by Joe Stanley

3

We began to gather stone and wood to build a fire, for such light might guide us as we crept into the green. Rather, what I mean, to guide us out again should we be lost within that green. Oh, that damnable, vile and unearthly green which seemed like sickness more than anything sweet nature can produce…

Here as we worked, one among us noted a number of crimson globes surmounting what were stalks or trunks. We wondered if we might obtain a few for our journey home. At the thought of home our moods grew dark. For it was an unspoken concurrence that the odds of seeing home were ones no gambler would entertain, no matter how desperate.

However, a discussion was occurring none the less.
What were these things? Who could say? They could even be toxic, like that… fish.
But could we not test one on our livestock and know if it was poisonous or not?
Ah, but if it were, then we would but waste one of our hogs and who knows how long…
…who knows how long it may be until we see, if ever again we see, home.
And besides, we have a task that requires no foreign fruit, it needs but stone and wood and those things here are just the same as those which are to be found…
…back home.

So we fell to silence save for grunts and groans that marked the increments which brought us to our goal. Resting in our newly founded camp we caught our wind and laughed, what harm can come from plucking a berry? Even one so large and strange as that?

So go ahead and get one, we said, becoming aware that we were one short. I dread now to report a man once among us was missing. We called so loud that we felt those back on the ship should have heard us.

We called in all directions, we searched with our eyes every place that could be seen.

Why no answer from him?

And since he spoke of those ruby orbs, perhaps he’d moved off then to gain one? So we marched as best as one who trembles inward can, toward the field in which they sprouted.

Now it was seen that spreading out along the ground from these stalks were great leaves covered in thorns. They hooked back toward the trunks with barbs that seemed more than able to pierce a leather boot.

But here, we noted, that some of these held their leaves around the stem much like a pod of peas. So then the round red fruit was not its only treasure. The lumps within it were quite suggestive… for that shape looks like… no, no, it cannot be so…

One among us took a knife and sliced deeply into the violet starburst and golden speckled leaves. No, it cannot be… It is but sap that leaks, merely sap that is as ochre as the devilish orbs we see.
It is not blood, it cannot be.

Yet, here I saw, about the base of another, bones scattered among those leaves which yawned open like a lotus in bloom.

Again, I know little of science such as botany, but I have heard of strange plants that do indeed eat meat. But I have never heard of one such that could eat men… With great speed, then, we seized upon the pod and sliced its burden free.

Enraged, the men took blades and hacked the stalk until it fell. As for the crimson globe only this much more I tell. It opened like an eye and glared, so we chopped it back to Hell.

We buried him near our camp, a little farther up the beach.

next part

back to previous episode

back to list of stories