The Scary Forest (free chapter)

The Gorilla With Twenty Four Heads chapter 5

Perhaps it is because being black-furred, Fred stands out in greater contrast with the light sand, but for whatever reason The Gorilla swings the club down directly at him. Fred rolls out of the way just in time, the rush of displaced air pushing him away in the low gravity. The boys scatter in all directions. The Gorilla must choose only one to follow. It chooses Nathaniel. He runs as fast as he can, finally reaching a lone boulder one hundred meters way. The Gorilla brings the club down onto the boulder. Nathaniel remains safe huddled against the ground on the other side so long as the boulder holds. The Gorilla swings again and again. Then it runs in circles around the boulder. Nathaniel runs too, keeping to the other side. With a roar, The Gorilla finally gives up and walks away.

Eventually finding each other in the twilight and gathering together, the boys decide to return to camp to sleep. Doctor Bill analyzes the data from the scanner. “The club is not made of any material that I or the scanner recognizes. The readings simply make no sense. It must be made of elements with fractional numbers of protons.”

“Fractional protons? How is that possible?” Nathaniel asks.

“I don’t know,” Doctor Bill answers.

“It’s not; it would violate quantum chromodynamics,” Haticat says.

“Maybe the scanner is malfunctioning,” Fred suggests.

“Could the microwave induction phenomenon be interfering with the data patterns?” Nathaniel asks.

“No, not like this. The compound microwave emissions could conceivably trick the scanner into mistaking one element for another, but never could trick it into registering fantasy elements,” Doctor Bill says.

“Well, what can you tell me about the club?” Nathaniel asks.

“It’s harder than diamond, as dense as iron, and a poor conductor of both heat and electricity. It would make good armor,” Doctor Bill says.

“Interesting,” Haticat comments.

Arriving at camp, the monkeys immediately cuddle up next to their brothers and go to sleep. Nathaniel and his Stuffians find their supplies, retrieve a blanket, and cuddle together under that, taking very little time to fall asleep themselves.

When Nathaniel wakes, he feels much better than he ever has since landing on Tizin-A. It is completely dark except for the magnificent array of stars across the sky. The Milky Way is clearly visible, as are the Magellanic Clouds. All of the monkeys appear to be in deep hibernation for the long night. Nathaniel and his Stuffians are alone. “We have to find some way to fix the ship, but first, let’s get our other scanners back,” Nathaniel says. Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, and Doctor Bill search and collect their other three scanners lent to the monkeys. It is much cooler now with the sun down and the temperature continues to drop. They decide to return to the first oasis to retrieve their blankets and further dig their hole to stay warm during the long night. It will be a long walk. They soon figure out, however, that they did not keep close track of their compass heading during the day and it is too dark to recognize any landmarks at night. The starlight is only just bright enough so that they don’t walk into things. “We’re too stupid to be explorers!” Nathaniel complains.

“I would have kept closer track, but I was trying to conserve power,” Doctor Bill says.

“And I thought we’d catch The Gorilla sooner and return before sunset,” Nathaniel adds.

“So did I,” Haticat adds.

“We’ll just have to find another oasis and dig a new hole,” Nathaniel declares.

“That creek bed we crossed probably leads to one,” Haticat says.

“And if we find it, we can follow it later during the day to where we crossed and left our footprints,” Nathaniel says. With that, they set out in a general eastward direction from where they came, scanning for water.

Before long, the boys become bored. Exploring is only fun when one can see the landscape. All the sand and rocks nearby look the same. There aren’t even any interesting sounds. Everything is asleep. They roll over a few rocks. One has fern stars under it. The boys tap them, but they are completely unresponsive. “They must be sleeping,” Nathaniel comments.

They roll over a few more rocks, but find nothing. Wanting to start a game, Haticat says, “Guess what number I’m thinking of!”

“I don’t know. Is it fifty?” Nathaniel asks.

“No,” Haticat answers.

“Is it three million, four hundred fifty-two thousand, one hundred eighty-eight-point-five-five-zero-five?” Fred asks.

“No,” Haticat says.

“Is it a prime number?” Doctor Bill asks.

“Uh…No,” Haticat answers.

“Is it the square root of pi-plus-seventeen, minus one?” Nathaniel asks.

“No,” Haticat answers.

“Is it zero?” Fred asks.

“No,” Haticat answers.

“Is it a square number?” Doctor Bill asks.

“Uh…no,” Haticat answers.

“Is it negative nineteen-point-three-three-three-three-three-three-three-three? Nathaniel asks.

“No,” Haticat answers.

“Is it negative four trillion?” Fred asks.

“No! I hate that number; it’s disgusting,” Haticat says.

The boys continue guessing for half an hour, but never get it. Eventually they grow bored with the game. “Is it ninety-nine billion, four hundred fifty million, two hundred eleven thousand, five hundred ninety-six?” Nathaniel mumbles tiredly.

“No…uh…I can’t remember my number anymore. Never mind,” Haticat says.

After a snack and a rest, the boys keep walking. The desert rapidly cools and the boys rapidly get even more bored. “I’m so bored,” Nathaniel complains.

“Yup,” Haticat says.

“Aaaaaah,” Doctor Bill groans. Several minutes pass with nothing more to say.

“I’m so bored,” Nathaniel says again.

“Yup,” Haticat says.

“Aaaaaah,” Doctor Bill groans. This sequence repeats so many times that the boys lose count. They all begin to suffer from funsickness. Fred moans in a repetitive way. Haticat “quacks” with every other step, dragging one leg. Doctor Bill walks in a zigzag pattern. Nathaniel spins around as he walks, letting his arms and tail dangle limply. When he trips over his tail and collapses, the three Stuffians fall over too, unable to remain conscious on Nathaniel’s meager play-energy.

“Ugh! I’m so bored,” Nathaniel groans. He just stares at the stars for a while.

Suddenly, Nathaniel wakes up. Had he been asleep? For how long? He rolls over and sees a light maybe three hundred meters away. He gets up and walks towards it. His curiosity wakes his Stuffians, who follow him.

Moving closer, the light resolves into multiple moving lights of different colors. Soon, the boys find themselves among strange stone pillars, large crystals protruding from their sides so as to resemble trees. Each crystal is translucent and white, with opaque white veins running through the inside. Around each crystal revolve flying lights of different colors – green, yellow, red, blue, white, and purple. Nathaniel reaches to touch one of the lights and it vanishes into his feathers, leaving a bad burn. “Ouch!!”

“These crystals are making so much electromagnetic interference that I can’t scan them,” Doctor Bill complains.

“So we can’t know what they’re made of?” Nathaniel asks.

“Right,” Doctor Bill answers.

“I wonder why there are crystals here,” Haticat mutters. Continuing their walk, the boys begin to see more and more crystals sprouting from almost every other rock. Each has one or more lights circling it. Gradually, the surrounding desert lights up to the point that Captain Nathaniel and his crew have no trouble seeing, though the crystals make the desert look so different that they still aren’t sure where they are.

“What was that?” Haticat suddenly gasps. The boys look ahead and see a moving shadow slip behind some rocks.

“I’m going to find out,” Nathaniel says, running up onto the top of the rocks to peer over them. There is a gigantic, spiny, ten-armed starfish-like being, each of its long arms ending in a long, thorny whip. It is as big as a potamux.

“Hurry, come look at it,” Nathaniel beckons. Fred, Haticat, and Doctor Bill climb up onto the rock to see. Seemingly startled, the creature shudders and backs away, its arms held off the ground by bony plates jutting out of its underside. This creature walks on its back (unlike other stars) with its mouth facing upwards. It now opens its mouth, revealing dozens of sharp, down-pointed teeth. In addition to spines, the skin of the creature is covered in black eyes and small, vibrating knobs. After pausing for a moment, the star suddenly moves towards the boys and swings its two closest tentacles around Haticat. The thorns dig deeply, holding him fast. The creature lifts Haticat up and tosses him ten meters away.

Doctor Bill and Fred quickly retreat. Nathaniel stays behind for a moment, baring his teeth and claws, growling. The creature takes a swing at him, but he dodges it before running out of range. Haticat gets up. “I’m okay,” he winces, “It only separated my skin fibers a little; it didn’t break any.”

Fred picks up a stone in anger and heaves it at the creature, breaking off one of its spines. The creature quickly retreats into the desert. “It must have been afraid of us or something,” Doctor Bill reasons.

“But we were only looking from a distance,” Haticat says.

“It must be a grumpy animal,” Nathaniel concludes. He walks over to where the broken spine has fallen and picks it up. It is sixty centimeters long. “This will make a good weapon.”

“Can I have it?” Haticat asks excitedly.

“Okay,” Nathaniel says. Haticat takes the spine and swings it around like a sword, causing whooping noises.

Fred jumps up and down with excitement. “Let me have a turn.”

While the Gruezhlings play, Nathaniel’s stomach growls. “I’m hungry,” he says. He digs out a tuber to munch on. He is so tired of tubers; each one tastes yuckier than the last. “I want ice cream,” he complains.

“I want roller coasters,” Fred states.

“I want roller coasters and ice cream,” Nathaniel grumbles.

After Nathaniel eats, the boys continue exploring, hoping there is ice cream or roller coasters somewhere, but not seriously expecting to find any. The crystals in some areas are greener (due to impurities, Nathaniel thinks) and glow dimly themselves in addition to reflecting the orbiting lights. Nathaniel throws a rock at one of the crystals. It hits it in the base and breaks it off. The flying lights scatter in all directions and take up orbits around other nearby crystals, in turn causing a few of these crystals to shed their lights, taking up orbits around still other crystals and creating a ripple effect across the landscape. “Wow!” Fred says, “Do that again!”

Nathaniel picks up another stone and knocks another crystal off. All the boys join in, testing their aim against each other. This game lasts for fifteen minutes before they get bored and move on. Picking up one of the broken crystals, Nathaniel notes that it is very sticky. He stuffs it into his backpack, thinking it will make a useful flashlight sometime later.

A new game is made to walk under the crystals, dodging the lights. This game lasts for ten minutes. Then Nathaniel suddenly stops. “Hey, I know where the lights come from now. I saw one come out of the tip of that crystal.”

A closer examination reveals that both the crystals and the surrounding rocks are riddled with tiny holes. From these holes oozes a fluid forming a thin film over the outside of each crystal. “This must be how they grow. The fluid comes out of the tips and reacts with the air to become hard and crystallize, and the lights come from underground too,” Doctor Bill says.

“How do they circle?” Nathaniel asks.

“The atoms in the crystalline lattice must settle such that their magnetic fields all point the same way, perhaps aided by pre-existing fields in the local rocks. When they grow big enough, the crystals’ magnetic fields are then strong enough to trap the lights in orbits around them, which must be electrically charged,” Doctor Bill theorizes.

“Hey, this star just got hit by the lights when it crawled onto the crystal,” Fred observes.

Nathaniel, Haticat, and Doctor Bill turn to see. A small pine star seems stuck to the base of a crystal and it appears burned in several spots. “The lights must be some sort of protection to keep animals from touching the crystals,” Nathaniel says.

“Do you think they’re alive?” Haticat asks.

“I don’t know,” Nathaniel answers.

“It’s possible,” Doctor Bill says.

The boys walk for hours across sand, gravel, and solid rock. It is only on solid rock and very large boulders that they see crystals at all. The larger the rock, the larger the crystals grow. No crystals grow on sand. Finally they find themselves on the edge of a shining crystalline forest. They grow even larger here, some reaching fifteen meters into the sky. Crystals even grow on other crystals. The ground is completely encrusted in sharp crystals and flying lights, making navigation through the forest very difficult. Nathaniel and his crew must backtrack and divert course multiple times, slowing them down. They see more dead pine stars stuck to the crystals. The fluid has partly flowed over several of them, trapping them inside the growing crystal. “Look at these,” Nathaniel says.

“There are so many here,” Haticat says. He quickly counts seventeen pine stars, two small fern stars, and three additional unidentifiable shadows trapped completely inside the growing, translucent crystals. “Maybe these crystals eat echinoderms,” Haticat hypothesizes.

“Carnivorous crystals? That’s so weird!” Nathaniel remarks.

“Hmmm. That might make sense. If the crystals dissolve the stars and take them back into the rock with them during the day, then the crystals can grow bigger the next night,” Doctor Bill reasons.

“Maybe the lights attract the pine stars the way lights attract some Earth insects,” Nathaniel says.

“Yeah, that explains why we only see pine stars and fern stars here. If they are photosynthetic like we think they are, they would be attracted to light. They must have an instinct to follow light to get them to crawl out from under rocks during the day,” Doctor Bill says.

“So the lights attract them and then kill them?” Fred asks.

“Yes, and then the crystals grow over them. We’ll have to wait until morning to see if they are really eaten,” Doctor Bill says.

Nathaniel writes everything in the notebook, complete with diagrams. “I like the carnivorous crystals,” he states.

“I wish my scanner would work to study them, but there is too much magnetic interference!” Doctor Bill complains.

“Why does the fluid come out of the rock at night?” Fred asks.

“I don’t know. Maybe the rock contracts more than the fluid does when it cools off at night, forcing the fluid out,” Nathaniel suggests.

“That makes sense, and it explains why we see bigger crystals growing out of exposed bedrock than out of small boulders,” Doctor Bill says.

There are many different kinds of crystals here and not all of them are circled by lights. Those without circling lights contain lights trapped inside them or are simply luminescent everywhere. There are purple crystals with sharp spikes sticking out at all heights, forcing the boys to be very careful where they walk. If not for their luminescence, they would be very easy to walk into (or trip over) and become impaled. There are green crystals coated with hair-thin spines, stretching over a meter long, the tip of each spine oozing fluid. Other crystals are striped in many colors (red, yellow, blue, blue-green, yellow-green, orange, yellow-orange, silver, and brown) and grow toward each other, but always leaving small gaps between their tips. Finally, there are purple-grey crystals growing in circles so as to line shallow pits. These pits contain numerous pine stars, maple stars, fern stars, and others. There are black velvet stars and stars covered with what appears to be distinct lumps of black cotton. Haticat feels it and takes notes. As Fred, Haticat, and Nathaniel watch, the animals continually attempt to climb out of the pit, but the moment any one of them touches the rim, the crystals vibrate, causing them all to slip back down. There is a shallow puddle of some sort of liquid at the bottom that smells a bit like vinegar.

Meanwhile Doctor Bill notices a maple star trapped between two of the fast-growing “hairy” crystals. One of its kin is already stuck underneath one of the crystals, the hair-thin spines growing deeper and deeper into it, and fluid flowing and hardening all around it. He points this out and takes note.

A little further along the labyrinthine paths through the forest, Nathaniel notices a large pine star bridging the gap between two sets of striped crystals. It is convulsing strangely. “Hey, I think these crystals are electrified,” he says.

“How can we tell without touching them?” Haticat questions.

“I’m not sure,” Doctor Bill says.

“This is a scary forest,” Nathaniel comments, “We should go around it.”

Going back proves very difficult as fast-growing, hair-thin spines have since formed extensive webs across the path, merging with each other. In the low gravity of Tizin-A, these webs become quite massive. Fortunately, the webs are very brittle and Nathaniel smashes them down with a blanket-covered arm. He shakes the blanket out afterward.

Eventually, they find a way through the mass of spines and swirling lights to the safety of sand, but it is not the way they came. The boys soon find themselves boxed in between two growing forests, forcing them to turn west. Eventually, the ever-narrowing strip of sand they walk disappears as the forests merge into one. Figuring that they can get through before they are trapped if they move quickly, Nathaniel and his crew decide to press on. There are numerous crystal-lined pits here in sizes ranging from four centimeters across to a full meter across. Bright lights and strange energies swirl through the air. The boys carefully round the corner of a large protrusion of rock and sticky, white crystals, startling a giant thorny whip star of the kind they had met earlier that night. It appears to be fishing captured stars out of the pits and eating them.

The boys freeze and the giant whip star immediately runs away, still chewing a large fern star with the giant teeth on its back. The boys move forward, but the path abruptly ends, trapping the whip star. It moves back toward them aggressively.

“Come on,” Captain Nathaniel beckons. The boys retrace their steps and find another path, running as fast as they can around all the protruding crystal spines. The path begins to deteriorate as the forest closes in more and more. With the whip star right behind them, the boys duck and dodge flying lights, spines, sticky white crystals, and try not to step on any two striped crystals at the same time. Nathaniel and his Stuffians are by now used to the low gravity of Tizin-A and are as sure-footed as goats, but still the whip star gains on them.

Trying to hurry, Haticat finally makes a mistake. Stepping on a striped crystal at a bad angle, he slips down until his leg is wedged between two of them. Bzzzrrrrr! The crystals are electrified after all! Haticat pulls his leg out, but the lower half is now completely numb and limp, the muscle fibers non-responsive. At the same time, the whip star seems to give up the chase. “Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!” Haticat says, holding his leg.

“What is it?” Nathaniel asks.

“Those striped crystals electrocuted my leg,” Haticat reports.

“Did it burn you?” Doctor Bill asks.

“No,” Haticat says, checking.

“Good, Stuffians will heal from electrocution in only minutes or less if there’s no burning,” Doctor Bill says.

“We might not have time for that; we need to find a way out of this forest before we’re trapped! Carry him!” Nathaniel orders.

The boys continue their flight, carrying Haticat. The awkward weight causes them to stumble. Carefully picking their way between the rims of two large pits in a field of pits, they accidentally touch the rim of one of them. The sudden vibration causes them to lose balance, falling into the pit. It is three meters across and two meters deep.

“Gross!” Fred yells, sloshing in digestive fluids and half-dissolved starfish. He tries to climb, but cannot get a grip on the sides.

Haticat and Doctor Bill try jumping out, but cannot quite make it. “You’ll have to jump in and throw us out. Then you can jump out yourself,” Doctor Bill says.

“Ugh!” Nathaniel curses. He jumps in. The digestive fluids soak into his pants and feathers and run down the insides of his boots. He throws the three Gruezhlings out of the pit one at a time. Haticat promptly falls into an adjacent pit, Fred holds onto its side, and Doctor Bill never even touches the ground, falling directly into the center of yet a third pit.

“Help me!” he calls. Nathaniel jumps out and rescues Doctor Bill first, throwing him directly into a fourth pit. “You have bad aim!!” he yells.

Nathaniel rescues Haticat and Fred next, throwing them into yet a fifth pit. “There are too many crystals here!” Haticat exclaims.

“I know!” Nathaniel barks angrily.

“Use the rope!” Doctor Bill yells.

“Good idea! Who has it?” Nathaniel says.

“It’s in my bag!” Fred calls. He digs the rope out of his bag and tosses it to Nathaniel. Nathaniel lifts him and Haticat out, and then lifts out Doctor Bill.

Finally, they carefully make it out of the field of pits and walk down a path of white and purple crystals still too small to be of any consequence. Large, pointy, branching crystals of yellow stretch above them. Limping slightly, but now able to walk, Haticat’s white, back-shell brushes against one of them. It suddenly vibrates, shattering itself into sharp chunks landing all around them. The chunks glow brightly.

“Don’t step on any!” Nathaniel orders. Nathaniel, Fred, and Haticat are able to leap clear of the debris field. They toss Doctor Bill the rope and yank him out. The boys take barely three steps before another nearby yellow crystal shatters.

“We didn’t even touch it!” Fred declares.

“They must sense us and react when we get close,” Nathaniel says. The shards across the path glow a bright yellow. Not willing to risk discovering what happens when the glowing crystals are stepped on, the boys instead risk climbing up a wall of sticky, white crystals to escape. Dozens of flying lights of all colors sting them, but they press on. Unlike the tiny starfish-like creatures, the boys are strong enough to unglue themselves from the crystals’ surfaces and climb up the wall.

At the top, they look around. “Look, we can get out that way!” Nathaniel says. There is a patch of sand forty meters away. Beyond that, the crystal forest visibly thins.

“The only way over there is to climb across those striped crystals,” Doctor Bill says.

“We’ll just have to be very careful only to touch one set at a time, jumping from one to the next, and at the same time being careful not to miss and fall onto the purple spikes,” Nathaniel surmises.

“Okay,” Haticat responds.

One at a time, the boys set off across the striped crystals, jumping from one to the next, sometimes needing to leap off again immediately upon landing while slipping down highly sloped and slippery surfaces. Now fully healed, Haticat goes first. Fred goes second. On the fourth landing, he tumbles and cuts himself on a spike. “My leg! I tore my leg!” Fred yells, followed by whimpering.

Nathaniel jumps closer to examine him. He sees bright white stuffing sticking out of a long gash in Fred’s black skin. “I have a roll of tape in my bag,” Haticat says. He takes it out and tosses it to Nathaniel. Nathaniel carefully closes Fred’s leg up again.

“Can you walk?” Nathaniel asks.

“I think so,” Fred answers. He gets up and walks around. “I dropped my scanner somewhere.” Doctor Bill looks for Fred’s scanner and finds it five meters away.

Continuing to hop from striped crystal to striped crystal, the boys make it to the edge of the forest where they come across another thorny whipstar. It just sits there unmoving. All around it are strange brown crystals racing past it. No, the crystals are still where they are. The boys can clearly see they are still, yet they give the impression of rapid motion in a particular direction. “These crystals are moving-colored,” Nathaniel comments.

“Maybe that’s why the whipstar is standing still. It sees the fake motion of the crystals and thinks it is running the other way. It’s probably too stupid to know it’s being tricked,” Haticat suggests. Looking down, Nathaniel sees that brown crystal has already begun to form around the bony feet-plates of the whipstar.

The boys carefully tread around the whipstar and around the corner. There, they see a highly branched crystal resembling a tree. Nathaniel blinks. He cannot determine its color. His right eye sees purple while his left eye sees green. Then his right eye sees green while his left eye sees silver. Then his right eye sees silver, while his left eye sees purple. How is this possible?

“I feel weird. Let’s get out of here,” Fred says, echoing Nathaniel’s thoughts.

Finally, they are able to make it to the safety of the sand. Here, the fluid never reaches the surface. At the center of the field are six sleeping crawling-bushes, each filled with sleeping mouse-monkeys. The boys use sand to rub the smelly digestive fluid off their legs and clothes and out of their boots. Defeated by the carnivorous crystals, the boys have no choice but to head southwest – away from the oasis.