Instinct (46 page)

CHAPTER 36: ROAD

“I
HAVE
TO
REST
,” Brad said.

“What?” Romie asked. She pulled the headphones away from her ear and leaned in.

“Rest,” Brad said.

“I don’t think that’s an option,” Romie said.
 

They stood in the middle of a suburban street—right in the center. On either side, the homes were lovely, although the lawns and bushes could use trimming. People in this neighborhood favored brick and stone, and muted earth-tones for their trim. They also cultivated big trees, that stretched their protective limbs over the slate roofs. They probably wouldn’t have thought much of the latest green infestation. On top of most of the roofs, and even spilling from some of the windows and front doors, the killer vines had taken over the neighborhood. The vines held their ground at the houses, not venturing out into the yards. That’s why Brad, Lisa, and Romie kept to the center of the street. They wanted plenty of notice if the vines decided to close on their path.

“Let him rest,” Lisa shouted. “We should get these ready anyway.”

Lisa gestured to her backpack. They’d stuffed it with empty plastic bottles and rags. Romie carried the gasoline. They crouched in the street to bring their ingredients together. Brad rested as Romie and Lisa poured the gas into bottles and stuffed the top with rags. None of them were fully confident that the bombs would work. They agreed that glass would have been better, but they didn’t find any glass bottles. The store they raided had already been visited before, and that someone had taken all the bottled beer. They were left with a selection of diet drinks in plastic bottles and had settled for those.

As they finished, they packed the bottles carefully into the backpack again. Lisa balanced it on her back like she was carrying dynamite.

They did all this without talking. The music blaring in their ears made casual communication impossible.

“I’m slowing you down,” Brad shouted as they huddled together. “You go on without me.”

“You know what it looks like,” Romie said.

“It’s a big rock. If you find it, it will be hard to miss,” Brad said.

“Come on,” Romie said. “Who cares how slow you are. They’re just plants.”

Another block up, their street ended with a cul-de-sac. They were roughly following the river of vines—moving to where it seemed the vines were thicker and the clump was wider across. They were hoping to find the source of the infestation. Brad suspected that the source of the vines might be where the rock was located. He cautioned them, of course, that all his thoughts were complete and utter speculation.

Lisa pointed to a path between the two houses. Cutting through the tall grass and weeds, they saw a dirt path stomped into the lawn. Brad scanned the ground as they walked. His eyes locked in on every leaf. He was looking for the leaves—they looked almost like shiny grape leaves—of the killer vines.

They walked in a line. Lisa went first and Romie brought up the rear.

Lisa paused after she ducked under the tree branches. She pointed again. The river of vines was a dozen paces away. It dipped into a creek bed and then ran uphill. They walked parallel to the vines until they saw another set on their other side. The farther they walked, the more the paths of the vines came together. Somewhere up ahead they might join, leaving the trio nowhere to go. Lisa stopped and motioned for them to listen.

Brad could just hear her yell over the top of Soundgarden blasting from his headphones.

“Maybe we should try to burn our way through,” Lisa said.

Brad shook his head. Romie shrugged. They kept walking.

After a bit, Lisa held up her hand, signaling everyone to slow. They spread out so they could all see what she was looking at. The source of the vines on the right was a creek that cut diagonally across their path. This branch of vines came from the much larger group on their left, and it followed the creek a short distance before emerging to traverse through the woods.
 

Lisa was looking straight ahead, where a log spanned the depression that held the creek. She approached slowly, ignoring Romie’s hand as Romie tried to hold her back.

Lisa waved them forward.
 

The tree connected the two banks of the creek about three feet above the vines.

Lisa motioned to them. “We could make it.”

It wasn’t very far from one side to the other, and the tree did look plenty thick enough to be safe to cross. All Brad could think about was slipping on the bark and falling down into the hungry vines. He remembered having one of those things wrapped around his leg, and the pain was excruciating. And that was just one vine. What would happen if a dozen or more suddenly curled around his whole body?

There had been a rumor back at the farm that a man had been torn in two by vines.
 

Brad shook his head at Lisa’s idea.

He mouthed a single-syllable response. “No.”

She pursed her lips and turned away. Without warning, Romie walked confidently across the tree. She did it in four easy steps and then turned to wave them across. Lisa looked down at the vines below. She held out a hand for Brad to take, so he could steady himself. On the other side, Romie held out her hand. He would only have a step, maybe two, of walking on his own between the grips of the two women. Brad stepped forward. Music screamed into his ears.

The footing was good and Brad leaned heavily on Lisa’s grip as he started. He shuffled fast across the gap and nearly fell into Romie’s hand on the other side. He turned, sucking in frantic breaths, to watch Lisa. She had her arms straight out and was walking too carefully. It was too late to say anything. She would just be distracted if Brad tried to offer her advice. But he wanted to tell her that it was like pouring water from a pitcher. You had to move with sure ease, or disaster would result. Romie held out her hand and Lisa took another step. Her hands tilted back and forth as she tried to regain her balance. Her eyes were pointed straight down.

Movement below drew all their eyes. Flowers erupted down the vines. They saw pink, purple, and orange blossoms pop out from brand new buds. They looked like the hungry mouths of baby birds, awaiting a worm.

Lisa’s knees were bent now and she swayed wildly. Romie leaned forward even more, trying to offer her hand. Brad leaned out too, but didn’t trust his own balance. He was just as likely to take both of them down into the vines.

Lisa took one more step before she slipped. Her foot went right out from under her and she fell. Her hip hit squarely on the log. Romie threw one hand out as far as she could. Brad fell on Romie’s legs, steadying her so she wouldn’t fall too.
 

Lisa threw out a hand. Blind luck connected Lisa and Romie’s hands and they gripped tight. It wasn’t enough to keep Lisa atop the log. When she screamed, Brad heard it over the music in his ears. Romie pulled and Lisa kicked. Her other hand found a branch of the fallen log. Her foot dipped into the river of vines. Romie pulled and Lisa flailed. Brad pulled on Romie. When Lisa’s other hand grabbed at a bush, Brad caught her wrist. Together, Romie and Brad pulled Lisa to the bank.
 

A vine was cinched around her leg. Flowers opened up in a spiral, from her ankle to her thigh. The flexible tip of the vine probed at the tail of Lisa’s shirt.

Lisa’s screaming mouth was turned up towards the sky. Brad saw blossoms of blood appear on her pants. Romie had her knife out. She was reaching it towards the base of the vine near Lisa’s foot.

“NO!” Brad screamed. He wasn’t loud enough. Romie couldn’t hear him through her own music. Brad shot his hand out and caught Romie’s wrist. Her knife dug into his forearm before she could stop the momentum of her swing.

Brad pushed off his headphones in time to hear Romie. “What are you doing?”

He barely heard the question. This time, it wasn’t because of the ringing music, it was because of Lisa’s screams.

Brad pulled the long lighter from his back pocket. It was for the bombs, but now needed it for something else. Romie stopped his hand as he had stopped hers a second earlier. She took the backpack from Lisa and tossed it several feet away. The thing was full of bottles of gas, capped only with rags.

With the explosive backpack away, Brad triggered the lighter. At the end of its shaft, the flame looked tiny in the morning light. He held it under the base of the vine, near Lisa’s foot. She screamed louder as the vine tightened its grip. The moist plant began to smoke and turn black under the flame. It would take forever to burn through, but he didn’t think that was entirely necessary. He only wanted to drive it off—to convince it to move on.
 

The first response of the vine after it tightened was the disappearance of the flowers. They folded up like umbrellas and receded into the vine. Then, so fast it seemed like an illusion, the vine unwound. In a second, it slipped back into the creek bed, leaving Lisa moaning and gripping her own thigh.

Brad’s body pulsed with adrenaline. When Romie grabbed Lisa’s arm, Brad found he had no problem grabbing her other arm and helping her up. They ran at a slow shuffle away from the vines. Romie stooped to pick up the backpack.

Something snapped in the woods and Brad fumbled his headphones back into place. After a few more steps, Lisa was able to limp along on her own. Through the woods, they saw the backs of some buildings up ahead. They slipped through the hole in a fence and found themselves on edge of another overgrown yard.

They put their heads together for conference. Each lifted a headphone partially away from an ear so they could hear.

“The vines are even thicker over there, but they take up the whole space between those buildings. We’ll have to go through that building and see if we can pick them up on the other side,” Romie said. She pointed at the back of a building that might have been a bar, or maybe even a small garage. It was hard to tell from the back, especially with the overgrown bushes.

“We don’t need to,” Brad said.

They looked at him.

“I think that’s our goal,” he said. He pointed and waited for them to line up to see what he saw. Between two buildings and across the street, he’d spotted a big pile of new dirt. It looked like some giant burrowing creature had made a den under the big brick building on the other side of the street. Mud was slung up the side and sprayed across the columns. On one side of the mound, they could just see the corner of a black hole that led underground.

“What is it?” Lisa asked.

“I don’t know,” Brad said. “But there was one at my house. The government guy said it was a breeding hole, but I don’t think he knew any more than we do.”

“Let’s burn it,” Romie said.

CHAPTER 37: FARM

T
HEY
SAT
AT
THE
kitchen table. Hampton sat in the chair next to the window and kept an eye on the driveway. Cedric had his head in Robby’s lap, and the boy scratched ceaselessly behind the dog’s ears. Tim and Ty told quick versions of their stories.

Jackson wasn’t as forthcoming. “Nothing happened. Everyone disappeared, so me and Amy Lynne took the house on the point. That’s all.”

Hampton looked down at Amy Lynne’s ankle, wrapped up in its air cast. His look seemed to challenge Jackson’s assertion, but Jackson offered no more explanation.

Amy Lynne broke the silence. “How did you get here?”

Robby looked at Hampton. The man was quiet. Robby told a quick version of his own story. He only touched on the big movements—leaving the island, settling in Portland, seeing the ball of light, and traveling to the farm.
 

When he finished, the table was silent again.

“I’ve never been much of a conspiracy person,” Tim said, “but I guess I assumed that this whole thing was an attack by a foreign government. Some new weapons from China or something.”

“Really?” Ty asked. He looked at Tim like he was seeing him for the first time.

“I guess I didn’t think about it too hard. Stuff happened and I reacted,” Tim said. He blushed.

Ty turned to Robby. “Is that what’s going to happen here? The snow and the ball of light are going to happen again here?”

“I think so,” Robby said. “Let me ask you something—how did you happen to come exactly here? Did you happen to see anything? Did you see some kind of symbols or anything that led you here?”

Ty and Tim glanced at each other, but neither man responded.

Jackson looked confused. “Didn’t you see something in that Chinese store?”

Tim looked off towards a corner.

“Yeah,” Ty said.
 

“We weren’t going to mention it,” Tim said. “It seemed like something maybe we shouldn’t discuss. I don’t know why, exactly.” Tim leaned back and dug his hand into his pocket. He slapped a USB drive down on the table. “You have a computer?”

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