Swamp Thing 2 - The Return of Swamp Thing
Page 3
“Because,” said Bob, fighting to maintain his patience, “at night we have the element of surprise.”
“Surprise!? We gotta find ’em before we can surprise ’em!”
Angrily Chuck grabbed the map out of Bob’s hand and hurled it into the darkness behind them.
If they’d been listening, they would have heard the map bounce off something before hitting the water.
Something large and massive. Something inhuman.
The blood. The blood was so close now.
The Antibody moved through the swampblood toward the source of the infection now. It heard words being spoken, words that once upon a time would have made sense. Now, though, they were no more understandable than the buzz of the mosquitoes had been, back when the mosquitoes still buzzed. Back when there was noise in the swamp, instead of the silence that hung over it these dark days.
Harry stepped in quickly. This couldn’t be allowed to progress. Chuck was getting married next month, for one thing . . . it wouldn’t do for him to be unemployed when that happened. Especially since this would be his second wife, and he was still paying alimony to the first. “Gentlemen, gentlemen,” he said placatingly. “you wanna kick the crap outta one another, fine. But do it back at the office.”
The thought occurred to both men that back at the office they didn’t want to fight since there was no point, and right after that they realized there was even less point to fight now. Especially since if one of them happened to knock out the other, all that meant was somebody was going to have to haul an unconscious body through the swamp. Who needed that?
“Hey, suits me,” said Chuck.
“Fine,” replied Bob, grateful to Harry for the interruption, and making a mental note to thank him when they got back to the office. “Then let’s get back to the truck.”
“Great,” said Harry, genuinely glad to leave this place behind.
Bob consulted his compass and gestured in the direction of what he hoped was where the Land-Rover had been left. They started off after him . . . all except Morty, who hung back. Harry, accustomed to taking up the rear by this time, was surprised to be walking past Morty. “You comin’, Mort?”
Morty, who had consumed the most beers on the way over, now felt a pressing need to rid himself of them. He turned toward a tree, his hand reaching for his fly as he said, “In a minute.” He waited for Harry to take the hint, but Harry, who wasn’t good on nonverbal cues, just stood there. Gesturing toward his crotch, Morty said, “Do you mind?”
Turning slightly red, and annoyed with himself that he hadn’t realized right off the bat what Morty was talking about, he turned and headed off after the others.
Now, thought the Antibody. Now was the time. The infection was preparing to leave the swampblood, and that could not be allowed. The infection had to be punished for entering the bloodstream in the first place.
The infection had to give its blood to the swampblood, and to the swampblood’s rightful denizen . . . the Antibody.
Morty finished up his last living act, turned toward his friends, who were departing in the distance, and suddenly felt a tug at his leg.
“What the . . .” he managed to say before he was suddenly yanked off his feet.
Before he could get out another word he was beneath the surface, the thick coagulating mass of water surrounding him, filling his lungs, choking him off. Something was still yanking at his leg. ’Gator! came the frantic thought.
He should have been so lucky . . .
Something human . . . has just died. It should not bother me . . . for death is a constant . . . in the swamp . . . and is a part of life . . . so this should be . . . of no consequence.
Why . . . then . . . is it . . . ?
Harry spun, hearing the abortive cry, the commotion and splashing behind him. This was not his imagination running overtime. Something was wrong. His flashlight swung out in the direction where Morty had been, and if the light caught Morty with something embarrassing hanging out, then so be it. Better embarrassment than . . .
Nothing. The powerful light couldn’t detect a thing. There was the tree Morty had been standing in front of, but no Morty. “Morty? Mort?” he called out, and then louder, “Mort!”
Now the others had run up as Harry’s alarmed voice had gotten louder. “What’s up?” demanded Bob. “What’s all the yelling?”
“Morty’s gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
Harry was starting to lose it. It wasn’t supposed to have gone this way. This was supposed to be a fun, macho, hoo-hah action kind of thing. Not a living nightmare, ass-deep in muck and friends vanishing. “I mean gone! One moment he was takin’ a whiz by the tree, the next second, zip, nothin’, history!”
As if Morty had been on stage with spotlights following him, Harry shone the flashlight on where his friend had been. The water had been rippling but was now still.
“ ’Gator?” whispered Dave.
“Blood, man,” said Chuck. “If it’s a ’gator, wouldn’t there be blood or something? There’s nothing, man!”
“Okay, okay,” said Bob, “he’s gotta be here, guys. Fan out. We’ll find him.” He raised his voice. “Morty! Morty!”
And slowly something rose to the surface.
It caught just at the edge of the field of light, and Dave swung his M16 around, ready to blast it. But Chuck put out a hand, warning him off, and slowly they realized what it was.
Morty’s distinctive fisherman’s cap, no longer jauntily perched on his head, floated there, a silent marker for a grave of watery muck.
“Guys,” said Chuck softly, “I don’t think he can hear us.”
And as Chuck became preternaturally calm, now it was Bob who began to stammer. “We . . . we gotta . . . we better get outta here.”
Chuck grabbed him by the arm. “Hey, listen, buddy, we’re not leavin’ without Morty! You clear on that?”
It exploded from beneath the water.
The Antibody had just feasted, draining all the virulent blood from one of the five infections. The blood pumped through its mutated, misshapen body, giving it strength and power. Since its escape from the place with the gleaming walls, it had lain beneath the water, in the swampblood, conserving what little strength it had and draining blood from whatever it could find—alligators, mostly.
But human blood—that was unlike the cold, unappetizing life fluids of reptiles. Human blood was hot and passionate. It had flowed eagerly from the infection into the Antibody, and the Antibody had just as eagerly lapped up every drop.
Now it had found the other four infections. Now it would leech the vital blood from them, too, and, perhaps in so doing, gain enough strength to return to the place of the cold walls. To find the woman whose face it couldn’t quite recall. He would find her. He would take her blood and then bring it to the swampblood for offering.
All of this . . . as soon as he cleared up this infection . . .
He reached out, grabbing the closest one.
Dave screamed as the creature lashed out with unbelievable quickness, snagging him by the front of his coat and dragging him toward its mouth—
Mouth! In the name of God, what mouth?! What the hell was it!
It had put on Morty’s clothes, and it didn’t have arms. Instead it had huge, misshapen appendages. Its head was a monstrosity, sculpted from a child’s deepest nightmares and brought to hideous life. Huge and black, the rear of the skull hung to partway down its back, while its shaking and quivering maw dangled in front of its chest.
The maw wasn’t for chewing, Dave realized in one hideous moment before his death. It was some sort of sucking appendage. He had a quick glimpse of something red and moist before the maw lashed out and affixed itself to his face with a nauseating plopping sound. Something gouged into his cheeks, burrowed through his open, screaming mouth, and down; something was attacking his eyes . . . and then he lost consciousness. His life followed suit seconds later.
My God, thought Harry, e
ven as he brought his M16 up and around; it’s like a giant leech, and then he fired. Someone, Bob or someone, was screaming that he might hit Dave, but Harry knew that was certainly the least of Dave’s problems. The others must have come to the same conclusion because instants later the air was alive with gunfire as they pumped round after round through Dave, into the Leech.
Dave slumped, riddled with holes, and there was no blood . . .
For long seconds time froze there, there in the swamp as death hung all about them . . .
And there was no blood . . .
Except for a small trickle running down the side of the Leech’s maw.
Jesus Christ, Harry’s mind screamed at him, it’s sucking him dry!
The triggers clicked together, the sound of the empty chambers in the rifles like an executioner’s ax falling.
There were visible bullet holes in the Leech, but it didn’t seem to be affected by them. It went on with its ungodly meal, and Dave’s skin . . . what was visible of it . . . took on a deathly pallor.
Harry wanted to charge forward, to rip Dave’s body from the creature’s grasp, but his body simply refused to obey the directions of his mind. That was because his body was not suicidal.
They slammed new ammo cartridges home and fired again. The Leech dropped Dave’s bloodless corpse, letting it slide underwater to be nourishment for the swamp. Bullets peppered the creature’s body, and it staggered under the assault, but only from the impact. Bullets passed through or stayed in, but either way it seemed of little consequence to the Leech.
The Leech crouched now, looking from one man to the other, as if trying to decide which one to feast on next. Behind it the back of Dave’s jacket was briefly visible as the body bobbed to the surface for a moment before sinking down into the mire.
Once again they were out of ammo, and this time their collective nerve had vanished with the expenditure of the last shell.
“Let’s get the hell out of here!” shrieked Harry.
“Good idea!” Chuck shouted back, and they bolted.
They plunged blindly through the swamp, not caring about one another, or even exactly where the truck was now. All they were concerned about was getting as far from the Leech creature as possible.
Chuck and Bob started to widen the gap between themselves and Harry, and then Harry tripped over something (An arm! No, a sunken tree branch), and by the time he had hauled himself up, his friends had disappeared into the darkness ahead. He wasn’t sure which direction they had gone in, and his frantic shout of “Guys!” met with nothing more than deathly silence, broken only by the crashing of trees somewhere in front of him, his own ragged breathing, and splashing . . .
. . . behind him . . .
It was coming after him, slowly, ponderously, taking its time because he was lost and alone and more terrified than he had ever been.
He started to run again, trying not to think of Dave’s lifeless eyes staring into the muck of the bottom where he was submerged, and of the worms and millions of microscopic creatures already beginning to devour him . . . and Morty, dear God, Morty, sucked dry, the lifeblood pouring into the ungodly mouth of some thing . . .
He was certain he was heading toward the Land-Rover, that blessed truck that would be his salvation . . .
Their friend and comrade completely forgotten, replaced by the overwhelming imperative to survive, Bob and Chuck shoved their way through the swamp. Water they would have carefully waded through before, they now plunged into headlong, certain that any moment the thing that had taken Morty and Dave would have them next.
Their earlier bickering was as beyond recall as was Harry. They had been prepared for belligerent hooch-makers, even angry ’gators. But this . . . this was beyond rational comprehension, and indeed insanity was knocking at the doors of their minds asking ever so politely to be allowed in.
And at that moment, magically, the undergrowth seemed to part, and they stood gasping on a dirt road. Bob felt a wave of retroactive nausea hit him, but he managed to push it back, just barely.
Then a motor was gunned from nearby, and instants later a Jeep with four heavily armed men burst out from the undergrowth. Like a well-trained platoon the men leapt out of the vehicle as it screeched to a halt.
For a crazed moment Bob thought they were reinforcements from the office, and he wondered who the hell had known they were coming out there. But then he realized they were wearing uniforms of some sort of private security force, and there was a curious insignia on them. Still, who cared? They were human, they were heavily armed; they were here. Big as life. Real. Not some creature from a drug-induced nightmare.
Between gasps Bob said, “Boy . . . are we ever glad . . . to see you guys.”
The guards glanced at one another, saying nothing. Bob didn’t think anything of their silence, assuming they were giving Chuck and him a moment to catch their breaths, but when he glanced up, he saw a rather sinister-looking pistol being aimed right at him.
Now Chuck noticed as well, and he stammered out “Hey . . . hey, look, wait a minute . . . we’re government agents . . . You can’t just . . . just . . .”
The pistol spat out two silent shots, like metallic hiccups.
The Antibody would not have all the infections, it seemed. Two of them had slipped away, but there was still one ahead, running as fast as it could, but it would certainly not be fast enough. The Antibody felt charged with life thanks to the stolen blood coursing through it. Power and speed sang in its body, and it effortlessly followed the fleeing infection. Perhaps, after feeding on that one, it would manage to locate the other two. Perhaps not. Ultimately it didn’t matter. The swampblood would be cleansed in any event, and only the cleansing and the blood mattered. Only the blood.
He should have been at the truck by this time, he was certain. Harry’s abrupt realization that he had gotten turned around, that the truck was back in the creature’s direction, caused him to try and skid to a halt, and his feet went out from under him. He tried to break his fall but didn’t succeed. He hit the water and momentarily went under before he pulled himself up, splashing and coughing.
He reached up automatically to adjust his glasses and realized to his horror they weren’t there. They had fallen off into the water.
Without them he was practically blind. Even if by some miracle he managed to find his way out of this murky nightmare and locate the truck, he wouldn’t be able to drive more than fifty yards without running off the road. Why the hell hadn’t he worn his contacts for this insane adventure?
He started scrambling around in the water, certain the Leech was closing in on him.
It was going to find him. Find him and kill him, sucking him dry. It was unreal, unnatural, an affront against God and humanity, but it was killing them all.
It couldn’t be allowed to win. It was unfair, unjust, not possibly part of the grand scheme of things in creation.
There was, Harry thought, as he shoveled his way through the mire, searching for those damned plastic-and-glass, thirty-five-dollar bits of salvation, there was no God.
And in the distance he heard something splashing, a faint sucking sound as if a slippery-slick mouth was opening and closing in anticipation. It was coming his way.
No, God, he thought bitterly. Or if there was, then He was certainly not here in the swamp.
There it is . . . again.
The agony . . . and suffering . . . that seems to be . . . humanity’s hallmark. Overwhelming now.
Two bodies . . . are already decomposing . . . in my waters. I feel them . . . becoming assimilated and . . . a part of me . . . and I feel . . .
Something unnatural . . . something wrong. The bodies . . . are not right . . . and now I sense . . . another presence . . . in the swamp . . . something not of the swamp . . . not of the green . . . not of the earth.
There are too many . . . disturbances . . . disrupting my rest. There is no peace . . . in the green this night.
I must . . . investigate.
But I will need . . . a body.
Once . . . I had a body . . . like that of a human. Now how did it go . . . ?
Yes . . . though the memory pains me . . . I begin to recall.
I must . . . mold the green . . . as best as my hazed recollection . . . can do.
I begin to rise . . . from the darkness . . . passing the worms and ants . . . passing the hidden places . . . that are not hidden from me . . . up to the surface . . . of the swamp. I sense . . . rather than see . . . the moon hanging in the sky . . . a great glowing eye . . . watching to see what happens . . . this night.
I am . . . in the grass . . . in the weeds . . . in the vine . . . in the dirt. I am in them . . . and of them.
Yes . . . a body . . . to leave the womb.
The head will be first . . . followed by shoulders. I pull all the green . . . growing things of the swamp . . . to me . . . fashion a head . . . and I see for the first time . . . in a long time . . . the world around me . . . through vaguely human eyes . . . the way humans . . . saw the world around them . . . when they first rose . . . from the primordial muck. How would it have been . . . I wonder . . . had the muck risen with them . . . ?
I reach out . . . and find the thickest dirt . . . the sturdiest branches . . . the strongest vines. I have unclear recollections . . . of organs that are needed . . . lungs, kidneys. I have need . . . of an anatomy lesson . . . but I sense there is . . . little time . . .
To be safe . . . I fashion organs . . . from plant fiber . . . and position them . . . where I think they should be. My head and shoulders . . . are now fully formed . . . and I begin to create . . . a skeletal mass of bark . . . and woodstuffs . . . and cloak it . . . in a skin of weed and lichen . . . wet, slick, and pulsing . . . with the life of the earth . . . of the green.