Day 17

James Thornbulton battled to sleep after Kerri had paid him a visit. He worried that if something bad had happened to her he now permitted it. He also felt angry that she only came to him when she needed help. She was mean and nasty all day but if she wanted something, she was the sweet Kerri he had liked. He wished he had gone with Lakisha and had someone else go with Kerri. Maybe even that Zazo, Tẽra trusted so much.

He sat on deck waiting for everyone to wake up.

Zerok was fussing about, doing this and that. But since James couldn’t talk with him, he didn’t bother saying anything. Just a morning raise of the hand to greet.

Kerri-liana come up on deck.

“Morning.” she greeted awkwardly.

“Good morning.” James replied.

“Nothing happened. Just so you know. Nothing happened last night. I puked on myself and Tank lent me his shirt.” Kerri explained.

James smiled. He was glad she was fine.

“When do we arrive?” James asked.

Kerri asked Zerok.

“Tomorrow morning.” Kerri told James.

‘Great another day with her.’

The day was rough. James avoided Kerri as much as possible.

Kerri noticed how everyone was offish with her. James avoided her. Tank was tense and Zerok wouldn’t look her in the eyes.

Finally, Kerri confronted them.

“Ok what is it? This whatever it is, has to stop.” Kerri said.

“You got too drunk last night.” Zerok said.

“So, you have never seen a girl drunk before?” Kerri asked.

“You called yourself an earthling.” Zerok said.

“Oh.”

Kerri began to wonder what else she had said, she gestured for them to tell her more.

“A woman calling herself the earthling, killed people on the island of Hegga, she did things no woman should do.” Zerok said.

“Like?” Kerri asked.

“She left a man to die from infection instead of killing him. She stabbed him and so on. Gory stuff.” Tank said.

“Ok, well that wasn’t me. I am not here alone. I am looking for a way home. A few of us from earth are trapped here.” Kerri said.

She looked at their faces.

“What else happened?” she asked.

Telling her secret about being from earth didn’t seem so bad.

“You were really drunk.” Zerok said.

“You have already said that”

“You puked all over the deck, Thanks by the way.” Zerok said.

“I am sorry. I do not remember. I only remember having fun with you guys.”

“You ran around the deck with an imaginary nose.” Zerok said.

“Huh?”

“You thought you had my nose in your hand, and you wanted me to catch you to get it back.” Tank finished.

“Oh.” Kerri felt a little embarrassed

“It’s a child’s game we plan sometimes. I feel so silly. Is there anything else?” she asked wanting her embarrassment to be over and out all at once.

Tank and Zerok looked at each other.

“That’s it.” Tank said.

Kerri breathed a sigh of relief.

“Ok, then we can go back to normal. I am not the earthling. I am sorry for playing silly children’s games with you and for getting sick everywhere.”

“I should check your stitches.” Tank said.

“The one on my leg is itchy.” Kerri said.

Tank checked her arm first and then her leg. Her arm was going well. Her leg looked infected. The bite was deep, and the skin had been badly torn. He had tried to make it as neat and clean as he could, but it was not looking good.

“We need to stop as soon as possible.” Tank told Zerok.

“What’s wrong?” Kerri asked.

“We just need something from the jungle.” Tank said.

The boat stopped and James rejoiced hoping they had arrived early. But they had not. The boat was still, and Tank was using a rope to get to shore. He disappeared into the jungle.

“What is going on?” James asked reluctantly.

“I don’t know. I think my leg is bad. I can’t see but after Tank looked, he stopped the boat and went into the jungle.”

James wanted to not care but…

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“Let me see” he said.

She sat down and rolled up her pants leg.

James saw the yellow infected skin. Puss came out from where the stitches were. It was gross.

“It’s infected and it’s bad.” James said.

“Out here your best chance of saving the leg is maggots.” James said.

“What!?”

Kerri was horrified.

“Didn’t you feel it was not right?” James asked.

“No, it itches, that’s all.”

“Does it hurt more?” James asked.

“It hurts all the time.” Kerri replied.

Tank returned. He had leaves and more.

“Kerri you will need to get into this bath, and I am going to put grubs on you.”

Kerri sat in the bath.

Tank covered her leg with worms.

“Worms!” Kerri objected.

“Eat this” he said giving her leaves.

She closed her eyes creeped out by having worms crawling on her. She could feel them. Tank touched her leg. She looked he was cutting her stitched open. Yellow puss oozed out.

“I think I am going to be sick.” Kerri said.

“Relax. You should be fine. Tank knows what he is doing.” James said.

Kerri ate the leaves. They were bitter and didn’t taste good. But she ate them, chewing faster every time she looked at the worms crawling on her.

James held her hand.

His black hair started to look a dark blue. She rubbed her eyes. A pink aura resonated around him.

They entered very rough water. Even rougher than before.

Kerri started singing. Tank tried to keep her quiet putting his hand over her mouth, but she bit him and continued singing.

Tank had a beautiful green aura and Zerok had a yellow one.

“You are all so beautiful. What color am I?” She asked.

“White.” James replied.

“Oh James.” She sang

“One step in and one step out. Shake it all about.” She paused looking dazed then started singing again “And I I I I I I ah I I I , will always love…”

She pulled a face and stopped singing.

“Who is that?” She pointed to the wall.

“There is no one there.” James said.

“She is there. What’s wrong with her face?” Kerri asked looking at the wall with a strange look.

“Kerri… you are talking strangely, we don’t understand you.” Tank said.

“She’s moving towards me.” Kerri’s voice was frightened.

“Get me out of here.” She grabbed Tank’s arm.

Fear was all over her face. But no one could see anything.

James had a chill run down his spine. He felt creeped out. But he kept his cool for Kerri and the others in the room.

“Do you think they are here, on board?” Zerok asked.

“I hope not.” Tank said trying to calm Kerri.

“Get away from me.” Kerri screamed.

Wriggling in the bath. Splatting worms all over herself.

“Kerri?” James worried, he looked at the wall, it looked normal.

Kerri screamed and flung herself out of the bath. Blood, puss and squashed worms messed as she thudded to the floor.

Kerri looked at Tank.

“Do something!” she yelled.

“What are you seeing?” Tank asked.

“Can’t you see her?” Kerri yelled.

James looked at Kerri. He looked at Tank and Zerok. They seemed a little less confused and a little more worried than he.

“Close your eyes.” James said taking her hand.

Kerri was staring at something. That wasn’t there.

“Close your eyes and listen to my voice.” James said.

“I… can’t look away.” Kerri whispered.

“What color is her aura?” James prompted.

“She doesn’t have one.” Kerri’s eyes got bigger.

“Her frankensister just came in.”

“She’s behind you.” Kerri whimpered.

James looked behind him. A chill ran down his spine.

Tank and Zerok were gone. They had left the room, and he hasn’t noticed.

It was like the room became cold. Yet nothing had changed. The room even felt dark. James knew something was wrong. But he couldn’t see anything and that made it terrifying.

Kerri was frozen. Her heart pounded as the woman with a disfigured face came towards her. She was wearing an old, damaged wedding dress. The white was dirty, and the skirt was very torn. Half her face was beautiful, perfect, while the other half was rotten and disfigured, with flesh pulling off the bone. The woman stood next to James looking at Kerri.

“What do you want?” Kerri asked voice shaking.

The woman looked at the other woman. They were different. The one had beautiful brown hair that flowed and none on her disfigured side. The other had black hair and white wiry frizz on her disfigured side.

Kerri looked at James who was holding up a brave face. He couldn’t see them. Maybe they were not real.

“Are you real?” Kerri asked still afraid.

Both women smiled.

Kerri swallowed the frog in her throat.

“Why do you look that way?”

Tank came back into the room. He had an incense burner with some smelly thing burning in it.

Tank walked along the walls of the room slowly, keeping the burner in front of him.

Smoke rose up and began to fill the room.

The women looked at Tank with anger. They silently ran towards him. Kerri noticed that even though their feet touched the floor, they also didn’t.

“They are coming for you.” Kerri squeaked.

They scratched Tank’s face and ran from the room.

James looked at the very visible scratches. That at appeared out of thin air.

“What is going on?” James asked.

Kerri relaxed leaning her head against James.

“They are gone.” She said.

“Gone where?” Tank asked.

“They left the room.”

Tank kept walking around the room with the smelly burner, then he placed it in the middle of the room.

“Stay here.” He told Kerri leaving the room

James got up off the floor.

“Where are you going?” Kerri asked.

“To my room.” James said.

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“I want you to stay.” Kerri said.

“Only because you’re high on something.”

“I don’t want to be alone here.” Kerri said putting her hand on his shoe and looking up at him.

“I need a bath.” He said.

“Please stay.”

James wanted to say no. He wanted to tell her off. But he didn’t think it would make a difference and it was not who he was to cause hurt for the sake of it. He could see she was not in her right mind.

He walked to the wall and sat against it.

Kerri came over. She sat next to him. James clenched his jaw.

“You are handsome.” She babbled she touched his face.

James grabbed her hand moving it.

“If only I wasn’t afraid of commitment…” she got distracted,

“You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness.” She began to sing

“What?!” James interrupted.

Tank came back in. Zerok was with him.

They had cuts and scratches on them and blood soaked their clothes.

“What is going on here?” James asked.

Tank and Zerok didn’t understand him. Nor could they have explained it to him.

The leaves that Tank fed Kerri were wearing off.

“Why do you have blood on you?” she asked them.

“Let me see to your leg.” Tank avoided.

“You’re avoiding.” Kerri perceived.

Tank looked at her leg.

“You need to get back in the bath with the remaining grubs.”

Kerri got back in the bath.

Zerok put the worms on her leg.

“What happen to you?” Kerri persisted.

“We had a little Miche problem.”

“What?!” she questioned.

Zerok explained. The Miche are woman not visible to the eye but very real. They came from another world and were trapped here. They feed off of people’s fear gaining strength and power from it. It has been discovered that they do not like the smell of burning garlic and ginger. So, we use it to get them off the boat. All boaters keep a mix for just in case.

“I am surprised you were able to see them. They normally wait until everyone is asleep and create night terrors killing their victims with fear in their dreams.”

“Nasty.” Kerri said.

“So, if no one can see them, how do you know about them?” Kerri inquired.

“Stories.”

“From where?”

Tank didn’t want to be questioned.

“Drawer them for us.” Tank said passing a scroll.

“What if I can’t drawer?”

James finally spoke up.

“So, what is going on?” he asked Kerri.

Kerri quickly explained. She could remember what she had done and everything she had seen. But she was feeling embarrassed about her behaviour.

James was handsome and a nice guy. But she didn’t want to be with him. She wanted to go home and return to her life. Where she didn’t have time for relationships, she loved her work, and everything was good.

“What did you say they were called?” James asked.

“Miche.” Kerri replied.

“My- ch. Like ch for chicken, and it’s my shirt.” Kerri said looking at his confused face.

“I want to go home.” James said leaving the room annoyed.

He disliked watching Kerri flirt with every handsome or capable guy they met. He decided that being in Chayim changes people and not for the better. Even he had changed, and he didn’t like who he was becoming. He found his heart was becoming hard. Suffering didn’t break his heart like it used to. He found that he didn’t care anymore about things he should care about, or at least felt he should care about.

“Eat this.” Zerok said passing Kerri mashed leaves.

“No thanks. I would like to hold on to whatever self-respect I have left.”

“It’s going to hurt.” Tank encouraged.

“Get it over with.”

Tank put his knife blade in the fire and then waited for it to cool. Then he lifted Kerri’s leg in the bath and began to scrape out the puss. Because it was open, it was bleeding. Then he put some orange goo in it. It hurt a little but nothing worth being high to avoid.

At least the itch had lessened.

“May I get out of the bath now?” she asked and mumbled under her breath “Now that I need a bath.”

“Yes, you can get out. But you may not bath.” Tank said.

Kerri looked at him.

“Do you think I am the earthling that went to…” she tried to remember Hegga Island

“The woman who left people to die?”

Zerok smiled but said nothing. He knew it was Tank’s answer she wanted

“I found it strange you called yourself the same thing. But I didn’t believe you could do what the earthling did as you couldn’t even defend yourself in the tavern.”

“So why avoid me and be offish?”

“Because maybe you are traveling together or know one another?”

Kerri thought about it. It was possible she did know whoever did those things. But she couldn’t think of whom it could be. Only Joe came to mind, and she had been at the castle the whole time. Also, Joe killed people, not left them to die. She thought maybe Chris, but he only just escaped, and his wounds were still healing. Also, he was not a woman.

Maybe there was another earthling out there that hadn’t come to the castle. Someone who kills or maims.

Zerok interrupted her thoughts.

“Msss, you may bath now.”

“Oh, thank you, where?” Kerri asked.

“A bucket in your room.” Zerok replied.

“Thank you.” Kerri said.

Kerri bathed and had time to come to terms with her situation. She didn’t want to have regrets. She was on another world trying to get home, and so focused on getting home and her work that she worried she was missing out of the off-world experience.

So, she decided to start recording things and live a little.

Dinner was spent avoiding eye contact with James.

“What is going on between the two of you?” Zerok asked.

“We are working together because we have too. It’s complicated.”

“No, it’s not. He likes you but you don’t like him. However, you won’t let him go either.” Tank said.

“What!?” Kerri exclaimed “Why would you think such a thing?”

James watched them talking away. He has been raised that you include people and speak the language everyone understands. In some cases, translating was required. He found Kerri’s new rudeness very unattractive.

James went to his room and wrote. He was keeping a journal and documenting everything. He wanted nothing to be left out. It was a survival guide of sorts. If he made it back to earth it would prove to him it had happened. If he didn’t and he was stuck in Chayim forever, then everything he had learnt would be available for reference.

They avoided each other for the rest of the day.