Call Me Ishmael

Chapter 22

Author's Note: Don't sit so close to the screen.  You can buy this book at Amazon, B&N, and at Smashwords for any other device.

The minutes ticked away as we waited for something to happen.  Finnie reckoned we had about eighteen hours before everything imploded; still, there was nothing to do but sit around the Bugrider, waiting for the cosmic bus to show up.  I checked my gun; I had a few bullets left, but I would be in a do-you-feel-lucky-punk mode very soon.  And while we waited, I knew that unless the gears of the dimensions spun back around, in the right direction and in time, to take us back with them, whatever we tried was in vain.

Bety squatted on the ground.  He made a small fire and  steeped a cup of tea.  He poured the steaming beverage into a cup, drank it down in a gulp, and scratched his backside with the empty container.  "Anybody else what any?  I've got lots."

All four of us shook our heads side to side.  Bety shrugged and stowed his cup away somewhere in his dirty clothing.  He kicked his fire, and twisted his foot in the ashes.

My head shook right, left, and right again.  It was on the third shake that I realized something was happening.  The ground shook, and pulled apart.  The sand began to run away from us, like at the beach when the waves wash up the beach and then back down.  I have stood on the beach while the waves pound around my legs, pulling the sand away from me.  This was like that, but there was no water; the dry sand simply pulled away and we began to tumble after it. 

Finnie kept her balance, shifting and moving about as the sand slid away from us; almost gliding on the surface like she was riding a skimboard.  I have to admit that I had a lot more difficulty, and I didn't really observe what happened with Bety, Niles, or Splice.  I was too busy keeping my own balance and watching Finnie do her slow dance across the sand. 

The sand kept running, but it was running out.  Finally it was gone, and we stood inside a house, with the last grains disappearing between the floorboards.  I looked around, and wondered what to do.  We were standing on the wall, which I hoped was on the ground. 

"Finnie, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

"We never were, Ishmael.  Did you think we were?"

"Well, no.  It's just an expression, really.  Well, actually it's a quote from a movie.  Did you ever see the Wizard of Oz?"

"Not much of it.  I shut it off when they dropped a house on that poor woman.  Who wants to see something icky like that?"

Meanwhile, Splice walked across the wall to crouch and look out a window on the other wall.  Below us was a wall, above, in front and behind, were the other walls.  To the right was the floor, and the ceiling was on the left. 

Niles looked around.  "This would jolly well make the ceiling easier to paint, wouldn't it?  I mean, one wouldn't need a ladder and all that rot."

I looked around now.  Bety was nowhere to be seen.

"Splice, do you see Bety?"

At the window, Splice shook her head.  "He's not out here.  I can't smell him at all.  I think he's gone."

Finnie said, "That makes sense.  He's been going on so much about missing his wife and her cooking, when the dimensional shift took place, he must have been flung back home, into his own world."

"Back to his fairy-tale world," Splice muttered.  "Good riddance.  He stank."

I was not so happy.  "We might miss his ax.  Do any of you know where we are?  This house looks pretty generic to me, so we could be anywhere.  Aside from it laying on its side, that is."