Chapter 13
Fear and Freedom
The sun was devoured by a wall of irate clouds rampaging across the horizon. Violent flashes of lighting ripped the sky cuing cannons of thunder followed by another downpour, driven west by a ferocious wind.
Leaves the size of elephant ears flapped madly before being ripped off to soar wildly above the trees like fugitive kites. Palm sized, white petals stripped from battered blossoms fluttered in the air like colossal snowflakes.
When the storm finally blew itself out, dusk succumbed to a seductive night, black clouds parted and the naked new moon shyly revealed its self then boldly filled the sky like a giant pearl.
In the canopy, a hundred feet above the deceptive serenity, hundreds of ripe, seven foot pods began to bulge and sway. One by one the husks began to split. Black claws raked from within and then green arms frantically ripped the husks open. What emerged were unlike anything the universe had spawned in billions of years of species manifestation and transformation. These creatures physiology was stranger than anything that had ever mutated its way into existence. A wrong turn that God would never have planned, a diversion from the mythological line of gradual Darwinian evolution or experimental creations of the most devious of gods or men.
Exhausted, Roundtree plodded through the dense jungle, only weeks old. He sensed death lurking within every leaf, convinced something evil was close and tracking him he stopped and tried to calm himself. When the wind subsided the jungle grew silent. In the distance thumps of thunder and silent flashes of lightning from the passing storm lit the prison like a haunted castle.
At three in the morning, the clouds split once again and a slice of moon momentarily lit the sky so Roundtree began threading his way deeper into the jungle of gargantuan creepers. It was a place where only a condemned man would dare to flee. Hooked thorns ripped his orange prison jumpsuit to shreds and raked his skin as he pushed deeper in the depths of this alien world.
He tripped repeatedly over thick vines studded with thorns that pierced the soles of his prison issued sneakers. Too exhausted to run he stumbled on in a trance, lost but too terrified to stop.
An hour later his strength spent, Roundtree sank to his knees in despair, filling his lungs full air fouled by the overpowering fragrance of thousands of blossoms. He couldn’t slow his racing heart. He was soaking wet from rain and sweat and he was starving. Eventually he caught his breath and his pulse slowed a little, but a tingling ache in the back of his neck was growing more intense by the minute. He reached back to rub the source of the pain and jerked his hand away in revulsion, something was protruding from the back of his neck and it had pricked his finger.
What he didn’t realize was that a sprout had bored into his neck and grafted itself onto him. While he had been running for his life tiny filaments had been trellising down his spinal cord. Suddenly he froze, his arms and legs went numb and he began to trembling uncontrollably. The night had taken on a luminescent green tint and within in minutes he was able to see like a cat. He tried to pluck the parasitic plant out but the attempt sent jolts of pain up and down his spine. His hands tingled, he examined them. Is it the light? His skin had turned olive green, but he thought: everything here is green. His mind was fractured as the blood in his veins slowly turned to sap. Suddenly he feinted. Just before he lost consciences he looked up into a tangle of thorny vines hung with beautiful white blossoms, reeking of death. As he slept the empty pods above him gently swayed in the tropical breeze. One storm had ended but another was about to begin.
