The Road
To Illsmore
Written By: Charles Corren, Copyright December 2002
Chapter 2 - The Keys To Saber Forest
She woke form her sleep, and felt the cobwebs slip away from her mind too slowly for her liking.
Her dream had been very vivid, strong and disturbing.
She dreamt that she was in a field of gold, wheat plants that stretched for as far as the eye could see.
And she was thinking how silly that was, and at the same time calling out to John to get up when she felt rather than saw that she had been sleeping on a path of stone.
The plants were right where she left them, when she sat down to have a good cry.
She touched her cheeks to see if they were wet, but found them dry, either having been dried by the breeze or rubbed off perhaps as she slept.
She was much better for having had the sleep though.
She felt rested and relaxed, and none of the anxiety she had felt….when?
She stood up suddenly.
A little too suddenly perhaps, because her head spun a bit and she saw double.
How long ago was that?
Almost immediately her eyes shot up to where the sun was last time she looked.
It was still in the same place.
That wasn't too odd she imagined since she might have only been sleeping there a little while.
But she felt as if she had slept a great deal.
Felt as rested as if she had slept an entire night.
Now that was odd.
But in this place, anything was possible she imagined.
And with that attitude she made her way, making sure that she kept the sun slightly to the right, onwards.
It's a funny thing when there is no one to talk to and you don't have anywhere to go what your mind does.
She found herself thinking, remembering actually, things that seemed to pop up from no where.
Like that John hated Apples.
Was in fact the only person she knew that did not like apples at least a little.
Or that she drove a blue Alero.
And that her bank account number was 368-766-109 and she was exactly $12 overdrawn.
Or had been the last time she looked.
Or that she had no children, didn't want any, had no pets, didn't want any.
Or that John had wanted pizza for dinner.
Just dial 972-1234 and order the number 2 special.
Comes with triple cheese and extra sauce, a real artery choker.
Or that she worked for TransCon the food warehousing people in Billet.
Or that the pay there was lousy, but the bosses nephew had a killer body.
Or that their carpet in the master bedroom was a deep blue carpet, the one that has long strands, what'' it called?
Shag, that's it.
Or that their house was painted green summer before last when John had the fall from the ladder that had her in stitches for an hour while he cursed her up and down for laughing at him.
He joined in later, and she knew he was just teasing him.
All of these memories came not one at a time but all at once.
In a blinding flash.
It was like nothing, then everything.
She absent mindedly started counting steps, trying to determine how far she was walking in a given time.
Now that concept was a joke.
How could she tell time?
No watch, no electronic device of any kind, just the sun.
At the thought of it she glanced upward.
The sun was in not nearly the same spot as it was before, but exactly the same spot.
She was sure of that, it was almost directly overhead when she had stopped for the cry.
It was just off to the right slightly.
Just about a fingers width actually, if you held your fingers up to look.
She was doing just that when she ran into the post.
She was not a person given to foul language, but the word out of her mouth was "shit goddamn in a can".
It always made her feel that she was committing less of a sin if there was a rhyme to it.
Kind of like God would accept your transgressions all the while laughing at your joke.
Ordinarily, the run into the post would have stopped her cold, but today, she kind of bounced to the side and turned sideways at the same time.
Dancing in the starlit night.
And a one and a two, step, step, side step, we all fall down.
And fall down she did.
Right on her sparkling ass as her grandmother would have said.
She quickly looked around to see if there was anyone watching, and caught herself when she realized where she was, and how silly the look appeared.
The post was not mounted to the right or the left of the path, but rather almost exactly in the middle of it.
Now there was something that was odd.
Who in their right mind would put a post in the middle of the only path around for miles?
What would the point be.
She was looking at the post trying to decide why it had been placed there, when the sun glinted off something metallic.
She moved closer to look, but decided she must have been mistaken.
There was nothing there at all.
The post was about 6 feet tall, a good estimate given her current height, and looked like it hadn't been painted in a dog's age.
At some point in time it had been coated with a good coat of light green paint similar in shade to celery.
She decided that either the post had been here for an eon or two or the paint was not designed to be out in the sun.
Most of it had flaked off, leaving a light brown wood color underneath.
She walked around the post, and was surprised that there was no sign, no lettering, no indication at all of why the post was there in the first place.
She thought it might have been someone's mailbox, but there was no indication that it had been anchored to the post at all, and mounting it on the top was not an option unless you were 7' tall.
There in the sun, looking at a post placed in the most awkward place imaginable, with no reason for being there at all, feeling very silly for having walked into it, she saw the glint again.
This time she was sure.
It had come from the opposite side as before, but it was there.
She had been looking almost directly at the spot when it happened.
Then, nothing.
She went up to the post, and touched the place where the sparkle had seemed to come from.
Nothing but solid wood.
Oh great now she is loosing her mind.
Seeing things is the first sign isn't it?
No wait that was talking to yourself wasn't it?
No, wasn't it admitting that you were crazy?
The great answer gods in the sky were not going to give her the divine response she was looking for.
Standing there in the noon day sun (god was it still noon?) she felt the outline.
It wasn't very deep or well defined, but she could feel it.
She used her finger tips to make sure that it wasn't a defect in the wood, and no, there was a definite outline of something cut out of the wood and then placed back to fill in the same spot.
If you looked very closely, you could just make out the shape.
It was in the shape of a key.
A skeleton key if memory held correctly.
She was moving all around the outline now, looking for a place where she could use force to leverage it out.
She managed to get a fingernail into the space between the key and the post, and pried it out slowly, and ……damn.
Her finger nail had not only not been strong enough to pry the key shaped object out of the hole, but it was now bent at a very awkward angle, 45 degrees to her finger.
Now that was going to hurt like hell in the morning if she could get it out at all that was.
She found herself smiling first, then laughing at the prospect of being trapped in the middle of nowhere with her finger stuck in a post, and dying there standing upright.
Her finger nail came out easily enough though.
She was just putting too much sideways pressure at the time.
As it came out, she noticed that there was no bleeding, thank god for small mercies.
Her finger nail had left a mark in the wood, right at the joint between the key and the post, and against her better judgement she decided to try it once again.
Hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained her mother used to say.
She put the nail back to the wood, and pushed slightly inward.
The nail went in a little further.
She pulled it back out, more to ensure that she could do it than anything else, and as she did she placed her other hand on the post in the middle of the key.
As she did, the color of the key changed.
It went from the same blended, chipped, faded paint color of the rest of the post to black in a matter of three seconds.
When it had finished turning black, it changed to Red in a similar amount of time.
From there is went to blue, then green, yellow, and orange rounded out the spectrum.
When it got white, she heard a soft pop, and the key came out in one piece.
She jumped and put her hands out to catch the key as it fell.
What landed in her hand was far from the white piece of wood that she expected, and although under similar circumstances a more rational person would have dropped it or ran away, she closed her hand over it to prevent it from falling from her hand.
She could feel it inside her palm.
Her hand was facing the ground with the item inside
Slowly, she turned her hand over.
Even more slowly, she opened her fingers to see what was inside.
Now ordinarily people's brains work a lot faster than they think.
Think a thought, bingo its done.
Ask to walk, and you foot moves.
What she saw in her hand was a wooden key shaped exactly the same as the hole left in the post.
What she felt in her hand was cold, and considerable smaller than the key was.
As she watched, the wooden key shape faded, yes faded right before her eyes.
The fading was not exactly like you see on TV, more like the substance being removed a little at a time.
What it looked like was an invisible spot where the key had been and the outline still showing.
Almost that, but she couldn't see her hand through the inside of the key.
But it was the same color as her skin.
This is where her brain kicked into gear, the fear rising up inside her, and the command to drop whatever it was came to the hand.
She let it go, but remained rooted in the spot as if bolted to the ground.
She had pulled her hand back as if burned.
But there had been no heat.
What hit the ground, (and it was the sound that tipped her off firstly) was a tiny metal key attached to a very fine silver chain.
She bent down.
Picked it up and looked at the key.
The key was very nondescript.
It was typical sized, but had only two grooves cut into its surface.
Most of the keys she had seen had many grooves cut into them.
She supposed that this was so the many keys could be made using such a small piece of metal. v
She had no idea what kind of a lock this would fit.
The chain and key were placed around her neck with care, pausing at each step to ensure that nothing would harm her in the process.
As soon as it touched her skin, the key turned blue.
It was a deep rich blue that looked so out of place on a piece of metal.
There was no heat, no cold, just exactly what you would expect from a key on a chain.
The sound was like nothing she had ever heard before, and since it was the first sound she had heard since her arrival here, she was up in a flash.
With all the open areas around her, it was impossible to tell where the sound had come from.
She listened intently, and could feel her breathing and heart rate increase, putting her at the ready for what ever was coming.
She stayed that way for a full two minutes, looking all around to locate the source of the sound.
But much the same as an echo in a canyon, it was lost.
Pointed in the right direction she continued her ever lengthening journey to nowhere.
Every so often she turned around to check her progress away from the post, but it was not very long before she lost sight of it.
Her mind wandered.
She though of John, and how he was going to take the news of her absence.
She thought for about 10 seconds before she came to the realization that he would not be that worried, if at all, especially the way things had been going of late.
John and her had been going through some tough times in their marriage.
She had held such hope and promise for the future when they were dating.
Dating had been wonderful, but it seemed as soon as they were married, things changed direction.
John was less attentive, and would brood for days over the smallest things.
She could, with great effort, bring him out of these moods, but after all this time, really lacked the desire to.
It was easier and less painful to let the mood run its course and be done with it.
And John himself did not really understand what the moods were all about.
He just became sullen and un-talkative to the point where there were only grunts as responses.
And only if she asked direct questions first.
The emotional side was no picnic.
He rarely paid her compliments, or told her he loved her anymore.
She would be hard pressed to remember the last time he had told her he loved her.
She knew that it would be measured in years, not days or weeks.
John was a good man at heart, but his heart was just not with her.
Even the physical side, what little there was of it, left her feeling unfulfilled and wanting more, much more than her could provide.
So she suffered.
In quiet.
Alone.
In reality, John would miss her, and if her disappearance was discovered, would launch an area wide search for her.
But she had not way of knowing that.
Not here.
Not now.
Whenever she thought of John, her emotions rose up in her quickly, and she was left feeling empty.
She could feel something in her shoe, and bend down to take in off.
She stood up to shake whatever had gotten into the shoe out, and saw the clearing in the field.
It was a long way off, but because everything was the same, it stuck out like a sore thumb.
Hurriedly she put the shoe back on and started to run towards the clearing.
Really the first sign of anything normal she had seen here.
It wasn't long though, before she found herself winded and had to slow down to a walk to continue.
The clearing was still a long ways off.
She tried to gauge the distance, but without anything to go by, it was impossible.
Walking now though, had a purpose.
She was walking towards something
She didn't know what it was, but it was something.
And something was what she needed.
Walking was always easier when you had somewhere to go, and she continued on her way.
The walk was the same as it had been, but now she could monitor her progress by trying to see how much closer she was.
It didn't matter that the clearing didn't appear any closer no matter how long she walked, it just seemed better that way.
She had taken to counting her steps.
She calculated that each step measured 2 feet.
Therefore for every 2500 steps, that equaled one mile.
Or about a mile.
She had completed three of these miles, when the clearing first started to look like it was closer than it had been.
She could see the area better and better the closer she got to it, but what she was seeing just didn't make sense.
Her brain waited until she was right next to the clearing in the field before it told her what she was standing in front of.
The answer was she didn't have the foggiest idea.
From her vantage point on the path, she could see all of the clearing, save for what was covered by the plants directly in front of her.
There was, about 10 feet in front of the path, off to the left, an area cleared that looked like someone's home.
There was enough of an area to put a good size home, and a big lot besides.
That wasn't the troubling part.
From where she was she could see it, but not make sense of it.
She pushed her way through the plants and moved inward until she stood in the clearing.
There was a clothesline, a pole for the clothesline, a rusted car, and a set of swings.
To the rear of the lot was a tree stump with some pieces of wood laying to the side, and an ax in ready to cut whenever the mood overtook someone.
A beach ball, a baseball bat, and a glove rounded out the items strewn about the yard apparently at random.
The odd thing was the clothesline.
The pole was there, standing proud and ready for work.
And there was a round wheel to allow the rubber coated line to roll around and pull the clothes along to dry.
And there was the rubber line as well.
The problem with the picture was that the rubber coated clothes line for holding clothes extended 8 feet top and bottom from the pole, wrapped around the wheel and ended.
Now it wasn't that it was broken.
No, it just went out 8 feet from the pole and stopped.
The blue line running top and bottom and the ends holding themselves up.
The rusted car was afflicted with the same problem.
Most of the car was fine, but the front 1/3 of it was just not there.
It wasn't cut off, lost, rusted away, it just wasn't.
Most times when the impossible is observed by someone, it causes them to become frightened and run.
She thought of it and then thought, where would she run?
Where she might run to might be that much worse.
Still, standing there looking at the car and the clothesline was just wrong.
Looking closer to the area where the line and the car should have gone, there was nothing.
No color, no texture, no grass, no plants, just nothing.
It was as if someone were painting all of this and had run out of paint.
The painting could have been called "to be finished later".
She walked over to the ball, and felt it.
It was real enough all right.
It had a texture it, substance, and bounced when you dropped it.
There was no sound though.
She would have expected a sound when the ball hit the ground on its way back up, but nothing.
The tree stump, wood, baseball, glove, and ax all were the same.
All real, all there.
She took the ax and swung it into the tree stump.
Nothing.
No sound at all.
None of the expected "swack" she had anticipated.
Just nothing.
Looking towards the clothes line and beyond, there was no house, no grass, no trees, no plants.
It was as if it had been erased.
Or not ever started.
And that was looking more and more possible all the time.
What was this place?
First she gets there with no knowledge of how, then finds the post with the key, now this.
And not to mention the only sound she had heard since she got here was so nondescript that she had no idea what it was, let alone where it had come from, or better still, what had made it.
She straightened up and took stock.
She had no additional clothes, no food, no water.
And a key on a chain.
Now she could take the ax and move on.
Collect $200.00 if you pass Go. v
Do not go to jail, go directly to Go
.
The thought of taking the ax was a good one she thought.
But what would she do with it?
Would she need it?
And wouldn't carrying an ax around all day be tiring?
She looked around the yard.
Of all of the items here, the ax held the most promise.
She could defend herself if it came to that, or chop something.
But, in all honesty, it was not really a useful item at all.
Just dead weight as far as she was concerned.
She went back over to the wood pile, with the ax on the ground nearby and looked at it.
Hoping for an answer.
She really didn't expect it to talk to her, rather, have the answer come to her.
Nothing.
She looked at the tree stump where she had hit it with the ax.
There was no mark where she had struck the tree.
She knew she wasn't very strong, but there should have been a mark.
A small mark granted, but a mark nonetheless.
It was lying in the grass about four feet from the stump.
She saw it there, but didn't make the connection right away.
Moving over towards it, she could tell what it was.
Very familiar this one.
Very similar to the last.
A small silver chain lying in the grass.
With something attached to it.
It was small, but she could guess what it was.
A key.
Her second.
And this one was green.
Kind of blended in with the grass too.
She picked it up, and looked at it.
Very similar to the first one.
In fact, except for the color, they were identical.
She put the chain over her head and it fell along with the blue one.
Together they formed a matrix of color that blended well together.
After all they were two of the three primary colors.
She walked around the yard looking for anything else that may be of some use, but found nothing.
She was careful to stay away from the edges of the nothing.
As she moved closer to it, and lets be honest here she wasn't all that close to begin with, she saw a faint shimmer.
Much like the heat waves coming off a hot road in the summertime.
The kind that causes hallucinations.
That, and there was a hum.
Very low, very quiet.
But there.
Almost electric.
Very detectable.
Very frightening.
The noise, along with everything else in this place, was unusual to say the least, but this was different.
This felt wrong.
This felt evil.
Kind of like something feeling yellow.
It had a "don't mess with me sister" feel.
And she intended to obey that feeling at all costs.
Turning away from the force field or whatever it was, she heard the sound again.
The sound from before.
And she hadn't so much heard the sound as saw it.
Well, that wasn't exactly right either, she had seen what had made the sound.
Off beyond the far side of the path, in the wheat plants, something had risen up.
Up to about a foot taller than the plants, and then fell back to be hidden by them again.
The sound it made was the same as the first, but she had heard it more clearly now.
She had, she guessed because her head and focus were very close to where the sound was coming from to begin with.
She moved towards the path, and heard the sound again.
She was not looking in the right direction this time, but did catch a glimpse of something far to the right of where the first one was.
The same sound, different location.
Whatever made the sound moved fast.
It had traveled easily 100 feet in what, 5 seconds?
We have a new world record ladies and gentlemen.
In the 100 meter wheat scurry.
Five seconds.
Her eyes were scanning the wheat field very carefully now.
She was looking very closely for another sign.
And she was very scared.
Because, if whatever made the sound was that fast, it had had just enough time to get to where she was standing right now.
And she did not wish to meet whatever it was.
She knew she had two options.
Stay where she was, with the nothing.
Or move towards the path, and continue on.
The nothing was no where to stay.
If something came at her, she would have no where to run except for the path again.
She was not going to go near the nothing, not in this lifetime.
So it was the path.
That much was decided.
Each step she took was careful, and tentative.
Ready to stop, or run if the situation called for it.
She made it to the path unscathed, and turned in the direction she had been moving before.
Her eyes still scanned the wheat field for something, anything that would give her an indication of where "it" was.
A few steps, a few more.
She made her way cautiously onward.
Ten more steps, then twenty, then fifty.
Each step gave her new confidence to take the next, and put her farther from where she had first seen "it".
Fifty steps turned into one hundred, then two hundred, then five hundred.
Turning back towards the clearing, she could just make out the empty space where it all was.
She scanned the wheat field once again.
With all of this sameness it was impossible to see anything until you were right on top of it.
Off to her left, there was nothing.
Off to her rear there was nothing.
Off to her right there was nothing.
To the front there was nothing.
Except for a tiny spot, way off in the distance.
She couldn't make it out from here, but it was definitely something.
It was something because she could see the color.
It was black.
And it stood out against the backdrop of wheat quite nicely.
This was interesting.
Now, she had something to move towards.
Something to gauge her progress.
She was moving again, and was very surprised to notice how fast.
She was almost running.
She thought what the hell and put her all into it.
Might as well get some use out of the shoes.
So she ran.
And much as she had expected, had to stop to catch her breath.
She decided that running was not that good an idea, not for the long term, and continued on walking.
Still puffing away, winded from the run.
The very short run.
She knew she wasn't in great shape, but was concerned when she considered how little she had run before she had to stop, or at least slow down, to catch her breath.
It couldn't have been more than 100 feet.
About the same as the "it" had moved in five serconds.
The only difference was that she had taken about 15 seconds to cover that distance.
What came all at once was that she was out of shape, couldn't run any more, shouldn't run anymore, and she could not, not even if her life depended on it, outrun "it".
The thoughts weren't jumbled, or scrambled, or mixed up.
They came one at a time, just very fast.
She thought about how she had gotten so out of shape.
Well, not her specifically, more like people in general.
She, and she thought she was a typical example of someone of her size and age, could only run or move quickly over very short distances.
How far had humans come from the time when they had to hunt for food, run, track, and catch other animals to eat.
Now, it was easy.
You could dial a phone with your thumb, and 30 minutes later have someone bring the food right to you with no effort on your part at all.
And it was this abundance that caused her, and her kind to have become like this.
Her personally, was a different problem.
And it had two yellow arches, with a clown that pumped his wares on TV, radio, and newsprint everywhere.
His name was Ronald, and he worked for McDonalds.
And she was in love with what he did with potatoes.
They started out being pulled from the ground all dirty and disgusting looking, and ended up their lives as pieces of string like golden brown hot and salty taste treats that she could not get enough of.
So much so that she had to curtail her daily visits to the magical clown to one every other or every third day instead of once a day she had been doing.
She, like so many others were on their way to becoming human hippopotamuses in a very short time.
She had seen the bathroom scale inch its way upward.
Two pounds at first, then three, then five, finally ten.
She could not afford to gain weight as it was.
Had in fact fought the same battle her whole life.
To keep herself at a weight where she felt "thin".
Not exactly skinny, but thin.
So she found herself every few months, having to cut back on something or other to force her body to use up some of her stored fat and bring her back to "thin".
McDonalds was a different thing all together.
This was not a battle, it was a war.
She had to make a conscious effort each and ever day to avoid going there for not one, not two, but all three meals.
Because they made it so easy for you.
Lots of ads, lots of reminders, and they were located about every three blocks everywhere on earth it seemed.
But what they did to the potato was nothing short of miraculous.
She had heard that they used sugar in the coating, to give it both a sweeter taste, and better color when cooked.
She didn't care if they used scrapings from the heads of children to get the taste, it was wonderful.
She noticed that she was salivating.
Right on cue, just as the "corporation" wanted you to.
Think of the product, want it, go get it.
Her thinking had done two things.
The first was to make her hungry.
The second was to pass enough time to allow her to be that much closer to the back spot she had seen earlier.
Now the food part was starting to bother her.
She had none, and aside form the acres of wheat, there did not seem to be anything at all to eat.
She also had no water.
How long could she last with no food?
Well perhaps two or three weeks she imagined.
But water?
More like two days.
How long had she been here?
She had no watch, and immediately looked up to the sky to see where the sun was.
Same spot as before.
So that was ok, she had only been here, what….no time.
She was fine.
Nothing at all to worry about.
Why by the time the sun made its way to sunset, she would be what a hundred years old.
Nothing at all to worry about.
The black spot was closer.
A lot closer.
She could see it getting bigger.
She could in fact see that it looked very similar to a sign post.
Like on the highways, to tell you how far to this and how far to thatbr>
Whatever was closest to where you were at the time.
Two things were off about that.
Why a sign on a path?
And why a sign in black?
She could just make out some form of writing on the sign, but not what it said.
The writing was in white, that much she could tell.
And the sign wasn't that big.
It was only as tall as the wheat plants.
She could only see it at all she thought because of the path.
A clear or clearer view.
Her eyesight wasn't the greatest, but certainly not the worst.
But she was unable to make out what the sign said.
And she was now only a few hundred feet away.
It was the glare, she supposed.
Because all she could see at this point was sun shine reflected off the sign.
She could see the white letters, they stood out quite nicely, but not what they said.
Closer now, perhaps only a hundred and fifty feet.
Still nothing.
One hundred feet, fifty, twenty.
She stood in front of the sign and understood why she couldn't read it from any distance.
Although the writing had been visible from a great distance, there was a sheet of plastic, as thick as a piece of glass protecting a treasured picture attached to the top of the sign post.
It was angled down to reflect the sun, keep it from fading the sign she supposed, and caused a great deal of glare when viewed from almost any angle except when you were right on top of it.
There were hinges on the top of the plastic piece, where it attached to the sign itself.
And a prop rod holding it up at that angle.
It was as if someone were working on the sign, changing it, and had raised the covering, but forgot to put it back.
She thought perhaps they were painting it, and touched the sign to see.
It was dry.
What was the old saying?
You can tell a man there a billions of stars in the sky and he will believe you, but if he finds something with a "wet paint" sign on it, he will touch it to make sure.
There was no sign on this one, and it was not wet.
The writing was in large, clear letters.
What was more interesting was that she could read them.
It was written in english.
It said "Saber Forest 3 miles" and had an arrow pointing straight up.
She had no idea what Saber was, but she did know what a forest was and what a mile was.
Below that was an arrow pointing to her left.
It said "Langton 6 miles".
Below that an arrow pointing to her right.
It said "Brent Home 5 miles".
And lastly, an arrow pointing downward.
It said "New Haven 8 miles".
So it was fair to say that she had traveled something less than 8 miles since she had been here, and at one time she was a lot closer to "New Haven" than "Saber Forest".
The reverse was now true, and she decided that she would continue on to "Saber Forest".
That would be her destination.
She thought, travelling 3 miles by foot should take no more than an hour.
With that thought she moved onward.
She estimated that she had covered almost all of the three miles by now.
She had been counting steps again, but lost count somewhere in the eleven thousand five hundred and sixty something range.
She had seen another sign from a ways off, and not surprisingly it had been another sign much the same as the first.
This one, complete with the plastic protector left in the propped up position had been identical to the first except that "Saber Forest" was one mile closer, and "New Haven" one mile farther back.
No mention of anything to her left or right.
Ditto for the next sign.
"Saber Forest 1 mile"
So she was close.
And that had been ten minutes or so ago.
The sign she was standing in front of now was different.
This one was much larger, and it was facing more to the left than directly towards the path.
It seemed odd, because who could read it from over there?
There was nothing.
The sign was big.
She estimated it to be about twenty five feet across and it stood ten feet high.
It wasn't like the billboards so popular in her world, rather a big board where a bunch of smaller ads were tacked up for all to see and read.
She could see pieces of ads left over from days gone by, torn and ripped.
Probably, she supposed, by either the wind, or taken down because whatever they advertised was gone, or wasn't useful any more.
The ones that were left were mostly just remnants.
One said "Satur" on one line "Giants" on the next and "Dolph" on the third.
She supposed that was an ad for a sporting event of some kind with the Giants taking on the Dolphins on Saturday.
All that she needed to complete the picture was to know which Saturday, and where.
Another proclaimed "Weight loss guaranteed" on the top and a second line that said "847-4958".
The rest was gone.
Still a third advertised babysitting.
Each of these ads were large in size, and although there was a lot of vacant space left on the billboard, they covered a good portion.
Where ever here was, they loved to advertise.
There was a forth ad.
This one was almost complete.
The edges were tattered.
It was tacked to the billboard with push pins each a different color.
Small parts of the ad fluttered in the soft breeze.
This ad was for unbelievers to come to the River Stadium on Sunday June 15th at 8pm sharp.
The performer was someone who called himself River Righteous, and would convert all the nonbelievers if they would just come out to see his show.
A picture of River was in the ad, took up most of the ad in fact.
The cost was listed as ten dollars advance tickets and twelve if you wanted to but them at the door.
You were prompted to buy early as this was certain to sell out, and that River was the best selling author of at least two books listed on the ad.
In front of the billboard was a three legged stool, just waiting for someone, and a paintbrush.
The paintbrush was a little odd because it was so big.
It had to be at least five inches across.
She wondered what you could paint with a brush that was five inches across, and remembered that they sold these in paint stores.
They were used for putting on wallpaper paste.
You could probably use them for other things, but that was what she remembered the use as.
She sat down on the stool and rested.
She was looking at the billboard when she hear something say "Hello"
She jumped up.
She was sure that the voice had come from directly in front of her, but as she looked around she thought it might have come from behind and the billboard had bounced the sound and made it seem like it was coming from the front.
She turned around quickly, convinced that she would see someone standing there with a knife, or a gun, or a sword, or other such implement of destruction and her life would be over.
There was nothing there.
She cautiously looked all around her.
Nothing.
She sat back down, and began to give this some thought.
"Hello" came the voice again.
Up once again tipping the stool this time in her haste.
She again looked all around.
Again there was nothing.
"Down here" came the voice.
Her mind made the connection right away, but her eyes would not.
She looked all the way around once again, and with a feeling of dread in her heart, she turned and looked where she knew the voice had come from.
River Righteous was talking to her.
His head, no longer in profile, was facing her.
Looking right at her in fact.
That alone should have been enough to cause her to run screaming to the nearest……what?
When the picture in the ad blinked, she was that so close to the rubber room she could feel the rubber.
"That's right, it's the picture talking."
"Haven't you ever seen a talking picture before?"
"Well, no I haven't " she said.
"Really?"
"Where have you been, under a rock?" River asked.
"I am not from around here" she said.
"Well, I am supposed to give you the spiel on the show listed on the advert" when River said the word "Advert" his eyes moved upward as if to direct her gaze "but you look lost, so can I offer you directions some place?" River said.
"I suppose you could" she said.
"Where am I, I mean where is this place?"
"You really aren't from around here are you?" River said.
She said that she wasn't and River told her that she was in a place called "End World", specifically between "New Haven" and "Saber Forest". Once again his eyes moved in the direction of the place when he mentioned it.
She watched as he spoke, and was amazed to see that it wasn't like a picture at all, it was more like a tiny television set she was watching.
Although the effect was a lot more startling, she decided she could live with that.
But there was the fact that the picture was a picture, and had no depth save the thickness of the paper, and the fact that the "television" was talking directly to her, was even answering her questions.
River explained over the next ten minutes or so that "End World" was a place between two other places.
This world lead to others.
It was kind of a stepping stone.
She asked if she had died.
He assured her that she was very much alive and would remain so.
The story told was that she had gotten to "End World" via some tear in the fabric in her world that allowed her to pass into this one.
The "tear" could have been anywhere, but it was River's guess that it had something to do with a mirror.
Mirrors were magical it seemed.
She asked about the keys, but River did not know anything about the keys.
Or, it turned out, about the "nothing" in the clearing.
She found herself enjoying the chat when just as suddenly as he had appeared, the picture faded back to a picture and was quiet.
She watched it for a few moments, and saw it brighten again.
"I can't talk any longer" River Said.
"The Sandling is near, and he knows you are here" he said.
"Be careful, stay away from Brent Home at all costs, and do not eat the red berries." he said.
With that, he faded again.
She watched for a long time hoping River would come back, but he did not.
She stood up and turned to the path again.
Where the stool had stood was another chain, and on this chain was another key.
This key was yellow.
She added this one to the other two, and turned towards "Saber Forest"
She had little distance to travel before she arrived at the "Saber Forest".
There was a small hill just past the billboard, and then, on the other side of the hill, was the forest.
She could see the forest, but she was slightly confused by it.
The shimmering she had seen at the "nothing" covered the way ahead.
It covered all of the way ahead save for a small area about three feet wide.
There was a wooden bridge leading into the forest and where the bridge was, the shimmering wasn't.
She could see the trees through the shimmering, and saw that it was indeed a forest beyond.
She moved up to the bridge, and felt the handrail with her hand.
It was solid.
She placed her foot on the first board.
It was solid.
She put her whole weight on the first board.
It was all solid, and real.
The bridge curved upward as if passing over a small creek, and then descended on the other side into the forest.
She moved to the top of the bridge, its highest point.
She could both see and feel the shimmering.
It was electric.
This one, though, did not feel bad or evil.
This one had no feeling associated with it at all.
She looked back the way she had come, and remembered everything that had happened this day.
And with that in mind, she turned towards her adventure, whatever they may be, in "Saber Forest"
Created by James Arrian............................................................................................................................................................Last Updated Decmber 2002