The Urban Survivalist Read online

  “Man, I didn’t even know there was a dead zone in Central Park,” Jason said out loud, more for the comfort of hearing his own voice than anything else.

  He randomly picked a direction and started walking. It was still eerily quiet. No screeching brakes, no honking cars, no street vendors hawking their wares—nothing. He checked his TracFone every few feet, hoping for even a single bar so he could activate his GPS and find out where the hell he was. He walked for a good ten minutes without encountering a bar on his phone, another person, or even a walking trail or maintenance road. He did start to hear plenty of evidence of animal life scurrying around him, which reassured him a little until at the foot of an unknown tree he saw a patch of leafy Technicolor rainbow-hued vines with misshapened black-skinned bumps.

  No way is that natural! Jason thought in disbelief. I would’ve seen something about that in a science book if it was!

  He went over to poke at it, half convinced someone had put it there as a joke on the Park or maybe as part of an urban marketing campaign. But when he got up close enough to examine it he found that it was real enough, at least to his eyes and fingertips and nose, and that the bumps were actually budding fruit.

  Is this some kind of botany experiment? he wondered.

  Taking a closer look at his surroundings, he realized that growing side-by-side, and in some cases, intertwined, was a mixture of plants he recognized and plants he didn’t. No way was this a put-up job. Something weird had happened, and he didn’t like it.

  “Oh, man, what have I gotten myself into?” he wondered out loud as he stared at the vegetation around him.

  A skittering sound made him look up, and he saw a blue-furred squirrel-like thing jump from one branch to another. Quick as a flash, it dove into a hole in a tree trunk way up high. Jason gaped with disbelieving eyes at where it had disappeared.

  Have I gone crazy? he wondered, opened mouthed, at the hole.

  He shook his head then went further into the woods, looking closely at the foliage around him that was both like, and unlike, that of Central Park. There were the great oak and pine trees that he knew, but mixed in with them were trees he’d never seen before. And scattered all around were bushes and other kinds of undergrowth in colors that never existed in Central Park or probably elsewhere in the world, for that matter. Even some of the dead leaves underfoot were oddly shaped—a flat fan, a snowflake shape, and others. What got to Jason was how quiet it all was. He could not have left Central Park. But the woods around him were as quiet as if he and the Urban Survivalists were camping somewhere in the Catskills or deep in some other state park outside of New York City. That was something the Urban Survivalists did for a few days until the heat died down after a big heist, like when they’d pulled off the job at the sporting goods store where they’d gotten their sleeping bag sets. Had he really somehow left the Park? But if so, how? His head spun from the shock.

  “Help! Heeee-llp!” an old, weak-sounding voice called from somewhere out of sight, startling him.

  Jason felt a rush of relief at hearing another human being somewhere nearby. It didn’t sound like the girl he’d been chasing, but anyone would be a welcome sight right about now. He shook his head sharply. Hearing another person meant he was still in Central Park. He must have been temporarily crazy to think otherwise. Maybe the owner of the voice could fill him in on what was going on around here—like, was this a closed movie set or something?

  “Who’s that?” he called back, almost eagerly. “Where are you?”

  “Over here! I cannot see you, young man. But you must be close by. I am caught up in these thorns and cannot free myself. Please assist me?” The old-sounding voice cracked on the last word.

  Jason searched in the direction of the voice, moving aside bushes and tangled vines, until he found its owner. He was repulsed at the sight. A short, thick, ugly old lady, whose face looked like a wrinkly Sharpei dog’s skin, knelt on the ground in front of a prickle bush. She was caught fast by its thorns. The old lady was filthy. Her clothes looked like they hadn’t been washed in years. He couldn’t tell what color her dry, papery-looking skin was beneath its dirt, and her long greasy hair was thoroughly tangled in the branches and bristles. Jason shuddered as bugs that she seemed to ignore crawled in and out of her hair and her clothes.

  “Oh, there you are, young man,” said the old woman gratefully. “As you can see, I need assistance. Can you please help me get free of these wretched thorns?”

  Jason looked a little closer at the barbs. They were fearsome looking, sharply pointed, and about three inches long apiece. Looking at her again, he was torn. He really shouldn’t just leave her here, but he didn’t want to touch her. There had been an outbreak of bedbugs in the camping equipment of the Urban Survivalists recently which had taken quite an effort to get rid of, and Jason didn’t want to bring anything like that back with him.

  Delaying, he asked, “How did you manage to do this to yourself, anciana?”

  “I was walking in the forest, and one of my little darlings decided to jump out of my pouch and go exploring in the bushes. I could not let him go without me because then he would get lost. I crawled in under the branches to rescue him, and then my hair got caught,” she said. “But I got him back!”

  “Little darlings?” Jason asked, bewildered.

  With a gaping, black-toothed smile, the old woman reached into a cloth pouch hanging from a rope belt at her waist and pulled out the largest, ugliest cockroach Jason had ever seen. It hissed at him, and he shuddered and backed up a couple of steps. Jason despised cockroaches more than anything else, and that right there decided him that he wasn’t going to help her—at least, not personally.

  “Sorry, grandma, but you’re on your own. I, uh, can’t help you. I’m sure someone else will come along soon who can, like a policeman, or someone from Social Services, or whoever let you out of the mental ward, or something. If I find someone before I get out of the Park, I’ll send them your way.”

  He turned around and headed back to where he’d come. But before he’d gone two, feet a loud, strong, confident voice called out commandingly, “Stop right there, Human!”

  CHAPTER 5

  Jason turned around, wondering at the use of the word “human,” and his jaw just about hit the ground. The old woman had disappeared, and a tall woman, much younger than the other by a few decades and with skin whiter than an albino’s, stood there instead. The younger woman had pointed—pointed?—ears, and her white hair was drawn tightly across her head into a thick braid that dangled over her shoulder nearly to her waist. Her slanted eyes were amber in color, and she had a sleek, muscular build that most men, let alone women, would kill for. She wore black, flexible, thigh high leather boots whose tops disappeared under what seemed to be extremely fine blackened mesh chainmail. A long spear design in silver chainmail links built into the armor decorated it from hem to neck. Big, long wristlets of a black metal also decorated with a long silver spear design hugged her forearms, and a tight, long sleeved black leather tunic under her armor tucked into the bracers. But most surprisingly, she leaned on what looked like a black battle spear decorated with silver accents. Her weapon reminded Jason of pictures from the medieval war history books he’d read at the New York Library, but he knew it couldn’t be real. The police would arrest her if she carried something like that openly on the streets. He stared, nonplussed, for both the appearance of the costumed woman and the disappearance of the old lady.

  “So, you are Jason Vasquez, hmm? If an uninvited Human had to blunder across to Us, at least Fate chose a decent looking one,” the woman said in a cool, silvery voice.

  “What? What are you talking about? And how do you know my name?” he blustered, astonished.

  “That is not important,” she said, brushing off his question. “What is important is that you were not supposed to cross with Analise Baxter. Yet, somehow, you did.”

  “Cross? Cross what?”

  “I am not about to explain the h
istory of the last thousand-plus seasonals since the Disjoin to you,” she said, annoyance creeping into her tone. “So you will just have to be satisfied with the explanation that you have entered another—or at least, what you would call another—world through a mist gate. There is now no way back.”

  Jason felt more and more lost the longer the woman spoke. “Another world? What are you talking about?”

  His fears about being somewhere other than Central Park started to rise again. He tried to stuff them down.

  The woman sighed. “Very well. Let us back up and start over, shall we? My name is Quiris, and I am an Under-elf—or rather, a Surface-Under-elf—who is also a Lesser Goddess. I assist Caelestis, Goddess of the Sky, who is one of the Deities of the Concordance for this world. You would probably call this place the Fairylands, though it is not. Since We cannot have anyone from the Human lands wandering around here unvetted, it fell to Me to find out what manner of Human you are. Apparently you are not much of one. You failed My test.”

  Jason gathered his wits about him with an effort. “Test? What test? I wasn’t taking any test! I don’t even go to school. I do all my own learning myself!”

  Quiris blinked and looked for a moment like she didn’t understand what Jason had said. Then she shrugged, apparently brushing it off as if his words didn’t matter.

  “We wanted to see what was in your heart, as you are closed off from Us,” she continued. “For your test I became a helpless little old Human lady, so I could see what you would do with someone in trouble. The correct thing to do would have been to free the old woman either by hand as you untangled the strands or by using that knife you have under your shirt to cut the hair. But you did neither, and in fact planned to walk away. You failed the test.”

  Jason blinked in surprise. How did she know about the knife hidden in my clothes? It can’t be seen. I’ve made sure of that in the past! he thought in a growing panic. And how could she have been that disgusting little old lady? No way could she have been disguised like that. She’s yanking my chain, for sure. His eyes narrowed, and his pulse rate calmed. Hey, waitaminute. What if she’s involved with the stupid fog machine? Is this for some fantasy movie or something being filmed here? Maybe this whole set-up is a movie set? Yeah, that must be it. But why? Why involve me?

  Jason, feeling more confident now, felt he needed to throw her off whatever her game was and trick her into admitting whatever was the truth. He decided to go on the verbal offensive.

  “Hey, mamacita,” he said in an insulting tone, “I don’ know whatcha talking about. Here I was, minding my own business, taking a little stroll in Central Park, when you used your fog machine to get me all turned around and into a brand new section. And now you’re trying to get me involved in some movie studio stunt or something. No way are you that disgusting creature I saw. No way are you gonna confuse me with doubletalk about things like mist gates and fairy world. Do I look like I was born yesterday, dama? I know movie makeup like what you’re wearing can do a whole lot, but come on now. Joke’s over. Or, maybe you’re actually crazy or something, and the nice men with the white coats are searching for you? If that’s the case, I don’t wanna make their acquaintance when they recapture you and take you back to the loony bin where you belong. So I’ll just be leaving now. Adios!”

  He waggled his fingers at her and turned around as if he was going to leave.

  “I said stop, Human!” the woman forcefully said again behind him.

  Jason turned around to face her with a half-smile on his face. “Oh, what’s the matter, mamacita? You don’t like it when I don’t play your little game?”

  “I assure you, this is no game,” she said, once more in a cool manner. “You managed to cross the Disjoin on the cloak tails of one Analise Baxter, who in some manner was able to activate one of the original mist gates and enter this world. When We detected you following her in your belligerent manner, We held you back in the mist until it was decided Whom should vet you. That became My job. Now, since you are here and failed the test I gave you, We have to consider what to do with you.”

  “So that’s the girl’s name, hmm? Analise . . . Analise. I won’t forget that,” Jason said with a cold gleam in his eye.

  Quiris noticed it and said sharply, “Do not develop any stupid notions! Analise is no longer your quarry, since your frame of reference no longer applies. There is no way back to your world from here. The two of you are stuck, though Analise does not consider it so, I am told. I personally feel uncomfortable having loose ends like you and her wandering about Our world; but My superior, Caelestis, has taken responsibility for Analise. And She sent Me to deal with you as I see fit.”

  Jason bristled, feeling the threat in Quiris’ words. “Oh, yeah? You won’t find me so easy to ‘deal’ with, I promise you that, dama!” he said, drawing his knife and holding it defensively in front of him. “And another thing, I don’t believe in magic and fairies and stuff like that, so drop the act and tell me what’s really going on!”

  Quiris, sniffing in disapproval at his action, merely said, “You can disbelieve if you want to—I am not here to convince you of anything though it will be fun to see your narrow personal view trying to explain just about everything you run into here,” she ended with a semi-malicious grin.

  “Oh? So you are going to follow me around so you can watch me more easily? That’s stalking and harassment. You’ll have no legs to stand on if I press charges, even if I did stumble into your movie.”

  “What?” she said, annoyed, with confusion on her face. She shook it off and said, “Deities do not have the time or the inclination to stand watching over beings’ shoulders. And I do not understand the word ‘movie.’”

  Jason, confused in turn, frowned a little at the unfamiliar word “beings.” Didn’t she mean “people?”

  “Sure, right,” he said sarcastically, brushing it off. “Okay, ‘deity.’ If you’re really one, prove it!”

  Quiris sighed again. “Though I am a Lesser Goddess, I am not under obligation to prove Myself to anyone. However,” she said, holding up a hand to forestall his gloat, “I will prove it just this once, since you are exactly what has been described in the past: a typical, stiff-necked Human.”

  She raised her hands, palms facing him. Jason frowned at her and was about to demand that she say something instead of just standing there when a double stream of silver sparkles came shooting out of her palms and swirled around him like a tornado. Jason, surprised, clenched his eyes and mouth shut and felt the spinning wind pluck at his clothes. But in just a few moments, the air was still. Jason cracked one eye open. There were no silver particles to see any more, and he saw that Quiris looked astonished as she stared at him. That made Jason pluck up his courage.

  “Oh, what’s the matter, mamacita? Your little wind and glitter machine not do what it was supposed to do?” he taunted.

  Quiris frowned a terrifying frown at him, and Jason felt inexplicably nervous. She waved one palm in a circle, and a black hole in the air opened up beside her, hanging unsupported. She then pointed solemnly at him. Jason gaped at the hole, but what made him drop his jaw even further was the outpouring of creatures from the hole. They looked like miniature people of various colors. There were both males and females ranging in size from his pinkie finger to the length of his forearm, and they were dressed in a variety of clothing from actual shirts and pants to bits of vegetation tied in strategic places. He stood frozen for a moment in amazement, which was all the time the little folk needed to swarm all over him like he was a jungle gym.

  “Hey!” he shouted as little feet kicked at his ankles and the back of his knees, sending him down onto his back on the forest floor.

  He was buried under a wave of tiny bodies then, with small feet stepping on his face and eyes to blind him and with small hands plucking and pulling at his clothes, his hands, and his hair. He tried batting them off, but there were too many of them—every time he got one off, three more would take his or her place
. Fortunately, in a very short time the little folk abandoned him as quickly as they had swarmed him. He watched, out of breath and full of anger and annoyance as they jumped back through the hole in the air again, wondering what in the hell those things actually were and how Quiris had managed them.

  Unfortunately for him, as he sat up, he discovered that they had left him stark naked and disarmed.

  CHAPTER 6

  Jason was stunned for a second, looking at his au naturel self. A look of shock and outrage crossed his face. He immediately scrambled to his knees and used his hands to cover himself up. Quiris grinned at him.

  “Proof enough?” she asked archly.

  “Yes, yes—may I please have my clothes and stuff back?!” he asked, his voice cracking and rising in embarrassment, goosebumps rising all over his exposed skin.

  Quiris snapped her fingers. Jason looked expectantly at her, but nothing else seemed to happen.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Well what?”

  “You asked for clothes. Are you not going to get dressed?”

  Jason blinked. “You’d have to give them to me first before I can get dressed. And I’m gonna feel very, umm, embarrassed if we have to walk to get to these clothes you’re talking about. Couldn’t you just, you know, give me my old clothes back?”

  Quiris sighed in annoyance and pointed to the ground beside him. “There is clothing for you, though perhaps not quite what you requested,” she said. “It would be better for you if you adopted the dress of the land.”

  Jason looked where she indicated and was surprised to see a pile of black and grey fabric. He scanned around him as he dropped to the ground to clutch it to his body. How had the pile gotten there? There was no way someone could have put it beside him and gotten out of his sight quickly enough to not be seen. He looked with disbelief at the self-described “goddess.” She raised an eyebrow at him, obviously waiting, and then Jason remembered why he wanted the clothes in the first place—so he wouldn’t be naked anymore.