The New Frontier Page 6

  Alyssa held Kara back. “Kara, she didn’t take anything. She’s been over there the whole time.”

  Just then, Lauren’s mother came over and grabbed her by the shoulders. “I’m sorry, girls, she’s still not feeling well. Lauren, come on.” She dragged her daughter away as Lauren stared in disbelief.

  “Lauren, what’s wrong with you? There’s nothing there.” Her mother put her hand on Lauren’s forehead.

  Lauren grabbed her hand and flung it down. “Nothing’s wrong with me! Julia saw it, too!”

  “Maybe we better go back home and take a break. I don’t think you two are better yet.” Their mother led them back to the stairs to go down to the train.

  Back at home, Lauren and Julia flung their backpacks onto the rack and then retreated to their room with the door closed.

  “You saw those things, didn’t you? I’m not crazy, right?” Lauren asked.

  “I did! I don’t know why everyone looked at us like we were weird,” Julia said.

  “Hmm. Maybe they’re right. Maybe it’s just because we were sick,” Lauren mused.

  Julia turned her attention to her experiments. She wondered what the substance was on the crystals that had made them so nauseous. She pulled the box out of the drawer and set it on her desk.

  “Don’t open that thing again!” Lauren said insistently.

  “I know,” Julia said, and immediately turned on a vent above her desk and opened the container. The substance was still on the crystal. She positioned her microscope above the crystal, being careful not to touch it, as that was what had triggered the horrible smell last time.

  Under the microscope, she could see the strange oozing material encasing the crystal. It had started to form a crust, but was still wet in some parts. Strangely, the microorganisms were still moving around, but they looked different. They were larger than last time, and a different color.

  Looking closer, she saw that the organisms were eating the crystals and depositing the oozing material out the other end. There was more of the ooze now and much less of the crystal.

  She carefully closed the lid of the box and put it back in her shelf, wondering what the substances could possibly be.

  *

  The next day, the girls got up and got ready to go to school. They had agreed not to say anything about the raccoon-like creatures again except to each other until they figured out what was going on. In fact, they tried not to think about the creatures at all. Over the next few days, they simply went to school, then to any after-school activities, and straight home.

  After several days of this schedule, they began to think maybe they had just been seeing things because they hadn’t seen the creatures again.

  That Friday, the family decided to go to the plaza after school. Lauren and Julia had all but forgotten the creatures. Then, coming up the stairs from the school, they were talking with each other, their mother, and their brother and sister when one of the creatures darted across the path right in front of the family.

  Lauren and Julia stopped with wide eyes and a gasp. Lauren’s arms flew open as she stopped the family suddenly. The girls looked at each other, but didn’t say anything.

  Their mother stopped. “What’s wrong, girls?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” said Lauren. “I forgot something at school. I’ll get it Monday.”

  They kept walking. Julia looked to see if she could see where the creature had gone, but it was nowhere in sight. Lauren simply looked ahead, pretending not to have noticed it.

  They walked to the courtyard and sat down. Their mother asked, “What kind of pizza do you want?”

  “Pepperoni and black olives!” Julia shouted.

  “OK,” their mother said. “Maia, you come with me. You three stay here and wait for your father.”

  A few moments later, they saw their dad coming up the stairs to join them. One of the creatures was walking right beside him. He didn’t notice it in the slightest. Lauren looked at Evan to see if he noticed anything strange. He was just looking at his dad with a grin.

  “Evan. Do you see anything next to Dad?” she asked.

  “Oh, sure. I see something walking next to him,” he said, squinting to get a better look.

  “You see it?” Julia asked elatedly.

  He put his fingers up next to his eyes and started pinching them together in front of his face. “There, got it. I squished it.”

  Immediately recognizing he was making fun of them, Lauren blushed red. Angrily, she smacked him on the back of the head.

  “Hey! That hurt,” he said. “You two are crazy! Totally insane. There’s nothing there.” He ran to greet their dad.

  As Evan charged out toward his dad, the creature was startled and lay down on the ground in front of him. Evan didn’t notice the creature at all and tripped over it, falling to the ground.

  “Whoa. Are you OK?” his dad asked, picking him up. Evan stood up, brushing off his pants. He looked around to see if anybody was watching. He saw his sisters smirking. He shot them a glare, then walked back to the table with their dad.

  “Did you all have a good day at school?” their dad asked as he sat down.

  “Yes, fine,” was all Lauren said. Their dad had grown accustomed to these short answers and decided not to pursue it.

  A short while later, their mother and Maia came back with pizza. Everybody took a couple pieces and the platter was empty in seconds.

  After dinner, out of the corner of her eye, Lauren spotted another one of the creatures lurking around Alyssa and her friends. The girls didn’t notice the creature and, again, it was rummaging through their bags.

  Lauren kneed Julia under the table. “Ow!” Julia blurted out and rubbed her leg.

  “What’s wrong?” their mother asked. Lauren caught Julia’s attention and nodded in the direction of the creature.

  Julia said, “I just banged my leg.”

  Julia spotted the creature and hatched a plan in her head. Rather than finishing her whole pieces of pizza, she saved the crusts in a napkin in her lap. She motioned to Lauren to do the same.

  Their mom noticed they were acting shifty. “You girls are acting weird. Are you sure you’re feeling OK?”

  “We’re fine, Mom. It’s Evan that has problems,” Julia said, trying to divert the attention away from the two of them.

  “What? You two just asked me …” Julia kicked Evan under the table before he could finish. “Ow!” he yelped.

  Their dad cut him off. “I’ve got to get home to do some work. Are we ready to go?”

  Lauren quickly answered, “No, no, we’re going to stay here for a little while.” She grabbed Julia’s arm.

  “OK, don’t stay too late,” their mother said. “Remember what happened last time? Make sure you keep your phone on this time.” She narrowed her eyes at them for emphasis.

  After the rest of their family went down the stairs, Lauren turned to Julia and whispered, “We have to find out where those things are coming from.” Julia nodded.

  As Lauren and Julia walked toward Alyssa, Lauren asked, “What are we going to call those things?”

  Julia thought for second. “How about rackey? Because it looks like a raccoon and a monkey!”

  Lauren frowned. “No, that sounds silly. How about monkoon?”

  “That’s a good name,” Julia said, smiling.

  Chapter 7

  A New Species

  “Hi, are you feeling better?” Alyssa asked Lauren.

  “Yeah, much better,” Lauren said, a little distracted. She was looking past Alyssa at her bag.

  “Are you sure you’re better?” Alyssa asked, looking at Lauren, who still hadn’t made eye contact with her.

  “Sure. Much better,” Lauren said unconvincingly.

  Julia was even less cordial. Her full attention was centered on the creatures. She pulled a piece of pizza crust out of a napkin and tossed it close to one of the creatures. It quickly picked up the crust, cupped it in its hands, and nibbled on it.

>   She threw the next one closer and the creature ventured nearer to her. One more piece and the creature was almost eating out of her hand.

  Alyssa saw Julia tossing crust out of the corner of her eye. It appeared odd to her that there wasn’t a squirrel or other animal anywhere in sight.

  “Julia, what are you throwing that to?” Alyssa asked her.

  Julia glanced at her uneasily, “Oh, nothing, I thought some animal might eat it later. I mean, I wasn’t eating it, so maybe something else will.”

  Alyssa clearly wasn’t buying Julia’s argument, but she didn’t ask anything else.

  Lauren watched as the creature ate the crust and then turned and ran off into the park. She looked distracted, so Alyssa shook her arm.

  “Lauren? What are you looking at?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Lauren responded.

  Lauren and Julia were intently focused on the creatures that had plagued them for the past week. They could still see the one that was taking food running off into the park. They started to run after it.

  “Wait!” Alyssa shouted. “Where are you going?”

  The girls turned, and Lauren shouted back, “To the park! We’re just looking for something.”

  Alyssa shook her head and went back to talking with her other friends.

  The sisters ran as fast as they could, trying to stay with the creature. They thought they lost it a few times as it darted in and out of the trees, but it would reappear almost as if it invited the chase. The girls stopped to catch their breath.

  “I can’t believe they run that fast,” Lauren gasped as she leaned over, placing her hands on her knees.

  Julia didn’t say a word, just nodded in the direction of the creature and started running again. The creature ran past the park and into the woods. They ran after it, following its tail. Once in the woods, they came upon the grove with the secret entrance where they had been earlier.

  The creature continued beyond the entrance to the backside of the rocks and then vanished.

  “Where did it go?” asked Julia.

  “I don’t know. I thought I saw it go into these bushes, but now it’s gone,” Lauren said.

  “It has to be around here somewhere.” Julia jumped down on all fours and started patting the ground while Lauren peered behind some bushes.

  “Here. I think this is it!” Lauren found a hole in the ground that was masked by the bushes. The hole was barely large enough for a small kid to climb in, but not big enough for an adult.

  “I’m not going in there,” Julia said, staring at the hole doubtfully.

  “Fine! I’ll go first. Do you have a flashlight in that fanny pack?” Lauren asked, looking down at it.

  Julia smirked. “I thought you made fun of my fanny pack, and NOW you want something out of it?”

  “Just give it to me,” Lauren snarled.

  Julia rummaged through her fanny pack and pulled out a flashlight. “Here you go.”

  Lauren snatched it from her hands. “You’re welcome,” Julia muttered under her breath.

  Lauren bit down on the flashlight as she held it in her teeth, then got down and crawled cautiously into the hole. Julia hesitantly followed, wondering what might await them in the tunnel.

  After a few minutes of crawling behind Lauren and being unable to see anything, Julia asked, “Are you sure we can find our way out?”

  “I hope …Whoa!” Lauren called back, but was interrupted as she stumbled into a large chamber.

  Julia tumbled after her. They rolled to a stop on hard metal unlike the earthen tunnel they had just climbed through. The flashlight slipped out of Lauren’s grip and bounced on the floor, clanging as it rolled to a stop and shined directly back in their eyes.

  “Ah, get the flashlight,” Julia shrieked as she covered her eyes. “That thing is bright.”

  Lauren reached for the flashlight and waved it around. A myriad of lost and stolen items littered the room—shiny objects, electronics, jewelry—no doubt collected over several years. The floor was warm to the touch, with large metal plates and rivets aligned in square patterns.

  Julia immediately began rummaging through the objects. Lauren was a little more cautious, preferring to scope the situation out before diving into the loot.

  “Julia, where are the creatures? Wouldn’t you think they’d be here?” she asked.

  “I dunno. We probably scared them off. What does it matter? They look harmless enough,” Julia muttered, and she went back to looking at the treasure. She found a small, shiny piece of metal she couldn’t identify, so she pulled out her microscope to get a better look.

  Lauren scanned the back wall with the flashlight. A lone tunnel led out of the room. From the tunnel, she saw eyes peering back at her.

  “Julia, look,” she said quietly as she pointed to the tunnel.

  Julia looked up, squinting at the tunnel and setting her microscope down for a moment. Lauren moved forward, flashing the light deeper into the tunnel.

  One of the creatures came into view. The creature stared at the girls and the girls stared back, not knowing what to do. The standoff ended when it left the tunnel and slowly approached Lauren.

  Julia moved forward, pulled out some pizza crust, and offered it to the creature. In return, the creature simply sniffed the crust and then rolled over on its back.

  The girls were taken aback, not knowing what to do. Then Lauren reached down to scratch the creature’s belly. The creature immediately responded by licking her hand. Tension broken, the girls laughed.

  With the girls’ attention diverted, Julia didn’t notice another creature that came out of the darkness, fixedly looking at her microscope. In a flash, the creature grabbed her microscope and darted into the tunnel, alerting Julia with its movement.

  “Hey! It took my microscope!” she gasped as she pursued the animal.

  “Wait!” Lauren yelled and jumped after her in the tunnel. The two didn’t have time to wonder where the tunnel led. After several feet, the tunnel curved to the left. At the bend, there was a dim light shining. The creature leapt toward the light.

  Lauren scooted into the tunnel, trying to catch up to Julia, but she was already way ahead. As the tunnel curved, there was a small opening in the wall. When Lauren caught up to Julia, she was staring out of the opening. On the other side of the hole was a steel girder the creatures used as a walkway. Down below, Lauren saw the floor of the secret factory where they had just been a few weeks before.

  The creature sat in the middle of the girder fondling the microscope. Julia tried to coax the creature close to her, but it ignored her gestures. She started sniffling, worried she had lost her most prized possession.

  Lauren looked out the opening and saw the men down below walking around like zombies just as they did the other day. This opening breached the ceiling far above the floor, overlooking the massive processing operation. It was well concealed by the girder, so the people had no idea it was there.

  Lauren looked down at the workers. Some of them didn’t look quite right—they were smaller than the other people, about half their size. Immediately she recognized the hominoids from her dream. It sent shudders down her spine. At closer look, she realized they were telling the zombie men what to do. She looked back at Julia to see if she saw the hominoid people, but she didn’t. She hadn’t taken her gaze off her microscope.

  There were only a few of the hominoids, and they were preoccupied with directing the workers, so maybe that’s why they didn’t notice the girls before when they were on the floor. She tried to look more closely, but couldn’t make out any details. She couldn’t think about it now, as she had to get Julia’s microscope back.

  “Hold on,” Lauren said as she cautiously climbed through the hole and out onto the steel girder.

  “Lauren, be careful!” Julia called out to her.

  “It’s OK, I’ve done this a thousand times before.” She confidently walked along the girder with her arms straight out to her side to help keep her balance, her bo
dy remembering the years of balance beam practice in gymnastics. As she approached the creature, it dropped the microscope on the girder and ran off.

  The creatures seemed to leave behind them small pebbles and twigs that had clung to their fur in the forest. Some of that debris was on the girder, and Lauren carefully maneuvered around it. She got to the microscope, carefully reached down to pick it up, and put it in her pocket.

  As Lauren turned around, she lost her footing as she stepped on some loose pebbles. Julia called out to her sister. Lauren bobbled her arms and knocked loose a pile of pebbles that tumbled far below to the ground. Seeing where they were going to land, she picked up the pace to get back to the opening. The pebbles landed directly on one of the short hominoids down on the floor.

  It looked up just as Lauren reached the opening. Heart pounding, Lauren climbed in and looked back down at the floor. The hominoid was looking up at the girder and another was pointing up to where the rocks came from.

  The girls peeped out of the opening when one of the human-like creatures pointed right in their direction. Time stopped. The girls froze. They could see directly into the hominoid’s eyes. Julia shrieked as she and Lauren suddenly recognized the creature from their dream. Both Lauren and Julia froze.

  They could see the hominoid point toward them. Its snarled, wrinkled face was an ash gray color, its eyes yellowish gold with slits that looked reptilian. Canine teeth protruded over its bottom lip, and as it spoke, spittle blanketed anyone in its vicinity. Just then, the monkoon that had stolen Julia’s microscope bounded back into the opening. The hominoid looked at it, then turned and started walking toward the stairs.

  “We have to get out of here,” Lauren said. “I don’t think they saw us, but we still need to get out of here.”

  Without hesitation the girls crawled as fast as they could back to the chamber. The monkoon stared up at them innocently, but the girls didn’t notice. They scurried as quickly as they could to the other side and into the tunnel. Racing through it, they reached the end where the bushes were. Once there, they stopped and waited to see if the hominoid creatures would come out.