The Invasive

by Michael Hodges

  Yutu panted and bolted up the trail, anxious to follow the scent.

  The new path was better, leading to a narrow and disorienting notch that allowed access to the northern side of Kilbrix Peak. They shimmied through, their packs catching on sharp extrusions. When they crossed the mountain, a clear view to the north opened up to them for the first time.

  Wickedly, the Hoodoos rose, the place where Bishop had watched the big fliers travel to from the apartment window on Main Street. There were eight separate peaks, but peaks would be too kind a word. These were twisted and mangled spires, seeming to violate all rules of physics, each one bent and lightning-blasted into a narrow tower of rock, all the while reaching for the sky as if the gnarled hands of some disfigured entity begging for forgiveness.

  Colbrick unfolded the map and tapped it with a scarred finger, indicating a sheltered cirque between the eight warped spires.

  “There we are,” Colbrick said, frowning. “This used to be all ice.”

  Although the Apex Range was bathed in sunlight, an unexplainable, dense vapor clung to the Hoodoos, like their own private weather. The vapor wafted in-between the twisted peaks, and for a moment, Bishop thought he saw the flash of a blue lightning bolt.

  At least two miles of uneven and dangerous saddle separated them from the Hoodoos.

  “Jesus,” Angela said, grabbing Bishop’s hand with her own trembling one. “We have to go down to go up?”

  “Yup.”

  Yutu slowed, analyzing the scene and holding his nose into the fur-ruffling breeze. Yutu’s eyes crackled with curiosity and confidence. He did not want to enter the land he saw, but he felt a sense of duty to the people, even though he missed The Man. Yutu was beginning to sense that these people were the New Man and New Woman. He liked that very much, and the thought caused him to wag his tail.

  “Funny pooch,” Bishop said, bending down to pat Yutu on the head. Yutu looked up with loving eyes.

  “There lies our end,” Colbrick said, pointing to the Hoodoos.

  “Come on,” Angela said. “Don’t you think we’re all thinking that? Any need to vocalize it?”

  “No, suppose not.”

  “Let’s do this,” Bishop said, following Yutu.

  The group headed north down Kilbrix Peak to the rough saddle stretching out before them, and towards the imposing Hoodoos.

  Bishop thought he saw another flash of blue light behind the swirling vapor.

  There was no turning back. Back there lie monsters. Ahead lie monsters as well, but mixed in there somewhere was a chance—one they had to reach for not unlike the gnarled spires of the Hoodoos.

  The Saddle

  The saddle connecting the mangled southern portion of the range to the uniform northern portion was ravaged with boulders and daunting maze-like sections where an unlucky person could disappear. The group huddled inside one of the stone mazes, peering into a crevice that could easily swallow them into its promise of pain and blackness.

  Angela flipped on her headlamp, revealing moist rock walls and intermittent lichen. Water trickled far below.

  “There’s water down there,” she said.

  Yutu peered into the crevice and titled his head.

  “No way to get it,” Colbrick said. “And we’re not too far from Hoodoo Creek.”

  “Not sure I want to drink anything from that area,” Bishop said.

  “Good point,” Angela said. “Please hand me your sleeping bag sack.”

  Bishop rustled around in his pack and handed the black nylon sack to her, and Angela placed several rocks inside it.

  “Colbrick, the rope please?” Angela asked, gesturing with an open palm.

  Colbrick unhitched the rope from a hook on his pack and handed it to her. Angela tied the stuff sack drawstring around the rope, placed two rocks inside and lowered the device into the crevice. Bishop and Angela watched the sack sink into the ether while Colbrick remained on guard. A splash came from below, and the rope grew taut. Angela waited until the pressure grew, then pulled the rope up.

  “Get your bottles ready,” she said.

  Yutu circled them. He was thirsty too.

  The stuff sack rose from the depths bloated and leaking water. Angela kept it in the air by the rope as Bishop held a cooking pot underneath. Yutu went to his hind legs, almost dancing, and caught the leaking drops in his mouth.

  “Ta-da,” Angela said, beaming.

  “Where’d you learn how to do this?” Bishop asked.

  “I thought of it in the tent,” she said. “I wanted to leave out pans and bottles during the storm, but there’s no way they wouldn’t have blown off the mountain. So this was plan B.”

  “Nice work, miss,” Colbrick said.

  “Thank you.”

  Soon, they were enjoying the fresh, cool water. So was Yutu, as he lapped at the bowl Angela set out for him. She went down to pet him, and her headlamp caught a glint in the abyss. She stared into the black. A pair of eyes with triplicate pupils blinked back. She gasped and grabbed Bishop’s arm, then pointed at the eyes.

  Bishop recognized the eyes quite well, unfortunately. “Time to move on,” he said.

  “What is it?” Angela asked, trembling.

  “Burrowers,” Bishop said. “Like the ones in the bunker at Big J.”

  Colbrick aimed his shotgun and then pulled it back. “I ain’t wasting a bullet on those God damned things,” he said. “They can’t get us here anyway.”

  The eyes disappeared, and a faint chittering rose up to them.

  “Disgusting,” Angela said, putting a hand to her stomach.

  “We’ll just run the water through the filters,” Colbrick said. “Up this high, you don’t normally need to do that—the filters protect against Giardia, and not many things shit or die in the streams up here.”

  They collected what water they could from the pans and moved on, leaving the slab maze behind.

  The path was a joke, and they followed the punch line, for they had no choice. Yutu traveled as best he could, his nose pointing at the Hoodoos the entire time, using his front legs like arms to pull onto rocks. Things were going as planned. They were making progress.

  Then, surprisingly, Yutu stopped.

  He curled into a ball next to a protruding slab. Angela gave him a milk bone and some water, but the pooch did not eat or drink.

  “He’s exhausted,” Bishop said, unhooking his pack and laying it on the ground.

  “That’s four of us,” Angela said.

  The Hoodoos reared up before them, closer than ever, the scarred spires reaching and twisting through the vapor.

  “A mile,” Colbrick said.

  “That’s nothing,” Bishop said.

  Angela patted Yutu, but he did not wag his tail, his slumber was too deep.

  Bishop, Angela, and Colbrick waited for their lovable and trustworthy trail leader. For however long it took.

  Clouds passed overhead, taking on shades of pink and red as the sun dipped behind the horizon.

  When the vivid sunset reached its peak, Yutu woke, yawning. The pooch rose, ate his milk bone and lapped at the water. He trotted over to Angela and Bishop, placed his muzzle upon their laps, wagged his tail and whimpered great, gushing whimpers of joy and love.

  And then Yutu sprinted away from them.

  He did not want to, but he had to. This much he understood.

  “Yutu, boy, where you going?” Bishop said.

  “Yutu, come back!” Angela shouted, her brow furrowing, her face reddening.

  Yutu continued to sprint, never looking behind, his fur ruffling in the wind, his ears flopping.

  “Bishop, do something!” Angela shouted through tears.

  Bishop dropped his pack and ran after the pooch as fast as he could, but Yutu sprinted on, for dogs have much higher endurance and speed than humans. It was pointless.

  Bishop fell to his knees amid the crumbling talus and put his hands over his face. “Yutu, come back, buddy!” he said through sobs, rocking on h
is knees, furious at the world and wondering what had prompted Yutu to run away from them after they had saved his life and cared for him. He thought they were a team, thought they would finish this together.

  As Angela and Bishop cried, Colbrick let loose a masterful dog whistle, and the intentions of Yutu became clear: the pooch was not abandoning them. Yutu barked and snarled, unleashing a tone and harshness that rivaled his desperate vocalizations at the burning apartment, each bark reverberating off the rugged saddle and up towards the Hoodoos.

  Bishop watched helplessly, the talus cutting into his knees. His nerves were inundated with dread, and when he looked to the Hoodoos, he knew that whatever was squatted in the cirque would hear those desperate barks.

  Yutu continued to sprint away from them, heading down the saddle to the valley and forest. The brave Yutu never let up, barking until his vocal chords strained. Bishop felt his heart rip out of his chest and all the sadness of the world fill the empty space. He watched the beloved dog he rescued from certain death run off into what could only be a torturous end in one final act of courage. Bishop wept from sadness, but also because he was grateful and proud. Yutu was attracting the fliers so the group could get to the seed mother. This will be his legacy.

  A hero.

  Bishop ran back to Angela and Colbrick, stumbling over the shale.

  “Seek shelter now!” he said, ushering them behind the vertical slab where Yutu had slept earlier.

  Angela and Colbrick dropped their packs in case they needed to run and hunkered behind the slab. Bishop peeked around the slab at the Hoodoos and gripped his shotgun. Billowing puffs separated from the spire-impaled vapor, and his jaw dropped when the puffs roiled and were consumed by a nauseating green. Vapor curled off enormous wings and uncurled. A deadly beak framed by swirling mist opened wide, releasing a call that caused healthy men to plead for deafness. The massive wings flapped, and the last of the Hoodoo vapor streamed off the tips, passing over dozens of green-eyed devils on the giant flier’s back like fiendish headlights upon a foggy road. The giant flier’s eyes scanned the saddle, searching for the barking source. Its shadow ghosted over the boulders and slabs like a jetliner too close to a city.

  Yutu continued barking, his voice growing hoarse.

  The giant flier maneuvered to the sound, pounding the air, gawking with its plate-sized eyes, turning in a way it shouldn’t be able to turn. After correcting course, it zeroed in on poor Yutu who was having trouble scrambling down the saddle to the forestland.

  Bishop sat, clenching rocks and sand in his fists. There was nothing he could do, nothing that anyone could do. If he fired a shot, the fliers would focus on them, and they were as good as dead. Besides, firing a shot wouldn’t have the slightest effect on such a large creature. Pointless. But Yutu’s likely death needn’t be. They needed to take full advantage.

  “Let’s go,” Bishop said, fighting off tears. “Yutu’s death will not be in vain.”

  Angela hugged him and sobbed against his chest. Bishop pried her off, and they shimmied into their packs, then moved towards the Hoodoos as fast as the terrain would allow.

  They could still hear barking as they hiked, and Bishop couldn’t help but glance towards the east, and in the dimming light, he made out a faint, white figure sprinting into the valley. Fifty feet behind the pooch was a seething cloud of small fliers, their green eyes like fireflies, the looped mimicry of Yutu’s barks bouncing off the talus. The giant flier thundered down the slope behind them, its beak held open.

  Then at once, the real barking stopped, and Yutu disappeared.

  Only the looped mimicry and glowing eyes remained.

  Darkness swallowed the land and their hearts.

  “Goodbye my friend,” Bishop said. “Goodbye.”

  *

  Angela and Bishop held hands as they worked along the saddle. With the sun gone, the Hoodoos emitted an unsettling, blue luminance that cast eerily across the terrain, inferring alien landscape. With each strengthening shade of peripheral darkness, the light between the gnarled spires intensified, each droplet of vapor holding luminance. The air near the spires was humid, like back home in Chicago. The temperature also increased, and as the vapor engulfed them, vague noises floated down from the Hoodoo cirque.

  “This is it,” Colbrick said, spitting. “We need to find a low point in-between the spires, drop down and kill this bastard.” Colbrick looked to the ground and grew quiet.

  A rivulet of magenta fluid seeped into a fissure.

  “Hold up a second, folks,” he said, holding out his hand.

  Colbrick worked his way downslope for twenty yards and then waved to Angela and Bishop, who shuffled to him.

  “What is it?” Bishop asked.

  “Looks like a graveyard.”

  Scattered bones of numerous creatures littered the rocks. Dead tags were swept into the crevasses. One skeleton looked like a six-limbed fish, but it had unusual fins, like the Coelacanth fish of the Colcomo Islands in the Indian Ocean. Its mouth was uneven, with an elongated lower jaw beset by sharp teeth. Bishop couldn’t take his eyes off it. If that had gotten into the rivers and streams…

  They heard whooshing as something rained down on them. Small creatures leaped from hiding places, bounced around, caught whatever it was with sticky tongues, and then disappeared.

  “What was that?” Bishop asked.

  Colbrick picked up one of the small objects and examined it.

  “Looks to me like a seed,” he said. “Harsh terrain for plants up here.”

  The uneaten seeds lay on the barren soil, and Bishop kicked at them. “Good, we don’t want any alien plants either. But, we must be getting closer.”

  Colbrick moved one slow step at a time ahead of them and then put his hand up again. “We got something else,” he said, bending towards the ground for a closer look.

  “Now what?” Bishop asked, taking Angela’s hand and moving towards Colbrick.

  “It’s like an inverted groundhog burrow,” Colbrick said, examining the bulging rock and dirt with fervor. He took a jagged rock and dug into the structure, and an oil-like substance slathered out.

  A squeal came from inside the mound. After a minute of digging, the structure was exposed, and they backed away. Synthetic matter filled the burrow. There appeared to be a skinless, oversized elephant trunk laid inside it. Inky fluid in pulsating veins trickled downhill. Colbrick took his knife and stabbed it, punching through tough, muscular fiber before easily passing through the middle of the elongated object. The wound belched a rotten stench.

  “It’s hollow,” Colbrick said, twisting the knife out. As he did, a wail erupted from their side of the Hoodoo cirque.

  Bishop checked to see if anything was coming.

  “What do you mean it’s hollow?” Angela asked, her face lit by the unusual twilight.

  “Hollow like a straw,” Colbrick said. “It’s also made out of some kind of synthetic material. It’s not muscle and guts as far as I can tell.”

  Another wail.

  As they observed the grotesque tube, it glistened and produced more fluid. Their eyes grew wide when a bulging object squelched down the tube like a rat being worked down the midsection of a snake. The bulge passed out of view under dirt and rock, heading downhill.

  “Come on,” Colbrick said, ushering them. “Let’s see where this comes out.”

  They didn’t have to go far. Forty yards down mountain, the burrow emptied onto a ledge that overlooked the valley. Fluid dripped from the gaping hole and a tangled mess of membranes and tenuous fibers dangled from the opening. Muffled squealing emanated from the tube exit, which opened and closed in an involuntary manner like a urethra orifice. Below the mess was a mat of unknown plant material. It almost looked like cabbage leaves, but much darker. Gold and red flecked the broad leaves which seemed to form a cushion.

  “Ever seen a plant like that up here?” Bishop asked.

  “Hell no,” Colbrick said, kicking at it with his boot.


  “Do you smell that?” Bishop asked, holding a hand over his mouth and nose.

  “It smells like them,” Colbrick said, spitting at the hole.

  A gurgling slime piped down the tube, and they waited with staring eyes.

  “Jesus,” Angela said, preparing to fire her pistol and run at the same time.

  “Clear away,” Colbrick said.

  They moved to the sides of the ledge, watching with the eyes of pigs that see the farmer coming with the ax. The sloppy cadence grew steadier, louder, panicking them when it began to hum and sling through the tube.

  “It’s coming faster!” Angela said, gripping her .357 and backing away.

  The tube quivered and spat out a bucketful of slop, and without warning, the object exited from the hole and shot into the valley, shimmering with a blue radiance.

  “A freaking seed,” Angela said. “Like the Pilea microphylla.”

  “The what?” Colbrick asked.

  “The artillery plant,” Angela said. “It shoots its seeds like projectiles.”

  They watched the gelatinous ball tumble out of sight.

  “Where the hell do you think it landed?” Bishop asked.

  Colbrick turned to him. “Who says it landed?”

  The tube sputtered and dripped, and a winding noise came from deep within its dank passageway, although the noise was less intense.

  “Uh, guys, another one is coming,” Angela said, her voice uneven, her forehead flecked with sweat.

  “There ain’t shit coming,” Colbrick said. He took a softball-sized rock and plugged it into the hole, triggering the membranes and fibers to instinctively grab his hand. “Son of a bitch!” he shouted, yanking his hand back.

  “You OK?” Angela asked.

  Bishop examined Colbrick’s fingers and noticed numerous bumps popping up like extreme mosquito bites. There were also mild burns.

  Colbrick cursed and tried to shake the pain away, his good hand grabbing the burned one by the wrist.