章節 11: The Elephants
I walked for some time until I came upon a thick wall of trees that rose up from shallow water. Through the woods, I spotted a massive makeshift barricade that seemed to encircle a house. I carefully approached, watching the waters and shadows for any hint of movement. Lo and behold, I stumbled upon the Doctor yet again, just outside the entrance into the stronghold.
He appeared to be devolving, though I was uncertain if it was the plague or the realization that he would never see his little girl again that was destroying him the quickest. He mumbled incoherently, yet gave me an item of use. I quietly thanked him and then moved into the fortified perimeter.
Once inside, I quickly spotted crudely placed, but numerous, bear traps littered throughout the grass. Whoever lived here, I reasoned, was no mindless savage. I moved around the winding trail until I reached the front door of the house. It was unlocked. A broken generator sat beside the entrance. When I stepped inside, I was met with a penetrating darkness, yet my light revealed a large living room with two closed doors adjacent from one another. Suddenly, a frantic voice called to me from beyond the far door.
It was a woman's voice, but it was severely muffled, and she was asking me to fix her generator. I hesitated, before realizing this sane woman was perhaps now my best lead for answers. I stepped back outside, and inspected the generator. Fortunately, the parts that were worn were easily replaceable with properly jury-rigged scrap.
Using some of the bear traps in the woman's yard, I repaired the generator and started it. When I re-entered the house, the door to the woman's room was open. I then found myself face-to-face with three figures garbed from head-to-toe in bio-hazard gear.
It was a woman and two children, yet with the tubes that ran from their gasmasks, they looked like a pack of bipedal elephants. The woman said she could help me, but in return, I would have to locate her missing boy. She said she would grant me an air tank, one that would protect me from the "poison air". I did not know what nonsense she spoke of, but the air tank was what I needed to enter the basement of the tree. I agree to help her.
She extended to me a key clutched in her gloved hand. She said I should investigate her son's room for clues. I began my search there. In the boy's room, I found several drawings, one of which was a map that bore giant mushrooms. It strongly resembled an area I had seen in the Swamp, and so I marked the location on my map and set out.
It did not take long to find the area the boy had crudely drawn. Massive fungi had overtaken the entire area. In the center of the mushroom field was an old cabin. Poisonous white mushrooms were everywhere, and it took much antidote to navigate the area safely. When I finally found the cabin's entrance, I once again met the Doctor. His condition was decaying at remarkable speed.
The man had well and truly lost his mind. He was now little more than a savage, and it was all that I could do not to execute him there and then. I simply ignored him, and swore that if again our paths crossed, I would not be nearly as merciful.
The cabin's interior stank of a sickly sweet, sulphuric aroma. There was a cloud of white particles in the air, forcing me to cover my face. As I reached the end of the house, I came upon an ancient woman who was rocking blissfully in a chair.
I felt an almost overwhelming hunger as I drew close to her. She had mushrooms sprouting from her hair and shoulders. She had obviously been immobile for so long that she was becoming one with forest flora. I had to suppress the urge to devour her head as I gently touched her shoulder.
She awoke in a confused fog, blinking her smokey eyes at me as if she hadn't seen a living soul in decades. She asked why I was there, and if it was my intention to harm her. I shook my head roughly and looked to a locked door beside her. She replied that nothing was in there.
I then showed her the missing boy's drawing. As she studied it, a placated smile appeared on her wrinkled face. She asked if I was here to take him home. I nodded. With a pained movement, she withdrew a key and gave it to me, telling me to watch over the boy as if he were my own.
An interesting request.
When I entered the locked room, the boy scampered to the far corner. He looked away when I caught his frightened eyes, yet it caused me no hesitation. I was tired of running errands.
I approached the boy and knelt to his level.
I leaned in closely to more clearly hear his whispered words.
.
"One little bear ate some soup,
Then two more bears came along,
Four little bears made a little pow!
Then five big bears came and ate them all!"
.
He repeated the nonsensical nursery rhyme over and over. I asked him to take my hand, yet he did not respond. Impatiently, I picked him up and placed him on my shoulders.
He began yelling the rhyme as if it were all he knew to say. Sighing heavily, I began the long march back to his mother's house. As we slogged through the forest, the rhyme that endlessly repeated began to dig in my mind. What was the significance of it? For a child to obsess over something so mundane, there had to be some meaning behind it.
Suddenly, I noticed the numbers in the rhyme. They began to sound like a code to my insane mind.
At last, the boy and I reached the Elephant's lair. The mother was quite pleased with me, yet he demeanor towards her son were quite the opposite.
Graciously, the woman gave me an empty air tank. I looked at her with disbelief, yet she told me not to waste the precious air, lest I would breathe in the poison all around me.
Stupid woman, I thought as I left the property. What was it exactly that had secured her survival for so long in this unforgiving place? Was it ignorance, paranoia, or luck?
I guess, in the end, it doesn't matter. As long as you're still alive to speak of it.
Resting at the hideout, I pondered how I would fill the air tank. Fortuitously, there was an air compressor on the far side of the hideout, but it was broken and required parts that I could not manufacture in the field. I had found an old note near the compressor that spoke of a cottage in the swamp.
My estimation was that the note had been placed near the compressor to indicate a possible replacement, or at least parts that could be used to repair it. I decided then to find the cottage. The following day, I followed the map to the far side of the Swamp. After several hours, I came across a massive junkyard.
I was certain the parts I needed were somewhere inside, but without any direction, such a search could take hours or even days. I moved past the junkyard and continued searching for the cottage. Then, amidst the impenetrable wall of trees, I spotted a narrow path. I followed the trail with hope, yet my doubt grew with each step as my surroundings became more forboding and alien with each passing moment.
Gargantuan snails lay caked in grayish ooze along the path. Their shells dripped with white foam, and inside them, I spotted what appeared to be dissolving human bodies. They spoke to me in sticky voices, asking who I was and why I had disturbed them. I tread on, deeper into the grove, until at last, I found the cottage.
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