Demonworld by Kyle B.Stiff Page A

Saul, we went into this… old cave.” Marlon looked at the rocks. One large stone jutted up near the stream and Marlon decided that it probably could conceal the entrance to a cave.
     
    “ Without telling us?” said Marlon.
     
    Wodi paused, unsure of himself.
     
    “ Wodi!” said Saul. “Just shut up!”
     
    Wodi lowered his face. He seemed to have aged.
     
    “ Alright, whatever,” said Marlon. “Whatever you guys did in that cave, I don’t really care. Right now, we gotta interrogate this old guy.”
     
    “ He’s probably the seventh,” said Wodi. “Remember? Saul said there were seven of us thrown into this mess.”
     
    Marlon bore his eyes into the stranger. The old man was small and thin, with skin like beefy jerky. He had a sparse beard that was stained yellow. He wore tattered laborer’s coveralls that were worn threadbare at the knees. He came awake and blinked in the light. Marlon stepped back, ready to plunge the knife into him should he reveal himself to be the true mastermind behind their exile.
     
    “ Ughhh,” said the old man. “Hoof!”
     
    “ Talk!” said Marlon. “Now!”
     
    The old man looked about, deeply disappointed, and said, “So this bullshit is real after all.”
     
    Wodi knelt beside him and said, “What’s your name?”
     
    “ Salem Jules,” said the old man.
     
    “ Are you a Havender?”
     
    The old man nodded.
     
    “ And you found yourself out here yesterday morning?”
     
    Again he nodded.
     
    “ Were you given anything?” said Wodi. “A tool? A weapon? A clue?”
     
    “ Nothing,” said the old man. “I woke up and didn’t even have a bit of leaf on me to burn.”
     
    “ Looks like we’re all in the same fix,” said Wodi. “You can try chewing on one of the leaves on this tree, if you like. It’s some sort of psychedelic.”
     
    Jules immediately screwed up his face with distrust and crawled away from the tree. Wodi laughed. As if hurt by the sound of laughter, Hermann winced and said, “Another man about to die!”
     
    Marlon grabbed Hermann by the shirt, then said, “You need to get your head on straight and stop acting like a weirdo, or you’re gonna make me regret going back for your ass!”
     
    “ I… sorry, Marlon!” said the doctor. “I don’t, uh, quite know why that came out of me.”
     
    Peter huffed and made his way down the tree with his eyes glued to the backpack full of nutrimilk. Iduna stared into the distance, forlorn and unhappy and on the verge of complaining about something. Hermann wandered about with a confused look on his face. Marlon watched Saul and Wodi wander away and heard Saul mutter, “Don’t tell anyone about… that place.” He saw the old man, Jules, watching his own hand shaking, in need of some kind of intoxicant.
     
    “ Gods be-e-e-low,” said Marlon. “I’m the only normal one in this whole bunch.” He stood in wonder at the idea of dragging such a collection of knuckleheads all the way back to Haven. Then he thrust his fears into the back of his mind and set about the work of making sure everyone had a spear.
     
    * * *
     
    Just before noon the seven came to a wide river. They sat in a huddled group, their spears jutting out from them like a porcupine squatting. Marlon, Wodi, and Peter moved to stand on the bank. Sunlight shone down on them where the river broke the forest canopy in half. Marlon tested the river’s depth with his spear. As far as he could tell, it was bottomless.
     
    “ That map,” said Peter. “If this is the river on that map, and I’m willing to bet that it is, then that means we’re about halfway through the forest. But there’s no way we can cross here. It’s too fast and too deep.”
     
    “ Not to mention what might be in there,” said Marlon. He looked back. Hermann sat against a tree trunk, pale, sweating.
     
    “ Can we make a raft?” said Wodi.
     
    Marlon cast his eyes about the forest. The trees that could be made into rafts or bridges