We marched as a group on the muddy road, west, in the same direction from where the Tyrannosaurus had come. Over the crest you could see a good few miles. Well off to the right, laid clusters of stone huts. A higher ridge climbed up to our left, dotted with a few evergreens. In front of us, there were a few stone buildings, then scrubby grassland extended to a distant treeline on the horizon.
One of these buildings in front of us was apparently the bank. Still a good three quarters of a mile off, according to Dillard who’d seen us departing the inn, and decided to tag along. Not a lot to do in Moonlight, I supposed.
Out of the corner of my vision, I kept seeing Chai’s stupid fuzzy microphone. A brisk breeze caught us as we passed over the crest on the slight down slope to the other half of the village. The tips of my ears stung in the cold. The muddy road was frigid enough, our feet passed over the lumpy ground without getting sunken, or stuck.
Clouds of condensation filled the air around us. Yes, it was cold, but truthfully, this was the purest air I’d encountered in my life. You could just tell by the smell, by the thickness of it, that odor of a winter snow on its way mixed with an undercurrent of pine or spruce. An atmosphere untouched by carbon monoxide or heavy industry of any kind. The System had scrubbed it clean.
But again, yes, definitely chillier than I would’ve liked.
Chai’s microphone irritated me, but even worse was Aubrey’s constant monologuing.
“As we walked along Moonlight’s main thoroughfare, Adam for one couldn’t help but notice the cold climate of the area. Not exactly conducive to baseball,” she said.
I wasn’t going to say anything about the climate in that moment, but again it seemed I was under the control of whatever Aubrey was going to say off the top of her head. I don’t even think she knew what she was going to narrate into existence at any given time. There’s no way this was sustainable. I’d have been driven out of my mind by it before I’d even had a chance to get a team up and running. Regardless, I glared at her, and she glared right back at me, as if to say “say something about the bloody climate so I don’t sound like an idiot”.
I stuttered as though I’d missed my cue. “Uh, right, yeah,” I said aloud to the group stomping over cold mud. “Sure is a cold one today.”
“Today?” Dillard said. “It’s always like this. ‘Twas thinking ‘twas a bit warm, really.”
“It’s definitely not warm,” I said.
I stopped walking, and everyone stopped in kind. “Let’s just get everything on the level now, shall we? Can we just have a regular conversation here?” I said. “Instead of this feeling like I’m the star of a scripted show?”
“What’s a show?” Dillard asked.
I glanced at the other humans who’d come from modern times like me. “You wanna tackle that one or should I?” I said.
Zane shrugged. “Why bother?” He said. “He wouldn’t get it anyway.”
Dillard scowled. “What’s there to get?”
“You want us to stop filming?” Aubrey said to me. “You’re annoyed by it? Is that what you’re saying?”
“We can’t stop,” Zane reminded her. “The System…”
“The System can go screw,” I said.
“That’s not how it works,” Zane said.
“Oh,” I said, “and how does it work?” Yeah, I admit I was being a jerk.
Zane, to his credit, kept a cool head. Aside from his good looks, he was also annoyingly even keeled.
“Look,” he said. “I’m not a fan of this whole idea either, but if we don’t film you, you know… doing this whole baseball franchise thing, the System just might smite us all.”
“Affirmative,” Flint chimed in.
I emitted a giant white cloud, hands on my head. “You’re right,” I said. “I know you’re right. But, can we figure out a way of doing this whole thing without the running commentary?”
“But, if I’m not doing that,” Aubrey said, “then what am I doing here?”
Valid point.
“Maybe instead of pre-monologuing whatever’s about to happen, if you know what I mean,” I said, “you could add commentary here and there, where you’re more reacting to whatever it is that’s going on, stuff that’s already happened, as opposed to -”
“Yeah,” Zane said, nodding. “I see what he’s getting at. That would be better.”
I could see by Aubrey’s shrug she wasn’t so sure, but she went along with it anyway. “Fine,” she said. “We can try it.”
“And, I’ll just keep filming like normal,” Zane said. “Problem solved?”
Everyone nodded in agreement. Everyone that is, except for poor Dillard who stood there staring at us like we’d just been speaking Klingon.
“What a bunch of nincompoops,” he said.
“Good,” I said, and I smiled at the group. “Now that that’s settled, let’s keep going.”
We all snapped our heads to the sound of a man yelling on the road in front of us.
“Unfortunate,” Dillard said.
The man was slightly built. He wore a black satchel, had muddy, bare legs, and was flailing his uncovered arms as he hollered.
“You know him?” I asked.
“You getting this?” Aubrey asked Zane.
“You bet,” Zane replied. He stepped to the front of the group with the cell phone extended out in front of him.
“It’s Whinging Thom,” Dillard said.
“That’s his name?”
“Should we find another way to the bank?”
“Bank?” Dillard said, his face twisted.
“Yes,” I said, “the bank. Where did you think we were going?”
“At the river, you mean like?” Dillard said.
“They must call it something else,” Aubrey offered. “We haven’t had a reason to go there in the time we’ve been.”
“All I want to know is should we find another path around this guy or something?” I said.
“Nah,” Dillard said. “Whinging Thom’s no Quallon.”
“Huh?”
“We’ll be fine,” Dillard said. “He just shouts his complaints is all, likes to get ‘em in every day. Hence the moniker.”
“Terrific.”
As we got closer, Whinging Thom’s complaints came into focus. He didn’t seem to care we were walking right past him. His grievances were obviously with someone of a higher pay grade.
“Them trees!” He yelled. “Every night they close in, don’t they? Every bloody night they close in, and they push at me house, and they push at the sky, telling it to git! Them trees need to go. They chase away the stars. Sure as it’s raining on a Solstice, them trees can git well before the sky!”
The man’s a poet.
Once we’d cleared his general vicinity, I whispered to Dillard. “And, he does this every day?”
Dillard nodded. “Man lost his living,” he said. “Used to cut wood.”
Dillard reminded me by virtue of his comment, I could’ve checked out the man’s scouting prospects.
I needn’t have.
Jogging back toward Whinging Thom. I clicked to open his scouting report.
Tools:
Hitting 20
Power 20
Fielding 20
Running 20
Throwing 25
OFP = 21
In fairness, Thom was no spring chicken. Still, the more I kept seeing various people’s baseball scouting numbers in this village, the more I feared for the kind of team I was going to be able to put together on the field. Never mind the fact no one here had the faintest clue baseball even existed. Let’s also ignore the reality I’d yet to even place a shovel in the ground where building a ball diamond was concerned, let alone dugouts, stands, everything. AND, perhaps I should add one more time: I’m NOT a baseball expert. Not in the slightest.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Was this amateur-hour production the kind of ‘entertainment’ these System-obsessed extra-terrestrials had in mind?
Whinging Tom could see I’d stumbled back toward him, and caught me staring at him like a lamb at auction. But, he just kept yammering on about the sky, the stars, and the trees. Once he’d taken his eyes off me, I rushed away to rejoin the group.
“What was that?” Aubrey said. Her upper lip curled.
“What was what?” I said.
“That, just there. Why’d you run back toward the shouting man? What were you looking at?”
“Oh,” I said, my mind at full churn to concoct something believable, “yeah, I thought I saw a rare bird in the grass. Turns out, no.”
That was terrible.
“What rare bird?” Aubrey said. “Over there?” She pointed to a clump of frozen weeds just beyond where Whinging Tom was spiraling round and round while shouting at the Heavens.
“What’s going on?” Zane asked walking over.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Adam’s spotted a rare bird,” Aubrey said.
“Oh, what kind?” Zane said, and he had his camera turned back on again. “Did she tell you, we saw a dodo about a week after we got here? An actual dodo. Crazy, right?”
“Really?”
“Well, we thought it was a dodo, didn’t we, babe?” Zane said, and he said it so casually.
There it was… ‘babe’. The word, and the way he said the word. I was stopped dead in my tracks. So, they were dating. It was confirmed. Aubrey could see the subtle change in my expression. She bowed her head, almost as if she was embarrassed.
It was stupid. I was being stupid. We’d dated for four weeks… ish, years and years ago. Puppy love. I had no reason to be any other way but happy for these two, they’d found each other in the craziest of situations. While it’s true jealousy can’t be helped at times, it also didn’t make it any less stupid in the moment.
Get over yourself, I thought. Bigger fish to fry.
“Should we continue on to the bank then?” Aubrey said.
There were three squat buildings made from stone, muck, and hay where the wide village road ended. Beyond these three small structures lay a lot of flat land. Hard not to stare out at the horizon wondering when a T. Rex would raise its massive noggin once again.
“Okay, so one of these buildings is the bank,” I said.
“Affirmative,” said you-know-who.
“What do you suppose they have for you?” Aubrey said.
“Was sure it was money,” I said, “but, Flint put me off that idea.”
“You’re looking for gold, ain’t ya?” Dillard said. “Could smell it on ya. The lust for treasure. Fools. Good luck, but that one there’s your thickest chance, in case you didn’t know.” He pointed at the stone hut to our right.
It was nondescript compared to any other structure. No signage of any kind.
“This is the bank?” I said.
“Never heard it called that,” Dillard said. “Funny wording.”
“What do you call it?”
“Knew you were a strange lot,” Dillard said. “Knew it from the day they came to stay with Hag.” He waved his arm at the film crew. “You two just a couple more added to a foolish bunch.” He pointed at the building in question. “It’s the Givers, isn’t it?”
“The Givers?”
“Obviously.”
“Whatever,” I said, shaking my head. “Flint, let’s go. The rest of you may as well stay out here with Dillard.”
“Don’t you think we should film this portion?” Aubrey said. “What if they give you something required for your team?”
“I’d rather not be left out here in case another dinosaur decides to show up,” Chai said. She made a decent point, but man did she make it in the most annoying, nasally tone you could ever imagine. She was the character in the movie you didn’t care if she got eaten.
I probably shouldn’t have said that.
“Are they going to let us all in there?” I asked Dillard.
“Negative,” Flint said.
Dillard’s eyes appeared glazed over. “Dinosaur,” he said. “Where you fools come up with these?”
“Do you even know what it is we’re talking about?” I said. “You know the thing with all the teeth, taller than a building, chased me into the well?”
A flicker of recognition burned within the man. “Ah,” Dillard bellowed. “The thunder lizard, yeah.”
Zane busted out into laughter. Hard not to really.
“Thunder lizard,” I said, incredulous. “You’re kidding.”
Dillard smiled, but he wasn’t in on the joke. “Only come round about once a fortnight,” he said. “Be a little while before we see ‘em again.”
Zane composed himself enough to point out. “Still, it’s a problem,” he said. “How are you going to get anything established in this place if those things are going to be a regular feature?”
“I know,” I said.
“They could come through wipe out whatever you build,” Zane continued. “It’s not going to work.”
“I’m telling you, I know,” I said. “It’s something to seriously address.”
“Nothing you can do,” Dillard said. “Fact of life round here.”
He no sooner uttered the words, when a thin man in leathers and fur sporting a blond beard exited the bank… er, the Givers.
“Nothing you can do about what?” The man said. He was the fanciest local I’d seen since arriving, and his accent wasn’t nearly as harsh.
Dillard recoiled upon seeing him. Looked to me like they’d had previous business, and whatever it was, Dillard had been on the losing end.
“Nothing,” Dillard mumbled. “The T.L.’s.”
It caused the blond bearded man to smirk. “Ah, thunder lizards,” he said. “A constant nuisance I’m afraid. Even as far as Carkney’s Kingdom.”
I didn’t know what to say, and the man took my dumbfoundedness as an opportunity to introduce himself.
“Barkley,” he said, holding out his forearm.
I did likewise. “Adam,” I said. I then needlessly introduced the rest of the crew. Of course, he’d long since met Aubrey, Zane, and Chai. Made it his business to know.
“Heard about your arrival,” Barkley said. He had a smile which read as both greeting and warning. A serious man. I detected a couple of scars on one cheek. “How long will you be gracing us with your presence here in Moonlight?”
“Indefinite,” I said.
The answer caused him to clench his jaw. Wind kicked up, flushed our faces with much cooler air. Not sure I believed in omens, but I might’ve just then.
“And you’re here for something to do with a thing called baseball, I understand,” Barkley said.
I noted Dillard kept his eyes averted, his head squarely pointed to the ground during this entire exchange.
“That’s right,” I said. “I’m to start a local team.”
In case you’re wondering, I’d already checked him:
Tools:
Hitting 25
Power 20
Running 20
Fielding 25
Throwing 20
OFP = 22
Unfortunate stats, but again, not a young man, so few surprises there.
“I can imagine you’re going to be a man in need of a few things,” Barkley said. “Though I admit, my knowledge in this area of your endeavor, for the moment, remains quite thin.”
“I will, yes, be needing things,” I said. “I’m starting with nothing. A lot will be required, that’s for sure.”
The man’s face brightened. “Good,” he said. “I hope you’ll keep me in mind then, when it comes down to it. We help each other in Moonlight. And, I can be of great, great service. We value friendship in these parts. Isn’t that right, Dillard?”
Dillard couldn’t even muster a look in the man’s direction, managing only a feeble wave.
“Excellent,” Barkley said. “I’ll leave you to it then. Pleasure to meet you, Adam. I look forward to our next meeting.”
He wandered off to the east, making trudging over frozen mud look relatively easy. A ripple up my back caused me to shudder, as though a spider had just crawled beneath my fur coat. Dillard finally looked up, and our eyes met. He looked almost as afraid as he did the day before when the dinosaur came roaring through.
“He seems nice,” Aubrey said, without a hint of irony.
Dillard could only muster a chuckle. “Nice as a head stomp,” he mumbled.
“Be right back,” I told the group. Flint and I then entered the hut through a thick spruce door.
On the other side of the door was a sparse room with a barn wood floor, and two ladies seated on a bench. Across the room from them were two men, and a woman standing behind a wall of iron bars. If you didn’t know any better you’d think the people on one side of the bars or the other were in jail. The walls inside the hut were the same as they were outside. Big stones with any and all holes plugged with muck. The room was dank, only a few degrees warmer than outside. And, it was dark, lit only by torches held in brackets. You’d think the flames would warm the inside more than they did, but the vent out the roof kept a torrent of cold rushing inward as much as it let the smoke out.
One of the men behind the bars pointed at me. He had no hair, and he wore a full body covering that looked like suede.
“You,” he said. Then he beckoned me toward him.
Flint and I stepped over to the bars. “You are unfamiliar,” the bald man said. “Thus why I know you’re the one with the delivery. I remember all faces.”
I wasn’t even going to bother with the old man’s stats.
“Yes,” I said, “we were told at the inn you had-”
“Silence!” He cried.
The other two behind the bars eyed me with disgust, readily apparent in their snarled upper lips. These people were downright feral.
The bald man waved me and Flint over to one end of the floor to ceiling bars. He stooped, and grasped the end of the last bar with both hands, and grunted while standing up straight. The bar came out of its hole, and a hinge I hadn’t even noticed caused three adjacent bars to swing out of the way, allowing Flint and I passage through to the same side as the bald man, and his cohorts.
“Come,” the man grunted.
He led us to the back wall, and when I glanced back at the ladies seated on the bench, I could see them craning their necks trying to see where the bald man was leading us.
At the back wall of the hut was a hatch door. It was wooden, yellow of color, and only large enough to crawl through. The bald man kicked it open, and the passageway appeared as black as an oil slick.
“Go,” the bald man said.
This must’ve been what it felt like to be placed in solitary confinement.
“I don’t think so,” I said.
The man’s lips pressed together until they turned white. “Your delivery’s there,” he said. “Now go.”
Flint didn’t hesitate. He seemed unbothered by the whole thing. Not a surprise. He got down on all fours, and disappeared into the hatch passageway which gave me all the courage I needed. I followed Flint, and crawled in behind him.
We hadn’t made it but a few feet, when I heard the bald man slam the hatch door closed behind us. Total darkness.
After a few seconds of panic, I kept crawling, hearing Flint proceeding ahead of me. Seconds later, the blackness gave way to a soft orange glow. The crawl space emptied to an area where we could stand.
We found ourselves in a small, round room, torch lit, and with a brown wooden door cut from the stone walls. The only thing in this room, other than us, was a rather large oak chest. If you’d told me it was a coffin, I’d have believed you.
Being in such tight quarters, I felt compelled to whisper. “Good thing we came with a group,” I said softly to Flint. “Otherwise, how could we be expected to carry this?”
Flint looked me dead in the eyes, and said, “we aren’t.”
“Lift,” Flint said, he had his hands on the edges of the wood box’s lid at one end.
I quickly grabbed the lid at the opposite end, and did as instructed. When we lifted the wooden lid from the chest, I was so startled I nearly dropped the thing on my feet.
There, inside the chest, as if lounging in a wash tub, head down, eyes closed, was a man nearly identical in dress and appearance to Flint.