Shut it, Bogart.
As we pulled into the Villa Claire parking lot, Fieldy gasped. My truck had been badly vandalized. My hood was open, the windshield was shattered, and my tires had been slashed. None of that really mattered. What stood out was the pink Hello Kitty backpack that sat in the front seat.
“Does that belong to Shadow?”
“Yeah.”
“Was it in your truck when you came here last night?”
“Nope.”
I searched the backpack. It was empty except for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles thermos and a small handwritten note that had been punctuated with black lip prints. It read: Come and get her. And don’t forget to bring your friend.
“Mother fucker,” Fieldy growled. “I take it back, Ripley. I believe you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I am. There’s no way Shadow or your mother-in-law could have beat up your truck like that. It looks like someone used a sledgehammer on the body and a straight razor on the tires. And whoever did it has your daughter.”
“It was Carrion-Six-Toes.”
“I believe you.”
“Good. Let’s go to Creek’s house. Hopefully he knows what we need to do next.”
“Agreed.” Fieldy slapped his steering wheel. “No more complacency. No more hesitation. No more stagnation. Just blinding momentum.”
Come the day we see the sun,
Hit the arch, a history song.
A ship cross the estuary,
Sundays lost in melancholy.
If you don’t know it now then you will do.
If you don’t know it now they you will do.
A storm of strings, far away.
The hangers on saved the day.
—The Good, the Bad and the Queen
15.
History is Mainly Bullshit
Creek lived at the end of a spider vein network of dirt roads hidden in a maze constructed of towering pine trees. Fieldy tried to decipher Google Maps and seemed stoic and quietly resolute as the new reality of the situation settled on him. But whatever Carrion-Six-Toes had done to Bogart was gradually wearing off and he was returning to his talkative ways.
What are you doing, kid? We are lucky to be alive. If your druggie buddy hadn’t been there you’d already be a corpse and I’d have been—
It has my daughter.
I know, but we can’t stop an Elder. Maybe if we run away Carrion-Six-Toes will set her free. Maybe.
My daughter.
I’m not going to be able to change your mind, am I?
No.
Then we’re fucked. This is how it all ends. Not even as loud as whimper.
Pineapple.
We stopped at the end of a long driveway in front of a rustic cabin that looked like it could have been made of giant Lincoln logs. Creek had been sitting in a swing on a wraparound porch, smoking a cigar, but when we arrived he ran up to us. “Were you guys followed?” There was fear in his eyes.
“I don’t think so,” Fieldy said. “We had to backtrack a bit as I found the right unmarked dirt road, so I think we’d have seen them.”
“Good. Come on inside.”
“We need to go,” I pleaded.
“Not until we are properly prepared,” Creek said. “If we go into this halfcocked then we will be eaten alive. Besides, time isn’t really an issue.”
“Of course it is,” I said. “That thing has my daughter.”
“Yeah,” Creek agreed while he fiddled with a clove of garlic that hung just beneath his chin. “Either the Elder is using your daughter as bait and won’t harm her or . . . Either way we need to prepare first.”
“Definitely bait,” Fieldy said. “It left a ransom note for us in her backpack. It is in the body of her grandmother and that old hag lives in a house that makes the Winchester mansion look like a double-wide trailer.”
“All the more reason to prepare,” Creek said. “Come on.” He led us into an open living space that had a fireplace and high ceilings. It could have been a stand in for any number of hunting cabins that littered the East Texas backwoods, except for its unique décor. Unfamiliar wooden and metallic symbols adorned the walls in spots typically reserved for mounted deer heads and big mouthed bass. Some of the symbols were painted on canvas, but others spiraled out of the walls like pieces in a modern art exhibit.
He’s a crackpot, kid. A total bullshit artist.
The space was fairly tidy except for hoarder-like stacks of newspapers and magazines that rose to the ceiling and completely covered the back walls. “I’ve been meaning to burn some of those,” Creek said defensively. “I read as much as I can to look for signs that the Elders are gaining momentum and local newspapers are always best. Of course most of the newspapers are online now and they don’t tend to run as many local stories.”
“What kind of signs?” Fieldy asked.
“The Elders growing stronger either in sheer numbers or their ability to affect the group consciousness,” Creek explained. “Their calling is to wake up the Sleeper and the only way to do that is to either create enough physical chaos and destruction, or to produce a loud enough psychic scream.”
Is that bullshit? I asked Bogart.
Not entirely, Bogart admitted.
“That sounds pretty dramatic,” Fieldy said.
“I’m not being hyperbolic at all,” Creek said. “I’m talking about the end of days. If I’m reading the signs correctly then they are actively preparing for a race war.”
“Oh Jesus,” Fieldy said. “I’ve heard that one before. I thought one of those symbols looked like a swastika.”
“God no,” Creek said. “One of my ex-wives was black. Besides, the swastika has been around long before Hitler, he just appropriated it. What I’m talking about is the race war. The human race against—”
“The symbiotes,” I finished.
“Kind of,” Creek said. “More accurately, the Elders.”
“Are you talking about some kind of alien creatures?” Fieldy asked.
“It depends on what you want to define as alien. The things have been on Earth for longer than humans. I imagine they were inhabiting dinosaurs before the Ice Age. They’ve been here for millions of years. Humans have been on Earth for some 200,000 years.”
“So, we are the newbs?” I asked.
“Big time,” Creek agreed.
I imagined a symbiote controlling a T-Rex and asked Bogart: Is Creek telling the truth?
Yeah, but everyone knows that. He’s a shit talker.
Creek continued, “The Elders can’t stand humans, but they hate the younger symbiotes even more. They consider them to be traitors, which by their definition is true. The Elder’s common goal is to wake the True One and release oblivion, but the younger symbiotes don’t want that. They ascribe to the ‘I think therefore I am’ philosophy. Selfishly they equate self-awareness with existence—a trait they no doubt learned from their human hosts.”
No comment.
“Wait a second,” Fieldy said. “I was imagining these things to be like a microbe in an iceberg waiting for a host. Like John Carpenter’s The Thing. Maybe they got here on a spaceship or when a meteorite hit the Earth.”
“Maybe,” Creek said. “But if so, they came here a long time ago. More logically they have been here the whole time.”
“But you say there are younger ones?” Fieldy asked.
“There are.”
“If so, then how are they born? Can the Elders mate? Do they reproduce inside a host? Do they split like a leech or some shit?”
Bogart?
You don’t want to know, kid.
“I don’t know,” Creek said. “Bayonet wouldn’t tell me. He told me if I ever heard and understood the truth it would drive me insane. I believed him.”
“Who is Bayonet?” Fieldy asked.
“That’s the name of the symbiote inside me.”
Fieldy shook his head. “Bullocks. So, you have one too?”
“I do. I was in
hospice care with less than a month left when suddenly the cancer disappeared. Miraculously. Of course, I quickly learned it was because of Bayonet.”
I know Bay-Bay. He’s younger than me and as soft hearted as any symbiote I’ve ever known. Mostly he just rides around in animals, but he’s been known to hop into humans who are on their last rope. He deserves better than how this asshole is treating him. He’s basically being held hostage.
“Is that what the garlic necklace is really about?” I asked Creek. “Are you trying to kill your symbiote?”
“No way,” Creek said. “I’d die without him. What I have done is tame him a bit— put him to sleep. Having his voice in my head was starting to drive me insane. It got to the point where I could barely tell our voices apart. I couldn’t even trust my own thoughts.”
“We use a safe word,” I said.
“Safe word?” Creek asked.
Don’t confide in this guy, kid. Anyone who could treat their symbiote like that is a fiend. You can’t trust him.
“Is it possible for an Elder to control more than one body?” I asked. “I mean at the same time.”
Creek nodded. “Not only is it possible, but it is one of the characteristics that distinguishes them from the younger symbiotes like the one inside you. Bayonet told me there was once an Elder in the Middle East who simultaneously controlled thousands of hosts. The Elders aren’t as powerful now and have to be far more selective, preying on the weakest within the population. The most powerful of the Elders now control maybe a dozen hosts, but most can’t handle more than three or four.”
“And the younger ones?” Fieldy asked.
“One at a time,” Creek said. “And as far as I know they never have more than passive control. As far as I know.”
“I still don’t get what you are talking about when you mention a race war,” Fieldy said. “I mean nobody even knows the Elders exist.”
“Not true,” Creek said. “People have been aware of them since the time of the cavemen. Go back and look at history again through this new lens. The Inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, Jesus, Buddha. Look at the folktales and superstitions even closer and you’ll find that it is much closer to the truth than the garbage printed in history textbooks.”
“And you’re a history professor?” Fieldy asked.
“Yeah, I’ve got a PhD in pure bullshit. But I’m not the only one who’s learned the truth, just the only one dumb enough to make a podcast about it.”
“And you have committed yourself to fighting them?” I asked.
Creek shook his head. “I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
“Not the most comforting proclamation to hear from an ally before a fight,” Fieldy said.
“There are exceptions to my complacent stance,” Creek said. “Taking a child is way over the line.”
My cellphone rang. It was Dare sounding frantic again. “There was no sign of Shadow. Have you found her?”
“Not yet.”
“What did the police say?” Her voice sounded raspy. I could tell she was about to have another panic attack.
“I know it’s an impossible request,” I said in a calm voice, “but try to relax as much as possible. I’m taking care of everything and I will find her soon.”
She began gasping.
“Take an Ambien. I’ll have her by the time you wake.”
“Maybe I should . . . go to . . . Mom’s.”
“That’s not a good idea,” I said. “You don’t need to be driving in your condition. Go upstairs and take some Ambien. I’ll get our daughter. I promise. I love—”
“Okay, Ripley.” She hung up.
“Was that your wife?” Creek asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I don’t really like the idea of leaving her alone.”
“Don’t worry about her,” Creek said. “If the Elders had wanted to hurt her it would have already happened. The best thing you can do is try to end this thing.”
“Again, not comforting,” Fieldy said.
“There’s not a lot to be comforted about,” Creek said. “Come with me, the equipment is in the bunker.”
Fieldy laughed. “Of course there’s a bunker.”
He led us through the kitchen and into a small room that could be used as a spare bedroom, but Creek had filled it with boxes he still hadn’t unpacked since he’d moved here. I spotted one marked kitchen and wondered if he’d even bothered to unpack his dishes.
Underneath a tattered green rug covered with prints of coconuts and pineapples was a hatch that opened and led down to a small space that was more cellar than bunker. When he flipped on a switch, the room filled with the sickly fluorescence of a Wal-Mart. Creek had attempted to reinforce the walls with cinderblocks, but he was less than a master craftsman.
“Not exactly a fallout shelter,” Fieldy said. “More of a panic room, really.”
“Close enough,” Creek said. “There’s enough rations to get me through a few months and I figure by then I’ll have an idea about who won. I doubt it will be the humans. It’s still a work in progress, and besides, the war won’t be decided by nukes.”
“So, what kind of equipment are we getting here?” Fieldy asked. “Pork and beans or creamed style corn?”
“For a guy that sounds like he’s doing a bad Ozzy Osborne impersonation you sure have a lot of lip.”
“A total lack of self-awareness is my secret super power.”
Creek walked past a supermarket display-sized stack of Ozarka water bottles and picked up a backpack that was filled with a metal tank connected to a thin hose, leading to a grip that looked like it had come from a gas station pump, and ending with a copper rod that extended about six inches.
“Holy shit,” Fieldy said. “I always wanted to be a ghostbuster.”
“That’s not a proton pack,” Creek said.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s a homemade flamethrower,” Creek said. “Simple really. You take an air compressor, a diesel nozzle, a feed tank, some hose, and some fittings and it’s Vietnam time. I’ve got two of them. They run on a gasoline-diesel mix.”
“You’re shitting me,” Fieldy said. “Are we fighting alien monsters or trying to keep away mosquitos?”
“I’ve tested them plenty of times,” Creek said defensively. “It’s a significant arc of fire that will cover well over ten feet.”
I thought about the man with the white face and the blowtorch.
“Why not a gun?” Fieldy asked.
“They aren’t that effective,” Creek said. “You’d have to be lucky to hit a symbiote in a vital spot while they are in a host, and outside of the host they are hard to see—it’s like they have a way of staying in the periphery of your vision. I’m also not sure what their weak spots are or for that matter anything about their anatomy. What I do know is that fire can kill them.”
“And garlic,” Fieldy added. “So basically, they are fucking vampires.”
“No,” Creek corrected. “Vampires are them.”
“And zombies,” I muttered.
“Sure,” Creek said. “Some Elders can raise the dead.”
“And werewolves?” Fieldy asked.
“They can control wolves,” Creek said. “Like I tried to explain—superstitions and folk tales are as much a part of history as the rest of it.”
“What else do we need?” I asked.
Creek lifted a vial. “We have to force her to drink this.”
“Holy water, I’m guessing?” Fieldy asked.
“Garlic juice. The only way your mother-in-law makes it out of this alive is if we force out the symbiote—otherwise she gets cremated along with it.”
“Either way,” I mumbled.
Fieldy slapped me on the back and laughed. Creek joined in and I smiled.
You weren’t kidding, kid.
I’m all dressed up with nowhere to go.
Walkin’ with a dead man over my shoulder.
Waiting for an invitation to arrive.
Goi
n’ to a party where no one’s still alive.
I was struck by lightning,
Walkin’ down the street.
I was hit by something last night in my sleep.
It’s a dead man’s party.
Who could ask for more?
Everybody’s comin’, leave your body at the door.
Leave your body and soul at the door.
(Don’t run away it’s only me).
—Oingo Boingo
16.
A Snoop Dogg Track and Certain Doom
Creek sighed. “How did I end up trapped in a backseat the size of a goddamned coffin with a fucking dog that can’t decide if he wants to fart or slobber so he just does both . . . constantly?”
“Was that a question?” Fieldy asked.
“Not really,” Creek said. “I mean, what the hell, man? Are you like an Austin Powers nerd? Who rides around in a fucking 1970’s Mini Cooper?”
“There are two things in this excruciatingly disappointing existence that give me joy,” Fieldy said. “And you are taking shots at both of them.”
“I didn’t mention drug abuse,” Creek said.
“Touché,” Fieldy said. “You really are an asshole.”
“That’s my secret superpower. But seriously, did we really have to pick up your mutt? He doesn’t look like he’s going to be worth much in a fight.”
“He’s not,” Fieldy agreed. “I once saw him roll over to a Chihuahua puppy, but I couldn’t leave him alone any longer—Dante holds a grudge longer than my ex-girlfriend and will start shitting all over the apartment.”
“Your girlfriend takes shits all over your apartment?” Creek asked.
“I said ex-girlfriend.”
It felt vaguely reassuring that my companions could crack jokes while we were driving toward almost certain doom. Gladys lived on a ridiculous estate on over 300 private acres of prime fenced-in real estate that was less than five miles from the courthouse and within half a mile of the oldest graveyard in Texas. It was also isolated enough that nobody could hear her scream—which of course worked both ways.
We pulled up next to an ornate iron gate that was still a good distance away from her house and Creek said, “I always wanted to see this place. I hoped it would be under better circumstances.”
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