A faint beam of light passed through the pod and cut into the darkness inside.
Is this the light? Piper wondered. The light people see right before they die? No, it couldn’t be. This light was moving, flickering and crawling across the surface of the pod. It was the beam of a flashlight. She reached out to touch it but yanked her hand away just as the blade of Perch’s knife penetrated the pod’s skin. The blade slid vertically, then withdrew. Then it came back and sliced horizontally, creating a cross-shaped wound in the wall. The blade vanished and was replaced by an arm. Piper grasped it. She took one more drag of air from the pocket, then Tad pulled her free.
She wanted to throw her arms around her hero and give him the tightest bear hug ever, but she knew she’d probably wring the air out of him, so she refrained. Tad pointed up. She shook her head and swam toward Creeper’s pod. Tad followed. There was no sign of movement inside the pod. Piper thumped against the top of it. Still nothing. Tad saw the desperation on her face and understood. He handed the flashlight to Piper and started to saw into the pod with Perch’s knife while Piper provided him with light to work by. When the hole was Creeper-size, Piper jammed her arm through it. She felt air. Air that was quickly replaced by the water pouring inside.
Piper lay flat against the pod and thrust her arm in deep. She fished around in the digestive juices until her fingertips grazed cloth. Creeper’s shirt. She tried to find it again, but it was gone. Gone like the air in her lungs. Tad sensed she was in trouble. He grabbed her other arm and tried to drag her to the surface, but she jerked free. She couldn’t leave, even if it meant she would drown there along with—
Inside the pod, warm fingers wrapped around her wrist. Piper heaved, and Creeper came halfway out of the pod. Tad grabbed the boy around the torso and yanked him the rest of the way out. Together, the trio made a break for the surface.
On the swim to the Mud Cat, Piper thought of Perch. She hadn’t seen him since he dove into the water. Was he still there? Trapped inside one of the pods? Once Creeper was safely aboard the boat, she would have to go back for him. Perch had risked his life to recover her brother, someone he’d only just met. If there was a chance she could save him, she had to try.
They broke the surface and devoured air. Immediately they heard shouts coming from two different directions: one voice from the Mud Cat—Macey’s—and the other from somewhere in the distance. Perch was alive and urging them to swim toward him as fast as they could.
“They’re coming for you!” he warned. “Hurry! The animals! They’re coming for you!”
Piper zeroed in on his voice. Perch was safe, somewhere on the landmass at the far western edge of the lagoon. He was running down the shore, waving his arms. She panned around, trying to get a bearing, and found the stalk, broken and slanting down into the water some twenty yards away. They’d swum up at an angle to avoid the plant’s protectors. What was Perch yelling about? Piper dunked down to have a peek.
Perch was right; the animals were abandoning Mergo’s stem and heading in their direction. The alligators, the snakes, the snapping turtles, all creatures great and deadly, were spearing through the water, an array of living torpedoes. Mergo had sicced the animals on them, turning the sheepdogs into attack dogs.
Piper rose and shoved the boys, setting them in motion toward the shore. If they made a break for the Mud Cat, they would be intercepted long before they reached it. They had no choice but to try to beat the creatures to land and then hope they could get up into the trees before the gators could overtake them. She didn’t know how fast gators could run, but in the kids’ exhausted and waterlogged condition, she was worried it would be a hair shy of a photo finish.
“Keep going! Hurry! Hurry!” Perch was acting as their swim coach and lookout. The panic in his voice told them everything they needed to know: the animals were gaining on them.
Something got its mouth around Piper’s ankle. She kicked at it with her other foot and removed it. She looked back and saw a siren falling away, dazed. If an alligator had chomped on to her, she’d be dead or swimming with one leg. Instead, she made it the shore right behind the boys, alive and in one piece.
“Give him here!” Perch threw Creeper over his shoulder, and they bolted to the tree line. From there they watched the animals closely.
“They’re not following us,” Tad observed. “They’re staying in the water.”
Some of the alligators were thrashing about in the shallows, slapping the water with their tails. They didn’t appreciate being deprived of their prey, and vocalized their frustration with rumbling bellows. But they stopped their pursuit shy of the shore grass, as commanded. Piper wondered if Mergo had sent out a new kind of volatile that heeled them or if they were just mentally programmed to stay in the water to protect the plant. It didn’t matter. The threat was over for now.
“They’re heading back to the stalk,” said Perch. He lowered Creeper and set him against the trunk of a black gum tree. “We’re in the clear. I honestly didn’t think y’all were gonna make it! That was a close shave.”
Piper fell to the soft ground next to Creeper and draped her arms around him. He put his head on her shoulder and rested.
“I’m sorry about the flower,” Perch said. “After all we went through to get here…”
Piper was heartbroken, too, but she was also filled with gratitude toward Perch and Tad. “Thank you both so much. Thank you for saving my brother.”
Perch took an uncharacteristic pass on credit. “Tad did all the work. He’s the hero.”
“You dove in first,” Tad reminded him.
“What little good that did,” Perch said. “I looked for Creeper but didn’t see him anywhere. There was nothing but weird blobby things at the bottom. Where’d you find him?”
Tad glanced down at Piper. “You’re not going to believe us when we tell you, Perch.”
“At this point, nothing will surprise me. But save the story for the ride home. We need a pickup.” Perch jogged back to the shoreline. “Hey!” he yelled to his first mate. “We’re okay!”
“Y’all scared me half to death!” Macey hollered. “Give me a minute. I’ll swing on over and get you!”
Creeper squished his ear with his palm in an attempt to relieve the pressure inside. “Do we have to go back into the water? Please say no. I’ve never been so scared in my life.”
Piper rubbed his shoulder. She was scared too. Not because of the animals, but because of Mergo itself. Another trespass violation seemed like more than it would allow. “I don’t know. We’ll find out in a second.”
Perch heard them from the shore. “Macey’ll use the steering lever to raise the motor and run the boat right up onto the bank. Curbside service.”
“I gotta show you something!” Macey hollered across the lagoon as she yanked on the starter cord. “Yer not gonna believe it!”
The motor roared to life on the first pull and drowned out her voice. Perch attempted to read her lips, but he was no expert at the trick, and what he thought he picked up had to be wrong. It just had to be. Whatever Macey was trying to tell him would have to wait. He turned back to the tree line and waved the others over.
Piper helped Creeper to his feet, and Tad carried him piggy-back to the shore.
Macey aimed the Mud Cat at them and squatted to sit down on the stern.
Madness erupted with a splash.
An alligator gar the size of a surfboard leaped from the water. The fish thwacked her in the ribs with its wide spotted tail, knocking her overboard, into the swamp. Macey resurfaced, sputtering.
The kids cried out to her.
Macey reached up, grabbed the gunwale, and started to pull herself back into the boat. Mergo had other plans.
The anaconda erupted from the water and coiled around her torso, adding a portion of its immense weight to her own. Macey’s biceps bulged, and in a Herculean effort, she chinned herself up to the gunwale. Piper had never seen anything so extraordinary; the old woman was a fighter.
W
ith the anaconda’s lower half wrapped around Macey’s torso, crushing her ribs, the snake’s upper half slithered up her back and piled onto the gunwale. Under the combined weight of woman and snake, the Mud Cat began to capsize. Macey looked to the kids. Piper saw the fear in her eyes.
If the boat overturned, they’d all be stranded. Macey knew that too. She wouldn’t let it happen.
“Hang on, Mace!” Perch rushed toward the water.
The snake was squeezing Macey tight, compressing her ribs against her lungs. She was forced to use her last bit of air to squeak one final order: “Stay!”
Perch moaned and howled and tugged at his hair, but in the end he obeyed and stayed out of the water. Macey’s eyes locked on his face. She smiled lovingly at her friend. Then she blinked her good-bye. Perch collapsed to his knees, helpless to save her. “No, Macey! Don’t let go!”
“Look away, Creeper,” Piper said, making sure he did. She wished she could look away, too, but she couldn’t. She felt an obligation to the woman to stay with her until the end.
Macey let go of the gunwale and grabbed hold of the snake with both hands, yanking it off the boat. The Mud Cat rocked level and slid away, safe. Snake and woman went underwater, locked in a deadly embrace.
And just like that, Macey was gone.
Heartbroken, Perch rocked back on his feet and sobbed. Piper went to put her hands on his shoulders, to comfort him.
Without warning, Perch let out a ripping growl and sprang upward, accidentally elbowing Piper hard in the head. He was too lost to notice.
Piper saw spots exploding in her eyes.
Perch bawled. “I’m coming, Mace! Hang on!” Sludge and swamp juice spattered up his pant legs as he thudded into the water. Tad chased after him, commanding him to stop.
Piper fell to the ground.
Everything went dark.
“Anyone sitting here?” The tall girl with the sparkling green eyes and the fishtail braid didn’t wait for Piper to answer. She set her tray down across from Piper and made herself at home.
Piper didn’t want company. She thought she’d made that obvious by the way she’d spread her lunch items strategically to cover most of the table, but without appearing crazy. This girl couldn’t take a hint.
“I’m Olivia,” the intruder said. “I’m sure you knew that, though. Everyone knows who I am. And who my friends are.”
Piper didn’t bother to look up from her creamed corn. “Sure I do. You’re part of the pageant crowd. You won Junior Miss Tybee Island at the fair last summer. I was there.”
“I won the summer before that too. I was also a judge at the baking contest.”
Apparently, humble pie wasn’t a dessert Olivia was familiar with.
“Good for you,” said Piper. “Why aren’t you sitting with your friends?”
“I was hoping you and I could be friends. Actually, I’m acting as an emissary. The girls and I have been watching you for a while. We think you’d be a good fit with our group.”
They’d been watching her. How wonderfully creepy. “Why would you think that? None of you ever talk to me. You don’t know anything about me.”
“Don’t be silly!” Olivia lightly batted Piper’s hand and gave a fake, buttery laugh. “Obviously you’re pretty enough to hang out with us—that’s never been in question. In fact, you’d be the prettiest girl in school if you didn’t always dress like the janitor.” She cackled. “It’s nothing that a trip to Macy’s can’t fix.”
“So then what’s the problem?” Piper asked, although she couldn’t care less.
“Oh, there’s no problem. Not anymore. See, until recently your choice of friends has been a little…problematic.”
“Oh yeah? How so?”
“Well, for one example, there’s that boy you were always with.”
“Tad? What’s wrong with him?”
“Is that his name? How funny. Well, he’s a tad too skinny. And a tad too bookish. And a tad too peculiar. If you want my honest opinion—”
Piper didn’t. Just because she’d stopped hanging out with Tad didn’t mean she’d allow this witch to insult him. “He’s okay. Leave him alone.”
“Oh, I’m delighted to leave him alone.” Olivia smirked. “It looks to me like you are too.” She rose off her seat and scanned the cafeteria. “There he is. Sitting waaaay over there. Seems like you two aren’t very chummy anymore.”
In ten seconds, thought Piper, this chick is going to be wearing a tiara made of creamed corn. “It’s none of your business, Olivia.”
“You’re right. And I don’t care.” Unfazed, Olivia batted her eyelash extensions at Piper. “But now that you’ve shaken some of the fleas out of your coat, I don’t see any reason why you can’t be friends with the girls and me. What do you say, Piper? Ready for an upgrade?”
“I don’t need friends,” said Piper. What she meant was that she didn’t deserve any friends. And even if that weren’t true, she couldn’t see how she and Olivia had the slightest thing in common. “I’m fine on my own.”
“We’re all fine on our own,” said Olivia, twisting Piper’s meaning. “But we’re even finer as a group. You’d be amazed how much easier your life would be if you were popular like us. Everything is handed to you on a silver platter.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Piper growled. She had reached her limit of this dingbat’s nonsense. She started packing her tray to leave. She’d lost her appetite, and her temper would be next.
“You must be kidding! The fun, Piper, is in getting our way all the time! Why carry books when boys will line up to do it for you? Why bother studying when it’s a fact that teachers give good-looking people higher grades than ugly ones for the exact same work?”
Piper didn’t know where Olivia got her facts, but she didn’t think that was true at all. This girl was living in her own little castle in her own little mind. Piper was ready to ditch her. Or hit her. She hadn’t decided.
“And the best part of all?” said Olivia. “Nobody expects anything of us! People assume we’re always busy doing charity work, or mentoring dumb girls from the elementary school, or cutting ribbons, and they don’t want to heap more on our plates. But in reality it’s not like that at all. I mean, it could be, sure, if we signed on for those things, but most of the time we’re just hanging out at Penelope’s house, sipping iced tea by the pool. Imagine a day with no responsibilities, then multiply that by three hundred and sixty-five days a year. Sounds pretty sweet, doesn’t it?”
Piper eased her grip on her tray and leaned forward, finally joining the conversation instead of just enduring it. “That does sound good,” she said, but not for Olivia’s reasons. Piper wasn’t afraid of hard work. Sometimes she even enjoyed it. But the idea of not having anyone depend on her, for anything, was exactly what she wanted. When people depended on her, things went wrong. People could get hurt. Promises were broken. If joining Olivia’s group meant she could fly under the radar, then that’s what she would do.
“Okay, I’m in,” said Piper. “Where do I sign?”
“Wonderful!” Olivia clapped like an excited circus seal. “You’ll have to spend time with the girls and me, obviously. Maybe a sleepover at Penelope’s. Wait until you see her house. You know, her dad is the CEO of a company that makes software for music. Or music for software. I can’t remember which.”
“Good for him.”
“Good for us! They have a home theater that’s as big as an actual theater! With a popcorn cart and everything!”
“When do you want to get together?” Piper asked, already dreading her decision.
“Saturday night. We’ll have a skin-cleansing party.”
“What’s a skin-cleansing party?” To Piper, skin cleansing meant thirty seconds with soap and a washcloth.
Olivia lifted her dessert, a cup of chocolate pudding, from her tray and placed it on the table between them. “Mud facials, silly goose! You’ll love it!”
Now it was getting weird. “Uh…that’s not m
ud,” Piper told her. “It’s pudding.”
“Is it? Are you certain?” Olivia grinned, revealing the longest, pointiest, yellowest teeth. An orthodontist’s nightmare. And worst of all, there was a bloody bird feather caught between two canine teeth, although now they all sort of looked like canine teeth. Or alligator teeth. “Look again, Piper.”
The dessert cup was growing, expanding until it was the size of a punch bowl. Piper saw worms and pill bugs bubbling up through the jiggling pudding skin. Only it wasn’t pudding anymore. It was indeed mud. “Olivia? What’s happening?”
Olivia’s head morphed. Her mouth elongated, pushing her eyes out to the side of her skull. Her skin turned green and scaly, her forehead flattened out, and her nostrils turned upward until the girl looked exactly like an American alligator. An alligator in a pink Ralph Lauren blouse.
Alligator-Olivia reached across the table, grabbed Piper by the cheeks, and with a booming grunt slammed her headfirst into the bowl. Piper felt the mud, cold and wet on her skin. She wanted to scream, but she knew that if she did, her lungs would fill with dank, buggy muck.
—Piper snapped awake and realized she was lying facedown on the muddy bank of Mergo’s lagoon. She jumped to her feet and groomed her face frenetically like an otter. The intertwined memory and nightmare faded, replaced by the horrible realization that Macey was dead.
Creeper helped her to her feet and told her what she’d missed. When Macey was pulled under by the anaconda, Perch had bolted back into the water to attempt a rescue. There was no chance he would have reached her in time. Mergo had suffered damage and was now on the offense, no longer keeping its protectors close. Instead, it was sending them out into the water, like antibodies into the bloodstream, to deal with the foreign invaders. Somehow, while Piper lay unconscious, Tad had managed to drag Perch out of the water all by himself. He’d pinned Perch on the shore until the grief-racked boy stopped struggling. If Tad hadn’t restrained Perch, he’d be dead now, just like Macey. Perch had to accept the truth: his friend was dead, and there was nothing any of them could do about it.
The Murk Page 20