Anomaly Flats (8 page)

It was too small.

The wind down in the wide canyon whipped and whorled; the desert was devoid of any sound other than its frantic scream. This was a wild place, untamed, so undeniably natural and brutal that it mesmerized the woman hunkered down in the forest it bordered. She squinted in awe against the blowing sand. Her hand reached up, almost of its own will. Something about the nature of this strange plain made her want to reach out and touch the air, brush her fingers along the violent blast of sand, let this desert wind course over her skin. She reached her fingers forward, closer to the red-orange glow in the air…and closer… and closer…

“Mallory!” Lewis bounded up to her right and slapped her hand down. He was panting hard after sprinting up the ridge.

“Ow!” Mallory whined, shaking the sting out of her hand. “What was that for?”

Lewis doubled over, sucking air into his lungs with his hands on his knees. “What—did I—tell you?” he wheezed.

Mallory narrowed her eyes. “That I’m sturdy.”

Lewis shook his head. “No—I said—don’t—go up—the ridge.”

“Because God forbid I get to the top and see the incredible view of a gorgeous desert,” she sniped. “Holy shit, Lewis…you saved me from death by natural beauty. How can I ever repay you?”

“It’s not—” Lewis panted. “It’s—Mallory, that’s—”

“Oh, for crying out loud, Lewis,
breathe
. It’s what?”

Lewis straightened up and squeezed his eyes shut as he put his hands above his head and took deeper breaths. “It’s Mars,” he said.

Mallory stared blankly up at him. “It’s what?”

“It’s not a desert; it’s Mars,” he repeated. His breath was coming back to him, and he put his hands on his hips. His lab coat billowed in the blowing wind. “The planet Mars. I mean, not like the whole thing. Just two square miles of it.”

Mallory’s mouth fell open. Sand blew in and coated her tongue, but she didn’t notice. She turned and looked out over the red plain. “That’s...
Mars
?”

“Utopia Planitia,” Lewis nodded, panting. “It starts—at this cliff and ends—way over there, just before—the bowling alley.”

“There’s two square miles of another
planet
between here and a
bowling alley
?”

“We take our cosmic bowling—very seriously.”

Mallory shook her head slowly, taking in the bizarre majesty of the neighboring planet. “How did it…
get
here?”

Lewis shrugged. “I have no earthly idea. Heh…earthly.” Mallory groaned. “But reach past the cliff here, and your hand goes into Mars’ atmosphere. Goodbye, fingers.”

Mallory instinctively crawled back a few feet from the edge of the ridge. “Lewis, how can that be
Mars
?”

Lewis shrugged. “How can anything be anything? It’s Anomaly Flats…welcome to the weird. One of these days I’m going to make an extravehicular space suit from scratch and be the first human to explore it,” he beamed.

“
You’re
going to make a space suit?” Mallory asked doubtfully.

Lewis chose to ignore this particular question. “Until then, let’s stay on this side of the ridge, huh?”

Mallory nodded. She slipped back down the hill into the surprising comfort of the tangled underbrush. She might get poison ivy, and she might get Lyme disease, but at least she wouldn’t have her eyeballs sucked out of her skull and deposited somewhere on Mars, and that was something.

They were halfway down the hill before she realized she was shaking. She held her trembling hand up to her face and inspected it numbly. “Huh,” she said.

Lewis frowned. He stopped and turned Mallory to face him. He pulled down at her eyelids with his thumbs and inspected her pupils. Then he put two fingers on the underside of her wrist. “Your pulse is racing, and your skin’s going clammy. You’re either in shock, or you’re hungry. Possibly both. Sometimes people go into shock if they get hungry enough, though I’m not sure if shock can cause hunger. It’s undocumented, as far as I know, but that doesn’t mean there’s no correlation. Which is probably neither here nor there.”

“Probably not.”

“Look, let’s leave the traffic light for now, all right? Go get some lunch, boost your blood sugar a bit?” Mallory nodded. She felt like someone had snuck into her brain and placed pieces of gauze behind her eyes. Her brain felt detached, blocked, and her thoughts were fuzzy, if they were anything at all.

“Yeah,” she said, trudging down the hill toward the Winnebago. “Lunch is good. No waffles, though.”

“No waffles,” Lewis agreed, taking her hand and helping her down the forest path. “Trudy may have a monopoly on breakfast, but there’s plenty more for lunch.”

“No Chick-fil-A, either,” she added as she stumbled along.

Lewis smiled at that. “Not for lunch, no,” he chuckled. “
Never
for lunch. But we’ll go to Chick-fil-A eventually.” He gave her a kind smile. “
Everyone
goes to Chick-fil-A eventually.”

Chapter 10

“How’d it go with the traffic light?” Mallory asked as they rumbled farther north. She gnawed on a granola bar Lewis had dug out from the glove compartment, trying not to break her teeth. It was a very old bar.

“It didn’t go at all; I was interrupted,” he said pointedly. Mallory made a sour face at him, but he didn’t turn his head to see it. “I’ll go back sometime when there are fewer distractions.”

“I’m not a distraction,” Mallory insisted. “I’m a delight.” She gazed out at the forest, which seemed to stretch eternally in all directions. “How big is Anomaly Flats?” she asked.

“Oh, it depends,” Lewis said as he struggled with the Winnebago’s steering wheel. “Usually about 20 miles across, end-to-end. Bigger on Wednesdays.”

Mallory raised an eyebrow. “How much bigger?”

Lewis shrugged. “I don’t really know. No one’s ever made it to the city limits on a Wednesday. They’re too far away.”

“What day is it today?”

Lewis reached down and turned on the radio. Their ears were assaulted by a storm of static. He fiddled with the buttons, and the radio cycled through a handful of stations; banjo music turned to a classical orchestra turned to a wailing sitar turned to a rasping voice spitting out evil-sounding epithets in Latin. One more turn of the dial, and a woman’s voice crackled to life, the same voice that had been sounding over the town’s speakers. “…inconsequential. This is the day, weather, and time broadcast. The day is: Friday. The weather is: As it should be. The time is: Inconsequential. This is the day, weather, and time—” Lewis shut off the radio.

“Compelling stuff,” Mallory snorted. She took some comfort in the fact that the day of the week, if nothing else, was the same here. “You need a radio station to tell you what day it is?”

Lewis nodded. “The radio station makes all the important decisions,” he said, as if that explained everything.

Mallory dug the heels of her hands into her eyes and rubbed. “This is the most lucid fever dream anyone’s ever had,” she decided.

“A fever dream?” Lewis asked with a shrewd little grin. He was clearly proud of himself for something, though Mallory had no idea what it might be.

As they rounded a corner, Mallory saw a gathering of Anomalians milling about in a gravel parking lot.

“Would a fever dream have food trucks?” he asked.

Half a dozen food trucks lined the far end of the gravel lot. Lewis pulled the RV off the road and turned into the gravel lot, narrowly avoiding three pedestrians. “Sorry!” he hollered through the closed window.

“My fever dream
would
have food trucks,” Mallory said. “All of my dreams have food trucks, actually…fever or otherwise.”

She tossed the petrified granola bar over her shoulder and got out of the cab. She stretched like a cat in the warm sun. Here, at last, was a part of Anomaly Flats she could get behind.
Food trucks,
she thought with a smile.
Mankind’s finest invention.

Of course, there was something a little off about these particular trucks. They were white, for one thing—pure, gleaming white, as if they’d each been freshly painted that morning, with no colorful logos, no oversized photos of food, no caricatures of short Mexicans in huge sombreros sinking their square teeth into overstuffed tacos. Just pure, sterile whiteness, except for their names, which were painted on in dull, black letters. And they weren’t even fun names; there was no Neat-o Burrito or Thrilled Cheese or Moo-Moo Barbecue. Instead, all the trucks were marked with stenciled words that were more descriptors than names, and clinical ones at that. They read: PEELED SHRIMP, ENCASED MEATS, HARD-SHELL PORK PRODUCT TACOS, CHOCOLATE PUDDING FROM POWDER, RICE BOWLS WITH VARIOUS CANNED VEGETABLES, and SPECIAL.

“They need new marketing directors,” Mallory decided.

Lewis shrugged. “They’re government-sponsored trucks,” he said, joining her on the gravel. “What do you expect?”

The Encased Meats and the Chocolate Pudding trucks seemed to be most popular among the assembled crowd, though every truck had at least one person in its line—every truck, that was, except for the Special truck. “What’s the special?” Mallory asked.

“It changes every day. But don’t do it, Mallory,” Lewis warned. “Sure, sometimes it’s lobster, and sometimes it’s cheeseburgers. But I got the special once.” His voice went quiet, and he cast his eyes down at his hands, which found themselves nervously rubbing the sides of his pants. “You don’t want to do it. Okay? You don’t want to take the chance.”

“What was it? Napalm cups?” she snorted.

Lewis shook his head sadly. “I wish,” he whispered.

Mallory’s face dropped. Lewis wasn’t joking. Something terrible had come out of that food truck; the drained, pallid look on his face was proof enough of that. There was no way she couldn’t know now. “What was it, Lewis?” she asked, touching his shoulder lightly. The scientist flinched, and she drew her hand back. “What did they serve you?”

“It’s not just that they
served
it,” Lewis said quietly. “It’s that I
ate
it. Mallory…I
had
to eat it. If you buy lunch from the Special truck, you have no choice but to eat it. Do you understand? They…they
force
you. I didn’t
want
to eat it, but…” Tears streamed from his eyes, and his words choked off in his throat.

Mallory turned to face him directly and put both hands squarely on his shoulders. She lowered her head so that he had no choice but to look her in the eye. “Oh my God…Lewis…
what was it
?”

Lewis tried to shrug out of her grip, but Mallory held firm. The tears stung his eyes red. He shook his head, and with all the courage he could muster, he whispered, “Pâté, Mallory. They made me eat pâté.”

Mallory blinked. She didn’t realize her fingers were digging into his shoulders until he whimpered a little in pain. “Are you kidding me?”

“It was horrible,” Lewis insisted, wiping away a tear. “Duck liver, Mallory.
Duck liver
.”

Mallory released her grip on his shoulders. She took a deep breath and had to struggle like she’d never struggled before against the urge to punch Lewis in the mouth.

She succeeded, sort of.

She didn’t punch his face. But she did slug his arm as hard as she could.

“Ow!” he whined. He rubbed at the pain as she turned and headed toward the Special truck.

“You are such a delicate little pansy,” she said over her shoulder.

“Mallory, don’t do it!” he called out after her. “It might be something even worse this time! It might be haggis! Do you hear me, Mallory?
They might make you eat haggis!
”

A tall, strapping man in a reflective yellow work vest approached the Special truck as Mallory made her way over. He had a dirty white hardhat tucked under his arm, and his thick leather boots were caked with mud. A small group of his fellow construction workers stood what they seemed to consider a safe distance away from the line of trucks, hollering and hooting and egging him on. He grinned dumbly back at them and waved them off. As Mallory approached, his cheeks suddenly burned red, and he shifted his weight awkwardly, toeing at the gravel with his boots. “Your first time getting the special?” he asked bashfully.

“Yep. You?”

“Nah. I’ve had it a few times already. This is lucky number four…fingers crossed.” He crossed the fingers on both his hands and held them up in the air. “Ha ha!” His laughter was undeniably nervous. He absently rubbed his brow with the back of his greasy, meaty arm as he laughed. Mallory noticed a long, white scar streaking across his forehead. She was about to ask what the specials had been on his previous visits when the service window on the side of the truck flew open with a loud
SLAM
, and a broad-shouldered man in a dark suit and dark sunglasses poked his head out. He wore an earpiece with a clear, coiled wire attached to it that disappeared into his collar. “One?” he asked, his voice cold.

The construction worker nodded and fished a ten-dollar bill from his pocket. The man in the suit put out his hand, and the man in the yellow vest laid the bill in his palm. “No change,” the man in the suit said sharply. He pulled his hand back inside the truck and slammed the window shut.

“Great customer service,” Mallory said.

“Ha ha!” the construction worker laughed nervously again. Sweat popped up along his brow as his eyes darted over to his buddies at the other end of the lot. They whooped and hollered encouragingly. The man wiped his sweaty palms on his yellow vest.

“What’s wrong? You don’t like pâté either?”

The man blanched. “Oh God…you think they’re serving pâté today?” He looked like he might throw up, but he didn’t get the chance. At that instant, the back doors of the food truck banged open, and a huge set of slimy, purple tentacles burst out of the truck. They waved menacingly in the air, as if sniffing out their prey, then they turned and shot out at the construction worker, fast as lightning. He screamed as one tentacle wrapped around his waist and another secured itself to his wrist. The creature began dragging him back toward the rear of the truck. The man screamed and begged for help, but his friends just looked on, shocked and dumbfounded, and a little sad. The man in the yellow vest looked at Mallory and pleaded for her to do something—
anything
. But a third tentacle shot out, clamped itself over his mouth, and lifted him into the air by his chin. The creature pulled the man into the back of the truck. The whole vehicle rocked violently from side to side, the tires lifting off the ground. The man’s muffled screams were drowned out by a grotesque slurping and chomping and crunching of bones. Then the truck stopped moving, the unseen creature belched, and everything fell silent.

The man in the black suit slid the window of the food truck open. He poked his head out and looked at Mallory. “One?”

“Uhh…no, thanks. I’ve…changed my mind.” Mallory turned on her heels and hurried back to Lewis and the RV. “What the
fuck
was that?” she hissed.

Lewis sighed and sucked at the corner of his bottom lip. “Some days, you eat the special, and some days, you
are
the special.” Then he added, “It’s still better than the pâté.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Mallory snapped.

“I
did
say something! I said, ‘Don’t do it, Mallory, don’t get the special!’”

“You didn’t tell me I might
be
the special!”

“Every time I tell you not to do something, you do the opposite!” Lewis huffed. “So what’s even the point?”

“The point is making sure your friends don’t get eaten by a giant octopus!
That’s one of the basic building blocks of life
.”

Lewis brightened around the eyes. “You think of me as a friend?” he asked, clearly pleased.

Mallory exhaled. She suddenly felt exhausted. “Look. Let’s just get lunch, then you can take me back to the Roach Motel, where the tentacles are at least a more manageable size.”

Lewis’ smile fell. There was no disguising the hurt in his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “If that’s what you want.” He rubbed his chin for a moment, as if he were on the verge of a very important decision. “I have just one more stop to make on the way. It’s quick, and completely harmless, I swear. Then I’ll bring you back to the hotel, and you won’t ever have to see me again.”

Mallory sighed. She grabbed Lewis’ hand and gave it a good squeeze. “Look, Lewis, I just want to check back into the motel, go to my room, lock my seven locks, put up my barrier against demons, and wait it out until my car’s ready and I can get the hell out of here. Okay? It’s not you…mostly. It’s this town. Really.”

Lewis raised an eyebrow. “You mean it?”

Mallory shrugged. “Sure.”

Lewis nodded. “Thank you for saying that. As far as lunch goes, I’d recommend the Rice Bowls with Various Canned Vegetables. Everything else is sort of greasy.”

“Even the pudding?”

Lewis sniffed. “
Especially
the pudding.”