MECH

by Tim Marquitz

  Gabe couldn’t speak, couldn’t even think. What he was seeing couldn’t be happening. He checked for the TV station’s bug in the corner, hoping the channel had somehow been switched to a horror flick. No such luck. It was KXMC, and that nearly hysterical reporter was Maggie Flynn.

  When the thing stood up, the nurse began to sob, then ran from the room. He heard her retching in the hall. He thought he might join her.

  Scale was hard to determine, but he guessed it was forty feet tall. It was shaped like a man, a big one, muscular, but its skin was crusted with rocks that looked like the ones he’d seen so many times on the museum’s walls and in its specimen displays. When it looked right at the camera, Gabe saw that its eyes were two of the museum’s prized lapidary spheres, one amethyst and the other—the one Bree had called one of the most gorgeous things she’d ever seen—lapis lazuli.

  Its face wore no expression, and its posture didn’t threaten.

  Still, terror held Gabe fast in its grip.

  Then, it started to walk.

  Gabe made it to the visitor’s chair at Bree’s bedside and collapsed into it. Michael sank to the floor. They both watched the TV, rapt.

  The stone man took great strides, shaking the earth every time a foot landed on it. Maggie and her camera operator dashed for their news van and after a brief, on-air squabble, she got in behind the wheel. The van followed the thing, the camera held out the window to capture its every move. Gabe recognized 38th Street, and Maggie tried to narrate its journey as the van bounced along. It wasn’t long before he spotted an oil rig and some oil silos in the background of the shot, and the giant made straight for them.

  Police cars rocketed past the news van, their sirens cutting off Maggie’s choppy narration. As if intuiting the titan’s goal, the police formed a blockade in front of the rig, and officers spilled out of their cars armed with shotguns and automatic rifles. Gunfire started as the thing closed in on them. The van veered around it, trying to get a good shot of the cops and their target. Maggie let out an on-theair profanity when she saw bullets ricocheting off its rocky hide, but Gabe doubted anybody was going to complain.

  He sat spellbound as the scene played out on the screen. The monster ignored the gunshots and stepped on one squad car, crushing its rear end. Cops scattered. The giant stepped up to the rig, arms out almost as if to embrace it, but its hug was crushing. It wrenched the thing from its moorings and used it as a club to smash the silos, soaking itself in crude.

  Michael turned to Gabe, his face white. “Dude, you really think I had something to do with that?”

  In the long hours that followed, Gabe barely left Bree’s room. Her condition continued to deteriorate, though she hadn’t convulsed again after the sedatives the doctor had given her. He sat by her bedside, watching 24/7 news coverage of the “Parshall Titan,” as the national media had dubbed it. But Maggie Flynn and the local KXMC crew called it “Inyan,” after the primordial male stone spirit of Lakota and Dakota Sioux mythology, and now Gabe could only think of the rampaging elemental as a he.

  Although he wasn’t really sure it qualified as a rampage. After destroying the rig and silos on 38th Street, Inyan had suddenly stopped moving. The National Guard had been called in, and Inyan stood immobile amidst the wreckage, unfazed by the military vehicles moving into position around him. Speculation as to what he wanted, and why he’d stopped, was rampant across every channel Gabe flipped through, but while there were a myriad of theories—CIA, Al-Qaeda, the Gaia Hypothesis embodied—it was all just guesswork and spin, and Gabe soon tired of it. He muted the volume and pulled out his phone, opening Facebook to Bree’s page. Her timeline was full of get well wishes from classmates, coworkers, No Fracking Way members, distant cousins, even her first grade teacher. He started reading them aloud to her, hoping the outpouring of love would somehow penetrate her coma, giving her the strength and encouragement to fight her way back to consciousness.

  “See how many people rely on you, look up to you? You touch so many lives, Bree, inspire so many. They need you here, present in both body and mind.” He held her hand while he spoke, gazing earnestly into her face, trying to will her back to him. “I need you, Bree. Please. Please don’t leave me here alone. I couldn’t stand it.”

  For a moment, he thought he’d gotten through to her. Her hand twitched in his, and she grimaced as if in pain. Then her arms and legs started moving jerkily, in an oddly synchronous fashion, almost as if she were dreaming of walking, as a dog dreams of running.

  Excited, he refreshed Facebook, hoping there were more comments he could read to her. Instead, his feed was suddenly full of updates on Inyan. The Parshall Titan was waking.

  He turned to the muted set to see that the elemental was indeed on the move, walking slowly westward along 38th Street, batting Humvees out of the way like a bored toddler wading through toys that no longer held interest. There were two more oil rigs a mile farther down the road, and Gabe guessed those must be Inyan’s new targets.

  Something about the elemental’s movements bothered Gabe, like a word dancing on the tip of his tongue. But before he could pinpoint the source of his unease, the door to Bree’s room opened. He turned to see Bree’s grandfather, Joseph Little Feather, enter the room, an abalone shell smudge bowl in one hand and a tattered smudging feather in the other.

  Gabe rose from his seat.

  “Grandfather,” he said respectfully, moving aside so the old man could stand beside his granddaughter’s bed.

  A nurse poked her head in before the door could swing shut.

  “Remember, Mr. Little Feather—no smudging. There are no smoke detectors in the rooms, but obviously we have a strict nosmoking policy. And we will know about it.”

  Joseph nodded and smiled at her, which the pink-clad woman apparently mistook for consent because she left, pulling the door all the way closed behind her.

  “Gabe. It’s good you are here,” he said. He wore jeans, a denim shirt with pearl snaps, boots, and a big turquoise belt buckle. The outfit pegged him more for a cowboy than an Indian, except for the fringed and beaded buckskin vest that he was never without, a piece any Native museum worth its salt would pay thousands to have. It was more than a century old, still soft and supple as the day it had been handed to Joseph Little Feather’s own grandfather as a wedding gift. “Tell me what happened.”

  Gabe told him about the protest and Bree’s insistence that the train would stop before it reached her. About how he and Michael had tried to pull her away, but she got loose and ran back, like some Native Teen Angel. About the seizures that the doctors still couldn’t explain.

  Joseph was silent as Gabe spoke, and when he was finished, the old man had only one question.

  “Where did that feather come from?”

  Gabe frowned. He’d just told Bree’s grandfather that his granddaughter might not ever wake up from her coma, and the man wanted to know about some stupid feather? Maybe he was starting to go senile.

  “Van Hook. Why?”

  Joseph shook his head, a look of deep concern creasing his face.

  “Van Hook is a place of anger and ill will since the flooding. The earth there is angry at the white man’s intrusions, first with the dam, and now with the oil. Nothing good can come from that place, as you have now witnessed. Take it off her.”

  Gabe moved around to the other side of the bed, not understanding Joseph’s vehemence, but not willing to question it. Despite all the modern day advancements on the reservation, Gabe had been raised with a reverence for the old ways that he could not easily push aside, even in the face of technology and science that said such things were irrational.

  But as he reached for the feather, Bree’s movements became more violent, and her arm swung up to knock his away.

  “Stop,” Joseph said sadly, shaking his head. “It’s too late.”

  Gabe wanted to ask “too late for what?” but at that same moment, he realized what had been bothering him about Inyan’s movements—they mirro
red Bree’s movements exactly.

  He looked to the TV, and then back to her, sure he must be wrong.

  He wasn’t. When Bree’s left leg came up, Inyan’s left leg moved forward. The same with the right. But…that was impossible. Wasn’t it?

  Joseph just shrugged matter-of-factly when Gabe pointed it out to him.

  “Bree comes from a bloodline sensitive to the spirit world. This coma they’ve induced has shut down her higher brain functions, severing the link between spirit and body. Her spirit is now free to join with—bond with—that of the angry earth. To guide it to exact vengeance on those who have defiled it one too many times.”

  Gabe scoffed, unwilling to buy that far into Joseph’s world. He’d prove the old man—and his own burgeoning fears—wrong. The seeming synchronicity of movement was a coincidence, nothing more.

  He held Bree’s legs down so they couldn’t move, then looked at the TV screen.

  Inyan’s legs had stopped moving, though the titan’s arms still swung back and forth in time with Bree’s.

  With a horrified gasp, Gabe let go, and both Bree and Inyan began moving again.

  He and Joseph watched, spellbound, as Inyan reached the two oil rigs. The elemental destroyed them as he had the first, his actions and those of the troops who tried to stop him playing out in an eerie silence punctuated only by the rapid beeping of Bree’s many monitors.

  Then the pink-clad nurse hurried in and administered another sedative to Bree, stilling both her and the creature Gabe could no longer doubt she controlled.

  Over the next few days, Gabe and Joseph stayed close, spelling each other for occasional bathroom or food breaks. Joseph had rented a motel room nearby where they could take showers once in a while. Gabe dozed from time to time, curled up in the guest chair or stretched out on the floor next to her bed. But most of his hours were spent sitting beside her, stroking her hand or her forehead, talking to her in low tones about whatever drifted into his sleep-deprived mind. Nights were the worst; long, quiet stretches during which he felt trapped inside an antiseptic-scented bubble, with only the electronic beeps and chimes of machines and the squeak of rubber-soled shoes to break the stillness.

  The whole time, he tried to ignore the stone in his chest that he feared would collapse into cold emptiness if he lost her.

  Her seizures came more frequently and, with them, Inyan wreaked havoc over the oil fields. Gabe followed the news with only mild interest. Bree’s condition was much more immediate and alarming to him. Besides, Inyan was restricting his attacks to oil rigs and associated equipment, and he gave people plenty of time to get out of the way. Bree wanted to end the drilling and fracking, not hurt anyone and, so far, her goals and Inyan’s seemed aligned.

  Or so he told himself, until the third day. Bree suddenly spasmed in her bed, then started jerking around, kicking off her covers and nearly yanking out her tubes. Joseph had gone down to the hospital cafeteria for a cup of coffee, so Gabe was alone. He tried to calm her, tried to hold her still, but her strength seemed to be growing. Where was that nurse? Only sedation could quiet Bree now.

  He remembered the call button, looped around a rail of her bed, and lunged for it. But as soon as he raised it, Bree’s arm slashed out, striking his hand and ripping the button from its cord. It flew across the room and bounced off the wall. Instinctively, Gabe crouched and picked it up, although he had no way to reattach it. When he stood, the TV caught his eye.

  He froze. Inyan had moved away from the oil fields. An aerial shot showed his path, which reminded Gabe of footage he had seen of the destruction wrought by massive Midwestern tornadoes. The giant had torn through farm fields, obliterating barns and homes. While Gabe watched, Inyan tossed tractors and threshers around as easily as an autumn wind scattered fallen leaves.

  Gabe punched up the sound. “…three injured and two still missing when Inyan unexpectedly demolished an occupied drilling platform,” Maggie Flynn said. “Since then, it’s moved away from the oil patch and has been cutting a swath through nearby farmlands…”

  A shadow approached the door. Gabe hoped it was the nurse—if she didn’t show up soon, he would have to leave Bree alone and go find her—but instead, Joseph walked in, carrying a steaming cup. “They have pretty good coffee, for a hospital,” he said. Then he saw the look on Gabe’s face. “What?”

  Gabe ticked his chin toward the TV. “Oh,” Joseph said when he’d looked. “That’s bad.”

  “He hasn’t killed anyone. Yet. But at this rate…”

  “Yes.”

  Gabe looked at Bree, who had calmed even without sedation. She still moved, but mere twitching, not the furious motion of moments ago. On TV, Inyan was quieter, too, ambling along, arms swinging easily at his sides.

  As Gabe watched, the elemental made an abrupt turn, heading off at a 70-degree angle from his former path. “Inyan has suddenly veered in a new direction,” Maggie reported. “It’s heading west-southwest.”

  “Back toward the old Van Hook site,” Joseph said. “Where that damned feather came from.”

  Gabe tried to picture the geography. “Eventually, maybe. From where he is, first he’d have to go through Brendle’s Bay Resort.”

  “I thought that closed.”

  “It did,” Gabe said. “But now it’s one of the biggest man camps around for the fracking operations. There are hundreds of people living there.”

  “They have time to get out, maybe.”

  “Maybe.” Gabe remembered the last time he’d been by there, fishing with friends. The former resort was right on Shell Creek. Prefab steel buildings had been erected to house more people than had ever enjoyed the resort. Not only was it full to the brim, but there were a lot of trucks around, propane tanks, gas pumps. If Inyan tore through that stuff, it would all wind up in the creek, fouling it for years. The creek emptied into Shell Creek Bay, then the Van Hook Arm of Lake Sakakawea, and finally the Missouri River. Bree might not object to drilling rigs being pulverized, but she loved that river.

  “We have to do something,” Gabe said. “Before Inyan reaches Brendle’s.”

  “We’re here. He’s there. What is that, fifty miles?”

  “Closer to seventy. But Bree’s here. She controls him.”

  “Or he controls her,” Joseph countered. “Hard to say which.”

  “Still…”

  “It’s that feather,” Joseph said. “Give it here.”

  Again, Bree’s arms tried to block Gabe from reaching the feather. This time he persevered, ignoring her blows, and managed to yank it off its leather thong. She stopped moving so abruptly that Gabe had to watch her chest to make sure she still breathed.

  Joseph had produced an ancient steel Zippo. When Gabe handed him the feather, he thumbed a flame into being and, holding the quill end, dipped the vane into the fire. It flared brightly for a moment, a tiny sun clutched in the old man’s weathered fingers. Then it was gone. He dropped the last bit of quill to the floor, where it sizzled briefly before disappearing into smoke, leaving only a tiny black streak on the linoleum.

  “That should break the connection between them,” Joseph said. “I think.”

  “If he’s headed for Van Hook, then you’re probably right.”

  They both turned to the TV. Inyan’s advance seemed to have come to a halt. An anxious glance at Bree showed Gabe that she was still, but alive. Maggie Flynn’s voice described the official confusion surrounding Inyan’s seeming paralysis, until a horrific, piercing shriek cut her words short. Even through the TV’s small speakers, the sound was awful. Gabe slapped his hands over his ears, but that didn’t help—now it seemed to be coming from all around him.

  He spun and saw Bree, her back arched into an almost unbelievable bow, arms behind her, rigid against the bed, her face distorted in an agonized rictus. Her mouth was open and the same horrible sound coming through the speakers emanated from her. The volume was closer to that of an ambulance’s siren than to any human utterance.

  She stopp
ed as suddenly as she’d started, but at the same time, her arms and legs started up again in choppy, jerking motions. On TV, Inyan did the same.

  A nurse charged into the room. “What was that?” she asked. Seeing Bree, she froze momentarily, then caught herself and stepped nearer. She released some of the sedative—they kept it connected all the time now, a plastic bag hanging from a hook beside her bed—into Bree’s IV.

  Nothing.

  It usually took effect almost immediately. Fifteen seconds, thirty at the outside, before there was some visible calming. But Bree just kept going. Gabe got a grip on her legs, holding them tightly against the mattress. He could barely restrain them, but he wanted to see what would happen if they stopped.

  Putting most of his weight on her, he stilled them and turned toward the TV. Inyan was on the move, the motion of his legs no longer tied to hers.

  “He doesn’t need her anymore,” Joseph said. “Needs her still breathing, maybe. Once he reaches Van Hook, maybe not even that.”

  An idea that had been slowly forming in Gabe’s mind but not quite coming together, like pieces of two separate puzzles mixed into one box, suddenly gelled. “Stay with her, Grandfather,” he said, snatching up Joseph’s smudge feather. “I have to try something.”

  “What?”

  “No time to explain. It probably won’t work, anyway.”

  Gabe mashed the accelerator to the floor, not worried about police because every law enforcement officer in the county was probably tied up with Inyan. The ancient truck shuddered in the wind that seemed to always rake the landscape, but it held onto North Dakota Highway 23 and ate up the miles to Parshall. He had the radio cranked to hear over the engine’s thunder and the nonstop wind. Inyan, the newscaster reported, was carving a straight path toward Brendle’s Bay. In the open fields outside of town, jets from Minot Air Force Base tried to stop him, strafing him with fire from their big guns, even loosing Hellfire missiles. The assault slowed him, the reporters said, but couldn’t bring him down. Maybe nothing could.