A cool breeze and the squawking of a crow, or maybe a raven, pulled Bard from his catnap.
The bat with the white patch of hair was gone.
For a few seconds, Bard simply stared at the vast space surrounding him, having somehow managed to forget where he was.
Then it came back.
He was somewhere in the mountains.
Literally.
Bard sat up and scanned the cavern walls, searching for any possible way to reach the openings in the ceiling.
Nothing obvious.
There was, however, one not-so-fun option.
Trees, vines, roots, and broken cliff faces formed something resembling a path toward one of the openings. He might be able to climb it.
Might.
The problem was what came after. From where Bard stood, it looked like he would have to climb almost directly through the opening, with very little beneath him. If he slipped near the top, he could easily fall a hundred feet.
Bard spent a long time studying the route.
Eventually, he decided it could work.
There were roots. Uneven rocks. Vines. Trees growing at strange angles. Pretty much everything he needed for the whole mess to almost function like a ladder.
One ladder out of all this mess of beauty.
Bard took a deep breath and looked at the finger that had punctured the Monster can during the fall.
There was dried blood on it.
Apparently, it had scabbed over without him even noticing.
His pants had a small tear near the pocket, and sticky Monster had dried against his leg.
He was getting pretty thirsty.
Bard looked toward the little streams running through the cavern. None of them seemed quite substantial enough for him to risk drinking from.
Instead, he took several slow breaths, enjoying what moisture he could get from the cool air, then started toward the place he had chosen for the climb.
It was considerably harder than it had looked from below.
“Oh well. Gotta suffer through this.”
He stuck the can in a branch of the tree.
Bard climbed.
He worked his way over rocks, roots, trees, and patches of dirt that occasionally crumbled beneath his boots. Several times, he stopped just long enough to find the next handhold before continuing.
Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
Eventually, he reached the precipice.
Bard tried very hard not to look down.
He reached into the opening and pulled himself upward with everything he had. His legs tangled beneath him for a moment. Dirt broke loose and disappeared into the cavern.
“Come on.”
He tightened his grip and pulled.
Roots from the trees above gave him something solid to hold.
Thankfully.
Without them, he probably would have fallen.
Bard dragged himself through the opening and collapsed onto solid ground.
Sunlight.
For a while, he just lay there.
Then he rolled over and looked around.
He was outside.
A dense forest covered the mountainside around him, wilderness twisting in every direction. A Steller’s jay flew past through the trees.
Bard slowly got to his feet.
Nearby, a small stream ran through the forest before disappearing into another opening in the earth.
He followed it with his eyes.
Was that where the waterfall came from?
Bard looked around more carefully.
There were openings everywhere.
Small chasms. Cracks between rocks. Dark holes partly concealed beneath roots and vegetation. The mountain seemed riddled with them.
Bard carefully made his way away from the openings, picking his path through the forest until the ground beneath him finally seemed whole again.
He climbed a tree.
It wasn’t exactly the best observation post, but he needed some idea of where he was. More importantly, he needed to figure out which direction might take him back toward his car.
Not that he imagined he would be able to guess correctly.
Bard pulled himself a little higher and looked through a break in the trees.
Then stopped.
Red.
He shifted his weight and leaned around the trunk.
There it was.
His Honda Civic.
Bard stared at it.
The car was sitting alongside a paved road.
Not sunk in mud.
Not abandoned ten feet off some miserable forest road where he had left it.
Sitting neatly alongside what looked an awful lot like Route 4.
“What the fuck?”
Whatever had happened, his instinct had at least gotten him this far. Through a narrow break in the trees, he could clearly see the red car.
He had direction again.
Bard climbed down and started through the damp forest toward it.
With any luck, everything would still be there.
Although he couldn’t begin to imagine why the car itself was there.
What had happened?
It took him about half an hour to reach the road. At one point, he had to climb another tree just to orient himself again.
Finally, he emerged from the forest.
The Civic sat exactly where he had seen it.
Bard approached cautiously.
Something about it looked wrong.
Not damaged.
The opposite.
The Honda looked pristine. Almost like it had gone through a car wash.
He circled it once.
Nothing seemed missing or out of place.
Bard opened the door.
His backpack was there.
He popped the trunk.
Supplies.
Everything.
He stood there for a moment, staring into the trunk.
Then he took out a couple bottles of water and a can of peaches.
Whatever impossible shit was happening, he was thirsty.
Bard drank deeply, cracked open the peaches, and sat in the Civic eating them while he tried to understand where the hell he was.
He looked around.
Forest.
Road.
More forest.
Somewhere out there should have been the forest road he had taken the night before. He knew roughly where it was on the map.
The problem was that he didn’t know where he was now.
This sure looked like Route 4.
But where on Route 4?
Bard finished the peaches, started the Civic, and pulled onto the road.
Somehow, it had a full tank of gas.
The car drove perfectly.
Of course it did.
About ten minutes later, he came to a crossroads.
Bard slowed.
Then stopped.
There was a road sign beside the intersection.
He stared at it through the windshield.
Route 4.
Bard looked toward the crossing road.
Then back at the sign.
He got out of the car.
Sure enough, the road he was standing on was Route 4.
And according to the sign, the road crossing it was also Route 4.
Bard took out his camera and photographed the sign.
Then the intersection.
Then the sign again.
He stood in the middle of the strange crossroads and looked in every direction.
Forest.
Road.
Forest.
Road.
Out here, it all looked similar enough that there was nothing else to tell him exactly where he was.
But he knew one thing.
This should not be here.