by Bryan Dunn
“Down here.” Sam dropped in front of the loose bolt. “Help me pull on this side.”
Laura placed her hands above Sam’s. They tightened their grip, pulled—and, just as the corner of the grate bent up enough to let them slip inside —
The creeper smashed into the mesh, fractured its bony tip, and split in two, spraying geysers of sticky white sap across the pipe’s entrance and littering the floor with white flowers.
Defeated by the grate, the creeper writhed and twisted, fell back, and disappeared into the night.
Inside the cement conduit, Sam and Laura fell against the sides, gasping, exhausted, covered with creeper sap. After a few minutes, Sam recovered enough to rock onto his knees. He went to the grate and stared into the night.
“It seems to have retreated. Looks clear—at least for now.”
He slid back from the grate, dropped against the side of the pipe. “So much for those things not moving at night… What the hell?”
“It’s the moon. Has to be. I’ve never seen such sensitivity to light.”
“Tell me about it.”
Laura reached down, lifting one of the silky white flowers that covered the bottom of the pipe. She raised it to her eyes, trying to see inside. Then, using her fingers, she spread the petals, revealing a perfect set of reproductive organs.
“Stamen. Anthers. Pistil,” she said, separating each of the parts as she cataloged them.
“What?” Sam asked, staring at the flower in her hand.
“Look,” she held it up. “A complete set of reproductive organs.”
Sam studied it, then said, “As in—”
“Baby creepers.”
“Wonderful,” Sam said, picking up a flower from the bottom of the pipe. “More great news about Doc’s little experiment.”
Laura frowned, nodding in agreement. Then she turned and looked down the black maw of the pipe.
“Any idea where this leads?”
“It’s part of the old aqueduct. It runs about a quarter mile. It should lead us right to the main road.”
Laura gasped, then stared at Sam—a thunderstruck look on her face.
“What?” he said, looking at her.
“Sam… That’s it! That’s where this thing’s going!”
“Slow down.” he raised his hands. “What are you talking about?”
“The creeper. It’s moving down the valley straight to the aqueduct.”
“And the world’s biggest happy hour,” Sam said, suddenly understanding.
Chapter 66
Working the gas and clutch, Karl tried to rock the deuce and half free as the rear end hopped back and forth.
“Christ! We’re hung up good,” Karl yelled, letting off on the gas.
Outside, creeper stalk after creeper stalk attached themselves to the truck, coiling around bumpers and axels, snaking up and over the radiator grill.
“Hang on!” Curley yelled, clutching the machete.
“Curley… No! Stay in the truck!”
But it was too late. He was already out the door, standing on the running board, preparing to climb on the hood to get at the creepers. Just as he put his foot on the fender—a creeper swung up and locked onto his leg.
“Shit!” Curley yelled, then brought the machete down, slicing the creeper in two and freeing himself.
Wasting no time, he scrambled forward onto the hood. Wielding the machete like a whirring blade, he sliced-and-diced creeper stalks until the grill and bumper had been cleared. “That’s for Blossom!”
Curley rolled off the hood, slid down the fender, danced along the running board—and as he swung into the cab, yelled, “Hit it!”
Karl dropped it into gear and mashed down on the accelerator. The engine screamed as the big 6x6 rose up, shredding creeper stalks as it bulldozed free and shot back onto the road.
“Son of a bitch!” Karl cursed. “Goddamn son of a bitch.” He brought the tanker around—made a U-turn—and sent the truck roaring back to town.
Just as Karl hit third gear, another creeper whistled through the night, arced over and gunned for the truck. But he saw it coming this time. Instead of trying to avoid it, he cranked the wheel and aimed the truck directly for it.
Seconds later, two and a half tons of steel slammed into the creeper with a thud. The stalk was instantly destroyed, the front of it vaporized by the bumper guard, coating the windshield with milky white sap.
“Jesus H,” Karl shouted, backing off on the gas and hitting the wipers.
“We knocked the snot out of that one!” Curley cheered, shaking a fist in the air.
* * *
After a quarter mile crouch, Sam and Laura emerged from the abandoned section of aqueduct, stood, stretched, and scanned the area.
“You see anything?” Sam asked, searching the surrounding desert.
“Yes.” Laura pointed to Sam’s left. “The road!”
A moment after that, they saw headlights—the twin yellow beams diffused in the thick atmosphere.
Then they heard the rumble of the diesel engine.
“I know that sound,” Sam said, straining in the direction of the lights. “That’s my truck!”
“Let’s go!” Laura yelled, and they took off running.
* * *
The headlights bounced up and down and swept around a curve as the truck settled onto a straight section of road. Karl was about to add power when Curley yelled—
“Karl! Watch out!”
There—standing in the road—were Sam and Laura, both of them waving like mad.
“Walkin’ talkin’ Jesus!” Karl said, taking his foot off the gas, letting the truck slow and coast right up to where they were standing.
Curley leapt out of the cab with the truck still rolling and ran up to Sam and Laura, hugging them both, grateful that they were alive.
Chapter 67
The sun should’ve been rising in the sky as morning broke over the town of Furnace Valley, but a high layer of eerie-looking clouds obscured it. The air was moist and tropical, like hurricane weather. Only there weren’t any storms brewing off Mexico’s Baja Peninsula, ready to roll into California’s low deserts.
Lining the front of Nguyen’s Place, gassed up and ready to go, were Sam’s deuce and a half, Tommy’s Jeep, a 4x4 pickup, and Karl’s tow truck.
Inside the diner, the group was preparing to leave, packing clothes, rolling up bedding, and having a last bite of breakfast.
“I hate the thought of just up and leaving. Turning tail. Running,” Karl said to the group gathered around the counter. “The garage. This town. It’s all I’ve got.”
“Hey, maybe we should just wait. With the power down, there’s sure to be help on the way. Why not wait and let them come to us?” Tommy asked, giving the others a hopeful look.
“Even if help is on the way,” Karl replied, looking at Tommy, “how the hell are they going to get past that thing?”
“In two hours there won’t be a town,” Laura said, echoing what everyone was thinking.
“I hate the thought of leaving, too,” Sam said. “Coming here, to Furnace Valley, to my family’s place… it was my escape hatch.”
Tommy and Karl looked at Sam and nodded. Both of them felt the same way.
“But we have no choice,” Sam continued. “We’ve got to put distance between us and that thing out there. What Laura and I saw last night…”
“Okay! Let’s go now!” Curley blurted, cutting Sam off. “What are we waiting for?”
“Our best hope is to make a run down the valley,” said Sam. “See if we can find that old catwalk that leads up and out the back way.”
“We should’ve done that yesterday,” Tommy said, pacing anxiously behind the bar. “Run down the valley.”
Karl looked at Sam, nodded. “All right. Then it’s across The Devil’s Anvil, and God help us, up that catwalk and out the backdoor.”
The counter fell silent. Laura reached over, grabbed Sam’s arm, and in a low voice asked, “What’s The Devil’s
Anvil?”
“It’s a hundred square miles of sand and salt that sits between us and that Jeep trail that leads over the mountain.”
“Oh,” she frowned. “Sorry I asked.”
“Something’s weird,” Kristin announced, stepping in from the porch. “The sky. Check it out.”
Sam and Laura jumped up and went out the door, the others following. All eyes turned toward the ominous-looking clouds that had formed in the sky. They were purple and round and piled one on top of the other like scales on a fish—gravid-looking orbs ready to burst at any moment.
There was a loud crackling sound as static electricity shot through town. Everyone ducked as the hair on their arms stood straight up. A second after that, their upturned faces were illuminated by blinding white bolts arcing between the eerie-looking purple clouds.
There was another flash as a jagged lightning bolt struck the water tower, ran down one of the legs, and grounded out on the desert floor—but not before splaying the wooden staves and rupturing the tank.
A girl’s voice filled the air, shrill and haunting…
All turned to see Maya standing on the edge of the porch, head thrown back, chanting as she addressed the sky.
“Air I am, fire I am, water, Earth and Spirit I am… Air I am, fire I am, water, Earth and Spirit I am…” Her voice rose as she stepped off the porch and wandered into the street.
“Air I am, fire I am, water…”
“Maya!” Kristin yelled, horrified by the sight of her possessed-looking friend.
Carla swept out and put her arm around Maya, comforting her as she led her back onto the porch.
“Hush now. Hush now, honey.”
Just as Carla got Maya inside, there was a loud thunderclap—and a moment after that, a powerful wind swept down the valley.
“Feel that?” Karl said, raising his hand.
They all faced Furnace Mountain as the wind swept over them—hot and humid—like a tropical squall or the inside of a greenhouse.
“Look,” said Sam, pointing. “It’s coming.”
All eyes followed his hand to the low hills on the outskirts of town. They seemed to be moving, rising and falling like they’d been wrapped by Christo with some diaphanous material as an art installation.
But it wasn’t a Christo installation. And it wasn’t billowing material. It was creepers moving down the valley, zeroing in on the town.
“My God, look…” said Laura, pointing to their escape route at the far end of town and out to the desert beyond.
They all whipped around and followed her arm to a thin green line that had snaked along the mountain ridge and was now running down across the valley.
“Jesus… it’s making an end run,” Karl said, staring out at the ribbon of creepers flowing off the mountain like hot wax. “It’s trying to cut us off. It’s trying to trap us.”
Chapter 68
Inside Nguyen’s the mood was black as Sam, Laura, Karl, Tommy, Carla, and Curley gathered around the bar, their haunted-looking faces filled with defeat.
Karl pulled a revolver out of his coat, hefted it, then placed the .38 on the counter in front of him. “I’ll tell you what—if it comes down to it, if comes to me and one of those things out there—I’m not going to let it do me like it did Rufus.”
“Put that thing away, Karl,” Carla said. “We’re not finished yet.”
“I’m just saying…” said Karl, grabbing the revolver and slipping it back into his coat.
Tommy stepped into a storeroom behind the bar, then emerged with two gallons of Weed-B-Gone and plunked them down on the bar.
“We’ve still got these…”
“What the hell good is two gallons of weed killer against that monster outside?” Karl said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder.
“Wait! Wait a minute,” said Sam, rising to his feet. “That’s it!”
“What, Sam?” Laura asked. “What’s it?”
“The biplane. We’ve got to go back to the plane.”
“What are you talking about?” said Karl. “I thought it was smashed to pieces.”
“It is. It’s completely destroyed. Except the belly tank. It survived. There’s over three hundred gallons of Round-up sitting out there, ready to be picked up.”
“Great, Sam. Good thinking,” said Laura. “But there’s just one little problem—the rest of the plane isn’t attached to it.”
“We don’t need the plane.”
Sam marched out of the grill and into a room behind the counter. A moment later, he wheeled out Nguyen’s power washer, knocking into a candy rack as he pushed it ahead of him.
“How will that help?” Tommy asked, staring at the power washer.
“Think of it as a Super Soaker on steroids,” said Sam, grinning at the group. “We mount this baby in the back of a pickup truck, fill it with Round-up, and blast our way through that son of bitch that’s blocking our escape route.”
Silence filled the room as everyone considered what Sam had just said. Then Karl banged his fist on the countertop. “Damn if that might not just work. Be like one of them water cannons they use to break up riots.”
“Ah, excuse me…” Laura said, with a dubious expression. “How do we get the Round-up? It’s back with the plane, and the plane is surrounded by creepers, and—”
“Good question.” Sam cut her off as all heads swiveled in his direction. He grabbed one of the gallons of weed killer and held it up. “We use this. We put it in a Super Soaker, and maybe we can find something else… I don’t know, maybe a—”
“How about this?” Tommy stepped up to the bar holding a backpack sprayer. It had a plastic reservoir on top and a pump handle fixed to the side.
“Perfect, Tommy,” said Sam. “That will work great.”
Laura raised a hand to get their attention, then said, “Okay, so you actually make it back to the plane without getting killed—how do you get the Round-up back here?”
Sam stared at her and compressed his lips. He had to think about that one.
“I know,” said Karl. “We use a drum pump. We could siphon the poison into 55 gallon drums. I’ve got everything we need at the garage. We could put three or four barrels in the back of the tow truck.”
“Yeah,” said Curley. “Just like we do with the diesel.”
“Sam, it’s too dangerous,” Laura said, looking him right in the face. “The road back to the plane is probably completely blocked by now.”
“Look, you said it yourself,” Sam said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “That thing is going for the aqueduct. From what I can tell by how it’s moving—how it’s running along the top of the mountains—I think you’re right. I think it’s putting all its efforts into moving down the valley.”
“Sam, it’s just a theory.”
“I know… but we don’t have a choice. We can’t stay here. And we can’t outrun that thing.” Sam turned and looked at the others. “We’ve got to fight it.”
Chapter 69
An hour later, under a darkening sky, Sam, Laura, and Curley rumbled down the road in the tow truck towards Furnace Mountain and the crash site.
Sam was driving, Laura was next to him, and Curley was riding shotgun with the charred-looking Super Soaker filled with Weed-B-Gone resting on his lap. The damaged trigger had been replaced with a piece of aluminum that Karl had glued in place.
A drum pump and three barrels had been loaded in the back of the wrecker and lashed down with heavy nylon straps. Next to one of the drums was a box containing jars filled with gasoline, ready to be turned into Molotov cocktails at a moment’s notice.
“There, that’s it,” said Sam as he downshifted, slowed the wrecker, and turned off the main road onto an overgrown Jeep trail.
A second later, Laura bounced up, hitting her head on the cab liner as the truck lurched into a pothole, then leveled again.
“Sam!” Laura said, gripping the top of her head.
“Sorry…” he said, just as they banged into another hole
, sending Laura shooting up again.
“SAM!”
“Hey, it’s not me,” he said, glancing at her. “The road is completely overgrown.”
“What road?” she said.
“Exactly,” said Sam.
“How far is it, Sam?” Curley asked, a nervous warble in his voice. “How far to the plane?”
“Not far. Less than a mile.”
“I can’t believe it. I can’t believe there aren’t any creepers,” Laura said. “They should be all over the place.”
“Yeah… weird,” agreed Sam. “Maybe it’s like you said, maybe they’re putting all their effort into running for the aqueduct.”
“I know where they are,” said Curley, in a solemn voice. He raised a hand, then pointed out his window.
Sam and Laura leaned forward and turned to where Curley was pointing. A thousand feet above them, just below the ridge, was a quarter-mile-wide river of creepers heading east down the valley towards the aqueduct.
“Holy shit!” said Sam. Then he pressed down on the accelerator and sent them seesawing forward through the scrub.
* * *
Sparks spouted from the bed of a Ford 4x4 pickup at Eller’s Garage as Karl arc welded the last of three metal plates into place. Tommy’s power washer had been secured in the center of the truck, and the washer’s wand had been mounted on a swivel, making it look like a .50 caliber machine gun in an up-armored Humvee.
Karl flipped up his helmet, checked the weld, and proclaimed, “Hell, this thing’s ready for a tour in Afghanistan.”
Tommy hopped up into the truck next to Karl, grabbed the power washer’s wand, and swung it back and forth like a machine gunner mowing down an invisible enemy.
“Yeah… this is great, Karl. This’ll knock the hell out of them!”
* * *
Sam, Laura, and Curley stood next to the tow truck that was parked on a rise above the smashed biplane. Or what you could see of it…