The REAL Adventures of Jaik
(A parody of the Jazmyn and Kayde stories - dedicated to J.R.)
By Bernard Doove © 2009
Jaik trudged through the forest with cheerful optimism. So many people from this area had disappeared without a trace that GovSec *knew* that they had crossed into another universe. After all, what other explanation could there be? It was the job of Seekers like Jaik to find the portal and drag back the dissidents before they could raise an army and come back to depose the benevolent government. Jaik was feeling lucky and was waiting for a storm to power up the portal, and today was the day. With some improvised hand-held instruments, he located what seemed to be the centre of the disturbance to the space-time continuum and headed into it.
Although there was no noticeable change to the scenery, Jaik was confident that he'd achieved his goal. He headed towards civilisation, or at least where he hoped to find it. Unluckily for Jaik, he ran into a deer-hunter. Unfortunately, this was not a good time to be a deer morph with a big rack. When he realised that the human was going to shoot, Jaik leapt to one side, only to be hit in the leg, and he collapsed on the ground in agony.
The hunter came up to his prize and had a good look at him. "Crap! Not again!" he swore, then clubbed Jaik unconscious.
Next thing that Jaik knew, his head was hurting almost as much as his leg. He opened his eyes to find himself inside a large cage. His leg had been roughly bandaged, but the bandages were soaked with half-dried blood. All his clothes and possessions were gone, and he was inside a tent with a large number of humans gawking at him, some pointing and laughing.
"Let me out of here!" he shouted at them, but they gabbled incomprehensibly back at him. Not one of the ever-changing crowd did anything to help him, or show even the slightest bit of sympathy. Eventually it darkened and all the people left except for one whom Jaik recognised as the hunter. He shoved two bowls into the cage with water in one and what looked like kibble in the other.
Two weeks went by with Jaik as a one-person freak show. His leg steadily got worse but his captor didn't seem to care. Then suddenly there were very business-like people in black suits and serious faces who directed other men in biohazard suits to take Jaik away in a sealed van. He was taken to some windowless building where he was locked up again. There they cut off his gangrenous leg, then prodded and probed him in every orifice. They forced him to learn their language, punishing him every time he made the slightest mistake, and when they were satisfied that he knew enough, started interrogating him about his plans to invade their peaceful, law-abiding country.
Meanwhile, the hunter, his friends and acquaintances, and all the customers to the freak show, and everyone that they'd come in contact with, started coming down with flu-like symptoms. They visited their doctors, and a couple of weeks later they and all the patients and staff were sick also.
A few of months later, aside from a few very isolated pockets of humanity, the human race was extinct. As for Jaik, he died of thirst because none of his captors were alive to tend to him. It was a blessing, really, as the syphilis, gonorrhea, and several other infections that he'd contracted had been driving him insane.
Meanwhile, back at the inter-universal portal, farm animals that had been let run wild by their dying owners were wandering about the forest. During a lightning storm, one infected pig crossed over....
All characters and this story are copyright © 2009 Bernard Doove.
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