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Part 3-17: Crab
A cone of brilliant sapphire light erupted from my arm, and I nearly fell over—not from any recoil, but from a wave of fatigue. At the same time, the wall of vines (and admittedly, a large hunk of innocent forest) blew backwards, disintegrating into shreds of blue fire.
The remains of greenery funneled away, revealing a huge oak tree. It tilted backwards in the rush of light and destruction, and, like a sail, pulled the monster it was riding on up off its front legs. All six of its front legs.
Beneath the tree was some kind of tangled, yarn threaded abomination—made of mutant roots, shaped vaguely like a crab with too many legs. Its face, if you could call it that, was a dripping mound of a dozen or so glassy spheres (eyes maybe, each had a dark nucleus inside, blood-veined like a fetus) sitting above a sucker lined hole.
My light storm ended, and the tree-beast lurched back to the forest floor. It howled as little arcs of fading electricity tickled and snapped across its body. From the oak tree’s numerous branches, more vines appeared, extending and curling up and out like a fungus on steroids.
“Not good,” I assessed.
“Bad,” Persi agreed. “What do we do?”
The weird blotches inside the thing’s eyes wavered, shivered, then all seemed to lock into place. It was looking at me. The hole on its front widened and it screeched. Then it took a lurching step forward, the great oak scraping against smaller trees.
“I’m going to shoot it,” said Persi.
“If what I did didn’t stop it…”
But she let loose anyway, sending a fusillade of yellow darts into the mass of its eyes. They pinged and rattled off as if they were made of steel, but one or two seem to land a hit. One eye globe burned bright like a gas lantern and popped in a spray of gooey slime and tinkling confetti sparkles.
The thing rewarded us with another harrowing wail, and it smacked the ground with one of its legs, sending a spray of detritus into us. I remembered I was a ghost, refusing to flinch except the tiniest crinkle of my eyes, and all the splinters, rocks and flora-matter passed through harmlessly.
“Chip away then, this the best Eden could cook up?” I said. The motherfucker was gross, but after fighting nightmare blobs and death knights, it was a moderately tolerable kind of horror.
“Takes a lot to build it up,” said Persi, raising her gun hands. “But that thing looks slow, and we can buy time for Deluxe, I think?”
“Good a plan as any,” I said, and readied my own personal magical shotgun.
I noticed a wind at my back, and the sound of someone inhaling. The monster’s facehole widened, its lining of mushroom cap suckers strained and pulled inward. The wind grew, and soon I had to lean back. My ghost state was not immune.
“Uh, Persi?” I said, losing concentration on charging my shot. I slipped onto my butt and started to slide forward. Flipping onto my belly, I scraped at the ground, now willing myself to be able to grasp at something, anything.
Miraculously, I was dragged over a sturdy root and hooked in with my armpit. A strangely calm, academic part of me noted that I seemed to be able to control what I could pass through and touch. Persi was not so lucky. She shouted, and I saw her flip end over end off the ground. She hit the face hole, and braced against the maw with her limbs. The black circle grew further, and the creature brought around an appendage, looking hopeful to poke her in.
“Time to go,” I said, and closed my eyes. Mired in the backdrop of sensation: two hands, numbish now, palms locked onto wrists—a warm, wide body pressed onto my front and—
I gasped and let go of Dack, and collapsed onto cool grass. It was murky, almost dark.
“Persi?” I cried.
“Alena, hey, you okay?” said Dack.
“Get her up, keep moving,” said Roman.
“Where are we?” I said, trying to stand, slipping… I was hungry and sleepy and damn, did I ever have to piss.
Dack steadied me as a raging buzz of pins and needles rushed into my wrists. “Almost back at the road,” he said. “C’mon!”
“Yes, go, go. It’s coming,” I said.
We ran, myself at half pace as the world settled back into one reality, and exhaustion ballooned in my being, seeming to start in my heart and spread outward like ink in water. Soon I saw the vehicles, two dark shapes on a rise and third behind them, interior lights on. I saw the rear passenger door open and a figure emerge.
“Oh, thank fuck,” I half-groaned, and tried to go faster.
Persi met me before I exited the forest, jumping down the slopes of the dirt road and wrapping me in a hug.
“Close, too close,” I said.
“Fast thinking, I’m glad I’m tied to you in there,” said Persi.
Over her shoulder, I saw Dack and Deluxe in a similar embrace. Car doors opened and slammed, ammo clips snicked and clicked, and an engine fired up.
“Problems are just starting, unfortunately,” I said.
We clambered back up onto the road, just in time to see Jimena turn on our group, wielding a standard, non-magical shotgun. She didn’t point it at us. Yet.
“Move that car,” she ordered.
“Car radio’s out too!” called Roman.
“Do you believe us now?” I said.
“We need to get help,” she said. “Move. The. Car. Apurate!”
There was a dull thud from deep in the woods. Then another.
“Move car now, told you so’s later,” Dack said.
“Shit, look!” cried Roman.
We looked. A single vine slithered out of the woods. It rose up before the road, cobra-like, almost as if to say hello. I edged toward the Lotus, catching Deluxe’s eye and motioning her to do the same. The cops had similar ideas, their guns trained on the plant as they backed up toward their vehicles.
Then Deluxe yelped and fell. Dack was there in a flash, swinging the machete again. If I didn’t know better, it’d’ve looked like he was attacking her.
“They’re in the dirt!” said Persi.
On cue, a sprouting of some dozen vines erupted a few feet behind the sports car, writhing and grasping. There was a groan and creak from the other side, and the cruiser in the middle of our line of cars tilted up on two wheels. Jimena fired a blast into it and I covered my ears.
“Get out of here!” cried Dack.
Another vine column burst up from somewhere near the front police car, and in it I saw Roman, tangled and hoisted at a funny angle.
“Theo!” screamed Jimena, pointing her weapon, not firing it.
Dack hauled Deluxe up and hollered at me to move, but all I could see was Roman, rising up and struggling like a bug caught in a spiderweb. The shotgun went off again.
“Wifi,” said Deluxe. “Hit the remote!”
A rumbling moan shuddered out of the trees, much, much too close. It was getting too dark to see for sure, but I thought I saw the treetops sway.
Dack fumbled with the device, clumsy with the machete in one hand. Deluxe snagged it from him as I felt something wrap around both my knees. A weight pressed into my back and forced me down. The ground slithered.
“Signal!” Deluxe said.
There was a vibration in the vines that surrounded me, they started to curl about my arms but stopped, shook, and retreated. The cop car thudded back down to the ground. Roman’s column started to peel apart, and he slipped a few feet down. Then that first vine, the cobra, it spasmed, arched high, and darted out. It wrapped itself around Roman’s shoulder, tore him out of the mass and sucked him into the woods. I couldn’t tell if it was my screams, Jimena’s or his that rung in my ears.
Persi bowled into me and forced me up.
“Barely one fifth output,” Deluxe was saying, apparently ignorant to what’d just happened to the officer, face awash with blue light from the router. She was down on the other side of the dirt road, Dack hovering nearby. “The closer we get to the Walkerby residence, the less effective it will be until the rogue source is disabled.”
Huge thuds now, and the scraping of branches. Persi stared at me as Deluxe and Dack looked up at the sound. Over the tops of the cars, past the shadowy trunks of the first few trees, rose a messy group of glowstick-green circles, each stained with a dark splotch.
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