The strap tore off the overalls. The tendrils jerked her away from Macey and hauled her up quickly through the branches.
Her plan, she knew, bordered on suicide. She intended to set fire to the guttation droplets. It would be like tossing a lit match into a full can of gas. The explosion would likely kill her, but if there was even a one percent chance she would survive, then she had to go through with it. For Tad’s sake. If she died, he’d be lost in the dark, unable to find his way out.
Up, up, up she went. As she neared the cluster of guttation droplets, something hard clunked her on the back of her head. It was the top half of the giant turtle shell. The shell was spiky, thick, and formidable. It looked like an ancient shield.
A shield!
She grabbed hold of the shell’s rim and tugged, freeing it easily from the thin tendrils holding it aloft. The shell was heavy. It took all the strength in her left arm to heft it into place in front of her torso. She needed the right arm free to start the fire.
The tendrils carried her and the shell to the height of the guttation droplets. She heard the raspy breathing sound again and knew without looking that the nozzles were swelling and spitting digestive juices. Piper maneuvered her body, slipped under the shell, and tucked her knees up close to her chest. The spray of mist spattered against the shell’s spiked scutes, but not a single fleck landed on Piper. When the valves closed and the spray dissipated, she twisted around to face the guttation droplets. She held the lighter out past the shell and laid her thumb on the flint wheel.
This is it.
Piper flicked the lighter and conjured the flame. In her head, she said a blanket prayer that covered everything. She signed off with: you know, just in case I’m incinerated. Amen.
She hesitated, surprised by a fleeting pang of remorse. Mergo had existed in the swamp for thousands of years and was, as Tad said, a marvel of evolution. A one-of-a-kind life-form, unique in every way. But it had also blinded Tad. Killed Macey. It had tried to eat Creeper. For those reasons, Mergo had to die.
But even here the plant had defenders.
Piper yelped. One of the Titan beetles landed on her hand and bit into her skin with mandibles like scissors. Another flitted down onto the upper rim of the turtle shell, peered down at her, clacked its formidable jaws, and hissed.
It didn’t matter. They were too late. Piper lifted the lighter to the nearest guttation drop. It sizzled as the thin casing melted away, and then it exploded. They all exploded.
Piper was pummeled by teeth-rattling shock waves and scalded by searing heat. The turtle shell took the brunt of the blast, but the explosion still tossed her about the cell like a sock in a dryer. The flossy walls shredded, and in a literal flash, the tendrils, the dead animals, and the beetles were cremated.
Piper plummeted to the floor of the chamber and thudded hard in the dirt. The turtle shell landed on its rim and rolled way. Above, an orange tentacle, severed and on fire, was falling down on top of her. She flung herself out of the way, and it crashed down beside her, flopping about, curling and uncurling like a beckoning finger.
A massive fireball churned inside the shaft where the tentacle chandelier had nestled. The flame was spreading down and out across the ceiling. A web of hairline cracks spread across the ceiling too. The chamber was crumbling.
Flashlight in hand, Piper raced for the gap between the two chambers. It didn’t matter if she stepped on the trip-wire branches now. All the ceiling tentacles were destroyed, and the paddle-headed ones were roasting or retreating out the holes in the wall, carrying the fire with them.
Just as Piper reached the gap, she heard a loud groan and then a roaring crunch behind her. The ceiling collapsed. A waterfall of swamp water dumped in from above, dousing the blaze. This part of Mergo’s domain was directly under the swamp! A billowing cloud of steam filled the chamber. The factory had been destroyed.
Piper darted through the gap and ran smack into Tad as he was rushing in.
“You’re alive! I heard—”
“No time!” She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him toward the exit on the far side of the bone chamber.
Water came rushing in behind them, spreading quickly across the ground. The surge mopped up skeletons and turned the chamber into a disgusting, frothy soup of swamp sludge, water and bones. The wave reached Piper and Tad, swept them off their feet, and sent them crashing into a large heap of skeletons. They clambered up and over the pile then jumped back into the water and waded toward the exit tunnel on the far side of the chamber. The shock waves from the explosion must have weakened the chamber’s support structure, because the tunnel collapsed in front of their eyes. They were trapped.
“Where do we go?” Tad asked. “I can’t see! Piper, where do we go?”
“I don’t know!” She clicked the button on the flashlight, and the beam turned white. She scoured the chamber walls with it. “There! Another tunnel!”
They waded toward it. The water level reached Piper’s midriff, rising fast. In a minute it would be up to her neck.
At the tunnel entrance, Tad froze.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“We don’t know where this tunnel leads. What if it collapsed inside? Or what if we get deep into it and find it’s a dead end? We’ll be stuck! The rising water will fill it up and we’ll drown!”
“We’ll drown if we stay,” she said. “What choice do we have? Come on!” Piper climbed into the tunnel and pulled Tad in after her.
At first the tunnel’s shaft sloped up at an incline, which was a positive sign. They were definitely heading toward the surface. But then it started to run downhill again and the kids entered shallow water.
“We’re heading back into the chamber, Piper!” Tad panicked. “It’s a loop!”
“No, we didn’t make any turns. This has to be a way out.”
“But the water—”
“The water is going to get deeper,” she warned. “But it’s still the way out. Stay at my heels. Trust me.”
Piper was right; the water in the tunnel did get steadily deeper. It lapped at their chins, and the tops of their heads scraped the roof.
“It’s no good,” Tad said. “We should go back and look for another way out.”
Piper was positive that the tunnel was an exit. “It’s just a little farther. We can swim for it.”
“A little farther? It’s a dead end, Piper! There’s no way we’re—”
They heard a splash somewhere back down the tunnel, in the direction they’d come from. Piper aimed the flashlight at the source. There wasn’t any movement except for squiggles of light on top of the water.
“What do you see?” he asked.
“Nothing yet. Shh.”
Two red pinpoints of light bobbed to the surface twenty feet away. Red eyeshine. The eyes were too far apart to belong to a rat, and it surely wasn’t a coyote. The alligator glided in silence toward them.
“Get behind me,” she ordered, squishing Tad against the wall. “I’ll try to fend it off.”
“Fend what off? Piper, what is it?”
She gripped the flashlight tightly, preparing to bash the gator on its snout the second it opened its jaws. It wasn’t a very big alligator, maybe five or six feet long, but its size didn’t fool Piper. It was still capable of tearing off her arm in a jiff.
The gator wasn’t interested. It rolled one crimson eye at her as it swam past and continued on down the tunnel. Free of Mergo’s mind control, the beast had a new priority. Escape.
“Was that…was that an alligator?” asked Tad.
“Would you believe me if I said it was an otter?”
“No.”
“Okay, it was an alligator. But the good news is that this tunnel must be a way out. Gators sense these things. They’re burrowers, so they know. We’re gonna follow it.”
“How? The water level is almost to the ceiling.”
“We’ll have to swim underwater the rest of the way. I’ll go first. Try to hang on to
my ankle. I won’t kick. I can pull myself along the bottom with my arms. Count of three?”
“Why not?” said Tad. “I’ve followed you this far.” He wasn’t just referring to the tunnel.
“I know you have,” she said. Then she kissed him again. This time there was no clunky awkwardness to it. She kissed Tad and he kissed her back, and if it was the last thing they did on this earth, then she would be okay with that. It was the kind of kiss she’d read about in English class. Epic. Shakespearean, even.
When they finally pulled away, Tad sighed. “To be continued.”
On three they took deep breaths and submerged. Piper held the waterproof flashlight out with one hand and used the other to propel her body down the tunnel. She moved as fast as she could without pulling away from Tad. The water was murky, but the light was bright enough that she was able to see a few feet ahead. A small fish darted through the beam. The exit was close, Piper was sure of it. She knew exactly where the tunnel was leading them.
Tad squeezed her ankle to let Piper know he was almost out of air.
Just a little farther.
Her lungs burned. She was almost out of air too.
Just a little farther.
The water grew brighter. The light at the end of the tunnel. An exit appeared.
They swam out of the tunnel and into the lagoon. Piper spied the lower half of Mergo’s giant stalk. The plant’s animal servants were gone. The lagoon had been evacuated except for a dark shape floating on the surface above them. It was long and rectangular and could only be one thing: The Mud Cat. The kids swam for it.
Tad and Piper broke the surface on the port side of the boat, gasping for air. Because of Mergo’s venom, Tad was too weak to get into the vessel without help. Piper would have to pull him into the Mud Cat. She reached up to the gunwale and tried to heft herself up. She struggled and groaned and swore that if she made it home, she would buy a chin-up bar during her next trip to Target. Despite her best effort, it was hopeless. She hung there by her arms, emptied of strength.
Two shocked faces peered down over the gunwale. Perch and Creeper. Her boys were safely aboard.
They reached down and dragged her into the boat so fast that she almost lost her shorts. They hoisted Tad aboard next.
A great whoosh sound reached their ears. It was the rush of air being sucked down into the earth in great gulps as a section of the forest caved into the tunnels. The fire was spreading underground, and the trees would burn as kindling. Black smoke billowed up and came rolling out of the woods toward the lagoon.
“We may be out of the frying pan,” Perch noted with urgency, “but the fire’s just getting started.” He yanked on the motor’s cord, but nothing happened.
“What’s wrong?” asked Creeper.
Perch looked the motor over for problems and found a big one. “The kill switch is gone! I can’t start the boat without it! Macey must have pulled it free when the gar knocked her out of the boat!”
Piper fished into her pocket and yanked out the plastic lanyard. The kill switch was dangling on the end of it. “Please, don’t ask how I got it. Just take it.”
Perch plugged the kill switch into the motor. This time it fired right up. He took over the sternman position. The others sat to the sides, giving him a clear view ahead. Perch brought the engine to full throttle and they moved swiftly toward the opening of the narrow, zipping around a rapidly widening whirlpool created when the chamber collapsed.
Piper looked back and saw several new columns of smoke rising from the trees beyond the lagoon. Mergo’s lair had become its subterranean funeral pyre. Piper didn’t know if the plant could survive the fire or not. She’d done it great damage, but Mergo was a resilient life-form. Almost alien, in many ways. It probably came from South America, but it could have just as easily ridden to Earth on a meteor. Was it truly a glimpse into the future of plant evolution? Piper feared it could be.
“What happened down there?” Perch asked her.
“I blew it up.”
“Yeah, I figured that part. With what, though? We heard the explosion, like a bomb went off.”
That sounded accurate to Piper. “Mergo secretes these things called guttation drops—”
Before she could finish her story, the biggest tentacle they’d seen yet shot up out of the Mud Cat’s wake, arced high in the air, and landed with a sound like the slap of a wet towel on the right side of the boat’s transom.
The Mud Cat came to a jarring halt, throwing everyone backward. Perch hit his head hard against the motor casing and was knocked senseless. Creeper fell onto the floor and slid against the bench. The motor was gargling swamp water, trying in vain to propel the boat forward. Piper and Tad scrambled to remove the tentacle before it tore off the back of the boat.
The tip of the tentacle forked into a dozen smaller tentacles, each one dripping with a vile yellow mucous which discharged a powerful odor like rubber glue, the kind used to assemble model cars or rockets. These smaller tips were stuck fast to the Mud Cat, holding it hostage in the lagoon.
“Quick! Give me Perch’s knife!” Piper ordered.
“Can’t! I lost it in the tunnel,” Tad told her.
“What else can we use to cut ourselves free?” She shouted to be heard over the violent popping of bolts being torn out of place.
The tentacle started to tow the boat backward. Toward the expanding whirlpool. The bow rose a foot into the air.
“It’s pulling us under!” Creeper yelled.
“I know! I know!” Piper snapped.
Tad fumbled for the motor and felt his way around until he located the steering tiller. He leaned his weight on it, and the bottom of the motor lifted out of the water. The three blades on the end were buzzing loudly in the air, sounding like a WeedWacker, which is exactly what Tad intended to use them for. He swiveled the motor to the right and lowered the blades on top of the tentacle. Bits of shredded plant pulp spattered everywhere. Tad kept raising and lowering the motor blades, chopping through the plant’s flesh little by little until he’d cut completely through. The damaged tentacle dropped into the swamp with a slapping splash and sank out of view.
“Did I get it all?” Tad asked.
“It’s gone! That was quick thinking,” Piper said, patting him on the back.
“It does happen from time to time.” Panting, Tad wiped plant gunk off his face with his forearm.
With Piper acting as sternman, the boat sped out of the lagoon and into the narrow. She got the hang of it fairly quickly. Perch was right, it wasn’t hard at all, but as soon as he shook out the cobwebs, she gladly retired. Piper went and sat at the front, next to Creeper.
“Are you okay?” he asked, examining the horrible burns on her body. “Is that from the fire?”
“The burns on my hand are. The rest are from Mergo. It tried to digest me.”
“They look really bad,” her brother said.
She downplayed the pain for Creeper’s sake. “It hurts, but it could have been worse.” The truth was she was in agony. As the danger and her adrenaline subsided, the pain became more pronounced. She put on her brave face and draped her arm around Creeper’s scrawny shoulders. “Don’t worry about me. Let’s just be glad we’re going home.”
“Home,” Creeper muttered. Just the thought of it caused his whole body to relax. He put his head on Piper’s shoulder and sighed deeply. “Home to Mom and Dad. To Grace.”
Grace! The siblings bolted upright at the same time.
Piper clambered over the benches, frantically searching the boat.
Wild-eyed, she asked, “Did you guys see it when you came aboard?”
“See what?” asked Tad. “I can’t see anything, remember?”
“The vasculum!” she said. “Creeper did you—?”
“No! I didn’t even think to look!”
She whirled on Perch. “Macey said it was on board, right?”
“I didn’t say that,” Perch reminded her. “I said she might have said it was on
board. I’m not a lip-reader, Piper!”
The vasculum wasn’t there.
“The benches!” Creeper leaped up from the one he’d been sitting on. He threw back the cushioned lid. “Check inside the benches!”
Perch and Tad watched the Canfield siblings scrounge inside the bench stowage compartments, tossing out the bigger stuff, like the sleeping bags and Macey’s pup tent.
“It’s not in this one!” Creeper shouted.
Piper used both hands to rake the contents of her bench to the sides. Then she raked it all into a pile in the middle and sifted through it. “Nothing!”
There was only one bench left to search. If the vasculum wasn’t inside it, then there was only one other place it could be—the bottom of the swamp.
Perch slowed the boat to a stop and stood up. He nodded at Piper.
Piper nodded back. She held her breath.
Perch lifted the seat of his bench. He reached inside. When Perch straightened again, he had a grin on his face and the golden vasculum in his hands.
The mental dam that had held all of Piper’s fears and emotions in check to this point shattered completely. She plunked herself down on the bench next to Tad and burst into racking sobs. Perch handed the vasculum to Tad, and he set it gingerly on Piper’s lap. Smiling, but still crying too hard to speak, she gave him a grateful shoulder bump.
“Open it,” Tad said. “Go ahead and open it, Piper.”
With trembling fingers, she unhooked the latch on the side and lifted the vasculum’s small plate door. Hidden inside the box of gold was silver. Wonderful, glorious silver. Creeper was right—it did smell like Apple Jacks.
The Field Notes of Botanist Dr. Brisbane Cole
August 28, 1823
It’s interesting how, at the end, the mind will trek beyond the body to far-off places, to avoid the here and now. I recall the continent of Australia. My Edwina was born there, the daughter of the governor of one of England’s first crown colonies established on the continent. It’s where we met, where we fell in love, and where I made her my wife before stealing her away to our new life in America. First established as a prison colony, Australia was, until now, the most diverse place I’d ever explored, and one of the most inhospitable too. Everything seems to have evolved to kill: venomous snakes, man-eating sharks, poisonous jellyfish, and vicious crocodiles rank as just some of the deadliest animals in the world. It was no surprise to find that the arsenals of the indigenous plant life are also creatively lethal. For example, the Drosera glanduligara, a type of sticky trap plant. Not content with waiting patiently for insects to land on its gluey hairs, the carnivorous plant uses rings of snapping tentacles to catapult insects onto its digestive leaves, a two-punch adaptation that has proven quite successful for the species.
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