The Murk

by Robert Lettrick

  “Pando is Latin for ‘I spread’,” said Tad. “And boy, did it. The root system and its trees spread out across a hundred acres.”

  “Do you really think Mergo is as big as Pando?” Piper asked. “I mean, as far as I could tell, it’s just one stalk and some underwater bladders.”

  Tad saved his most disturbing theory for last. “Remember I said that Mergo might be hunting us on land? I think I know how. I believe its four main branches run along the bottom of the swamp for quite a ways. All the way back to where the vines tried to drown Perch. Maybe farther. They run beneath this forest too, feathering out into thousands of smaller branches, creating a network that could run for a mile in all directions. So yeah, I think Mergo is as big as Pando. Maybe bigger. The one thing I haven’t figured out yet is how the plant seems to know where we are at all times. The attacks just keep on coming, even though we’ve put some distance between us and the stalk.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Piper caught sight of the web’s owner returning home from work. The ferocious-looking spider, a golden orb weaver, was two inches long and had a fat black abdomen covered in yellow markings. It skittered to the web’s bull’s-eye and parked. An orange ladybug hovered down onto one of the web’s sticky strands. It struggled to free itself, sending a pulse of vibrations along the thread and into the heart of the web, where it was noticed. The spider went to dinner.

  “I think I know how Mergo is tracking us,” said Piper excitedly. “Look!” She pointed out the web. The spider was busy wrapping the ladybug up in a silk straitjacket to keep it from escaping.

  “Well, that’s gross,” said Perch. “Thanks for that. Anything else you want to contribute to the conversation?”

  “What does a spider have to do with Mergo?” said Tad.

  “The plant may be working the same way a spider does,” she explained. “The vines covering the forest floor must act like a web. Every time we brush against one of the vines hanging from the trees or step on the ones on the ground, we’re letting Mergo know exactly where we are. But Mergo doesn’t build a web—”

  Tad smacked his forehead. “Duh! Mergo is the web!”

  “Exactly,” she said. “Remember those plantlet things didn’t start falling until Creeper tripped over a vine. Maybe all those vines are actually branches shooting off the four large underwater branches. They poke up through the ground and send signals to Mergo, alerting it to potential snacks. You called it tropism in the greenhouse, Tad. A plant reacting to touch.”

  “That’s right. Actually,” Tad said, remembering, “the alligator snapping turtle attacked shortly after the Mud Cat—shortly after Perch got tangled up in those vines. Maybe they weren’t vines. Maybe they were Mergo’s branches, and that was probably the exact moment that Mergo was made aware of our presence in its territory.”

  “Wait, the animals started following us before that,” Creeper reminded him from above. His legs were hooked over a branch and he was hanging upside down like a bat.

  Tad said, “True, maybe the boat brushed against other vines along the way. Honestly, though, we just don’t have enough information yet to understand the effect Mergo has throughout the swamp.”

  “Well, now that we have this far-fetched intelligence, what are we supposed to do with it?” Perch asked.

  Piper knew that “intelligence,” when used in this context, was a military word. He must have picked it up from Macey. People do that, she thought. They pick up ideas and pass them along like gifts to people they care about. Gifts that can be helpful long after the giver is gone.

  “We keep moving west, right?” Piper suggested. “Maybe we’ve gone beyond Mergo’s reach. Its plantlets died at the edge of the forest. That’s a good sign.”

  “Maybe,” said Tad. “Or maybe it just means that Mergo’s babies are only meant to serve its parent for a short time and then die. Maybe a limited life is part of a plantlet’s genetic code. That way they can’t grow big and become competition for their mother.”

  “Oh, so now Mergo is a she?” Piper was mildly offended.

  “Sorry,” Tad said. “The bottom line is that while Mergo may be a wonder of nature, he’s also firmly in charge of everything around him, including his offspring.”

  “Better.” Piper smiled weakly.

  “Enough with the chitchat,” Perch said. “We’ll start walking again when we’re rested and just hope this place isn’t an island, or we’re trapped like that ladybug.”

  Perch tossed the nettle back to Tad. Tad was looking right at him, but the nettle hit his shirt and rolled off to the ground.

  Piper touched Tad’s arm. He flinched. “Tad? Are you okay?”

  Tad furrowed his brow. He poked at the back of his neck, and his sweaty face contorted in pain. “I didn’t want to say anything. I was hoping it was a temporary problem.…”

  “What’s wrong?” Piper jumped down from her branch.

  Perch stepped close to Tad, leaned in, and inspected the boy’s darting eyes. “Where did you get that nettle, buddy?”

  “That’s the thing.” Tad sighed. He turned around and showed them the back of his neck. There was a huge, angry red lump on it, like a poisonous bug bite or a boil. The welt was inflamed. The redness was spreading down his nape and through the valley of his shoulder blades.

  “Oh, Tad,” Piper gasped. “You were hit in the neck?”

  Tad faced them. “I can feel Mergo’s venom in my system.”

  Piper took his hand in hers. “Tell us what’s happening.”

  “Guys, I think…” Tad’s eyelids fluttered rapidly. “I think I’m going blind.”

  It was a shocking admission, which led to another.

  Perch had been hiding something too.

  “What do you mean the vasculum is on the Mud Cat?”

  Piper had never felt so stunned or betrayed in her life. She wanted to punch Perch right in his handsome face until pieces fell off like Mr. Potato Head. “How is that even possible? And how could you have hidden that from us? Answer me!”

  “I didn’t say it’s definitely on the Mud Cat!” Perch backed away from Piper when she came stomping across the dried grass toward him. “I said it might be on the Mud Cat! Big difference! Besides, you three were the ones who wanted to leave my boat behind!”

  “Because we didn’t know the flower was onboard, you jerk!” She lifted a fist, ready to launch it at him if he said just one more stupid thing. “Tell us again, Perch,” Piper demanded. “Why do you think the vasculum is on the boat? The last time we saw it—”

  “I had it in my hands when I fell,” said Creeper. “I dropped it when I hit the water.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Tad asked. “Or did you drop it when the stem broke? Think hard, Creeper. This detail is important.”

  Creeper made his scrunched concentration face, which was similar to his “I ate too much Halloween candy and now I’m constipated” face. “I can’t remember, honest. It happened so fast. I guess I could have dropped it as soon as I felt the stalk start to fall. I didn’t have it in my hands when I went under the water. That’s all I know.”

  “So Creeper might have dropped it onto the hammock,” Tad said. “That still doesn’t explain how it got into the boat.”

  “Macey,” Perch said. “Macey must have grabbed it while we were all underwater.”

  Tad wasn’t sold. “Perch, are you sure you heard her right?”

  “I already told you, I didn’t hear her at all. The motor was loud, and I was on the shore, too far away. She pointed to something in the boat. I couldn’t see what it was. I tried to read her lips. It sure looked like she said ‘I’ve got the vasculum,’ but I can’t be certain.”

  “That’s not good enough,” Tad said, staring slightly to Perch’s right. “We can’t go back through the woods…back into the lagoon, on such flimsy evidence. We’d be risking our lives, probably for nothing.”

  Piper didn’t mince words. “I guess I just have to come out and say it. Your life is already at ri
sk, Tad. Mergo is something unknown to science, right? That means the same can be said for its venom. Even if we’re able to walk out of the Oke and get you to a hospital, there’s no guarantee there’s an antivenom. I mean, do they even make antivenoms for plants? I’m betting Mergo’s flower can fix you, though.” It became apparent to all that Piper had already decided on a course of action.

  Creeper started creeping down the oak’s trunk. “So we’re going back for the vasculum?”

  “No, we are not going back,” Piper replied. She paused, then said, “I am.”

  “Not without me, you’re not!” Tad protested.

  “You can barely see! We can’t afford the time it would take to guide you through Mergo’s web,” she told him. “It will be far easier if I just go back myself. I’m nimble-footed. Now that I know to avoid the branches, I think I can get back to the lagoon without drawing any attention.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Perch offered. “Two heads are better than one, Princess. If you get caught up in those…Merglets, you’ll be grateful to have me and my knife along to cut you free.”

  “And if we’re both killed trying to get to the vasculum? Then what?” Piper shook her head. “No, Perch, you have to stay. If I don’t make it back, I need you to get Creeper and Tad out of the swamp. You’ll have to lead Tad by the hand. And you’ll have to look out for my brother. Promise me you won’t let him out of your sight.”

  “Fine,” Perch grumbled. “You hear that, buddy? I’m your new babysitter.”

  There was no complaining. No reply at all. Perch and Piper looked up to the branches, but Creeper was gone. They panned around the clearing and caught sight of him just as he leaped over the pile of dead Merglets. Creeper stopped at the forest’s tree line and looked back. He cupped his hands to his mouth and hollered to them.

  “I’m going to get the flower! I’m the brother! It’s my job! I’ll get it for Grace! You guys, um…sit! Stay!” When he was done addressing them like puppies, Creeper gave a sad little wave and disappeared into the gloomy woods.

  Perch was a fast runner. Maybe faster than Donny Foster, Jesup Middle School’s all-time track-and-field ribbon winner. He left Piper in the dust, although that wasn’t a major accomplishment, since she was dragging nearsighted Tad by the hand across the clearing.

  “Get him, Perch!” Piper screamed. “Don’t let Creeper get away!”

  Why? Why did I let Creeper come along? she thought with thundering regret. She could have said no back at the Citgo gas station on Temple Street. Then she came to her own defense: How was I supposed to know we’d be attacked by a giant salad?

  Perch was in the forest long before she and Tad arrived at the threshold. “Tad, just wait here, okay?” Piper insisted. “I’ll have a better chance of finding Creeper if I go in alone.”

  Tad acquiesced but added, “If you don’t come back in ten minutes, I’m coming in after you. I’ll feel my way through the forest if I have to.”

  “Don’t do that.” She waved her hand in front of his face to gauge how much his vision had worsened. He caught her by the wrist.

  “I can see well enough, at least two or three feet ahead,” he said. “Everything past that is a haze, like I’m surrounded by fog. If you don’t want me to follow, then you’d better come back soon.”

  “Fine!” she said. There was no time to argue. She left Tad and the sunlight behind in the clearing.

  In the woods she was alone. There was no sign of Creeper or Perch. At first she moved stealthily, afraid any noise would trigger a response from Mergo. Then she remembered what Tad told her in the greenhouse: Plants are as deaf as a doornail. She hoped that was true.

  She cupped her hands to her mouth and called out for her brother. “Creeeeeeeper!”

  “Creeeeeeeeeeeeeeeper,” the forest echoed dimly.

  She hollered for Perch, too, but there was no answer, save for the swishing wake of leaves kicked up by a marsh hare that had been eyeing her from behind a mossy cypress stump. Piper froze in her tracks, waiting to see if the hare’s flight would trigger an attack from above—nettles, Merglets, or God knows what. Nothing happened. Maybe the hare is too light, she wondered. Maybe it’s beneath Mergo’s notice (assuming anything was beneath the notice of such a gluttonous life-form). Either that or the hare was just smart enough to avoid Mergo’s sensitive branches. Some animals have a sixth sense when it comes to evading predators.

  Piper heard noises up ahead: cracking twigs, the rustle of leaves being raked across the ground. The scream of a boy. She raced toward Creeper, hopscotching through Mergo’s web. She wouldn’t be much use to Creeper if she was dead, so that meant paying attention to the ground and going more slowly than she wanted to.

  When Creeper came into her line of vision, he was on his butt, scuttling away from something blocked from her view by overlapping trees.

  “Creeper!”

  He heard her. “Piper! Help me!”

  She closed in and saw the threat, a black bear swiping the ground with its shaggy forepaws in a bullying gesture.

  “I’m coming! I see you! I’m coming!” Her careful trot turned into a thudding sprint. Maybe Merglets fell—she didn’t know. Maybe nettles launched. It didn’t matter. All she cared about was reaching her brother.

  During their RV summer, she’d watched from the opposite side of a river in Montana as an adult grizzly smacked trout out of the water. Although black bears were half the size of grizzlies, the one that was intimidating Creeper was still impressive and clearly powerful. What did she know about black bears? The noisier they are, the less likely they are to attack. This one was stomping its paws, popping its jaw, and huffing in loud snorts. It couldn’t make more noise if it tried. She also knew that the best way to scare off a bear was by standing tall, puffing out, and being noisier than the animal. Black bears weren’t like grizzly bears. They didn’t like to fight.

  She waved her arms as she approached. “Hey! Over here! Look at me! I’m in your face! I’m big and bad! You’d better run away!”

  “What are you doing?” Creeper asked. “Are you crazy?”

  “I’m saving your life!” she snapped.

  She stomped her feet and clapped her hands. “Hey, Yogi! Over here! Look at me!”

  The bear did as she’d asked—it turned its attention to her. But instead of running away like the wilderness books promised, the bear charged toward her.

  Piper saw why her tactic hadn’t worked. Several of Mergo’s nettles were lodged in its nose and face, and like Tad, the bear was nearly blind. It was acting out of fear and confusion, using its acute smell and hearing to lash out at an unseen assailant.

  Piper tried to escape, but her foot caught on one of Mergo’s branches. She tripped and fell onto her backside. In a flash, the bear was on top of her. It opened its mouth wide and roared like a train in her face. A blast of hot, stinking breath flooded Piper’s nostrils. A rain of spittle spattered across her cheeks and lips. She was going to die. She knew it.

  But not yet.

  Two thick green tentacles sprang up from the ground and wrapped around the bear, one across its shaggy neck and the other around its broad chest. The end of each tentacle tapered out into a broad, flat tip, a bit like a pizza paddle. One side of each tip—the side stuck to the bear’s fur—was lined with fat, clear hairs. Each hair was tipped with a gland like a red dewdrop, dripping with glistening mucus. The hairs wriggled into the bear’s fur, finding purchase on its hide. They made a sickening squishing sound, like sticking your hand in soggy macaroni. Seeing the tentacles digging into the bear made Piper want to vomit.

  The tentacles yanked the bear off Piper. They lifted the four-hundred-pound animal into the air, and then slammed it hard into the ground by her feet. The bear clawed at the dirt, desperate to escape, but it was no use. The tentacles were too strong. Like the anchor chain of a freighter retracting into its hawse, the tentacles dragged the bear backward through the forest, down into a hole, sucking it into the earth.

 
Piper heard the animal’s muffled cry of anguish traveling beneath the ground, until it went silent abruptly, definitively, and Piper knew the bear was dead.

  Creeper flew to her side. “Did it bite you?”

  Her heart was drumming in her ears; his question barely registered. “No, it never got the chance,” she said, panting, as Creeper helped her to her feet.

  “What the heck were those thingies?” he asked, referring to the tentacles. “Giant Merglets?”

  “I don’t think so; they looked different. Have you seen Perch?”

  “No.”

  Piper yelled for Perch, but there was no response. She grabbed Creeper by the hand. “Let’s get you back to the clearing before more of those things show up,” she said. “Watch your step, okay?”

  They moved as one, marching in high steps over Mergo’s tropistic trip wires. This plant was no shrinking violet. Mergo wanted to be touched, and not in a warm, fuzzy way. It wanted to be touched so it could touch back.

  Piper and Creeper made it a quarter of the way back to the clearing when she saw movement through gaps in a large thicket. It was a wave of small dark-brown creatures plodding across the ground, negotiating a path through the leaf litter. Hundreds of them. Piper hooked a hand over Creeper’s shoulder and brought him to a stop.

  “Shh. Look.” She pointed.

  “What are they?” Creeper bent low to find a better viewing hole through the thicket.

  “Turtles?” Piper said. It was a fair guess. They had smooth brown shells, like the swamp’s numerous basking cooters; they were six or seven inches long; and they were traveling in a herd. She’d seen enough nature documentaries to know that turtle hatchlings often came out of the ground in great numbers and then made a dash together to the water. But then again, these creatures weren’t heading to water. They were heading away from it, deeper into the forest. It was bizarre behavior for turtles, if that’s what they were.