Mythic Journeys

by Paula Guran

  The tree wouldn’t be easy to move even with the tow truck—it looked to Logan like it was four feet in diameter.

  Milburn shook his head and turned toward them, shouted something. “I don’t think it—”

  Then the tree trunk started to move.

  It was sliding, right to left, across the road, very slowly, with the thick sluggishness of a lava flow.

  “Is something pulling it or . . . ?” Bridey asked. “No. It’s . . .”

  Logan’s mouth was dry. It was hard to talk. “It looks like . . . it’s moving itself.” What was making her heart pound, her mouth dry, was the fact that the tree trunk was slithering, weaving very slightly from side to side, as it went. It was supple, and it was big, and it was sliding along on its own power, shimmering in headlight glow with the motion. Milburn was gawking at the big, sliding black form. He backed away, still gaping.

  “Didn’t even leave much behind. Tore them up, ate ’em. Could be coyotes, even wolves—but no tracks.”

  “Bridey?” Logan heard herself say. “What is that?”

  “I don’t know. Is it really. . . ?”

  Now the thick, tubular sliding thing was changing directions. Its middle was rippling toward the truck, where Milburn had backed up against the grill. There was a whickering sound, and a kind of heavy white static that rattled the windows with its intensity. And then the black trunk suddenly looped, in a motion almost too fast to follow, and nosed around Milburn, looping, gripping him, squeezing . . .

  Killed them all, Erwin had said.

  Milburn’s head popped off his shoulders. Blood splashed thickly on the hood of the tow truck.

  Logan screamed and Bridey clapped a hand over her mouth to smother a scream of her own.

  The slitherer was dragging Milburn’s limp, headless body closer . . . It reared up, over the left side of the car—Logan couldn’t see it up there, but Bridey could.

  With an odd mix of hissing and grumbling the thing was sliding onto the truck cab. The windshield began to crack on the left side; then the roof started to buckle downward.

  “Oh no,” Bridey said. “Logan—get out of the truck!”

  “No! We’re safe in here!” She tried to huddle under the dashboard.

  “No, dammit, Logan listen to me! That door’s going to fly open, it’s going to come over there! Get out! We need to get out that door!”

  A sharp authority in Bridey’s voice stirred her; Logan opened the passenger side door, and wriggled out. She saw something dark looming over them . . .

  “Run back toward town!” Bridey shouted, her voice cracking.

  Panic washing over her, Logan ran. She plunged blindly down the curving road, into the night; after a time she stepped into a pothole, lost a flipflop from her right foot, kicked the other one off, ran barefoot, on and on.

  Bridey. . .

  Breathing hard, her feet hurting, Logan stopped, turned to look for her mother.

  She couldn’t see anyone—just the empty highway, the truck hidden beyond the curve. She was afraid to call out, afraid it might bring the thing that killed Milburn right to her. Moaning, Logan turned back toward town, and went on. But the town was a long ways away.

  Was that a car, coming toward her?

  Lights lanced the dark, vanished behind trees, then reappeared about a half-mile off.

  Logan heard a noise from behind. She spun around, squealing with fear—a dark figure rushed toward her.

  “Logan!” It was Bridey’s voice.

  Bridey’s arms clasped Logan, pulled her close. Logan let her mother hug her, and they both panted with relief.

  Then Logan caught her breath and pulled back, whispered, “Is it coming?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “There’s a car coming. We could wave to them . . .”

  Headlights washed over them. Bridey took Logan’s arm, drew her to the side of the road. The sedan pulled up—it was an olive-colored government vehicle, with a number on the door.

  Chris was at the wheel, ducking his head to look at them. He was a sergeant, in uniform, with buzz-cut blond hair, a clipped blond mustache, a slightly weak chin, gray eyes that usually squinted as if at some private amusement. Right now his mouth was grimly compressed. The window hummed down. “Get in! Quick!”

  They climbed in, Logan in the back. Bridey had scarcely gotten the front passenger door closed before Chris gunned the engine, spinning the car to head back toward town.

  “You know about it, don’t you,” Bridey said, looking at him. “That thing back there.”

  “I . . . yeah I do, Bridey. Lana said you were going out here with Milburn—and the thing is out there tonight.”

  “It killed him,” Bridey said huskily. “Milburn.”

  “Figured when I saw you.”

  “If you know about it . . .”

  “I’ve been trying to figure out how to talk to people about it, who to go to. The right chain of command and—I wasn’t sure I could do it without some Green Machine clean-up crew punching a hole through my head.”

  Logan stared at Chris. Was he saying the Army might kill him?

  “I should have left the farm before now,” Bridey said. “I should have taken Logan away.”

  “Why didn’t you?” He was driving rapidly but carefully, slowing more than he needed to when he came to a curve. Like he was worried about what might be around the bend.

  “Miles. He said if I stayed, he’d find out exactly what happened to Harve. If I left—no soap. I’d never know. Logan would never know. And . . . he just made me feel like it wasn’t safe for me to leave.”

  “Christ. You still seeing him?”

  She shook her head. “No. He calls me. Texts me. Way too much. He’s . . . I’m scared of Miles.”

  “He knows exactly what happened to Harve. And that implied threat stuff . . .” Chris smacked the palm of his hand on the steering wheel. “That’s the real Captain Winn! Just under the crust of ‘officer regular guy,’ that’s the real Miles: a prick.” He glanced in the rearview at Logan. “Sorry about the language.”

  “I thought he was a prick too,” Logan said. “Can’t we call the sheriff?”

  Chris took a phone from his uniform shirt pocket, and passed it to Bridey. “Give it a try. I’m not optimistic. Wasn’t working ten minutes ago. I came out here following the captain and . . . I think he saw me.”

  Bridey tapped the phone. She listened. “Emergency number’s not ringing.”

  “Try the base’s number.”

  She tried, and shook her head. “It’s all fuzzy. Just static.”

  “Yeah. He’s got the damper on the area now.”

  “Then—just get us back to town, Chris. Please. Fast!”

  Logan leaned forward. “Where’s my dad, Chris? You said Miles knows. Do you know?”

  Chris slowed for a curve—slowed a lot. “I just found out for sure. It’s a hard thing to tell anybody. That thing—it’s all about the big snake.” He shook his head. “It’s called Zhuyin.” He pronounced the name zou-heen. “Zhuyin was . . . It’s a myth from China. Giant snake with a man’s face. It was supposedly a god who brought daylight by opening its eyes, night by closing them. For us it’s the Zhuyin Project. What’s more elastic, more camouflaged, more subtle, more adaptable to terrain, more under the radar . . . what’s got more stealth . . . than a snake? They’re powerful, terrifying to the enemy. Make them big enough and responsive enough, armored enough—an exquisitely effective weapon.” He added in disgust, “Miles tested it on some of the local cattle . . .” He brought the car to a jolting stop. “Oh no, no, that’s . . . Jesus, that thing is fast!”

  The shiny black oozing thing had cut across country. As they watched, it nosed out ahead of them, weaving across the road into the headlight glow.

  Logan saw it clearly now. Zhuyin. It was a snake—a snake sixty feet long, thick as a considerable tree, tapering at the tail, scales as big as cup saucers, jet black except for two rings of white back of its jaws, and what looked
like a blister of glass and metal on the very top of its head, just above and behind the eyes.

  Zhuyin reared up in the headlights’ glow and turned to look at them. Its face, a living bas-relief on the diamond shaped head, was made of scales, and was proportionate to its body, but it was did not have a snake’s eyes, nor quite a snake’s muzzle.

  In a rough way, it was a man’s face. A man’s eyes.

  Its visage was black-scaled and too large, but still human. It had eyes like a man’s, though larger than normal; the nose was a bit flattened; it had scales over its flattened lips.

  It shifted, catching the light differently—and she recognized the face. It was her father.

  She screamed and Bridey sobbed and Chris swore.

  He put the car into a grinding reverse, looking over his shoulder as he backed the vehicle up. He spun into a turn, roared off down the road, and left the gigantic serpent in the shadows.

  “I guess . . .” His voice was hoarse. “It cut across country. And it’s going to have a chance to do it again.”

  Logan felt unreal, distant from everything. The only clear feeling she had was a sickness in the pit of her stomach. She was distantly aware they were driving alongside a ravine lined by dusty, twisted oaks.

  “It wasn’t really him,” Bridey said, between two angry sobs.

  “Yeah,” Chris said. “It was.”

  A car was blocking the road ahead. Chris hit the brakes; Logan had to grab the headrest on the front seat. Their car squealed to a halt.

  “Is it?” Chris murmured, then added, “yeah,” as someone got out of the car blocking their way. “It’s Miles.”

  As if something were breathing on neck, Logan turned to look behind her—and saw a pair of eyes gleaming red in the taillight’s glow, as it slithered rapidly after them. It was coming fast, unthinkably fast.

  “It’s coming . . .” Logan could barely get the words out.

  “Just drive around the son of a bitch,” Bridey said coldly. “Or over him if you have to.” She hadn’t heard Logan.

  “I’ll try to deal with him,” Chris was saying. “But—”

  “It’s coming!” Logan screamed.

  Zhuyin came slamming down on the car, so that the thin steel roof dented in, then cracked—the back window exploded outward into diamond-like fragments and the back door next to her popped open. Logan threw herself down behind the front seats.

  The car twisted against the ground, like a trapped animal struggling to get free of a boa constrictor, tires spinning as Chris jerked the steering wheel and stepped on the accelerator and Bridey shouted wordlessly—

  Then the car lurched free, and seemed to leap up . . . and abruptly it dove down.

  Logan was slammed against the back of the seats, obliquely saw a branch smash in through a side window as the car plunged down through a sickening series of bounces.

  They jolted to a stop in a cloud of dust and smoke.

  “Out!” Chris yelled. “Out!”

  Logan felt dazed, incapable of deciding what to do. This wasn’t a time to move; it was a time to lay still, to play dead, to hope it would all pass over them . . . To hope that Zhuyin would slide over them and away, in search of fresh prey.

  She felt something tugging on her feet and she screamed and tried to writhe away.

  “Stop fighting me, Logan, let me help you get out!” Bridey yelled.

  Logan looked, saw that Bridey had hold of her ankles, was trying to pull her out the popped-open door.

  Logan let her pull, got her feet on the ground, and clambered out the rest of the way on her own.

  She stumbled, coughing, out of the smoke, with Bridey clasping her arm.

  They found themselves in a dry creek bed choked with leaves and sticks. Chris was nearby, with a small flashlight in his left hand, and one of those big square-barreled pistols in his right hand. He turned them both to point up the hill.

  A whickering and the static sound came from up there. Something was sliding down toward them.

  The car started howling then, making Logan shriek in reaction—it was a car horn blaring. She turned, saw their car was crunched into a tree stump, its front end twisted; small blue flames flickered under the crumpled hood.

  “Come on!” Chris yelled. “Get away from the car—fast!”

  Logan and Bridey stumbled after him, Logan’s feet smarting, the car horn howling warningly from behind them; they tripped over roots, barely kept to their feet as they went down the creek bed at the bottom of the ravine. Trying to keep up with Chris, they followed the creek bed as quickly as they could.

  The car horn stopped. Logan heard a dull thump and caught a flash of light, looked back in time to see the wrecked car engulfed in blue-yellow flames.

  And the living black enormity was coming out of the flame whipped shadows, its eyes catching the firelight, glowing blue-red now. It was a quivering S-shape towering over the fire, looking toward the flames as if hypnotized. Zhuyin.

  The face turned toward Logan . . .

  She sobbed and looked away, hurrying awkwardly on, her feet crackling through dry leaves, and layers of twigs. Chris had stopped, his flashlight, pointing at something.

  Logan caught up with Bridey, and saw Chris was pointing his gun now too—the sparse flashlight beam picked out Miles Winn, who was skidding down the slope from the road. He was still in his uniform, but without the jacket and cap, and wearing a headset like something the boys in San Diego wore when they were playing co-op videogames.

  There was something in his hands—hard to see clearly in the uneven red light. Then she knew. It was an assault rifle, and it was aimed at Chris.

  Up above, the Army captain’s car was angled partway into the ravine, its lights on, spotlighting the two men.

  Logan stumbled closer—but Chris waved her back, never taking his eyes off Miles. “Logan, stay with your mom.”

  Logan backed up, and felt Bridey’s arms close around her. “It’s coming!” Logan called out. “It’s behind us.”

  “He won’t come any closer, unless I tell him to,” Miles said, skidding a little farther down the dirt of the slope.

  He. Miles calls it a he.

  Miles was about ten feet from Chris now. “I can talk to him, Chris. He knows my voice. He’s wired to obey that voice. Only that and nothing else.”

  “You weren’t supposed to go this far with it. You weren’t supposed to hybrid anything but chimps.”

  “He volunteered.”

  “Not for this, Miles. He didn’t volunteer for this.”

  “Captain. Call me captain, Sergeant Eckhardt.”

  “I don’t recognize your authority,” Chris said. “You’re a fucking criminal. You planning to keep Bridey in building twenty-three? What’s the plan for the girl—hybridization?”

  “They can both be useful. And there’s a very unusual form of hybridization you may not be—”

  Chris broke in, “They’re not going to let you turn building twenty-three into your personal dictatorship!”

  “I was given full—”

  “They did not give you permission to do this to Harve!”

  “Dear God, it is him, it’s him, it’s him. . . .” Bridey muttered. “Harve.”

  Miles chuckled. “I told you. Harve volunteered.”

  “He volunteered a sample of his DNA,” Chris grated. “Not his body, and not his brain, Miles! You set him up! You obsessed on Bridey and you needed Harve out of the way! You’re a fucking psychopath!”

  Bridey caught her breath.

  “I need what I need,” Miles said equably. His smile was light and pleasant, but his eyes, in the uneven glare, were dark pools. “And the Army needs what it needs. All we’ve done is make one soldier more like all soldiers should be—how they will all become. What’s the difference if . . . inside becomes outside?”

  From behind them came the whickering sound, the waves of static . . . and a long, exhaling hiss. Logan thought she heard pain in that hiss.

  There was a grow
ing crackling sound too—and the smell of wood and leaves burning. It had been so hot, so relentlessly hot; it had been dry for so long . . .

  Miles was looking past them. “Your car’s started a fire. That fire’ll spread fast. We don’t have much time.” He looked at Bridey. “You should have trusted me, Bridey! I control him. You come with me, and I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt you! You’ll be with me and all will be well!”

  “You pretended that Harve was dead . . . overseas . . .” Bridey’s voice was hoarse now.

  “He was never more than twenty miles from you!” Miles said, with a mocking tone of apology. “He is dead though—he wasn’t cooperating. And we used some of him. We needed to bioengineer something that had human memory. Fuse it with some very special reptilian genetics . . . And glory is upon us! Zhuyin!”

  Logan tried to grasp it all. Daddy. Violated. Dead. Reborn into. . .

  “You crossed the line a million years back, Miles,” Chris said, raising the pistol and aiming.

  “Chris!” Bridey shouted. “Don’t! He’ll—”

  Chris and Miles fired at the same time.

  Miles staggered . . . and Chris, taking three rounds in the chest, sank to his knees, and coughed blood.

  Logan started toward him—Bridey dragged her back, whispering, “Get ready to run, just follow me . . .”

  Miles shifted his rifle to one hand, touched his left side, grimacing. “Just a crease. You choked, Chris . . .”

  Chris tried to stand—and then pitched over on his left side.

  “Chris!” Logan yelled. He didn’t respond. His legs twitched. Dead. Chris is dead.

  “Run!” Bridey cried.

  Bridey tugged at Logan and the two of them ran into the darkness, out of the shine from Miles’ headlights.

  “Bridey—!” Logan called, tripping—almost falling headfirst, then catching herself, staggering on. They were running toward the wildfire; toward the giant black serpent waiting somewhere close by. “Bridey—that’s the wrong way! That thing is down there!”

  “He controls it!” Bridey shouted between harsh breaths. “He won’t let it kill me!”

  Was that true? Maybe he would punish Bridey for running away from him, Logan thought.

  Maybe he would tell Zhuyin to kill them both.