The Lost Level, page 12
It occurred to me then that even if he had, we were still separated by our language barrier. It would have been easy to dismiss Bloop as an animal, or even a pet, but that simply wasn’t true. Although we didn’t know his origins, he was clearly from a bipedal race of creatures on an intellectual par, roughly, with humans. The fact that he could understand so much of what we communicated simply through studying our expressions, gestures, and tone demonstrated as much.
The ground began to slowly slope downward, and the trees thinned out, becoming shorter and more slender. Lush ferns grew in the rich, moist soil. Some of them had green fronds like back on Earth, but there were other colors, too—brilliantly hued oranges and reds and yellows. One of the ferns had leaves that looked quite similar to those of a marijuana plant. I wondered if it had the same influence when smoked. There were also wildflowers and other forest plants. Neither Kasheena nor Bloop showed any concern about them, so I assumed the foliage was safe.
Soon, our descent grew steeper. The trees disappeared completely, replaced with thick stands of shrubbery and undergrowth. Halting, Kasheena turned back to Bloop and myself.
“Watch your footing,” she said. “There is a small game trail here, or at least there was the last time I traveled this way. It is not treacherous, but the soil is loose and rocky and can give way suddenly beneath your feet.”
She took a few minutes to search the hillside and then uncovered the trail she’d mentioned, hidden between two large boulders. Kasheena started down the path, followed by Bloop and myself. It was steep and narrow, and the ground shifted beneath me several times, but after a short descent, the undergrowth cleared, and we reached the bottom. When we did, I simply stood and stared—incredulous.
“The soft valley,” I muttered.
“Yes,” Kasheena replied.
At first, I didn’t comprehend what I was seeing. Oh, I understood it well enough. I could identify the strangeness of the items blanketing the valley floor. I just couldn’t comprehend how such a thing was possible. Or why….
Back home, I’d done my laundry every Sunday afternoon at a laundromat around the corner on my block. I’ve always felt that there is nothing lonelier than doing laundry in such a place. Usually, I would take a book along with me to pass the time, but even then, I’d feel lonely and morose. Still, there was one part of that weekly ritual that always left me feeling slightly bemused, no matter how deep my depression. Every time I removed my clothes from the dryer and folded them on the table, I’d discover that one of my socks had gone missing. Never a complete pair. Always one lone sock. I’d check inside the dryer, under the table, and everywhere else for the escapee, but would never find it. I’d always wondered where those socks went.
Now, I knew.
Spread out in front of me as far as the eye could see were socks. Gym socks, dress socks, footy socks, children’s and baby socks—every type and color you could imagine. They blanketed the valley floor from one side to another. Kasheena and Bloop waded into them, as if traipsing through a field of wheat. At their deepest point, the socks reached halfway up Kasheena’s calves. Weeds jutted through in some sparse places, but most of the vegetation was buried beneath the pile. I noticed that none of the socks were in pairs. The assortment was mind–boggling—a myriad collection of colors and sizes and types.
“This….” I paused, unable to finish my sentence. Instead, I could only stare in astonishment.
Kasheena glanced over her shoulder. “Come along, Aaron.”
Shaking my head, I followed after my companions. After a dozen or so steps, socks clung to the legs of my pants, and I heard small crackles of static electricity. It was having an effect on Bloop’s fur, as well, which had puffed out, making him look like a freshly bathed cat who’d been sat under a blow–dryer. Socks clung to his bare legs and tail.
I wondered how long they’d been here—the socks. Some of them looked brand new. Others were obviously weather–beaten and worn. Were they like fallen leaves in a forest, with the top layer concealing older layers that had deteriorated into nothing?
“Hold on a second,” I called out.
Kasheena and Bloop halted, turning back to watch me.
It occurred to me that my own socks were already worn through after all the hiking I’d done. They were also dirty and crusted from my popped blisters and sweat. I bent down and grabbed a few extra pair of socks, having no difficulty finding some that were my size. Then, I shoved them into my backpack. After that, I removed my boots. As neither Kasheena or Bloop were accustomed to wearing socks (at least as far as I’d seen), they seemed bemused as I went through the process. But I didn’t care. I stared at my feet. My toes and heels poked through the holes in my dirty socks. I pulled my old socks free of my feet. They seemed stuck to my skin, and it felt wonderful to flex my bare toes. The comfort I felt after tossing them aside and putting on two pairs of new ones was almost sensual. I sighed, relishing the sensation. Indeed, it might have been one of the most luxuriant things I’ve ever experienced. I pulled my boots back on and stood up, feeling as if I could walk a hundred miles.
“Better?” Kasheena asked.
“Oh, yes.” I nodded. “Like you wouldn’t believe. Thanks.”
“I am pleased.”
“So am I.”
A small breeze whistled through the valley, lifting a frayed dryer sheet and plastering it across Bloop’s face. He brushed it away, grunting. The presence of the dryer sheet only confirmed my wild speculations. As bizarre as it seemed, this valley accounted for the missing socks back on my world—a phenomenon which most people had encountered at some point in their lives but had always laughed off. I wondered if it was possible for a person to wait here long enough, watching for a sock to appear, and if so, could one fling themselves through the dimensional doorway before it closed, materializing in a clothes dryer somewhere?
“Unbelievable,” I muttered, and then laughed aloud at the image.
Kasheena turned around to face me. “Did you say something, Aaron?”
“Oh, it’s nothing. I’m just…amused. Of all the things I’ve seen here so far, this is definitely the strangest.”
But I was wrong. The valley of socks wasn’t the strangest thing I’d seen in the Lost Level. What came after the valley was.
When we began hiking again, I felt reinvigorated. The blisters and aches didn’t bother me nearly as much. The extra pair of socks I was wearing acted as a cushion. I walked in luxury.
We exited the valley and started across a wide, forested plain. The trees here were younger and smaller than those of the previous forest, and thick tangles of scrub grew between them, slowing our progress. Most of the vegetation was harmless, but I did spot a few patches of razor grass, and Bloop cautioned me with hand signals not to brush up against a particularly noxious–looking vine with waxy green leaves and thumbnail–sized thorns. Kasheena led us along the outskirts of the woodland until she found a narrow, winding game trail. We followed that into the trees. As we walked, I noticed again how quiet and standoffish Kasheena seemed to be.
“Are you sure there isn’t something wrong?” I asked. “Have I done something to offend you in some way? If I have, I’m really sorry.”
Sighing, she stopped walking. Bloop and I halted, as well. Bloop took advantage of the delay and urinated on a nearby tree stump.
“It’s not you, Aaron.” Kasheena stared at the ground, unable to meet my eyes. Her voice was a low, sad murmur. “It is my people. I am worried how some of them might react to you upon our arrival. And as we draw nearer to my home, that worry is growing.”
“That’s okay.” I smiled. “I can make friends easy enough. I mean, I’m not an extrovert by any means, but I can be charming. I’m sure Shameal will like me, at the very least. We share similar interests, after all.”
“It is not Shameal I am worried about. You are my suitor now. There are other men among my tribe who wished to fill that role. They may take umbrage to the fact that an outsider has lain with me. I am fearful as to how they might react. Some might wish you harm.”
“I can handle myself, Kasheena. You really don’t have to worry about me.”
She put her hand on my cheek and stared into my eyes for a long moment.
“Yes,” she said. “I know you can handle yourself. I just fear…the trouble it could cause, even if you are only defending yourself.”
“Well, let’s just cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Kasheena frowned. “There are no bridges between here and my village. At least, not along the route we are taking. There is grassland and hills once we leave the forest.”
Before I could explain, Bloop growled with impatience. Kasheena responded to his mood, and we moved on.
Soon, we entered a clearing. I noticed right away that the clearing was not a natural formation. The grass and trees had been cut in a straight line running through the forest. The weeds and scrub were barely ankle high, and the trees had been reduced to stumps. I wondered how often it was maintained and who was doing the landscaping. The formation was about the width of a one–lane road, and indeed, that’s what it seemed to be, although it wasn’t paved, nor was there any sign of wheel ruts in the ground.
“Someone made this,” I said. “Where does this road go? Who built it?”
“I do not know where it leads,” Kasheena replied, “but I have always been told it was built by the same ones who made the statue.”
“The statue?”
“Yes.” She pointed. “The one I mentioned earlier.”
I let my gaze follow to where she was pointing. A shiny steel post stood several yards away, just on the far edge of the clearing. The post was about four feet high. Attached to the top of it was a metal, canary–yellow mailbox, complete with a little red flag to put up and down, indicating whether or not there was mail inside. Between this odd sight and the valley of socks, my incredulity finally reached the breaking point.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
Kasheena and Bloop were both puzzled by my outburst.
“It’s a mailbox,” I continued. “It’s not a statue. It’s a goddamned mailbox!”
“You sound agitated, Aaron.”
“That’s because I am agitated! It’s a mailbox. It has no purpose here, and yet there it is. Somebody mounted it on that pole and stuck it in the ground along this pathway. Not to mention that somebody is cutting the grass here on a regular basis. So, who is responsible for all this? Because I’m fairly certain that the mailman or Globe Package Service aren’t making deliveries here in the Lost Level.”
“I don’t understand.” Kasheena’s brow furrowed. “You are upset with me….”
“It’s okay.” I held up my hands in mock surrender and lowered my voice. I did my best to smile, but acid was churning in my stomach, and all I managed to do was grimace. “I’m not upset with you, Kasheena. Not at all. I’m just…I’m tired. I’m tired, and my head hurts. That’s all. We’ve been walking for what feels like forever. I suggest we make camp here for a while. We don’t have to sleep. I just want to rest a bit.”
Kasheena nodded. “We will do so just beyond the tree line. It is not safe to camp out here in the open.”
We made camp and ate a small meal and talked for a while, watching the sun hover motionlessly overhead. I yawned in mid–conversation and realized that despite what I’d said before, I needed to do more than rest. I needed sleep. Kasheena agreed that she could use some herself. We decided to take a nap and then continue on our way to her village. After a brief discussion, utilizing hand signals, we conveyed to Bloop that he should take watch and wake us when he was ready to renew the hike. Our furry companion agreed. I stripped off my armor and weapons, except for my dagger. Then, clad only in my underwear, jeans, and socks, I curled up next to Kasheena and promptly fell asleep, so exhausted that I was barely conscious enough to kiss her forehead before drifting off.
I dreamed of home, and like all dreams, it was a mish–mash of the mundane, the bizarre, and the insightful. In the dream, I was back in my old apartment, sitting on my bed, but the opening ritual hadn’t worked, and there was no doorway into the Labyrinth hovering before me. I was sending text messages to everyone I knew, but I was typing them while pretending to be the character Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. People were responding to me with confusion, but when I then told them it was me, they didn’t respond at all. I sat there on my bed, wondering if I would have become a different man had I discovered Mr. Darcy before discovering Han Solo, and then decided that I was better off. Mr. Darcy couldn’t make the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs. Suddenly, Bloop was there in the room with me, but he was wearing a baseball glove, a cowboy hat, and smoking a cigarette.
“You don’t belong here anymore,” he told me. His voice was a rich, deep baritone.
“You can speak,” I gasped.
Bloop nodded. “Here, I can. But I don’t like it. It’s not natural.”
Now I realized that we were no longer in my apartment. Instead, our surroundings had morphed into my childhood bedroom.
“You don’t belong here,” Bloop repeated, exhaling cigarette smoke. It curled around his head, forming halos that rose slowly to the ceiling.
“But this is my home. This is where I grew up. I lived here.”
“Not anymore.” Bloop shook his head, then walked over to my bookshelf and perused the volumes. “You’re like me now. You don’t belong here. Come home.”
“I am home.”
“No, Aaron. You’re not. Neither am I. We can’t go home again. We can never go back. They won’t let us.”
“Who won’t let us? The Anunnaki?”
Bloop took another drag off his cigarette and shook his head. “No, the Anunnaki are trapped, just like we are. They can’t go home, either.”
“Then who are our captors?” I asked. “Who’s preventing us from leaving the Lost Level? Is it the Greys?”
“Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?”
“Not exactly,” he repeated.
“Bloop, I don’t understand.”
“The Greys are but servants.”
“Servants to who?”
My mother called up from downstairs, informing me that dinner was ready, but in the dream, she didn’t sound like my mother. She sounded like my third grade teacher.
“It is time for us to go,” Bloop said, but now the cowboy hat and baseball glove he’d been wearing were gone, replaced by a pair of round spectacles. Wearing them, Bloop looked a little bit more like the Marvel Comics character the Beast.
“Hang on,” I replied, rising to my feet. “I want to tell my mom goodbye, at least.”
“You won’t be able to.”
“Well, then I should pack some things first.”
“You can’t do that. You can only return with what you brought with you. They’ll deliver everything else.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Look at the moon.” Bloop pointed at my window.
I moved over to it and parted the blinds. A full moon hung in the sky, whitish–yellow and seemingly swollen. As I watched the moon, it blinked. At first, I thought maybe it was me that had blinked, but when the moon did it again, I gaped.
“They are watching,” Bloop said over my shoulder. “From the sun. And from the moon. They are always watching us. That’s what they do. The sun and the moon are both eyes.”
He placed his furry hand on my shoulder. I felt his claws against my skin, even through the fabric of my shirt.
The sensation increased as I woke to find Bloop shaking my shoulder, rousing me for my turn at watch.
“Buddy,” I murmured. “You’re just as exasperating in real life as you are in my dreams.”
If Bloop understood me, he gave no indication. Instead, he knelt on his haunches, watching me until he was certain that I wouldn’t fall back to sleep. Then, he curled up several feet away from Kasheena and closed his eyes. As it turned out, Bloop had been exhausted, too. His tail twitched a few times, and then he lay still, snoring softly.
I sat for a while, watching them sleep, and pondered the meaning of my dream. Unfortunately at the time, I couldn’t make sense of it. It wasn’t until many years later that I would understand the ramifications of it all.
Eventually, I pulled on my boots. Armed only with my dagger, I rose and padded away in search of some bushes to relieve myself behind. I had just finished and was zipping my pants, when I heard the distinct sound of hydraulics. They were quite similar to those of the robot we’d seen fighting the Tyrannosaurus, albeit quieter. Whatever the source of the noise, it was drawing closer. I perceived it to be coming from the nearby road.
I glanced back at my sleeping companions and then back toward the road. Deciding not to wake them, I crept through the undergrowth. If I saw any reason for alarm, I’d rush back and rouse them. I reached a tangle of vines within reaching distance of the mailbox and watched as another robot came into view. This one wasn’t nearly as large as the one we’d seen fighting the dinosaur. It was about the size of a compact car and box–shaped. Its grey metal hull was splattered with mud and spots of rust. Spelled out on its side in large, stenciled, block letters were the words ‘PROPERTY OF GLOBE PACKAGE SYSTEMS – USPDU 222–321–412’ and some smaller lettering that I couldn’t make out. A small, dinner–plate sized satellite dish rotated slowly atop the robot, nestled between two small poles that looked like lightning rods or antennae of some kind. The construct had no wheels or treads and hovered about twelve inches off the ground. Beneath it, I saw leaves and other debris blown to the sides of the road. Whatever the propulsion system, it was obviously pushing out air. That explained why the road appeared swept clear, as I’d noticed earlier.
The thing cruised along until it reached the yellow mailbox. Then, it slowed to a stop and hung motionless in the air. Flashing lights appeared on both its front and back. Inside its shell, I heard machinery running. As I watched, a small hatch opened in its side, and a mechanical arm popped out. The robot opened the mailbox, verified that there was nothing inside, and then the arm slipped back into the hull. Gears whined as the hatch closed again.
