Chapter 15

Fifteen

It was twilight when they made it back to the shelter, and the rapidly darkening sky was interrupted only by the lights of the forest, which had started to brighten not long after Theo and Baku had escaped.

Baku closed them in tight, dropped his backpack on the floor, took something from it and then set that something smoking at the entrance. When Theo gestured to it, he said, "The spider monsters live on the cliff faces. This will stop them from trying to enter if they come back from the forest."

"If?"

"It is possible they will be eaten before then."

"By the other monsters in the forest?"

"Yes."

Theo slumped down on one of the chairs surrounding the table, his body aching all over. He checked his hand, which had two angry little bites on it, and his arm, which had two large ones, then asked the question that had been chief in his mind since he'd entered this god-forsaken dimension.

"Why is it so fucked up here?"

"What do you mean?" Baku asked, though in truth he looked as angry as Theo was shaky. That anger was not directed at Theo but in the direction of the forest.

In the direction of the rages.

For surely it was them that had cried out in the forest, them that had muddled Theo's mind to the point where he would have willingly given himself up to them. That first, horribly haunting cry flashed through Theo's mind. Even now, removed from it, with it being just an echo, it seemed to hurt him. He shook his head. How could they possibly re-enter that forest?

"There are monsters everywhere just waiting to eat us," Theo said after a moment, and it was only then that he realised that if Baku hadn't rescued him the rages would have done exactly that, and he quickly said as much. Baku did not respond.

Theo shivered.

It was not a pleasant feeling.

"The spider monster would have eaten me," he said aloud. "The pincer monster too, him and his spawn. And the rages…they were the rages, weren't they?"

"Yes."

"The worst of the monsters in your dimension."

"Yes."

"Worse even than the munchers."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because they would not just have eaten you," Baku said and paused, perhaps expecting Theo to ask what else they had planned, but Theo couldn't, he wasn't sure he wanted to know. When he didn't speak, Baku continued. "There are what you call monsters everywhere on this continent waiting to eat us," he said. "And especially you given the shimmer, and especially here in what you call Europe. We are lucky to have passed the day without an attack prior to this one."

"You were expecting us to be attacked?"

"Yes." Another pause. "I have stayed close to protect you, but I did not expect the matriarchal spider. She usually stays on the edge of the forest. She must have been very hungry."

"And you didn't want to mention that, that possibility?"

"I gave you your blade back for that very reason," Baku said as he took something else from his backpack and knelt in front of Theo.

"I assumed that…I mean…ow!"

"Stay still so I can clean the bites," Baku said.

"There's venom?"

"No, but there's bacteria."

He was extremely close to Theo now, and Theo sat up a bit straighter. He couldn't help it. Baku's proximity made it so. The monster rubbed some evil smelling liquid over Theo's hand, and it immediately stopped the stinging.

"There," Baku said, and he massaged his big thumb over Theo's palm and then along his arm in a slow, slightly sensuous manner.

Theo swallowed, suddenly a little bit uncomfortable. The touch created those exact same feelings that Theo experienced every time the monster touched him. That combined with the fact that Baku was just so…big…it made Theo feel things he would rather not be feeling! And this close up the monster seemed to surround Theo entirely and whilst Theo was not at all averse to that experience, he knew that it was not one he should be welcoming…not given Baku was a monster from another dimension!

A dimension that seemed intent on killing him!

A cry sounded in his mind. Theo stood up quickly. "Is there a bathroom?"

"Through there."

The layout to this shelter was very similar to the first one. Theo found himself wondering who had built them all and when but knew even as he considered it that his ridiculous architectural musings were simply to take his mind off everything that had happened. He pulled his jacket off and leaned against the sink as he considered the painful death he had so narrowly avoided and the fact that the avoidance was due entirely to Baku. The monster had saved him. True, Theo wouldn't have needed saving if the monster hadn't dragged him into this dimension in the first place but still…

And they were protected now in the shelter even if that did mean they were enclosed together for the night ahead. Theo let out a deep, and frankly, quite shaky breath as he considered that. It was only this morning that Baku had stroked his cock in appreciation. If anyone should be appreciating anything now it was Theo! Hell, he should be appreciating every damn minute considering how close he had come to not having any more minutes.

He clenched his fists, the cry of the rages echoing in his mind, and he found himself longing once more for his basement flat, the security he had always felt there, and the routine of it all.

This was so different.

He was even different here. Theo knew that he was.

He wanted to go home.

And yet, even as he considered that, a different longing filled him.

The monster…

The man that had saved him from possibly a fate worse than death.

Only, Theo knew he couldn't think like that! It was almost like some sort of Stockholm syndrome! The monster had actually abducted him and put him in this position in the first place! Theo mustn't forget that! And yet, the look on his face as he had found Theo and rescued him…Theo was struck by how…protective it had been. And yet, the monster was also clearly doing something to Theo when he touched him. His touch was not normal.

Theo shook his head, wondering as he did so how the hell he was going to get through the night and ready for the battle the following day. A battle that may well involve the rages.

Theo paused there in the faux-Earth bathroom for some time considering that and when nothing came easily to mind, he simply cleaned himself up, splashed some water across his face, and when he emerged, he tried to keep his voice as even as possible.

"How do you live like this?" he demanded. "Knowing there are all these things waiting to attack you?"

"There are less of them where my people are," Baku said.

"You killed them?"

"Removed them."

"But here they run wild?"

Baku was pulling various bits out of the store cupboard. Theo spotted a fresh set of clothes and what looked like soap. That cheered him in a way that his desperate musings in the bathroom had not.

"It is the same in some parts of your world," the monster said. "Do you not have bears and lions and other such predators?"

"I guess…"

"They too would kill you. They too are monsters."

"They're animals…"

"It's the same thing." He passed the clothing to Theo. "We're all animals."

"I don't like it here," Theo admitted.

"Before this assignment I too had avoided these lands. They have worsened in recent years. The rages encourage it." The monster growled. "I have long wished that we could make rips between distances in the same way we can make rips between dimensions."

Theo started at those words because it suddenly occurred to him that Baku could do things with the inter-dimensional rips that the people in his world couldn't, and why the hell had it taken him this long to realise what had happened in those first moments after he arrived in this dimension?

"How did you do it?" he demanded.

"Do what?" Baku asked.

"You closed the rip I came through."

"Yes."

"How?" Theo demanded.

The monster lifted his wrist where he wore what Theo had assumed was a Garmin-like device. Clearly, he had been wrong about that!

"I can use this device to open and close the rips between our two worlds," Baku said. "The rips I create are artificial rips though and they will always close in on themselves given enough time. The frequency that opens them must be maintained and given that there must be a device nearby to do so…" He shrugged. "It is rarely possible."

"Artificial rips?" Theo shook his head. "I don't understand. Are you saying that there are rips that aren't artificial, that they're natural?"

"The ones plaguing your world?" Baku nodded. "We did not create those. We can close them though."

"We have a substance that patches them a little," Theo said.

"The substance you speak of vibrates at a similar frequency."

"If we could close all the rips…"

"We close all that we can," Baku said. "But there are many. We need to stop them from forming at all, for each new rip creates others, like ripples across the dimensions."

"How?" Theo demanded, suddenly imagining the rip next to his flat closed once and for all. "How can you close them?"

"I will explain this all to you but first let us organise ourselves. Your clothes…" Baku shook his head even as he stepped closer to Theo. "They are filthy."

"Are you asking me to remove them?" Theo asked and Baku nodded.

"Yes, I am."