the tunnel, though Rog was looking the other direction. “It’s towards where the tunnel ends at the beach.”

They walked slowly, allowing their torches pick out details along the sides of the tunnel. The ceiling was flat except for a single two-inch white tube that ran the length of the tunnel. After a half-dozen steps, they were suddenly bathed in a yellow light, the source apparently belonging to the entire wall and ceiling. Rog dropped his torched, crouched down and held his spear in a defensive position. His eyes flicked around looking for a possible attack.

Carl reacted more slowly, lowering his torch as he gazed about. “It’s okay, Rog. I think these lights came on automatically, maybe by a motion detector.”

“I haven’t a clue what you just said. Are you saying there’s no danger? I’m not convinced of that.”

“There might be danger, but not from these lights.” After a minute of watching Rog looking around in all directions, Carl started to walk again, bringing a round of protests from Rog.

As they walked, their footsteps disturbed a very thin layer of dust on the floor, though everything else looked new. More lights came on as they walked with the lights matching their movement. They also came across a six-foot section of the wall that was dark. Carl examined the area carefully and concluded it didn’t signify anything special other than that the technology that had made the walls glow had failed. It was comforting to know that those who made the tunnel were not perfect after all. Another half-hour passed before they reached the end of the tunnel and a pair of large metal doors. A seam ran in the middle of the ten-foot doors, but the surface was smooth and devoid of any handles or controls.

Carl investigated the doors carefully and then the sides of the tunnel at the end. One side had a black device the size of a shoebox that had a number of finger size depressions on it. Coloured symbols were imprinted on each one, though their meaning was not clear. Above the black box was a transparent screen, approximately two-foot square and less than an eighth of an inch thick.
“What’re you poking at that thing for, Carl? Something might happen.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“I meant something bad might happen. Maybe wake up some ghouls.”

That caused Carl to pause for a second and then he resumed his efforts. “If they’re here then they know about us already. This has to be a control unit or keyboard of some sort.”

Carl wasn’t sure which symbol, or combination of several of them, caused the screen to burst in to life. It took Carl several seconds to recognize the image. It was Sorbit from a view from high above. Various symbols were also present on the screen and Carl tried touching them, causing the image to zoom in. Another symbol caused the image to zoom out, but the rest of the symbols did not have any apparent effect.

Carl tried the control unit again, depressing a combination of the symbols. He tried to be systematic in his approach, though after a few minutes he began pushing buttons at random. It was at a moment when he was not paying attention to what he was pressing that one of the doors opened. The left hand door quietly slid forward and then the inside edge swung inward, causing the sunlight to spill into the tunnel.

“Wow, you did it!” Rog stepped out onto the beach. “You are smarter than you look.”

Rog and Carl surprised the others by coming up behind them as they waited by the break in the tunnel wall. Following the barrage of questions, Carl and Rog described what they found and soon after everyone headed back to where the tunnel door had opened.

The group stared at the open doors in wonder, with Malcolm one of the few to nervously step just inside. “So what the devil are you going to do now, young fella?”

“I want to see where the other part of the tunnel goes.”

Rog groaned. “I knew it. He wasn’t satisfied with getting out alive once from the tunnel. He wants to roll the dice again.”

Most of the people around the tunnel entrance shook their head at the thought of venturing into the unknown. A few thought the Elders should be asked for their advice, but the general consensus was that if someone wanted to risk their neck on exploring such a place, that was his business.

Carl felt a pressure at the back of his head and quickly looked around. Tanya was standing behind the main group of onlookers watching him. When he made eye contact with her, she stepped between the others, stopping in front of him.

“Have you considered how far the tunnel goes?”

“No. Only one way to find out.”

She squinted her eyes. “Don’t be stupid. Use your head for a moment. The tunnel has to go somewhere—probably just beyond Sorbital.”

“So? That could be anywhere.”

“Not anywhere. Somewhere.” An edge came out in her voice.

“Okay, suppose you tell me where that somewhere is.”

“Where the ghouls live—the desert.”

Carl looked at her. She sounded very sure of herself, and he began to think she was right as he stood in front of the open tunnel door. “Is that what your trivoli told you?”

“Maybe.” She acted a little upset, as if he had guessed her source of information about the tunnel. “But you better carry some food and water, it’s going to be a long hike.” She turned and hurried away.