All eyes turned to Randi, who was all girl-of-the-hour. "K, so you're the Dimensional. Can you tell us, where in the blue hell are we?" Jonesy asked in his usual delicate style.
Randi looked around for a long moment, her exotic almond-shaped eyes missing nothing. "Nope."
Totally helpful.
John had wandered over to the door and was running an exploratory hand over the metal plank that barred the exit. He straightened, turning to the group. "This is a hand-wrought forging."
Jonesy threw his hands up in the air. "English, ya putz!"
"Yeah John, if ya got some details, barf it out," Tiff said, snapping her gum, the noise of it oddly swallowed by the soft walls. John ignored them. Instead, he walked to where the door stopped and pressed his hand into the spongy material of the sphere wall, the depressions held for a few seconds when he took his hand away then it filled in once again.
I looked up, noticing small holes dotted the surface randomly. Like the dome had a case of the measles. Were those supposed to be there? I looked at Jade and motioned for her to come over to me. She did, her eyes everywhere while my eyes took in the sight of her. Jade was okay. She should have been, she'd landed on me on the way out. I smiled, nothing but a trampoline guys.
John sighed. "I think I can estimate a time period," he put his hand on the back of a bench made of some kind of metal, a weathered green, a spigot for water with a hand pump at its top. He motioned toward the door with his palm. "It is a turn-of-the-century location."
Everyone looked at him blankly. He sighed. "Turn-of-the-last-century," he clarified.
"Dude, we've traveled back in time?" Alex quizzed and Randi rolled her eyes, giving him A Look. He shrugged, his massive shoulders moving like a separate entity, their own zip code.
"No! I told you guys, I can't move through time, only around it." We stared at her silently. She tapped her foot. I guess it made sense to her.
"Okay, here's the thing. I'm a Dimensional, I can visit alternate realities. Worlds that are parallel to ours. This is the dome world. It's the one I flashed to before they gave me the juice that tore me back to our world."
Alex jerked a thumb at the gizmo they'd traveled through. "What's that then, baby?"
Randi shrugged. "I don't know, exactly. It's like a doorway was already there. Someone has been through here before."
Parker hadn't said dick about a doorway. Or how he'd gotten to the dome world. Thanks for the head's up. Ya putz. But I knew what his answer would have been. He'd have shot his mouth off about how I only needed part of the story or I'd boink up the time-continuum or some crap like that. That was me, keep me in the dark and feed me shit. Like a mushroom.
John walked toward her. "You mean a Dimensional? Someone like you?"
"No... someone needed that hardware to get here. They didn't have the juice."
Tiff snorted in the background.
I knew the Graysheets were behind it. It was something they'd do. Screwing around in other people's stuff... their worlds. Their Business. Up everyone's asses.
Uh-huh.
"So how'd we get here on the Dimensional superhighway?" Jonesy asked.
"I don't know how it works. I just got designated this year. They're guessing as usual."
The Adults. Guessing. Go figure. I did another internal smirk.
"I bet mommy dearest loves your new skills," Jonesy snickered and Randi scowled.
Actually, I knew she was pretty unhappy with Randi at the moment. And it wasn't just her newfound ability, it was her Body boyfriend. And as Mom would say, the company she kept. Yeah.
Alex came to her defense, "She can't help who her mom is Jones."
"Yeah, I know, but it's pretty damn funny anyway."
"Yeah, effing hilarious," Randi said, swinging her long black hair behind her shoulder and giving Jonesy the long-suffering look.
"Let's get out of here, it's creepy," Jade said, rubbing her hands up and down her arms, her puffy still on. I couldn't believe she was wearing the hot-ass thing. I was about to strip mine off when Bry and Tiff said, practically at the same moment, "No!"
They looked at each other, laughing. Tiff said, "We came all this way to check shit out and I wanna. Plus," she pulled everyone in with her intense gaze, "Hart has to save the day or some shit like that," she threw out, rocking back on her heels while she sounded off a bubble burst timed to perfection.
I listened to them laugh at Miss Cavalier but I was distracted.
I'd felt a familiar pull. Looking through the murky wall of the dome I saw them.
Hundreds.
Grave markers. The call of the dead a siren's wail. Just outside the old-fashioned door.
My friends saw my face and followed my gaze.
John's brows jerked up to his hairline, his hair a deep bronze in the low light of the sphere tunnel. "Ah... no, Caleb. No corpses. We don't have enough info. We don't know what we're getting into here. Or where we're even at!"
"That's the glory of it, Terran," Jonesy said, "it's the surprise factor."
Tiff and Bry nodded.
Sophie piped in, "That's just it, what if something bad happens?" she stated, chewing her bottom lip softly, eyes anxious.
Lewis spoke for the first time, "What could happen? There's no Graysheets here. And," he held up an elegant finger, not a wrinkle or speck of dirt on his clothes, "if this is an old-fashioned world, they don't have the technology to be dangerous. They'll be primitive right?"
He had a point, but a lot of times our excursions defied logic.
Utterly.
Jade tweaked my sleeve, the sweat from the heat of this place beading on my forehead. I looked at her.
"I've got a bad feeling about this."
"It'll be okay. I mean... look at them all," I said, indicating the grave markers, the white crosses standing at attention just outside the dome, their forms slightly obscure because of the material of the dome's wall.
"Dead are dead, right?" I said to her with confidence, squeezing her against me, the vanilla smell of Jade mingling with the humid air.
Jade nodded reluctantly. She was utterly missing my dose of confidence.
I had an arsenal of the dead at my disposal. What could happen?
Even Parker's ambiguous details, my future in the hands of some Precognitive I'd never met, couldn't faze me.
The guys went for the door, itching to escape the hot tunnel."I'm gettin' ass-sweat here guys! Let's get the hell out of Dodge!" Jonesy wailed.
Sophie rolled her eyes. "Nice visual Jonesy, so wanted to know that detail."
"Okay Princess, you never sweat?" Jonesy asked, spearing her with his comment and Sophie gaped at him in shock.
It wouldn't be the first time.
"No butt hair, doofus," Tiff said by way of explanation, spitting her gum out on the dirt floor of the tunnel in a wet blob.
"Oh. My. God. Seriously? Did you just say that?" Randi asked in disbelief.
Tiff shrugged. Dive-bombing her head forward she replied, "So? I got five brothers. Ass. Hair. Figure it out. It's like a damn greenhouse effect or some crap like that."
All the guys were silent. Silently dying.
Mia saved it by saying, "I think that is the least of our concerns." She indicated the Door That Would Not Budge.
Yeah. Let's get back on track with something that didn't skewer the guys.
Alex laughed, breaking the awkwardness of anatomical differences. "I'll get it, no problem." He walked over and jerked the solid brass bar off the hooks that held it. He carefully laid it on the dirt floor of the sphere tunnel. His eyes studied the locks at all four corners and his eyes fell on Archer.
"Get over here and do your Lock-Manipulator mojo, Lewis."
Archer jogged over, and with a jumping run he leaped, slapping the top locks with the flat of his palm. The tumblers moved, cooperating smoothly with the magic that allowed him to manipulate any lock ever made. In whatever world, apparently.
He nailed the ones that restrained the bottom. Alex took hold of the portion of the door that slid along runners of a contrasting metal. He grunted, saying, "Hell, these have to weigh a ton!"
Literally.
Finally, he opened the door and stepped out.
I was nailed with the freshest air I'd ever smelled, the coolness of it like drinking a tall glass of ice water, at once refreshing and perfect.
Jade gave a small smile and Bry said, "Tiff, pick that gross gum up." He stabbed a finger at the wad languishing in the middle of the tunnel floor, dirt clinging to it like a magnet of apple green goodness.
"Nah, posterity bro. Gives them something to think about."
Wonderful. Tiff, predictable as usual.
We walked outside and the buzz of the dead rose to a chorus. Tiff and I looked at each other. Turning to John I asked, "Can ya tune-up? I can't think, pal."
John scrunched his face together and a well of silence filled my head where the voices of the dead had been, the tide of death receding for the moment.
Tiff gave me an uneasy glance. "What?" I asked.
She lifted a shoulder and everyone that was outside turned to look at whatever was making Tiff uncomfortable. That was noteworthy.
Tiff and Jonesy shared that trait, never feeling a minute of discomfort, even when they should have.
"They seemed... sad," Tiff said, toeing a strip of the tall grass that had an edging of snow clinging to its base.
I turned to the markers, rows upon rows of dead bodies. I nodded in agreement. Their collective voice had that quality.
"Sometimes death is sad, I guess," I responded, a sudden melancholy gripping me.
"Death grieves," Jade agreed, picking up on my mood, her bare hand held in mine. Her Empath nature boosted our mutual understanding, my feelings a conduit to hers.
Mia and Bry stood close together, their bodies touching. She looked around, everyone quiet for once, even Jonesy.
A miracle.
Mia spoke for us, the mass of graves encircling our group, nearly reaching the crest of the hill where an old forest began.
"Death weeps," she said in a quiet voice.
I nodded. That was exactly it.
Alex went to the door and began to shut it behind us, Archer locking it after it rolled to closure with a musical clang of finality.
*
"Okay! I give up! This is effing miserable," Jonesy railed at the elements. "It's colder that a witch's tit on the shady side of an iceberg!"
I barked out a laugh and replied, "Sounds like you've been hanging around Gramps too long."
John cocked a brow, huffing it through the woods. We'd walked the better part of a day and were tired, thirsty and hungry. Not in that order.
"Buck up, Jones," Bry said, "we'll find some kind of watering hole or something...."
Ever-faithful that something would crop up in the wilderness. That was the Weller Motto. At least some things were consistent, even in another world.
"Yeah! That's the mojo I'm talking about... besides, I've got a whole pack of gum!" Tiff said like she'd discovered the winning lottery ticket.
The group let out a collective groan. "Piss off joy-suckers, more for me then." She stalked ahead to where John was. But he'd pulled up short, his hand raised beside his head in the universal "halt" gesture.
"Quietly," he hissed and us guys got on point just from Terran's tone of voice alone.
Jade stood behind me, peeking out around my body, her hand a warm presence in mine. What could be happening out here in the middle of nowhere?
Quite a bit apparently.
My eyes scanned between the holes made by the branches and saw close to a hundred men, pretty rough lookin', with weapons and purpose. Their clothing was a strange combo of jeans, button down shirts and tunics that looked like they were made from... animal hide.
Hell... they'd hang those ass clowns out to dry in my world. Wearing dead animals for clothes? Totally whacked. I guess they didn't work up a sweat about the environment here. Huh.
My eyes swept the open meadow, catching sight of a group of four. Two chicks and two guys. One of the men was a ginormous sucker, as tall as Terran and nearly as big as Alex. The other guy was dressed in clothes that were really bizarre too and the small girl had hair so red I could see it clearly from here, the taller girl was muscly lookin', solid. She had that martial arts look to her, wary. Ready.
Then I felt them; their combined energy crashed into me.
The dead engulfed the meadow, their bones strewn everywhere in a mass grave, their need to reconnect to a singular body a plea that almost drove me to my knees. Jade felt the echo of it and gasped, snatching her hand away.