Rogmasher Rampage

by Mark Crilley

  “Billy,” said Ana, “you really need to calm down. You’re freaking everyone out.”

  “Believe me, Ana. The sooner we freak these people out, the better. They’re all working for the same guy.” Billy was fishing through a potted plant near one of the tables. “There’s a microphone here somewhere, Ana. That’s how he hears our questions and feeds everyone their answers.”

  “Look, Billy. That’s enough. Sit down and take a break.”

  Billy suddenly turned in the direction of Mei Jun. “Mei Jun. Of course. She’s always with us when we talk to the villagers. She’s bugged.”

  Mei Jun shot Ana a frightened look. Was Billy accusing her of something?

  “Billy—” said Ana. But it was too late. Billy had already dashed between the tables to where Mei Jun was standing.

  “It’s the jade brooch you’re wearing, Mei Jun. The one Mr. Hu gave you. There’s a microphone in it.” Billy leaned down and spoke in the direction of the jade flower. “Isn’t there? How am I coming through, man? Can you hear me loud and clear?”

  “Billy!” said Ana, rising from her chair. “That’s enough. You promised me we were going to do things by the book. Now stop this craziness and sit down.”

  “Stop?” said Billy to Ana. “We can’t afford to stop now, Ana. We can’t stop until we find out who’s behind all this.” He turned from Mei Jun and crossed back to Mr. Hu. Billy was already way past the point of no return, but he still had to swallow hard and brace himself for what he was about to do.

  Here we go.

  Billy roughly grabbed hold of Mr. Hu’s shirt collar with both hands. He pulled Mr. Hu up from his chair, toward his own face, until their noses nearly touched.

  “Who do you work for?”

  Now the hooded beggar’s erhu went silent altogether.

  Ana was on her feet and dashing between the tables to break things up. “Billy! Let go of him! Now!”

  “No, Ana.” Billy pulled Mr. Hu farther away from the chair he’d been sitting on. His surprisingly light body put up little resistance. “Not until he tells who he’s working for.”

  “Billy, I order you to let go of him.”

  “I don’t take orders from you, Ana.”

  “Yes, you do. This is my creatch op, Billy.”

  Yours?

  “I didn’t want to tell you, but it’s true. It’s my creatch op, and you are under my direct supervision. Now let go of him.”

  If I’m wrong about this …

  Billy gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on Mr. Hu’s collar.

  I’m not wrong. I’m not.

  “I’ve got proof, Ana. Proof that I’m not just making this all up.”

  Billy turned Mr. Hu’s head to one side and looked into his ear. If he was right, there would be a listening device there, one that made the high-pitched messages audible to human ears. But when Billy gazed into Mr. Hu’s ear canal he saw no listening device whatsoever. What he did see sent a chill down his spine.

  Mucus. Green, pulsating mucus.

  No. Way.

  “Okay, Billy,” said Ana. “Let’s see this proof. Because if you can’t justify any of this, I’m taking you off the job. You leave me no choice.”

  “He’s not human, Ana.” Billy looked around at the villagers. “None of them are.”

  There was murmuring among the villagers, murmuring in a language that was definitely not Chinese.

  A voice rose above the others, high-pitched and raspy: “Zizziss! Siffiss niss fississ!” It sounded like an announcement, or a command. It had come from the mouth of the hooded beggar.

  All at once Mr. Hu’s face began to change. The skin color turned blue, then green. The nose vanished altogether. The eyes enlarged and slid back to the sides of the head. The mouth drooped and melted into a wide, toadlike frown. Within seconds he had gone from an old Chinese man to something resembling a gargantuan salamander.

  Ana gasped. Mei Jun looked like she was about to faint.

  “Ziiisssssssss!” The newt creature wriggled out of his clothing and leaped across the ground on all fours, bounding from place to place with agile slimy legs. Billy stood there wide-eyed, stunned by his own discovery. He knew something strange was going on in Huaqing, but he hadn’t counted on this.

  A great hissing went out from the crowd as one by one the people of Huaqing mutated into green-skinned creatures all but indistinguishable from one another.

  Creatches. They’re forest creatches, all of them!

  CHAPTER 19

  Within seconds every last villager had changed into a creatch.

  “Vizziss!” The hooded beggar pointed with an outstretched finger as he hissed his orders. “Fiffiss niss!”

  The amphibianlike beings surrounded Billy, Ana, and Mei Jun in a flash, latching onto their arms and legs with lightning speed. There was little point in resisting. They were so drastically outnumbered by the forest creatches it was impossible to even move, much less put up a fight.

  “Impressive,” said the hooded beggar, rising from his chair. The voice was deep and authoritative. “Your powers of observation are remarkable, young man.” The hood was now drawn back enough to reveal an old man’s wrinkled face framed by neatly combed silver-white hair. Pale blue eyes squinted beneath eyebrows so thin and wispy they were hardly there at all. A cropped white beard and mustache surrounded a wide, thin-lipped mouth.

  “Glurrik,” whispered Billy. “Jarrid Glurrik.”

  “Ahh, you know my name, do you?” The old man stepped forward, inspecting Billy and Ana as if they were captured insects. “I feared the younger generation had not been told of me. But I made quite an impression on your elders, didn’t I?”

  “Where are the people of Huaqing?” asked Billy. “What have you done with them?”

  “You needn’t worry about them,” said Glurrik. “They are alive. We creatch supremacists are not interested in killing humans. If we were to do that, who would serve as our slaves when the day of triumph arrives?” He smiled and brought his face closer to Billy’s. “And that day is coming soon, my friend. Make no mistake. Creatches are superior life-forms. Better adapted to survival than we frail humans. That’s why I cast my lot with them.”

  “Jallavirms,” said Ana, staring angrily at the slimy green creatures restraining her. “Chameleonating forest creatches.”

  That’s why they were able to hear Glurrik’s messages, thought Billy. Forest creatches have powers of hearing way beyond humans.

  “They did a very good job, you have to admit,” said Glurrik. “You had no idea they weren’t real. Why, even a native Chinese”—he waved a hand in the direction of Mei Jun—“couldn’t tell the difference.” He trained his eyes on Billy and addressed him with grudging respect. “If not for your persistence, I’d have pulled it all off quite nicely. Still, I’m glad you were sent on this mission, boy. You’ve done a commendable job of troubleshooting my plan.”

  Glurrik paced back and forth, speaking his thoughts aloud while counting on long spindly fingers. “I’ll have to rid the other villages of stray dogs, for starters.”

  Other villages? He’s got this whole operation set up in other places besides Huaqing!

  “And we’ll have to restrict Affy access to villagers. There’s no way of anticipating illogical requests like the ones you cooked up.” Glurrik sneered at Billy. “It was just dumb luck that I was able to recall that silly children’s song you asked for. And as for calligraphy … well, jallavirms are good at looking and sounding like human beings, but their fine motor skills leave much to be desired.”

  “You’re going to do this all over China, aren’t you?” said Billy. “Lure Affys into fake creatch ops, then ambush them when they least expect it.”

  Glurrik stopped pacing long enough to smile at Billy.

  “You make it sound so simple. You have no idea how hard it is to train rogmashers and jallavirms to do one’s bidding. Or how many years I’ve worked on such problems as jamming Affy viddy-fone transmissions and inducing fai
lure in creatch detectors. With all that work it would be folly to restrict my activities to China. I’ve got operations like this set up all across the globe, ready to be unleashed at my word.”

  Glurrik patted Billy on the cheek. “Such the sleuth you are. And to think you’re not even a full-fledged Affy. It’s a real tragedy that they didn’t at least welcome you into the fold before sending you to your death.”

  We’ve seen too much. He’s not going to let us out of here.

  Billy struggled against the jallavirms, but they held him firmly. “This won’t go unnoticed,” he said. “AFMEC will figure out what you’re up to. No matter what you do with us.”

  Glurrik grinned. “Admirable faith, little man. Utterly misplaced, but admirable all the same. It’s really a pity you’re not on my side. I could use a blindly dedicated minion like you.”

  Glurrik turned his back to Billy, took several strides toward the bridge, and pointed at the van. “Time to be rid of this. Don’t want anyone escaping.”

  Glurrik pushed a button on a remote control he was holding. After a second …

  PHOOOOOOM!

  … a spectacular explosion erupted beneath the van, lifting it fully five feet into the air before sending it crashing to the ground. It landed on its side, weaponry spilling from its rear doors.

  “Alas, you’ve brought this on yourself, you see,” said Glurrik. “I didn’t intend for you to die here in Huaqing. Quite the contrary. You were meant to return to AFMECopolis victorious, blissfully unaware of my deceptions.”

  Glurrik continued walking as he spoke, crossing the bridge that led out of Huaqing.

  “It’s over now. All the evidence must be destroyed, including the three of you. Don’t go to your graves thinking you foiled my plot, though. You merely exposed the flaws in my test run.” He chuckled. “Thanks to you, the success of my future efforts is all but guaranteed.”

  Glurrik stopped and turned for one last word.

  “Put up your very best fight,” he said. “I expect nothing less from you.” Then he continued walking until he vanished into the woods south of town.

  CHAPTER 20

  Several minutes later the jallavirms released Billy, Ana, and Mei Jun and scurried out of Huaqing at lightning speed. Within seconds the three of them were the only ones left in the village. Billy and Ana ran to salvage whatever weaponry they could from the van. Most of it had been severely damaged. Fortunately Ana had taken the precaution of creating a stash outside the van, and this weaponry was unscathed.

  “He’s setting us up for one final battle, a battle he knows we can’t win,” said Billy as he loaded hortch grenades into a wooden crate. “We’ve got to get across that bridge. We’ll be sitting ducks in Huaqing. He knows it’s a dead end once you’re on this side of the bridge. That’s the only reason he chose this town in the first place: it’s a perfect laboratory for his big experiment.”

  They grabbed as much weaponry as they could carry—Mei Jun included—and began making their way across the bridge. Just as they reached the other side, they heard a sickeningly familiar sound.

  Krrm krrm krrm

  “Rogmashers,” said Ana. “A lot of them, by the sound of it.”

  “I knew it,” said Billy. “He’s had them waiting in the woods the whole time, ready to cut us off.”

  Sure enough, as they made their way around a bend in the road, they saw no fewer than seven rogmashers already in place, blocking the way out of town. A growing battalion of rogmashers was already joining them, emerging from the forest by twos and threes.

  “He’s got a whole army of them!” said Ana as she and Billy and Mei Jun came to a stop.

  “Of course he does,” said Billy. “That’s the whole plan, isn’t it? Bring the Affys in for a creatch op. Fool them into thinking they’ve succeeded. Then bring on the real threat when they’re least prepared to defend themselves. He’ll get AFMEC’s best and brightest right where he wants them, then: wham! If he pulls it off, he could gut the organization’s ranks in a single day.”

  Krrrrm krrrrm krrrrm

  The rogmashers were beginning to march forward up the road to Huaqing. There were now more than a dozen of them.

  Mei Jun was beginning to look ill. The color had gone from her face. She grabbed Billy and Ana by the arms. “We’ve got to get back to the village! Hide inside one of the buildings!”

  “We’ll go back to the village, all right,” said Billy as the three of them turned around and began running back to the bridge, “but we’re not going to hide anywhere. Those rogmashers will flatten every building in town by the time this is over.”

  “So what else can we do?” said Ana. “There’s no way we can take on all those rogmashers by ourselves.”

  “We’re going to have to at least try,” said Billy. “I say we go to the temple and make our last stand there. The rogmashers will come in for the kill. We hit them with everything we’ve got. If we lose the fight, we lose the fight. But at least we’ll take a few of Glurrik’s thugs down with us.”

  “That plan,” said Ana, “is about as close to suicidal as I’ve ever heard.”

  “You like it, eh?”

  “Love it.”

  Billy, Ana, and Mei Jun dashed across the bridge and began rummaging through what was left of the equipment in the van.

  “Billy, I’ll need every last one of those paragglian bolts. Where did you put the extras?”

  Billy retrieved the scuffed-up case. Ana squinted at it, confused. “That’s not right. Paragglian bolts come in a smaller case than that.”

  KRRRM KRRRM KRRRRM

  There was no time to discuss it. “Come on, we’ve got to get to the temple and set up shop.” Billy grabbed the case in one arm and a crate of hortch grenades in the other. Mei Jun and Ana split the paragglian crossbows and glaff rifles between them. Then the three of them made their way through the streets of Huaqing to the temple.

  Mei Jun led them to a balcony near the roof where they would have a clear view of any approaching rogmashers. Looking across the rooftops, they saw more of the towering beasts emerge from the forest on the other side of the bridge. The rogmasher batallion numbered twenty in all: enough to destroy even a seasoned crew of Affys, to say nothing of a pair of its youngest members and their civilian assistant.

  Billy’s mind was racing as he laid out the modest array of paragglian crossbows, glaff rifles, and hortch grenades they’d managed to bring with them. There was no getting around it. Glurrik had worked out all the angles: No way of calling in backup. No transport out of town. Too little weaponry for the job. Way too little manpower.

  “Ana,” said Billy as the first of the rogmashers began marching across the bridge, “how many rogmashers do you think you can take down with that crossbow?”

  “Plenty,” said Ana. “I’ve got some bad news for you, though. Whatever’s in that case, it’s not paragglian bolts. You grabbed the wrong thing, Billy. I’m sorry, but you did.”

  KRRRRM KRRRM KRRRRM

  The rogmashers were making their way through the village, some of them stomping right through the roofs of houses on their way to the temple. They were taking their time, secure in the knowledge that they had their prey cornered. Even moving slowly, though, they’d be at the doorstep of the temple within minutes.

  Billy unlocked the case and threw it open. There was nothing inside but a heavy khaki-colored bundle of cloth, with straps and cords hanging off it.

  A parachute. I grabbed a freakin’ parachute instead of the ammo.

  He closed the case and saw at once that the scuffed-up label that he’d thought was PARA and the first part of a G was, in fact, half of PARACHUTE, not PARAGGLIAN BOLTS.

  Oh, man, are we hosed. We are so hosed.

  “There are three spare bolts on the underside of one of the crossbows,” said Ana. “That’s it. That’s all we’ve got.”

  The rogmashers were already beginning to close in on the temple.

  Billy and Ana kept up as steady a volley of fire as
they could, blasting the rogmashers with their glaff rifles and hurling hortch grenades whenever possible. There was no stopping the onslaught, though. The rogmashers were going to reach the temple eventually.

  There’s got to be another way out of Huaqing.

  Billy’s mind raced. He tried to picture the map Mei Jun had shown them on the table the day before.

  The village. The road. The temple. The …

  … dotted line.

  The dotted line. It led away from the temple and over the side of the cliff. It was a footpath. It had to be.

  Billy turned to Ana. “Give me five seconds. I’ve got to check something out.”

  Billy climbed a support beam and crawled to the highest reaches of the temple roof. When he got to the top, he had a clear view of the narrow strip of land between the temple and the cliff. A crude stone wall had been constructed at the edge where the ground began to drop off. There, in the very spot on the map where the dotted line had been drawn, was a gap in the wall, and crumbling steps curving down and away.

  Yes!

  Billy slid back down the roof and jumped to the balcony.

  “Mei Jun, you need to get out of here before things really heat up,” he said.

  Mei Jun shook her head. “I can’t leave you two alone like this. I’ve got to help out somehow.”

  “We’ll be leaving too,” said Billy, “just a little after you. Now listen. There’s a trail there at the very edge of the cliff. I saw it marked on the map you showed us the other day. It goes about half a mile straight north out of the village. After that it’s going to get awfully steep—and who knows what kind of condition it’s in—but at least it’ll get you out of Huaqing and maybe even all the way down to the valley. Ana and I will stay here and see how many more rogmashers we can take out. Then we’ll meet you on the trail.”

  “But, Billy,” said Mei Jun, “I can’t leave you and Ana here by yourselves battling so many rogmashers. It’s far too dangerous.”