There Comes a Time

There Comes a Time-1

There Comes a Time

When Caris came through she fell to her knees on thick leaf mould. Her hands thudded into the ground before her, sinking into the damp, decaying surface. Humidity prickled her skin with sweat. She lifted her heavy head and tried to focus her swimming vision. Shades of green and brown danced and shimmered, then sharpened and slotted into perspective. She staggered up and checked behind her. Ferns, vines, trees, scattered pools and striations of light, the same as the scene in front. A din of cicada, frog and bird calls assaulted her ears. She rubbed her hands down her thighs and wiped the sweat from her face. One hour. First, she should try to find some clothes.

Caris was no expert on trees, but she guessed the largest ones she saw as she stepped through the jungle were more than forty to fifty years old. She was supposed to be in Stockbridge, Florida. Had they got the coordinates wrong? Or was it possible Stockbridge no longer existed? Without a trail to follow, she headed downhill. Downhill led to water, and water usually meant people.

She eased through the thick undergrowth. Damp foliage, branches and vines soon covered her bare skin in grime and a haphazard pattern of scratches, grazes. Hand-sized spiders hung suspended in webs between the trees, and snakes and lizards slithered and scattered at her approach. Rivulets of sweat cut tracks along her sooty skin.

The first building Caris saw appeared to rear up at her, it was so well hidden by the jungle. A half-crumbled wall, a vacant door and window frames collapsed and rotting. She stepped inside. The building was open to the sky. The remains of the roof littered the ground, and strong saplings sprouted among the cracked tiles and decayed timbers. She searched among the ruins. Anything and anyone that had once existed in the house was long gone. Nothing was there but dead leaves and the burgeoning life of the forest.

Caris wondered how much time had passed. Half an hour? Forty-five minutes? She fumed at her superiors. What was she supposed to discover in just sixty minutes? Leaving the building, she surveyed the trees around her. One had a branch just above head height, and was taller than the others as well. She jumped and pulled herself up onto the branch. Grabbing vines, branches and knots she hauled herself up the tree until, balancing on a thin, springy branch and gripping fistfuls of shoots, she pushed through the canopy.

Sunlight pierced her eyes. Adjusting to the increased light, she became aware of a cloud of butterflies spanning the treetops as far as she could see. Floating, hovering, gliding; deep browns, purples and blacks shimmered, iridescent in the sunlight. Butterflies alighted on her, as if she were just another part of the canopy, and she grinned in delight. But puzzlement took over. Shading her eyes and looking into the far distance, all she could see was an ocean of leaves and butterflies like foam on the waves.

A sudden thought struck her. Was her hour nearly up? And if it was, she was about 75 feet above the ground. Would she be dragged back at the same height? She slid off the branch and descended rapidly, skittering monkey-like down the branches. Cursing as she acquired more scratches and bruises, she prepared mentally for a fall from mid-air. Fifty-foot drop. She might live if she fell from here. Twenty-five feet. She could get away with broken legs. Fifteen feet. If she executed a perfect parachute roll, she might walk away.

They grabbed her as she jumped from the bottom branch. Caris' stomach lurched and her knees slammed into hard tile. Vomit forced its way up her throat. She spewed it out and pitched forward. Her head struck the floor and she slid through the pool of vomit in a dead faint.

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