[The Forest, Book 3] Part 27 - Finally a Quiet Moment

This currently untitled book is the the third and final installment in the Forest trilogy, the first book of which you can read for free here.

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Part One: Read Here
Previous Part: Read Here

##Part Twenty-Seven

The tarantula’s broad back sways with every step. Rhythmic movement no longer seems to put Janet to sleep, but she still finds herself in a contemplative mood. Lying there, looking up into the variegated canopy, where light splashes in vain against innumerable interlocking leaves, it occurs to her that Lynette has a point.

“I spent the past three years doing nothing,” says Janet, “and then you guys showed up a week ago and my life has been chaos ever since.”

Li sits cross-legged in the exact center of the passenger-circle, disassembling and cleaning her rifle.

“I’m here to answer any questions you may have,” she says.

“No. No more questions,” says Janet. “I’ve been asking questions. The answers only make things more confusing.”

“That’s a change of heart.”

“They were like, leave your shitty job and get a better one with us. And I said no. Which was probably correct. But when they asked again, I said yes. I caved. I followed them on an airplane to Atlanta, and I followed them through that bullshit orientation, and then I got on a blimp and followed them out here. I followed them onto an elevator into a bottomless pit. They told me to crawl into a tiny cave, which is not exactly my scene, by the way, and I did it. I went along with it.”

“What’s your point?”

“Nothing’s changed. I’m just following you instead of them.”

“I’m not forcing you to come.”

“Nobody’s forced me to do anything! That’s the worst part. I’ve been going along with it on my own.”

Li has finished cleaning her rifle and is beginning to put it back together. Her mask is pooled around her neck. The scars on her cheek bend and flex as she chews on a protein bar.

“It’s not too late to go back to making pizzas,” she says.

“I’ve never understood people who define others by their occupation.”

“Somebody’s job says a lot about them.”

“You grew up rich, huh?” says Janet.

“Okay, zing?”

“Which is weird, right? I thought rangers only took that job because they were poor and had no other options. Like gladiators, or the people who drain music festival porta-potties.”

The trees are so big that it’s easy to forget they’re trees at all. Swollen orange fungi dot the bark. Enormous creatures wander and prowl: a red centipede with probing feelers, a shambling plant-creature with a malodorous flower for a head, a goat with five eyes and battering-ram tusks, on and on, a procession of ecology even weirder than the stuff Janet’s seen in ranger programs. Nothing responds to their presence. The tarantula clambers onto and over of a slumbering mammalian titan, something with a head baked into its neck and many naked, sinewy arms.

The ground is uneven and pockmarked with chasms of various shapes and sizes. Moss grows everywhere that ferns and trees do not. Vines hang everywhere in wide, messy sheaves. It’s dim but sunbeams blink in and out of existence, as shifting canopy patterns permit fleeting columns of light. Dust motes, pollen, and tiny airborne creatures fill the light-shafts with jerking, slanting sparkles.

A big six-legged reptile, fleeing an unseen predator that rumbles and crashes not too far behind, runs through a stand of extremely tall, thin grass. Like a magic trick, the lizard’s hide bursts into blood from a thousand deep cuts. It takes two steps past the thicket and falls. The predator, a green praying mantis, appears over the sharp grass just long enough to grab the body, then drags the whole awkward package into the faraway foliage.

“Whenever somebody tells me to do something, I do the opposite,” says Li. “That’s how I became a ranger.”

“I should try that.”

“Look at you. Nobody can tell you to do anything, now.”

“Do I have superpowers?”

“Do you want superpowers? Keep in mind that nothing is free. In terms of physiological consequences.”

“Not especially, I suppose.”

“You keep talking about being a follower,” says Li. “What do you, Janet Standard, actually want?”

The canopy rustles in a breeze they can’t feel. A sweet aroma drifts from a wall of delicate purple and yellow orchids growing in bunches on a dessicated rib cage. A dragonfly the size of a Buick lands on a sapling nearby and regards them through glittering compound eyes. The breeze reaches them at last, cooling Janet’s face and assailing her dirt-caked hair.

“I want my family back,” she says. “I want to survive.”

“That’s it?”

“There’s another thing,” says Janet, “but I don’t know how to say it.”

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