The Land of the Dead – 01
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™.
-10-
Monstrous jaws clumped around her waist and lower body, and the pain caused her mouth to open wide, flooding her respiratory system with stagnant water of the Carboniferous swamps. "Becker!" Sarah Page shouted in vain. "Becker!"
And then she hit something harder than the swampy water, slightly warmer and drier and there wasn't any water in her mouth, nose or lungs anymore. "Becker?" she asked, more quietly, even as she hugged it. "Becker?"
"Ah, no, Sarah, it's me – Nick Cutter," a familiar, but unexpected male voice spoke from above her. "What has happened to you, and why are you hugging my legs?"
"Nick!' Sarah exclaimed, embarrassed to say the least. "It's you! But I remember! Helen shot you! You died!"
"Exactly," Nick nodded patiently, "and apparently, Sarah, so did you."
Sarah paused, and then paled. "I, I mean, we, I mean Becker and I, were going to rescue Abby, Connor and Danny as they went into the past to stop Helen from whatever crazy plan she was going to implement, but it didn't work: I got drowned by giant Carboniferous amphibians, and Becker – he's not here, is he?"
"No, he's not," a younger man, who definitely was not Becker, spoke from Nick's left side. "In fact, you're the first person we've seen in a while."
"Right, and you are?" Sarah asked, rather pointedly.
"Oh, right, let me introduce you to each other. Stephen – this is Sarah Page, a master Egyptologist and a great organizer. Sarah – this is Stephen Hart, you remember me telling you about him?"
"Nothing too embarrassing, I hope?" Stephen asked, cheekily.
"Why don't you ask him?" Sarah carefully made her way to one rough-looking chair and sat down. "So, um, what's it like down here?"
"Interesting," Nick said slowly, "but you are the first person Stephen and I have met ever since we ended up here, so this should tell you something."
"Oh! Really?" Sarah blinked. "Is this supposed to make me feel better or worse?"
"Neither – that's just Cutter being honest," Stephen shrugged. "Um, what are your plans for now, anyways? Because, honestly, for all of our love of the dinosaurs and the such, having another person for company is great! Hell, even if Helen would appear right now we'd give her a chance!"
'Not if you knew that she had Christine Johnson murdered,' Sarah thought, but kept her opinion to herself: now that she herself was dead, her opinions about some things were beginning to change, and more over, the deceased had been a piece of work in her own right, and ever since her death, Christine Johnson was not mentioned at the ARC at all.
"Fair enough," she replied instead. "You'll have no complaints from me, but, uh, do you have a guest room or something wherever 'here' is? Because, well, we don't know each other that well..."
"Actually we have," Nick said, wryly. "So don't worry. In fact, why don't we give you a very brief tour of our home and of your room in particular?"
Sarah just nodded and meekly followed the two men into their home. 'My life is over,' she thought quietly, 'but maybe death is only the beginning?'
The end.