Slithers

by Mortensen, WW

  “I’m sorry… I didn’t know his plan… you need to stop him…he’s going to hurt her…”

  “Rachel?”

  “No…”

  No? If not Rachel, who?

  “…truck… he’s going back…”

  “Back to the truck? Back to the scene of the accident?”

  Tobe wondered if Tory was trying to make amends. Realising she was dying, maybe she was trying to make peace. Had she been under Ethan’s control all along, an unwitting partner to his crime? Tobe couldn’t be certain. She was no angel—that much he knew—but he got the feeling she was unaware of Ethan’s depravity, his capacity for murder, and wanted no part of either.

  An exhalation, almost a whistle, passed her lips, and as it did the coils tightened, squeezed even harder. Tory was asphyxiating. Gasping, she could no longer form words, and if indeed she felt pain, her ability to cry or scream was at that moment lost.

  Tonight, Tobe could bear no more suffering. In the adjacent room, various tools hung from the wall. He could retrieve a hammer or a screwdriver. He could end it.

  Fortunately, he didn’t need to. As he watched, wondering if he had the will or the courage to act, Tory breathed her last. Her eyes remained locked with his, but the light faded from them.

  Get back to the house.

  He tried to process Tory’s final words. Ethan was heading back to the scene of the accident. Why?

  You can still help Rachel.

  In his gut, Tobe knew Rachel was alive. Ethan needed her. For what reason, he did not know. But he had taken her, and he had taken Uncle David’s truck, too.

  Rachel is still alive.

  Of Sarah, though, there was no sign. She was gone; this, he knew in his gut also. Ethan had evidently hurt her; he’d hurt her because she hadn’t been able to help Tory. Whatever atrocity he had committed, whatever had transpired, Tobe prayed it had been quick. He realised he was sobbing uncontrollably and had probably been crying this entire time.

  Get back to the house, Tobe. Follow the path.

  He listened to the voice, caring not about the rain or the darkness or the beetles or his injuries, knowing he had to do as the voice instructed.

  As Scottie instructed.

  Tobe moved.

  He sensed his time was short.

  26

  Into the rain. Trailing blood.

  Scottie urged him on.

  Tobe wondered about the voice—Scottie’s voice. How could they communicate like this?

  We’ve always been able to do it, he thought.

  The air was no longer thick with bugs. Most of the creatures had settled on the ground, and many had sought refuge from the rain. Tobe weaved through those that still clogged the path, and staggered past the pool.

  As he did, the beam of his flashlight bobbled onto a dark shape huddled at its edge.

  As the light fell upon it, the shape moved, and Tobe jumped, nearly dropping the Maglite.

  It wasn’t human, nor was it an animal; at least, not an animal as Tobe knew them.

  Despite trembling hands, Tobe managed to settle the beam. Dark and mottled, the growth resembled a cluster of soap bubbles, only fleshy and opaque. It was faintly bioluminescent, and not dissimilar to a knot of giant mushrooms. The thing sat on the pool deck, nestled against the frameless glass pool fence as though it had seeped beneath it from outside and taken root inside. It pulsated—rising and then shrinking, inflating and deflating.

  Breathing?

  This was something new, a type of animal-plant-fungus he hadn’t seen before. He hadn’t seen it when he had gone this way earlier. In a short period of time, the thing had grown to a huge size, several feet wide at least. It was easy to imagine it endlessly bubbling and expanding like dough in an oven until its bloated mass broke free of the pool deck and spilled into the house.

  Tobe was cautious. The organism appeared simply to be a bizarre—admittedly large—fungal growth, but he suspected it was much more than that. He couldn’t know what strange abilities it might possess, how quickly it might move, or even how it might move should it wish to come for him. The creature that had attacked Brad had changed shape, and it had been quick.

  He cast his gaze rapidly about, searching the shadows for hidden predators.

  He saw none, and returned the beam to the thing on the pool deck. He kept it trained there, trying to piece everything together.

  Scottie had said this place, this room, was temporary. Perhaps this transitory existence was separated from the world that existed beyond it, or beside it, or around it, by no more than a thin membrane. The predatory other world, home to these strange and exotic organisms, was encroaching ever faster, seeping through the membrane at an accelerated rate, absorbing this place, feeding on it, breaking it down. Tobe knew that more of these alien life forms would appear, each stranger than the last, until the temporary world in which he and his friends found themselves was no more.

  Glancing about once more, back in the direction he had come, he saw no predators, only the slashing rain.

  The organism on the pool deck puffed up and exhaled. An unpleasant aroma, like rotten eggs, wafted from it.

  Get back to the house, Tobe.

  Pressing a hand to the knife wound, Tobe looked up at the house, still crawling with carrion beetles, and stumbled onto the patio and through the bi-folds.

  27

  He tracked blood into the kitchen.

  Under bright light, he examined the wound. It was life-threatening. How had he not slipped from consciousness? How was he still standing?

  I’ve got unfinished business… from the road.

  No time to patch himself up.

  Ethan had not entered the house. The doors were closed, as Tobe had left them.

  On the floor of the kitchen, Scottie lay unhurt. But he was still in a state of seizure, still disconnected. Murmuring, babbling, eyes rapidly twitching.

  Ethan’s exact movements since leaving the shed were unknown to Tobe, but his intention was not. Ethan was heading back to the scene of the accident—to the point of origin, to where the room had been birthed.

  To where the Big Bang had occurred.

  And from there, he would attempt to escape, as though through a valve.

  Kneeling beside his friend, Tobe had a flash of insight.

  You’re keeping the valve open, aren’t you Scottie? That’s why Ethan didn’t come for you. He needs you.

  Behind closed lids, Scottie’s eyes twitched.

  Why does he need Rachel, Scottie?

  No answer.

  Don’t let him through, Scottie, not until we get there. And when we do get there, I’ll need your help. You’re my lighthouse, Scottie. Always have been. I need you.

  With strength that seemed to come from some otherworldly source, Tobe lifted Scottie, looped Scottie’s arm around his neck, and headed for the internal garage.

  As they passed the dining room, Tobe snatched from the table the keys to Teesh’s Jeep.

  28

  Tobe hurtled towards Day Dawn. This time, he took a shortcut, chose roads and tracks he knew existed but earlier, could not confidently navigate in the dark. Now he knew precisely where to go.

  He sensed a change in the air.

  The room was deteriorating quickly now. Beyond it, beyond the membrane, the other world loomed—an ancient, primordial world, where things fed in the dark, existing only to break things down, to feed on detritus and death.

  Somehow, Scottie’s force of will—not merely the physical act of reaching for the steering wheel—had caused their world to link with the other via a temporary bridge, this waiting room, as Scottie had called it. Like an inflating balloon, they had bubbled into this place.

  Their only chance of survival was to get back through the valve.

  He looked over at Scottie, slumped against the door, his eyes moving behind their closed lids, behind his glasses. “Every time you disconnect, Scottie, you enter a room like this, don’t you? A temporary room, something jus
t for you, a place you visit, but return from. But this time was different. You saw further ahead, didn’t you? You had a premonition of what was to come, and you didn’t like it. You tried to change the outcome. Now you’re the lifeline between the worlds, between the seconds.”

  Tobe felt the bubble was deflating, the balloon returning to its regular, former shape—knew that time and space would soon return to the moment of the crash. The crash that should have happened, that did happen, that had always happened.

  Even if we pass back to the moment of our present, our future, our past… what awaits us?

  He expected no answer from Scottie, and none was forthcoming.

  They had to catch up to Ethan, and Rachel.

  Tobe put his foot down and the Wrangler accelerated into the darkness.

  29

  Tobe sped into the T-junction and performed a tight right hand turn. The Jeep’s tyres wailed in protest, and the right-side tyres lifted from the road—for a moment, his stomach rolling, he thought he would tip. Fortunately, the vehicle righted itself.

  Back in control, he accelerated through the rain, down a road bordered on both sides by endless rows of pines.

  Day Dawn Road.

  He glanced over at Scottie, who remained unresponsive. “See, I know where I’m going!”

  He jammed down on the accelerator, heading towards the crash site.

  A low rumble grew in the distance. Thunder… no, an earthquake…

  The membrane. It’s deflating.

  Move it!

  He sped up, and then shortly, came to the area he had been seeking. He hit the brakes, screeching to a halt.

  Down the slope, Ganson’s truck lay crumpled on its side, precisely where they’d discovered it prior to heading to the petrol station.

  “Scottie, we’re here! What now?”

  Tobe stared through the passenger-side window, past Scottie, down the gently sloping grassed area running from the road.

  He was expecting something momentous, something of note: dazzling lights, a swirling vortex, something—anything—to signify the presence of the valve, the opening through which they had entered, and could hopefully exit.

  What he saw was nothing like that.

  The truck’s battery hadn’t drained. Its headlights were still on, and blazed into what was no longer a forest of pines but impenetrable, primordial jungle.

  Ethan and Rachel weren’t here. Where were they? Had they passed through already?

  Were they too late?

  Tobe didn’t think so. Because he’d taken short cuts that Ethan would have no knowledge of, he was certain they’d beaten them here.

  Tobe started to reach for the door handle, but something stayed his hand. He blinked into the darkness, letting his eyes adjust. While the truck was in the same position, it wasn’t exactly as they had left it. What he thought were shadows, his mind now recognised as something else. The upright cab and the overturned trailer with its spilled load of sawlogs were covered in thick, dark vegetation. Where the rows of pines had been, was now a chaotic and dangerously dense jungle. Where there had been neat, straight lines and carefully-cultivated order created and tended by humans, where there had been sleepy, brooding silence, there was now disorder and vitality, a place where humans had no place.

  Nature had reclaimed the area, although in many respects, it was hardly natural.

  Every species here was non-indigenous, and highly-invasive.

  The jungle had consumed the pine plantation, creeping out to the truck, where clusters of black, blue-ringed and no doubt poisonous mushrooms, glowing with bioluminescence, had bloomed around and within it. Bloated fungus bubbled out of the wheel-rims and amongst the logs. Currently motionless, Tobe knew they jostled for position with their invading neighbours, notably the thick snake-like vines that had also grown—crept—over the truck like the woody fingers of a giant, gnarled hand. Tobe imagined the hand had skittered spider-like from the jungle to claim its prize.

  As he watched, the vines that clamped the cab tightened—a hand clenching into a fist—crumpling the cab like an aluminium can. Even from his position high up on the shoulder, the sound of glass shattering and metal screaming pierced the air, and then the vines heaved, uprooting the truck—cab, trailer and all—from where it had merged with the jungle, dragging the heavy vehicle across the last stretch of open ground and into the waiting, malevolent trees. Tobe saw these same trees snap and wave and shudder as they parted and made way for the steel carcass, and as it was dragged farther into their gloomy depths, many were uprooted themselves and sent crashing and tumbling to the poisoned earth, sending startled, alien shapes winging into the air. The headlights, almost extinguished, jolted up through the trees; they flickered once, twice, not unlike the lifeblood of a dying beast draining away, and then they were extinguished, and there was nothing but darkness and rain.

  Other than a few spilled sawlogs and a series of gouges scratched into the sodden, boggy earth, no evidence remained to suggest the truck had ever existed.

  It was gone.

  “Holy shit.”

  You need to move, Tobe.

  “Move where, Scottie? I thought we were here?”

  Back to the Kombi.

  “Shit! How could I have been so stupid?”

  There was a great whoosh of air—close, just above the roof of the Wrangler—and the Jeep shook gently.

  “What the hell?”

  In the rearview, Tobe caught a dark blur, something whizzing past the Jeep. He spun, but it was already gone, and had moved too fast to see detail. Another shadow passed directly overhead—in the gloom, he sensed it more than saw it—and as he twisted back to the front, wondering what the hell was going on, through the windshield, he glimpsed a third shape. It flew right to left, in the same direction as the others, and like them, disappeared into the dark jungle. But it had soared straight through his line of sight, and he’d gotten a good look at it.

  It was huge, maybe twelve feet from wingtip to wingtip.

  It wasn’t a bird. Maybe a bat. His mind drew the inevitable comparison with a pterodactyl. It wasn’t that either, because as fleeting as the glimpse had been, the gelatinous, shape-shifting quality hadn’t escaped his attention, and he was reminded of the creature that had attacked Brad.

  More dark shapes swooped by—an entire flock.

  The Wrangler shook with the changing air pressure.

  You need to move, Tobe!

  Tobe shifted his foot to the accelerator, but immediately realised his error.

  Oh no…

  He’d been held, transfixed by the sight of the truck’s reclamation—and the flying creatures—for too long. And the hesitation had condemned them.

  The Jeep’s headlights cut across the surface of road, which, not unlike a pond over which blew a gentle wind, was now rippling.

  “Oh my God,” Tobe said. “We’re cut off…”

  As he watched, the rippling grew more violent, as though some gargantuan thing simmered below the surface, struggling to burst out.

  This was it, the final deterioration of the temporary world.

  We’re not cut off, Tobe, but we have to move.

  Tobe did as he was told, accelerating as fast as he dared. The Jeep shuddered as if he were driving over a corrugated road.

  Before his eyes, the road started to rupture. As though scratched by giant, unseen talons, wounds opened in the asphalt.

  Gouges—like the gouges on Ganson, and Ressler and Tory, Tobe thought.

  Clearly, the bubble was retracting, and this temporary world was leaving with it, absorbed by the primordial reality beyond the barrier, beyond the membrane. The road, their existence, was losing integrity, losing form and shape. And if they remained here, it would take them along with it.

  “We can’t go back,” Tobe said. “Only forward.”

  He zigzagged to avoid the gouges. A crack like thunder sounded behind him, and in the rearview mirror he caught a rush of movement. The world, their fake reali
ty, sheared clear with a roar, like a calving iceberg. Pines on both sides of the road sloughed like collapsing skyscrapers to the ground, where they dissolved into nothingness and were replaced by jungle.

  With them went the road, liquefying behind him.

  The bubble was deflating ever faster.

  Now or never. He had to go all out. He accelerated, taking his chances with the road ahead, in order to avoid the road behind.

  Gripped by an earthquake, the blacktop opened from below. A huge rend appeared in front of them, the earth cracking open like a soft piece of fruit, pushing asphalt up and revealing the dirty flesh beneath. Tobe swerved around it. The tyres squealed. More wounds appeared, ejecting steam, as though a valve had opened in the bowels of the Earth. He wasn’t certain, but there appeared to be a fiery, red glow, too, and he imagined the Earth’s molten core had been exposed.

  The fissures widened. He wanted to pull over, pull off the road to avoid being swallowed whole, but he couldn’t stop. He could sense the membrane retracting, chasing them down from behind. Against all common sense, he sped up.

  More fractures opened in the road, splitting along the line of Day Dawn in the direction of travel, hairline at first, but widening like hungry, teeth-filled mouths, dozens appearing near each other, snapping in parallel. The main crack had become a crevasse wider than a car—big enough to swallow the Wrangler—and if he should make a mistake, zig instead of zag, he would drive straight into it, or any number of those yawning cracks, and straight into the pulsing crimson light emanating from below. But he couldn’t slow—he had to swerve and manoeuvre in and out, tyres wailing in protest, the car swinging side to side and threatening to overbalance, to maybe topple into one of those steamy, ragged mouths.

  There were too many to avoid.

  He had to get off the road. The jungle was looming, closer than ever, but he had to take his chances there.

  He aimed right, but as he did a huge fissure zigzagged along that edge of the road, streaking along like a land-bound bolt of lightning. Reflexively, he veered back the other way, toward the road’s left hand shoulder. The Jeep fishtailed. He loosened his grip so as not to oversteer. The back wheels struck a small crevice, and the Jeep bounced down, and for a moment he thought they would teeter into the cleft. The Jeep regained traction and he accelerated out.