Spores

by Ike Hamill

  In that moment, Patrice understood perfectly what they wanted. Andrew and Marie had come to stop them. They wanted to trap Leonard and Patrice in the woods forever, to die lonely deaths of isolation.

  Patrice started across the dirt road, eyes fixed on Andrew and Marie. He couldn’t glance away for fear that Andrew might disappear again. For some reason, the pair had come to represent sabotage. Along with Jake, they existed only to entrap Patrice in this cold place.

  “What do you want?” Patrice asked as he approached.

  “It won’t work,” Marie said. “We’re going to have to track him down on foot.”

  “No,” Patrice said, shaking his head. “We’re going to pull my truck back up to the road and then we’re going to drive far enough to get cell service.”

  “What’s going on?” Leonard asked, approaching from behind Patrice.

  Patrice didn’t take his eyes off of Marie and Andrew. The hair on the back of his neck was standing straight up. She still had her jacket unzipped and her hood down, despite the plummeting temperatures. Andrew didn’t look like he was trying to stay bundled up either, even though his cheeks were beginning to look a little too pale to be healthy. Had she always looked this creepy? Had Patrice simply been ignoring it earlier? There was a chance that his nerves had been so wound up after the snowmobile in the lake that he had failed to notice. She definitely didn’t look right. Funny thing was, Andrew was the person who seemed most cautious around her before. Now, he was standing at her side, tacitly agreeing to what she was saying.

  Patrice whispered over his shoulder to Leonard, “Get that winch going, would you?”

  The good thing about Leonard was that he didn’t have to completely understand. He heard the urgency in Patrice’s voice and he said, “Yeah, sure,” and went back to the winch.

  “What happened, Andrew?” Patrice asked. “You had a cramp or something? Couldn’t keep up?”

  Andrew and Marie didn’t seem to hear the question. Their eyes were following Leonard as he went back to activate the winch.

  “This won’t work,” Marie said. She pointed over Patrice’s shoulder. Not taking the bait, Patrice kept his eyes on the pair, waiting to find out why his gut was telling him that they were not to be trusted. The motor on the winch began to whine. Over at the tree, the strap began to tick and moan as it accepted the tension from the cable.

  “We have to follow him on foot,” Marie said. “He’s going to do something terrible if we don’t stop him.”

  “You don’t even know Jake,” Patrice said. “You just met, and you weren’t there when he took off. What makes you an expert?”

  Patrice heard a groan of metal. The hook on the frame was figuring out where it wanted to be.

  “I know the thing that’s controlling him,” she said.

  “I have some bad news for you,” Patrice said to her. “There’s no way we’re going to catch his truck on foot. He’s probably to Dunn’s Corner by now. Once he hits the pavement, he’s likely to push his truck up to eighty. I’ve seen him do it before.”

  “He’s not headed south,” Andrew said.

  Patrice’s face went blank. The person who had just spoke had sounded like Andrew, but it sure as shit wasn’t Andrew. There was something wrong with the way he spaced out his words. Patrice took a step backwards, hoping that the pair wouldn’t advance.

  “This is going to slow us down,” Marie said. Her finger came up to point over his shoulder again.

  Patrice took another hasty step backwards.

  The sound that rang through the woods was like a giant iron bell being hit with a sledgehammer. Automatically, Patrice hunched over, expecting the worst. The winch complained with a high-pitched scream.

  “Let it off,” Patrice shouted. He still didn’t want to turn his back on Marie and Andrew. As horrible as the sounds behind him were, they still seemed more dangerous.

  “Last chance,” Andrew said.

  Patrice backed away one more step and then turned to run to Leonard. He was stabbing a finger at the controls, but couldn’t seem to reverse the winch motor.

  “Let it…” Patrice started to yell.

  His command was cut off by the whip of the cable through the air. It had a deadly sound. The cable was a razor sharp knife, slicing through the air and looking to draw blood. Patrice got his arms up in front of his face before it hit him.

  Chapter Seventeen - Traveling

  (Leonard)

  “OH FUCK,” LEONARD SAID to himself. He dropped the control for the winch and the motor shut off instantly. It had been defiant—beyond control—until it the cable had snapped. Now that the damage was done, it shut off obediently. Leonard didn’t have time to worry about that. Patrice was down. The cable had hissed as it hit Patrice, and then the big man had dropped to the ground.

  Leonard rushed to him and dropped to his knees.

  Patrice was on his back. His chest was covered in white fluff. He was a giant teddy bear, sliced open and leaking his stuffing, but there was blood leaking into this stuffing.

  Leonard looked up and saw Marie and Andrew advancing.

  “Stay the fuck back,” Leonard shouted at them.

  Patrice rolled and said, “Damn it. Damn it.”

  “Hold still. Let me see,” Leonard said to him.

  The jacket was sliced open across Patrice’s forearms. In the fading light, the blood was turning the jacket black. The cuts went deep. Between the jacket stuffing and layers of fabric, Leonard could see all kinds of bones, tendons, and muscles, and everything was leaking fast, swamped with dark blood.

  “First aid kit. It’s in the bag,” Patrice said.

  “Yeah,” Leonard said.

  Marie and Andrew were creeping forward again.

  “I said stay back,” Leonard shouted. Gentler, to Patrice, he said, “Can you get to the truck? We need light.”

  It wasn’t all he needed. He wanted to get Patrice inside the cab of the truck so he could lock the doors. Now that Marie and Andrew were a little closer, Leonard could see why Patrice hadn’t wanted to turn his back on them. They weren’t acting right. Somehow, they seemed like they might even be more dangerous than the winch cable that had just…

  “Ask them how,” Patrice said.

  “What?”

  “Ask them how they knew. They knew, Len.”

  “Later, Bub. Come on, let’s get you up.”

  He gripped under Patrice’s arm and tried to lift. His friend’s scream stopped him.

  “Tape me up, first,” Patrice said. “I’m falling apart.”

  Leonard was stymied by indecision for a moment. Patrice knew what he was talking about—the man knew first aid. On the other hand, Patrice was badly injured. If Leonard let him call the shots, he didn’t stand a chance.

  “Get the kit!” Patrice said.

  “Yeah,” Leonard said. “Yeah.”

  He backed up a few steps and then turned to sprint for the truck. They had thrown the bag and the rifle into the bed of the truck. For a moment, he pictured himself bandaging Patrice with one hand while he held Andrew and Marie at bay with the rifle. It wouldn’t work. If he introduced the rifle into the situation, it was only going to cause more trouble. He decided that it was better to leave it hidden in the bed of the truck than to try to wield it. Leonard grabbed the bag and turned to take the whole thing back to Patrice.

  He glanced back to check. Marie and Andrew were a little closer. Patrice moaned.

  Leonard threw open the door to the truck and reached across to flip on the headlights. They didn’t light Patrice particularly well, but he figured that they couldn’t hurt.

  Patrice screamed and Leonard turned back. Andrew was crouched down over him.

  Leonard dropped the bag.

  “Get away from him!” Leonard yelled.

  Seeing Andrew reaching for Patrice’s arm, Leonard changed his mind about the rifle.

  “Get away!”

  Before he could reach the gun, Andrew obeyed. He stood up and flashed
a glance at Leonard, putting up his hand against the glare of the truck’s lights. With the darkness and the distance between them, Leonard couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like Andrew had been smiling. Leonard picked up his bag and ran to Patrice. Marie and Andrew backed away as he approached.

  Leonard dug a hand into the pack and found the first aid kit as he crouched down.

  “Are you okay?” he whispered.

  “Of course not,” Patrice said. “I got Cuisinarted by the fucking winch cable, remember?”

  “Yeah,” Leonard said. “Hold tight, Bub. We’ll get you taped up. Can we get this jacket off of you?”

  “Cut it off,” Patrice said.

  “Is that a good idea? You’ll be freezing.”

  “Cut rings around my elbows, and then…”

  “Got it,” Leonard said. The scissors in the kit were too small for the job, but he had a foldout knife with a blunt backside. Sliding his hand through the gash in the sleeve, Leonard used his knife to turn the jacket into a short sleeve version. When he was done, he cut down the length of the cuffs to pull them away from Patrice’s wounds.

  “I can’t see them,” Patrice said. As he bent his arms to try to get a look, his voice came out in a shivering hiss. “How bad are we looking?”

  Leonard dug around in the bag for the flashlight. He sensed their presence, and when Patrice’s eyes darted over, Leonard turned with the flashlight, switching it on and shining it in their faces.

  “I said back the fuck off,” Leonard said.

  Marie and Andrew took a synchronized backwards step.

  Leonard swung the flashlight back to Patrice’s arms. They both squinted and blinked at the wounds for a minute.

  “What do you want me to do?” Leonard asked.

  “I think they did a number on me, Len.”

  “How so?”

  “None of this looks right,” Patrice said. He sucked in another pained breath as he twisted his arm around to look at the cut. “Right there. You see that vein? That should have puckered right up by now. It should have withdrawn up into… Stay back, Andrew!”

  Leonard drove the pair back with the flashlight beam again.

  “We had to,” Andrew said. “Your arms were going to slow us down. They still will. We warned you.”

  “This is some bullshit fuckery, Bub,” Leonard said. “We have to get clear of these two.”

  Patrice nodded.

  “How are your hands?”

  Patrice turned his hands in and out. They looked like they had already stiffened into claws. Leonard wondered if somehow the blood had been completely cutoff to Patrice’s fingers. They already looked pretty pale when he directed the light at them.

  “Dead,” Patrice said. “Useless and dead. I might lose them.”

  “Don’t say that. Listen, we’ll get you in the truck. You filled up on the way, right? You can idle the engine and have heat. I’ll hoof it out of here and find help.”

  “You can’t do that,” Marie called.

  Leonard stabbed at them with the flashlight beam again.

  “Heat will kill him faster,” Marie called. “And we need both of you.”

  “For Jake,” Andrew added.

  Leonard leaned in close to Patrice and lowered his voice. “We’ll get you in the truck, lock the doors, and give you the gun. If they try to mess with you, then…”

  “That won’t work, Len. I would have to use my toes to fire the gun right now, and it would take you a day to walk to the other side of Dunn’s Corner to get cell reception. They think they can catch Jake. They knew this was going to happen. Let’s hear them out and find out why. Then we can make a decision.”

  Leonard shook his head. He glanced back at the truck, thinking about the winch. One failure shouldn’t make them give up on that approach. There was still a chance that they could get the truck going. He couldn’t even convince himself. The winch had been hooked up right and it had been pulling with everything it had and it didn’t even begin to move the truck. That thing was wedged in.

  “Tell us how you plan to catch Jake,” Patrice said.

  * * * * * * *

  (Patrice)

  “He’s infected,” Andrew said. “I am too, but it’s not nearly as advanced. The infection doesn’t transmit perfectly between people. Tyler had it the worst. Jake has a pretty bad case, and I’m still somewhat in control of myself, but I can feel the battle happening inside my head.”

  “What does this have to…” Patrice began to ask.

  “He has gone back to the source,” Marie said. “At the end of this road, if one turns north, it’s only a few miles over the hill to where our cabin is. North of that, in the valley near the lake, Jake will find the source. He will have to heat up the ground to commune with the source.”

  “Then he chills out for a little while and then he comes to find you,” Patrice said, pointing to Marie.

  “Exactly.”

  Leonard leaned in close to him to whisper, “If that cabin is as close as she says, then her rental truck is sitting right there with a dead battery, right? You still have the…”

  Patrice nodded, cutting him off. They were on the same page.

  “What do you need us for?” Patrice asked. “If you want to track Jake down, then do it.”

  “We can’t,” Marie said. “We would be unable to stop him. Our own infection would prevent us.”

  “Convenient,” Patrice said. “You two go the fuck over there for a minute. We have to talk.”

  He waited for Marie and Andrew to give them a little space.

  “What was the word you used?” Patrice asked.

  “Two words—bullshit fuckery.”

  “Yeah. Exactly. They did something to my arms when you were grabbing the bag from the truck. I don’t know precisely what, but they did something. That means that you might be the only sane person around here anymore. You might be our only chance to get some help and straighten this shit out.”

  Leonard nodded. Patrice had hoped that his friend might try to contradict him and say that things weren’t as bad as they seemed. He and Leonard were almost always honest with each other. If Leonard agreed that things were bad, then they were seriously bad.

  “You get the stuff from the truck and I’ll get some concessions out of those two and then we’ll go. If it comes to it…”

  “I’m with you,” Leonard said. “For Andrew or Jake, but not for you.”

  “We’ll see,” Patrice said.

  Leonard threw the stuff back into the bag and dragged it back over to the truck to get the rest of the stuff they would need.

  “Hey,” Patrice said. He rolled forward to get his knees underneath himself. Getting up from the ground was awkward without the use of his arms.

  Marie and Andrew came closer.

  “We’ll go with you, but we need a couple of things,” Patrice said.

  It was growing too dark to read their faces. Patrice continued on, assuming they were waiting for his demands.

  “One, I want to know how you knew that the winch was going to give.”

  Before they could answer, he continued.

  “Two, I want wallets, phones, and keys from both of you. After we help you track down Jake, we’re leaving. Three, I want the rest of the story out of you, Marie. There were some gaps in what you told us.”

  “You can have the keys. They’re useless anyway. Tyler crushed my phone. And, as far as my story goes, I told you the truth,” she said.

  “I want the rest of the story—the parts you left out,” Patrice said.

  “There’s no time.”

  “You can tell us while we walk.”

  * * * * * * *

  (Marie)

  “Have you ever played pocket billiards?” she asked.

  Her shadow danced ahead of her, swinging left and right as the light swung in Leonard’s hand behind her.

  “We don’t need fancy metaphors, just tell us how you knew,” Patrice said.

  “I am. I am trying to,” she sa
id. “Have you ever played?”

  “We call it pool,” Leonard said. “And, yes, we spent a good number of evenings at a pool hall.”

  “Did you have a favorite table?”

  “Sure,” Leonard said with a sigh.

  “I’m getting to the point, I swear. There are a number of factors that go into being successful at pocket billiards. A person needs to refine their techniques. They need just the right stroke with the cue, they need to know where to hit the tip on the ball, and they need to know how much force to impart.”

  “Sure,” Leonard said.

  Marie looked to Andrew. He probably already knew what she was about to say. Of all of them, he seemed to have the deepest connection with her. Tyler and Nelson had known what she was thinking even before a thought crossed her mind, but with Andrew she seemed to have a two-way link.

  “But those are only the rudiments. With those basic skills, one still needs countless hours and a deep aptitude for physics. One needs to predict the speed and direction of each collision and then they need to be able to play everything out like a movie in their head before the ball is struck. Finally, a genuine advantage comes with intimate knowledge of a particular table.”

  “You’re killing us, lady. How did you know the winch was going to fail and injure one of us?” Patrice asked.

  “Because I am linked to a consciousness that has experienced everything that our world has encountered and will ever encounter. Through my eyes, it was able to understand all the possible scenarios and make an educated guess about the likely outcomes.”

  “You’re omniscient,” Leonard said. His tone was the perfectly encapsulation of exasperation.

  “Of course not,” she said. “But we did have a very strong intuition, if you will, that the hook would snap from the cable and that it would injure Patrice and slow our mission. The precise details of his injury were, of course, too nearly random to predict, so we requested that you stop. There was a very small possibility that you would stop, but an advantage to be gained in that you would be swayed to believe in our ability to accurately predict future outcomes.”