Beyond (2 page)

“Come on, Zig.” she muttered, kicking herself mentally. “Neither of us
belong
here.
We’re just spooked.”

Ziggy cocked his head and emitted a low growl.
For a moment Aimee wasn’t sure whether he was going to dart deeper into the woods or just stand there barking like an insane puppy.
But he surprised her.
Ziggy, the traitor, took off back towards the pond like a herd of rabid Rottweilers were chasing him.

“Coward!” she yelled, turning to follow.
“You could at least wait for me.”

At least she’d meant to turn.
She’d also meant to follow.
Aimee couldn’t move.
If she’d done what she’d meant to do, she’d be walking nice and easy back around the pond, but she wasn’t.

She thought for a moment that her muscles were locked in spasm from the two laps around the track during gym today, but her hands and arms were paralyzed.
She tried to clench her fingers into a fist and could feel perspiration bead on her forehead from the effort.
She was motionless.

What the hell?

Even her lips could not move to speak those three words.

Light materialized around her as if someone had switched on a spotlight from above.
She tried to squint against the vivid assault, but even her eyelids were frozen in place.
Instead, all she could do was watch as the light grew brighter,
bright enough that she could see through her hands.
That freaked her out.
Her hands were transparent, and she could see through them to the mottled leaves on the ground below.

The hum intensified and she began to feel lightheaded.

One lurch of her stomach and she felt nothing at all.

Aimee woke to the sound of voices.

She was in bed, but not her own.
Had it been
her own,
she would have heard the fan and she would have heard Ziggy snoring.
She also would have smelled the honeysuckle
outside,
and the vanilla candle on her desk.

This was not her bed.
And she didn’t know these voices.
The heated discussion reminded her of her parents, but it didn’t sound like them.
Still, when someone was arguing, it was always safer to stay out of the way.
Aimee feigned sleep as she eavesdropped on the hushed debate.

“This is your mistake.”

“We can’t do anything now.
We have to leave.”

“We can’t take her.”

“We can’t stay.
We have to leave now.”

Another voice entered the room.

“They are coming, Vodu.”

For a moment Aimee felt eyes upon her.
She tried to keep her breathing steady.

Vodu, the man with the elderly voice spoke.
“We must go then. You had better hope we have the opportunity to return and bring this child home.”

“One child will not go missing, Vodu.”

“Perhaps if that child was you, Salvan, it might be true.”

Aimee heard Vodu’s voice retreat from the bed.
“You must prep her for the journey, and then get to your chamber.”

The swooshing sounded again, and Aimee knew she was now alone with the young voice, Salvan.

Waking up a few moments ago, she was still in that ethereal land where dreams reigned and the light of clarity slowly grew brighter.
As her senses returned, fear set in.
Her hands trembled, but at least they were free.
She was not bound in anyway.

“Why did you chase that animal away?
It was all I wanted.
Now you’ve gotten me in trouble.”

Aimee cringed when she felt a hand trace up her arm.

“But you are much more fascinating than the animal,” Salvan whispered.

She knew she had been kidnapped.
From the conversation, it sounded like this Salvan guy had been after Ziggy at first, but God knows why.
He wasn’t a show dog or anything.
He had more knots than fur.

Whoever these strangers were, they appeared to be stuck with her and were taking her along to their destination.

With quick resolve, she decided that she was not going to let that be easy for them.
She grabbed the sheet and lunged off the bed all before Salvan could react.
She charged towards where she thought she heard the door, but there were impenetrable white walls all around her.

Oh, why hadn’t she taken a peek at her surroundings before daring this mad escape?

Aimee whirled and saw her captor for the first time.
He was young.
Maybe a few years older than her.
He had blonde hair and pale blue eyes, and dressed in an odd grey uniform.
No.
Silver.
Woven from a peculiar material that glistened like the paint job on her old bike.
Her captor cocked his head and watched her. The gesture reminded her of Ziggy.

“Fascinating,” he said as if she was a bug under a microscope.

“Let me out of here.” Aimee felt her breath coming in gasps as it did every time she started to panic.
“This is all just some big mistake on your part, so just let me go home.”

Salvan grinned.
“I’m afraid we’ve already started on our journey so that’s not possible.”

Breathe.

She shoved her hands in the back pockets of her jeans to keep them from trembling.
“Look, you don’t have to take me back.
Just let me off on the side of the road somewhere.
I’ll find a way to get home.
I won’t report any of this.
Just let me go.”

Salvan looked past her shoulder.
“Drop you off on the side of the road?”

She followed his glance.
A strangled sound leaked from deep in her throat.
Practicing the trick for self-control her guidance counselor once advised, she drew air in through her nose.
It was enough ammo to let loose one massive scream.

***

If it was possible to pass out on your feet and still stand erect, that was the state Aimee was in right now.
She held her hands out, seeking something to grab on to.
She saw the bed she had just fled.
It was elevated and covered in a plush silver spread, similar to the material Salvan wore.
On either side were two bowl-shaped chairs, silver in color as well.
There were no lamps, but light emanated in a
soft glow from the ceiling.
Another source of illumination was the far wall comprised of a bank of windows.
It was to that wall that Aimee moved on numbed feet.
A scream bubbled up in her throat again, but she choked it back as she reached the glass and stared out.

Stars twinkled with a vibrancy she’d never witnessed before.
On the nights that she would sit out by the pond and memorize constellations, they were nothing more than distant pinpoints of light in random patterns.
Out this window, they pulsed with life and took on structure. There were literally millions of them—as if a hole in the ozone layer ripped open to offer this unique vista.

But it wasn’t the stars that fascinated her so much.
The stars were easy to look at compared to the giant bright orb filling the other half of the casement windows.
She recognized the sight from text books and documentaries.
Blue.
The deepest blue you could ever imagine, with swirling white clouds like the pattern inside a cotton candy machine.
It was so close she couldn’t even grasp its full circumference.
Struggling to breathe, she took in the familiar land patterns, recognizing the form beneath a layer of clouds.
It was the distinctive outline of Africa.

The sphere that was illuminating this room was a planet.

It was Earth.

Aimee passed out.

***

Carrie Brenneman played the trumpet.
She also played a mean game of softball.
She was Aimee’s best friend despite the fact that Aimee had not a single coordinated bone in her body.
Time and time again, Carrie tried to recruit Aimee for some sport league, but the results usually ended up with a black eye or sprained wrist.
So instead, marching band was the only place where these two outcasts compromised.

On one scary occasion, Carrie and Aimee missed the band bus to the game and stood on the curb contemplating their options.
A senior they did not know rolled up in front of them in a souped-up Civic.
His car smelled like cigarettes and a tattoo of a dragon branded the arm hanging out the window.
He asked if they missed the bus and wanted a ride.

Aimee and Carrie took that ride only because they were desperate to catch up with the band, and too naïve to think about the consequences.
Ironically, the boy ended up being sincere and talked to them genially about football and insufficient parking at the stadium during the seven minute trek.

After they arrived safely, the shock of what they had done settled in and a pact was made to never accept a ride from a stranger again.
Just because they’d been lucky the first time, didn’t mean that they were stupid enough to tempt the fates again.
Aimee was sure that she wouldn’t have done something that stupid again.

“She’s coming out of it.” A woman’s voice intruded on Aimee’s bad dream.
At least she hoped it was a bad dream.
Maybe she’d hit her head and this was the voice of a pleasant nurse in the emergency room.
Wouldn’t Carrie laugh at the dream?

Aimee’s eyes opened.
A woman with long blonde hair and wide violet eyes was watching her.
She looked exotic and beautiful, dressed in the same silver uniform Aimee had seen before—but this woman’s figure did the costume justice.
Her expression was tender and sympathetic.
She smiled down at Aimee and Aimee felt her eyes well up.
All she wanted right now was to tell Carrie about the bad dream.

“I want to go home,” she choked out.

The woman made a tsking sound and touched her arm.

“I know you do.
It was a terrible mistake that has placed you here, but we cannot go back there yet.”

Aimee sat up.
She was back on the bed, and knowing the windows were behind her, she fought the urge to turn around.
If she didn’t look, then perhaps this was all a mistake.
But she could no more ignore the windows than she could ignore the fact that a computer monitor hovered in midair alongside the woman, suspended just out of her reach.

A dream.
A bad dream is all this was.
She was no longer scared to look out the windows, because quite honestly, none of this was real.
Aimee gave this dream woman and her ridiculous floating monitor a big smile as she hefted off the bed and started towards the Plexiglas wall.
Her steps faltered, even in slumber.
Earth’s glowing surface was no longer there.

Recognizing that this was a dream, nonetheless, she ran up to the window and leaned her forehead against a surface that had no temperature.
Stars now held proximity to her.
Some were closer than others. Their pulsing rhythm took on a substance…mass.

“It’s gone.” Aimee whispered, twisting her head in search of the familiar planet.

Don’t panic.
You’ll wake up soon,
she reminded herself.

“Yes,” The woman joined her at the window.

Aimee cut a quick sideward glance at her and noticed that the bobbing computer had been left behind.
Aimee’s dreams weren’t normally this imaginative.

“We had to make a hasty departure,” the woman explained, her tone brisk but kind.
“We didn’t want to draw any unnecessary attention from your military.”

Aimee decided to play along with the hallucination.
“Who are you?”

“I am Chara.” The woman smiled.
“You are in shock.
We have given you some serum to ease that.
I should be able to answer any of your questions now.”

The impulse to laugh was there again and Aimee felt lightheaded.
They’d drugged her.
That was good.
She couldn’t imagine how freaked out she would be if they hadn’t drugged her.
Wait, drugs were bad.
Her sluggish mind had trouble keeping up.

She leaned against the glass pane, or some clear substance that resembled glass.
Whatever this transparent barrier was, it was the only thing to separate her from the black void of space.
It felt as if she leaned far enough she could simply float away.

Was that another planet?