Hello fellow Lit readers, and thank you for the comments and interest in this work. I apologize for keeping you waiting for the next installment. I'm involved in another project and it's taking up a lot of time. I just hate it when 'real life' gets in the way of your fun, don't you?
Well, I think you get the basic theme of this story, so now... it's your turn. I have quite a few directions I could go with this, but I'm curious as to what dimensional antics you'd like to see our heroes travel to. If you have a suggestion for a chapter, just leave it in the 'comments' section; I always check them. If your idea has promise, I'll write a chapter using your suggestion. Make sure you leave your username so I can credit you for your idea.
I only ask two things: (1)As always, your idea must follow the rules and guidelines of this forum. And (2)I know I've added a few weird things in my chapters, but let's not go off on a tangent with this. No flying space monkeys or strange ray beams that turn people into celery stalks, okay? Heh, heh, heh... let's try and keep this 'on the ground' so to speak. I look forward to seeing your suggestions.
Okay, enough talk; onto the next chapter. Enjoy.
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Mitch scanned the surrounding area, but didn't see any hint of a city where Birchwood was suppose to be. Small hillocks of tall grasses and creeping vines were scattered everywhere where there should have been houses.
"I don't understand," he mumbled, still searching for signs of inhabitants, "The city was never built in this universe?"
Lisa saw the same thing he saw: mounds of foliage, and larger groupings of greenery beyond, "I don't see any hint of a house, a building... not even a road."
"C'mon," said Mitch, taking her hand and guiding her down the hill to the vast field of green ahead. Once there, their view was the same: nothing but mounds of green, one after the other. Mitch paused and stared at the small hills, confused.
"Something's not right. These hillocks don't... look right."
Lisa urged him to continue walking and said, "Maybe this is what the area looked like before the city was built. In this dimension, maybe they haven't..."
"No, that's not what I mean," Mitch said, staring at a particular vine covered mound, "Look at the hills: they're all... uniform. Stacked next to each other, right in a straight line. That can't be natural; it must be... whoa!"
Lisa lunged after Mitch as he pitched forward and landed with not so graceful thud, grabbing at his foot and wincing in pain. She dropped beside him and reached into her bag, pulling out the first aid kit.
"What happened?"
Mitch gritted his teeth, "I tripped over something; stubbed my toe."
Lisa looked it over and spray some cold compound on the sore digit, relief spreading on Mitch's face as the pain was numbed. She set the kit aside to rub his foot... and produced a clinking sound, making both of them look at the kit on the ground.
"That wasn't a rock," Mitch said, pushing up off the ground and crawling over to the kit, with Lisa brushing the tall weeds aside. They both moved and pulled at the grasses until the object Mitch found with his foot was revealed.
A tricycle, rusted and in pieces with the hard plastic wheels cracked and crumbling off the hubs.
Mitch dug through more of the grass until he hit their roots and found what he expected to find: pieces of asphalt mixed with the soil. He rose from the ground and trudged through the weeds to an unusually shaped mixture of shrubs and vines. Lisa joined him and helped him clear away a section of leaves, and gasped when an object underneath presented itself: a car, old and rusted through to the point of collapsing in on itself.
"No wonder we couldn't see it," he said, looking around at the evenly spaced hills of brush, "nature covered it with growth. The city's still here."
"But what happened?" asked Lisa as she made her way towards one of the large green hills.
Mitch followed her and answered, "I don't know. Was it a disaster of some kind? A plague, maybe? Or maybe they just abandoned the town and left it to rot."
"But why? What could have happened to make everyone just pick up and leave?" Lisa edged closer to the mound of green and started pulling at the leafy vines, "A war, maybe?"
"Maybe," Mitch helped her uncover what they knew must be a house, their suspicions proving correct when a front door appeared with house numbers nailed to it. He looked at Lisa, and she nodded knowing what he had in mind. Carefully he pushed the door open, producing squawks from the rusted hinges, and the pair peered inside.
The living room that appeared was dark, despite the light from outside shining through the doorway, but they could see that the home had been deserted for years. Dust and cobwebs were everywhere, with some of the creeping vines finding their way inside through the broken windows.
The floor boards creaked in protest as Mitch and Lisa gingerly stepped into the room, with her nervously jumping slightly when a few mice scurried across the old worn carpet and ran off to hide.
"Take a look at this stuff," Mitch said, scrutinizing the furnishings covered under a layer of dust, then turned to Lisa, "What's wrong with this picture?"
It took her a moment or two as she scanned the room, but Lisa realized what Mitch was talking about, "There aren't any modern appliances here; no plasma television, no electronic games, no computers..." she glanced at an end table and gawked, "A rotary phone?"
"Exactly," Mitch nodded, seeing the framed photos on the far wall, not one of them in color, "Whatever happened here happened a long time ago," he took in the whole room and added, "Best guess? I'd say nobody's been here for... sixty, maybe seventy years."
"But where did they go?" asked Lisa, looking into the kitchen beyond and seeing an old refrigerator with a equally old gas stove, both dusty with their white enamel flaking off, "Mitch... you don't think..."
"Hold on, we don't know anything yet," Mitch ushered her towards the door, "Let's check out the rest of the city; maybe we'll get some clues as to what happened."
Leaving the dilapidated home, they both set out towards the town and marched passed the mounds of foliage, trying to see any hint of structures beyond the green. Tall towers of vines and leaves appeared once the old neighborhood was behind them, and they knew they had reached the downtown area of Birchwood.
"My God," Mitch muttered, seeing the same overgrowth all around the main street only on a larger scale. Buildings were covered in growing plants with vines coiling around every road fixture, right down to the fire hydrants, "the whole city's deserted."
"Mitch," said Lisa, carefully scanning the building fronts, "does the town seem... smaller to you?"
He wasn't sure how to answer as he and Lisa stepped onto what was suppose to be the sidewalk and started brushing aside some vines clinging to one of the buildings. Lisa managed to uncover part of a window, but suddenly jerked her hand away.
"Ow!" She shook her clenched fist, a rivulet of blood trickling from her palm. Mitch immediately dug the first aid kit out of her bag, glancing at the broken window pane and seeing a drop of red clinging to a pointed edge.
"Hold still, I'll get it," he wiped the blood from her gashed hand and spritzed some antibacterial spray onto the wound, making her wince as the antiseptic stung her palm. Placing a wad of gauze in her hand, he said, "Hold this until it stops bleeding; I'll clear a path inside."
Lisa held her fist tight as she watched Mitch clear away the rest of the stubborn vines from the window. Once clear of plants, they both looked inside and saw what appeared to be an old restaurant. Digging some more, Mitch found the door and they both entered the establishment, being careful not to step on anything harmful with their bare feet.
As before with the house they explored, there wasn't much light. But there was enough to reveal tables and booths lining one wall and some counters directly across, with an antique cash register perched atop the worn counter top glass. Part of the back wall had a long counter with stools in front of it, and behind it were shelves of glasses, dishes, kitchen utensils, and other restaurant paraphernalia. Old racks of crumbling books and magazines were set up here and there, along with stand alone shelves, and everything was draped in webs and dust.
"This is a old drug store," Mitch uttered, peering at the antique surroundings.
"It is?" Lisa looked at the area again, puzzled.
"Yeah. Most pharmacies just handle prescriptions and medical supplies nowadays, maybe a few convenience store items. But once upon a time, stores like this were considered gathering places," he pointed at the dirty counter, "That was a soda counter. The soda jerk would serve drinks, ice cream sundaes, malts, even coffee and small sandwiches to people taking a break from shopping or waiting for a prescription to be filled by the pharmacist."
Lisa raised an eyebrow, "'Soda jerk'?"
Mitch shrugged, "Well, that's what the guy manning the counter was called. He would 'jerk' on the fountain handles to add carbonated water to whatever anyone was drinking and turn it into a soda," he saw her looking funny at him and added, "Yeah, I know; it seems weird, but that's what they offered to folks. This place would be the equivalent of a convenience store or a coffee house back in the..." He stopped, his face being pulled down in a frown, "Oh, God. This means our guess was right. There hasn't been anyone here for around seventy years."
Lisa's eyes lit up, "And that would explain why the town seems smaller. If nobody's been around, that means there was nobody here to build anymore stores or houses."
"How much do you want to bet our laboratory isn't here, either?"
Lisa nodded, "Or the warehouse where the park was the last time? I'll bet half the stores and shops aren't even here," she gazed at the quiet soda shoppe with a sad look, "But it still doesn't answer the question: where did they go?"
Mitch thought for a second, then, "The library should be here; it was built around 1910. We'll take a look in there, if we can find it through all of this growth."
They exited the old shop and plowed through the weeds and grass, carefully stepping around mounds of leaves that were obviously covering something in the road and on the walkways.
The pair headed towards a large, squared off hill of greenery, Mitch saying, "If I remember it right, the library should be that one."
But right in the middle of the 'street', both of them froze at the sound of something grumbling. Turning slowly, they saw something they somewhat expected to see but weren't ready to deal with.
