Atom Town Book 2: Hands of the Swamp!

by Jason Scott Nebel

  She looked for anything. A weapon, a blunt object… There! In the airboat at the end of the pier was a fire extinguisher. Not much, but it would do.

  She rushed for the extinguisher but Pete was already behind her swinging the oar at her again.

  She braced for the hit!

  It didn't connect. Pete was holding the oar with both hands struggling to move.

  "Miss Adams?" he managed to utter. Pete was alive and battling his would-be puppeteer, Lefty.

  "Pete!" cried Eve.

  Lefty wasn't going to give up. The crawling hand began to shake. Shadow Rock embedded in his back began to grow. He was getting even stronger.

  "Well that's gross," said Eve.

  The dark circles around Pete's eyes returned.

  Eve rolled onto the boat and yanked the fire extinguisher out of its vice just in time to parry another oar aimed for her head.

  Pete forced her back onto the boat with several attacks. Eve managed to stop each one with the extinguisher, the last denting deep into the canister, nearly breaking it in half.

  She jumped to her feet and popped the pin out of the extinguisher's lock, spraying Pete in the face, blinding him!

  Of course, Pete wasn't the one in charge. Lefty was the puppet master, and to emphasize that point he made Pete spin the oar in a fanciful acrobatic display, transferring the spinning oar from hand to hand like a baton, then swung it down at Eve's feet.

  She had leapt over the strike, but the see-sawing boat, coupled with her unsteady equilibrium, the oar had caught one leg and dropped her hard onto the floor of the craft.

  She'd lost her wind on the fall but not her resourcefulness.

  Eve quickly seized the moment to spray lefty with the extinguisher!

  The little hand tumbled backwards, end over end, until the extinguisher finally ran out of juice.

  Pete's body teetered, then collapsed onto the pier.

  Eve rushed to the body to make sure he didn't fall into the water.

  "Miss Adams," he whispered. "If this is the end, I-"

  Eve's purse began to light up.

  "It's okay, Pete. Just relax," she said, resting his head on a blanket from the boat. "I'll be right back."

  Eve popped open her makeup compact and tuned in the view screen as she looked up at the boat dock. Lefty was gone, just a puddle of foam.

  Eve grabbed the oar and walked cautiously back towards the marina as she talked.

  "What?" she whispered into her communicator.

  "Eve!" Greeted Agent D. "Just checking back on the mission! How's it going?"

  D immediately began to sip his coffee from a mug that read ‘Only Pretending to Listen’.

  "It's not a good-” Eve stopped, reading the mug. "Sir, are you actually paying attention?"

  He set down his mug.

  "The future survival Of Earth hangs in the balance, of course I'm listening!" Said D, picking up another mug that read ‘Seriously, I'm not listening to a word you say’.

  "Look I can't really talk now," said Eve.

  "Yes, that's fascinating," said D, now gone from the screen and all that was viewable was a third mug that read ‘World’s Best Listener’.

  D shouted from the background,

  "Quick Simmons, how do I switch back to my game? The one with the frog. I'm going to beat level twenty four today I can FEEL it!" Clearly D wasn't really paying attention.

  "Look, I got the formula," she said, holding the oar under her arm and digging the formula out of her pocket.

  D rolled on his chair back into view and knocked the mug and a tablet onto the floor with a loud KA-CRASH!

  "Let's see it!" he said, motioning with both of his gloves.

  Just as she held it up to the screen it was snatched out of her hand!

  Lefty had crawled under the pier past her and grabbed Pete's leg again. A zombified Pete stood holding the formula.

  "That's it, "said Eve. "Sir I'll have to call you back."

  She clicked the compact closed, dropped the oar from under her arm into her hand, then in one continuous motion, smacked Pete hard in the head with the flat side of the paddle, while the handle side swung around and knocked him hard backwards!

  Pete's body flew limply onto the airboat, and she knew he wouldn't enjoy the headache when he awoke.

  Lefty dropped onto the pier. The CX-18 formula was right next to him.

  Eve swung the oar again, but the hand managed to leap over her strike and grabbed her throat.

  She pulled his fingers opened and held him inches from her face. It was if he weighed a hundred pounds, pushing pack towards her neck!

  "How are you so strong?!" She gritted, trying to understand the logic of the living, killing hand.

  The Shadow Rock on his back grew again and Lefty reached her throat!

  The keys were already in the boat… Eve got an idea. She kicked the ignition switch and the giant fan at back of airboat sputtered on.

  Eve rolled to her feet and shoved the back of Lefty's arm into the fan. A couple of THWAP!s by the giant blades and the little arm was launched into the sky!

  "Done,” smiled Eve.

  Lefty slapped down on the edge of the pier, right next to the formula!

  As he picked up the paper, the sinking sense of failing the mission again crept into her mind.

  As Eve grabbed the oar again, a massive alligator splashed through the surface of the water and grabbed Lefty! The little hand was pulled back into the dark water nearly instantly.

  All that remained was the scrap of paper with the formula.

  As Eve picked up the paper, she realized this completed her mission.

  She looked at Pete, then the cab on the hill. She could easily go home and await the next orders.

  She looked out across the still, glasslike water of the shadowy lagoon. Adam was out there. Would she be sucked into his lunacy again, or go home and claim victory?

  Eve sat still, and looked up to the stars as if she was looking for advice. But she didn't need a cosmic answer. She already knew what she was going to do.

  She stepped back onto the boat.

  16

  Up a Croc Without a Paddle

  Eve guided the airboat through the murky waters. Her wake lapped up on the shoreline awakening creatures from their slumber. Another creature began to awaken...

  "Miss Adams?" muttered Pete as he leaned up and gripped his throbbing head.

  "Steady," said Eve, outstretching her hand to prevent Pete from falling overboard.

  As he leaned over the edge of the boat and saw the water his eyes opened wide and he scrambled backwards.

  "What have you done? Where are we?!" begged Pete.

  Eve smiled with delight in the reversal. Now she needed to explain something to the old man that had been her guide through the strange world of Atom Town.

  "The lagoon,” she explained. “Trying to find Adam.”

  Pete looked all around them. No sign of his cab or the marina. No way to gauge how far from the dock they'd travelled in his unconscious slumber. He sat back and put his cap on, then scratched his neck.

  "It's okay Pete. I've got the hang of the controls," smiled Eve, noticing the disapproving look on Pete's face.

  She may have bruised his ego as well as his head. "Sorry about the bump on your hear. If it's any consolation you put up quite the fight!"

  "That ain't what's eatin' me," explained Pete. "Stop the boat."

  Eve shifted the throttle into neutral.

  "I said I've figured out the controls…"

  "Nah, it ain't that neither," said Pete, pulling a piece of paper from his back pocket.

  "Remember this?" he asked as if a parent scolding a child.

  Eve recognized the paper immediately. It was Pete's map, so she knew exactly where he was heading with this.

  "You don't understand," she started, but Pete cut her off.

  "Why, Pete, I do believe that's the map we been so r
ecently talkin’ abouts," he said in a mock Eve voice. "That's right, Miss Adams, it's the map of Atom Town."

  "You know, I don't sound anything like that," said Eve, ready for Pete's lesson to be over.

  "What's not on the map, Miss Adams?" said Pete through gritted teeth.

  She glared at him. He wasn't going to stop until he got his answer.

  "The swamp," she surrendered.

  "The swamp!" Pete shouted back at her. His eyes darted across the water as his voice echoed. He returned to his usual hushed tone.

  "You gone and fell off the map again, Miss Adams! This is your safety net, and you jes’ jumped way the heck out of it," he slapped the map angrily. "Only this time you dragged me into it!"

  "Sorry, Pete. I have to find Adam," said Eve turning the throttle slowly forward.

  "Is that the mission, Miss Adams?" asked Pete, shoving the map back in his pocket. "Is that why you’re risking both of our lives?"

  It wasn't. The mission Agent D had given her was to recover the formula.

  Her hand instinctively guarded her pocket. She had completed the mission. The formula had been recovered. Pete was right, she was off the map.

  Was she obsessed with the crazy doctor? No. But going after Adam, it was the right thing to do.

  The whole town was in a slump. Everyone was giving up. But not Eve. It just wasn't in her nature.

  "Yes," she said, looking out across the water. "The mission isn't over."

  Pete stared at the back of her neck. She avoided eye contact. She was telling him what he needed to hear. Maybe even what she needed to hear.

  "Fine," he finally agreed. "And just how do you s’pose we’ll find him?"

  Eve pointed to a shadowy gator drifting off to their right.

  "I've been following this gator," she pointed. "I'm hoping wherever he's heading other gators might be heading. We find the alligators, we find Adam."

  "Not bad," said Pete. "Now sensible folk might not follow a man eatin' beast into unfriendly waters in the dead of night, but we already established you ain't got no sense," said Pete. He looked at the creature swimming twenty odd yards off to their right and sucked on his teeth, thinking.

  "How long you been following this gator?" he asked.

  "About an hour," Eve guessed.

  "Same gator?" asked Pete, tightly focused on the beast.

  Eve nodded.

  "Wasn't long after I left the harbor," she explained. "Saw him and figured following might be the best way to locate Adam."

  "Quite the coincidence, ain’t it?" suggested Pete.

  "I guess so."

  "Thing is, Miss Adams," continued Pete. "I stopped believin' in coincidences a long time ago."

  Eve veered the boat around a tree hazard then followed the alligator around a bend in the water.

  As they neared the monster, it submerged. Eve stopped the boat.

  "Where'd he go?" asked Pete, cautiously watching the water around the boat.

  The boat slowly began drifting into a small inlet of submerged timber.

  "What is that?" asked Eve.

  "Never seen anything like it," said Pete.

  It was a tree, it may have been the night sky but the bark the leaves even the moss on the tree seemed to be stark black.

  "It's not like the others," said Eve as she visually compared the flecks of gray moonlight on the surrounding dark timber to the deep black of the tree in front of her.

  "Nah, one more like it. Up along the shore there," said Pete.

  Eve studied the two trees. It looked like the two connected under the water, or perhaps one trunk had split into two and fallen to the shore. As they floated closer, Eve got a better look at the fallen tree.

  "The bark is different," said Eve.

  "'Cuz it’s dead," said Pete. "Slowly rottin' away and soakin’ into the earth."

  "Rock," Eve said with sudden revelation. "It's covered in rock. The same rock from the desert. The rock from the graveyard. Adam called it 'Shadow Rock'."

  Pete stopped. She was right. They'd found this rock before. A week earlier they'd stumbled onto a hidden grave encased in the same rock, and it gave Pete the same wary feeling he'd had before. A feeling that they were treading on sacred ground. An unwelcome feeling.

  "We shouldn't be here," whispered Pete.

  Eve looked at the tree and ran her fingers across its bark. The last time she'd touched the rock it had gone from burning her to talking to her and then to nothing, which is exactly what it did now. Nothing.

  She tried to break off a piece, but it crumbled in her fingers. She grabbed another handful of bark and it crumbled and fell into the water.

  Pete tried the same. He clawed at a piece and tried to move it, but it wouldn't budge. He tried again, straining to move just a small piece.

  Pete's hand slipped and the sharp rock sliced the side of his finger.

  Pete recoiled and sucked out the blood. He stopped. Eve had continued to pull at the rock until a hole had emerged in the tree.

  It wasn't the fact that it was hollow that had them both staring at each other then back at the tree. It was the fact that inside that hole, was a steering wheel.

  17

  Tree Wishes

  The massive tree wasn't a tree at all. It was a car encased in Shadow Rock!

  Nearest they could figure, it was a convertible, or at least was missing the top.

  Eve dug inside the car. Most of the fabric had been destroyed, but she found a small, torn leather binder and pulled it out.

  She opened it up and found a piece of registration, part of it still legible.

  "Laughton," read Eve.

  "What?" Pete had barely eked out a sound.

  "Lilly Laughton."

  Pete ripped the registration out of her hands.

  "What did I tell you about saying…" he hushed his tone. "You know you’re not supposed to be sayin’ that name!"

  "This was her car, Pete," said Eve. "Maybe this is how she died."

  Pete had already jumped from the boat and was tying a rope to another rock nearby.

  "We on shore now, see there's the road," whispered Pete. "I'm headin' over there… we shouldn’t be here!"

  "I still have my mission," insisted Eve.

  "This ain't your mission," Pete said, holding up the registration. "This is someone else's mission. Leadin' you here, ruinin' everything. We have to git!"

  "Not until I find Adam," said Eve as she snatched back the leather book from Pete.

  "And how you s'pose you gonna' find one gator in all of this swamp?"

  Eve stood up on the boat.

  "I have a feeling I won't have to look far…"

  Pete followed her gaze.

  In the middle of the inlet stood a lone gator. Not slumped on a log but literally standing in the middle of the water, pants belted at his waist.

  Eve shook her head and grinned.

  "I think we just found Adam."

  18

  Water Epilogued

  Eve stepped off of the boat into the shallow water, all the while keeping a keen eye on Alligator Adam a few yards away, who was sporting a nice pair of tweed slacks and watching the shore.

  Eve looked for Pete, but he was already half-way to the road. She inched along the shoreline, uncertain if gator Adam would recognize her, or make her his lunch.

  She'd have to risk it. If she could coax him onto the boat, get him back to civilization, maybe there would be a way to save him.

  "Adam," she called out.

  The monster's head turned towards her. At least he still recognized his name.

  She stepped towards the standing gator, sending light ripples out into the still water.

  A shadowy hand suddenly reached out from the darkness behind her! Mud from the fingertips dropped on her shoulder and Eve reacted instinctively.

  She grabbed the hand and spun around, her leg spraying a fantail of water as she whipped around and kicke
d out the feet of her assailant!

  "Going down!" said Adam as he collapsed and fell into the water.

  "Adam?" said Eve, trying to understand.

  Adam popped back up and fixed his hair.

  "I'm okay, I'm oh-kay," he repeated.

  Without warning Eve slapped him hard across his face.

  Adam clutched his cheek. He was pretty sure he hadn't earned that one.

  "What was that for?" Adam asked.

  "For making me come after you!" she said.