Above, descending from the center of the ceiling like a living chandelier, was an immense, closely knit cluster of orange tentacles, each one covered in wicked thorny barbs. One of the tentacles stretched down, harpooned the carcass of a deer with its barbs, and hauled it up quickly. The dead animal disappeared into the wriggling bouquet, and Piper threw up on her feet.
This wasn’t a factory at all. It was a slaughterhouse.
The ground below the chandelier of tentacles was covered in a web of vines, just like in the forest, except these were bigger, as thick as the anaconda, and occasionally they would shiver like a snake about to shed its skin. It seemed that the deeper Mergo penetrated the earth, the more vile and ugly it grew.
“The light…” A faint voice drifted to her from the shadows.
Piper swung the beam toward the voice and found Tad slumped on the ground between a gap in the web. He was facing her direction, but his eyes were darting about, struggling to zero in on her.
“Tad!” she cried out.
“Turn off the light.…” he moaned, his voice weak and raspy. “They…they can see it.”
Her friend’s warning came too late. A tentacle flew at her from nowhere, coiled around her leg, and dragged her through the gap between the two chambers, dumping her onto the floor. Its hairs hadn’t managed to adhere to her yet, so she was able to pull free.
“Get away from me!” She thumped the tentacle on the side of its paddle head with the sturdy flashlight, knocking it away. Three more tentacles zipped through the air in her direction.
Tad mustered the strength to holler. “Turn off the light! Now!”
Piper clicked the flashlight off and plunged the chamber into pitch darkness.
She didn’t move. She held her breath, afraid that by sending the slightest signal of her existence she would give herself away. She could hear the tentacles swooshing through the air around her. One brushed against her leg. Its smooth, rubbery skin dragged across her own. It didn’t attack. None of the tentacles did. With the flashlight put out, Piper had become invisible to their senses. Tad was right.
“They can’t see you in the dark. It’s okay to talk,” Tad told her. “They can’t hear us. Just don’t make any sudden moves until you’re sure they’ve given up looking for the flashlight. That’s what got their attention. The beam.”
Even though Tad had assured her it was fine to make noise, Piper remained silent. She didn’t know if opening her mouth to reply counted as a sudden move. After an extremely tense minute, she heard the tentacles slither away. They’d lost interest in her.
“How did you get here?” she hissed in Tad’s direction. “I told you to stay in the clearing.”
“When you didn’t come back, I headed into the woods. I didn’t get far. A tentacle came out of a hole in the ground and dragged me into the tunnels. I ended up down here. Is that what happened to you?”
“One grabbed Creeper. I followed him into the ground,” Piper said. “I thought only animals had tentacles. Is Mergo part animal?”
“No, it’s part Drosera,” Tad said. “It’s the Latin name of the sundew plant, another type of carnivore.”
In the dark, surrounded by the killer plant, Piper was a big ball of jittery nerves. Talking made her feel better. “So the sundew is like an octopus or a squid?”
“Not at all. The sundew’s tentacles are actually modified leaves designed to attract, trap, and eat insects. The leaves put out a sweet odor, attracting bugs. The bugs get stuck on mucus-coated hairs covering the tentacle. The tentacle then curls around the bug and holds it fast until its digestive glands can suck out all the nutrients in its body.”
“So disgusting!” She shuddered.
“The only method of trapping Mergo hasn’t adopted is the one used by pitcher plants like the hooded cobra lilies we saw in the swamp earlier.”
“How do pitcher plants trap?”
“They have leaves shaped like water pitchers filled with sweet-smelling digestive juice. The leaves are super slippery, so insects that come to have a sip of the juice fall in it and can’t get out. Some pitcher plants are large enough to catch rats and birds.”
Piper thought of Creeper swimming in the minty liquid. “Mergo has at least one pitcher trap too. A big one. The size of a swimming pool. I pulled Creeper out of it. It had a sweet, minty smell.”
“Like Sarracenia leucophylla,” said Tad. “The white pitcher plant of the Gulf Coast. It has a minty smell too. The plant’s digestive juices contain a chemical sedative that relaxes prey. Keeps their victims from struggling. Helps them accept their fate.”
“That explains why my brother was acting so dopey,” she said. “Creeper and I were lucky to escape it alive.”
“You were,” Tad agreed. “How’d you get out?”
For the sake of brevity, she skipped the part where she’d tricked the tentacle into dragging them free. “Perch saved us. Then he took Creeper to the surface. I insisted.”
“And you stayed down here to look for me. It figures. Perch saves the day, and I end up the damsel in distress.” He sighed audibly. “You shouldn’t have come back for me, Piper. You should have gone with them. You should have gone home.”
“As if! Is that what you would have done?” she asked.
“No…” Tad admitted. “I would have done the same thing you did. It’s selfish, but I’m glad you’re here.”
A horrible squeal filled the chamber. It went on and on until it faded to a gurgle and then ended with a pitiful moan. Another animal was dead.
When the chamber fell quiet again, Piper was raring to depart. First she had to get Tad. “I’m going to try to make my way over to you.”
“Don’t!” Tad shouted. “You’ll step on one of Mergo’s branches! The only reason I’ve gone undetected since I was dumped here is because I’ve stayed in one spot. The animals aren’t smart enough to do the same. They scramble around the chamber, step on a trigger branch, and—”
“And then those tentacles on the ceiling shoot out like harpoons.”
“Is that what’s happening? I just knew that something in here was killing them. Mergo’s venom really wrecked my eyes.”
“So what are we supposed to do?” she asked. “Stay in here until this creepy plant evolves legs and walks away?”
“Be patient. I’m working on a plan. I just wish I could see what I’m doing. If I had use of the flashlight, even for a minute…but the tentacles would be on me in seconds, not nearly enough time.”
Piper thought back to her first visit to Tad’s greenhouse. “You said plants can see different colors of light, right?”
“That’s right. Red, white, and blue. So?”
“What about green light?”
“As much as I’d love for the Green Lantern to come swooping in here to save the day, Piper, that’s not going to happen.”
She could hear him fidgeting with something. It sounded like he was ripping cardboard. “I’m being serious, Tad.”
“The chlorophyll in plants absorbs most colored light, but it reflects green. It’s the reason why plants look green to us.”
“So the answer is…?”
“No, Piper, plants can’t see green light.”
Green…
Piper turned the flashlight back on. White light landed everywhere.
“Hey!” Tad yelled. “What are you doing? Turn it off! Turn it off!”
Three more tentacles whirled in the air and faced Piper. One had a struggling raccoon stuck to its tip, but it released the animal. The raccoon fell to the ground and scampered away.
Piper had given away her position. The tentacles knew exactly where she was. They came for her.
Piper clicked the flashlight’s smaller button, trying to remember the order of the colored lights. If she dithered between the wrong ones for too long—red, white, or blue—she’d be dead.
Click, red.
Click, blue.
A tentacle swiped at her leg. She played skip rope with it.
On the third click, the beam and the chamber turned green. The tentacles froze in midair. The largest parked directly in front of her face and hovered there. If Piper leaned forward just a few inches, her nose would stick to its writhing hairs. Close up, those hairs looked like glistening lime lollipops dripping with spit. They were its “eyes,” she knew. Primitive eyes that had just been tricked by the green light. Piper had pulled a Houdini. She’d vanished.
“What’s happening?” Tad asked, hysterical with worry. “I see the green light! Did it work? Are you okay? Answer me!”
Piper didn’t dare. She was so close to the tentacle’s hairs that even the draft from a whisper could undo the magic trick. She let Tad worry until, just like before, the tentacles withdrew and returned to their business of murder. Except for one. It slithered to the gap between the two chambers and coiled up inside it, blocking the only way out.
Piper exhaled. “I’m okay. They’re blind to green light, just like you said they’d be. But I think Mergo knows I’m here now. One of its tentacles is guarding the exit. If we’re ever getting out of here, we’ll have to deal with it first.”
Tad was furious with her. “Piper, when I said plants can’t see green, I thought you were talking about normal plants! I have no clue what Mergo can or can’t see. It’s totally unique! You took a huge gamble!”
“Says the guy who was certain Mergo is deaf. It worked, so hush. I’m coming to you.”
Somehow, the factory chamber bathed in the sickly, green glow seemed even more chilling than the bone chamber lit with red. To Piper, an outdoorsy girl, green had always represented vibrant life. But now she saw that it could also be the color of death. She stepped carefully between the hair-trigger vines covering the ground and was halfway to Tad when a huge rat came scampering toward her, making a break for the exit. Piper tried to get out of its way, but the rat landed on a branch at her feet, and in a flash one of the tentacles on the ceiling zipped down like a chameleon’s tongue, barely missing Piper’s leg with its barbed tip. With the accuracy of a sniper, the tentacle harpooned the squealing rat and bungeed it up to the ceiling. Piper hopped the rest of the way to Tad and fell to her knees at his side. She threw her arms around his neck and mashed her cheek against his.
“I missed you too,” he said.
“How are your eyes?” She held three fingers up close to his face. “How many?”
“Three,” he answered.
“Can you see my face?”
Tad sighed happily. “I sure can.”
Piper lingered on his smile. Until that moment, she’d never realized how handsome it was. “Now what?” she asked.
“I have a plan,” he said. “Give me some light.”
She trained the spotlight on his hands. He was holding the disposable Kodak camera. The sound of ripping cardboard she’d heard in the dark was Tad removing the box it came packaged in.
“You still have the camera?” she asked. “Does it work? Wasn’t it underwater?”
“It was one of the things I thought important enough to store inside a ziplock bag,” Tad said. “Then I put it in my utility belt. It’s as dry as a—”
“Don’t say bone,” Piper implored. “I’m sick of bones.”
“—a cracker.” Tad slid the latch on the side, and the back half of the casing popped open, exposing the film to the flashlight.
“Why did you do that?” she asked. “Won’t the light ruin the film?”
“I don’t care about that,” Tad said. “We need this camera for something more important than taking pictures.” He noticed Perch’s knife in her hand. “Can I borrow that, please?”
Piper handed it to him.
Tad fingers moved nimbly over the camera. He popped out the battery. “I did this once before. Forgot to take the battery out and gave myself a nasty shock.” Using the dull edge of the knife, he pried off the faceplate, exposing the circuit board. He cut all the wires attached to the flash. He made a few more adjustments, reinstalled the battery, and reassembled the camera.
“Voilà,” he said proudly.
“Um…voilà what?” Piper asked. It didn’t look like he’d accomplished anything besides destroying his property.
“I converted the camera into a Taser. Like the ones the police use to zap criminals. It’ll transmit a pretty painful jolt of electricity now. We can shock the tentacle guarding the entrance.”
“What good will that do?” she asked. “Won’t it just alert the other ones to what we’re up to?”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “I remembered a story about the Venus flytrap. A while back, some scientists conducted an experiment. They wanted to see exactly what caused the flytrap’s lobed leaves to snap shut. They discovered that they could force the traps to spring without touching the trigger hairs at all. By sending an electrical charge through the stem, they tricked the plant into closing all its traps at once. See, it’s not the touch itself that causes a plant to react. It’s the electrical signal that results from that touch. The mild current fooled the Venus flytrap into thinking it had already trapped its prey, and therefore there was no reason to open the traps again for a while. I’m hoping I can do the same to Mergo with the Taser. If I’m right, an electrical shock will convince Mergo that all its traps have already been sprung, and that’ll give us a chance to get to escape.”
“Are you sure about this, Tad?” Piper asked.
Tad pressed the camera’s charger button. The exposed wires sticking out from the casing crackled with electricity, spraying sparks into the air. “No, I’m not sure. But honestly? At this point I’d rather have a weapon than a camera.”
“Speaking of weapons…” she said. “When Creeper and I were on the surface, we saw an army of giant beetles crawling out of the ground. They were all carrying clear balls filled with some kind of fluid. They smelled like this place. Like kerosene. The bugs left them all over the forest. What do you suppose Mergo’s up to? Should we be worried?”
“I’m not sure. Although…it might have something to do with a process called guttation, where a plant excretes droplets of sap. Mostly the drops are just water and sugar, but sometimes they contain pesticides and other chemicals. You say they smelled like kerosene? I wouldn’t be surprised to find that Mergo’s droplets contain an explosive liquid. Everything about the plant is dialed up to eleven.”
“But why would Mergo leave them in the woods?” Piper asked.
“The most likely reason is to start fires in the forest. To burn back encroaching trees and other plants that threaten it.”
“Mergo lives underwater. And underground. What could threaten it on land?”
“But its traps are in the lagoon. Remember, Perch told us that if swamp fires didn’t burn up the woody plants, over time the waterways would close off and become land. If that happened to the lagoon, Mergo’s bladder traps would become landlocked and useless. I guess it adapted to take advantage of lightning, and if that isn’t a sign of intelligence then I don’t know what is. One bolt is all it would take to set off a chain reaction, cleaning out the forest like Drano cleans pipes. All while Mergo waits comfortably below for the fire to burn itself out, just like all of the swamp’s other burrowers…the turtles, the moles, the gators.”
“But why is it moving the guttation droplets to the surface now?”
“Because of us. We damaged the stalk. Cut off the flower. My guess is that Mergo is pulling out all the stops. Setting all its traps, above and below. Because it knows we’re here and it feels threatened. It wants to make sure we’re dead, because we hurt it.”
“God, I hate this plant.” Piper groaned.
“I don’t hate it,” Tad said, “but I’m ready to get the heck out of here.”
Piper was sitting across from Tad in the dirt, staying close enough so that he could see her. Again, she thought back to the day when she’d sneaked into his greenhouse. He’d sat across from her in the pea gravel and listened so patiently. But that was Tad. He had always been patient with her.
Always cared about her. He’d always been right there waiting for her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“For my vision? It’s nothing that a pair of Coke-bottle glasses won’t fix. Or maybe a Seeing Eye dog.”
“I’m sorry for your vision, yes, but that’s not all. I know I’ve already apologized for putting our friendship on hold, but until the last couple of days, I never realized how much I’d truly lost by pushing you away. You’re like…the best guy ever. You’d have to be, to follow me into this mess.”
“I’m glad we’re friends again,” he said. “I just wish Perch hadn’t told you…you know…how I feel about you. It wasn’t his business. I was okay with just having my best friend back. I don’t want you to feel weird around me anymore.”
“I don’t mind that you have feelings for me,” Piper said.
Tad chuckled. “Great. That’s just what I was longing to hear.”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” she said. “I guess I’m just a little shocked that you like me like me. I’m nothing special. Perch was right—I’m just a stupid girl who collects stupid tiaras.”
“Perch and I see you very differently,” Tad said.
“And how do you see me?” she asked, searching his failing eyes.
“Right now? You’re a little blurry.”
“Stop. I’m being serious. I need to know.”
“Piper…I don’t think this is the right time—”
“We may not get another chance to talk about this,” she pointed out. “This is important. Please.”
“Okay. This whole shallow-girl facade you’ve been wearing? It’s not you.”
Piper cringed. “I can only imagine what you thought of me when I started doing pageants.”
“Well…I’m not a fan of your girlfriends—they’re truly horrible people.” He chuckled. “But there’s nothing wrong with pageants. They can open up doors…opportunities for you to do great things, right? A lot of winners have gone on to make the world a better place through charity work. I figured you would too. And who says you can’t be Miss America and a soldier like you always wanted, right?”
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