farmhouse.
DeWalt's Pathfinder came roaring out of the pines and down the red dirt road. At the same time, a loping hunk of something that might once have been a buck leaped out of the woods and cut in the path of the sport utility vehicle. The sport utility vehicle swerved, then its front left wheel dipped into a rut. The bumper glanced the deer- thing and caused an explosion of foul green fluid. The Pathfinder bounced once before going over on its side.
The fallen beast shook itself, shedding the antlers that sprouted like dead shrubs from its head. The back end of its body had disintegrated from the impact of the vehicle, but the deer-thing rose unsteadily on its front legs. Then it skittered into the woods on the other side of the road, pieces of its spongy flesh and organs dribbling out behind. Chester glanced at Mushbrains and saw that it wasn't going anywhere, so he jogged painfully up the road to the Pathfinder, his gun at his hip.
The left tires on the SUV were still spinning, trying to grab traction in the air. DeWalt crawled out of the cracked sunroof. He was halfway free when Chester reached him. DeWalt's head had a gash in it, and Chester was relieved to see that the man’s California Yankee blood was red.
Chester checked the woods to make sure the deer-thing was gone. He heard some boughs snapping, but it was just another tree falling.
He leveled the shotgun at DeWalt, who was still on his hands and knees, shaken by the crash. 'Let's see your eyes.”
'Let me see yours.'
They looked at each other, Chester's brown rheumy eyes gazing into DeWalt's blue-ringed pupils.
'Okay, then,' Chester said, leaning the shotgun against the bent hood of the SUV and stooping to help his friend. DeWalt stood with a groan.
'Anything broken?' Chester worked his chaw rapidly.
'I don't think so. Couple of dings, that's all.' DeWalt touched his head and examined the blood on his fingers.
Chester nodded toward the Pathfinder. 'Told you that was an uppity piece of shit. Shoulda got a Ford.' Chester shot a brown stream of saliva onto the cracked windshield.
'I'm glad to see you, Chester. After last night-'
'Yeah, I know. I wondered if you had turned, too. That’s why I didn’t try to warn you. But that don’t explain why you boot-scooted the hell out of here so fast. I mighta been sick or trapped in there, for all you knew.'
“Hell, Chester, I was scared.”
Chester nodded. Couldn’t argue with that. “Me, too, a little.”
'What the hell's going on?'
'I ain't rightly sure, but why don't we go up on the porch and talk about it? Can you walk okay?'
DeWalt nodded and took a step, pain creasing his face.
'Have a seat in the rocker. I'll be up in a minute. And watch out for the chickens.'
'Chickens?'
'They move slow, but the little peckerheads might have caught whatever it is. Me, I got some unfinished business.”
Chester walked toward the barn to finish off Mushbrains. Then he would have to put whatever was rolling around in the hog pen out of its misery. After that, he planned on rounding up his guns and twisting the cap off a smooth jar of moonshine. Times like these, a man needed to be fortified.
They were running through a jungle. Only the jungle was actual size and they were tiny, like in a Honey, I Shrunk The Kids movie. Rick Moranis was Robert. Huge pollen motes rolled after them like tumbleweeds, and hairy clover stems were bending down to swat at their bodies as they ran.
Ginger tripped over a pine needle and she bent to help her up and looked right into the jaws of a fallen dandelion that was a bright yellow lion. The lion opened its mouth but they ran away. Now Robert and Kevin were lost somewhere in the green-wire black-shadow twig alleys.
She heard them call, but when she tried to run with Ginger in her arms, she sank into moss. Its fingers clutched at her bones as she saw Robert and Kevin run inside a long pale hallway. The hallway unfolded like a parachute, so she followed with Ginger and then they were inside the throat of the lily.
The throat shook and vibrated, and a great roar rose from deep in the thing’s belly: SHU-SHAAAAA.
Then the throat of the lily was closing and the kids were wallowing in amber nectar. She tried to scream but the honeydew filled her mouth and she was suffocating Then she woke up on Robert's side of the bed, a pillow over her face.
Tamara glanced at the red eye of the clock. Nearly nine. The high sun pierced the shutters.
Friday was her day to sleep late, since she had no classes. Robert had gotten the kids off to school. Her tongue was dry and starchy, as if the Russian army had camped in her mouth. She tried to raise herself and head for the bathroom, but she was heavy with sleep, confused by the dream.
At least this one can't come true.
Unlike the death of her father, which had been vividly pre-created in a dream, this particular subconscious brain flick wasn't filmed in an earthly setting. Well, at least not a natural-sized one.
But the time she had dreamed of Kevin soaring over a canyon like a bird, with his wings failing in mid-flight, he had broken his hip the next day while jumping a gully. So maybe it was all symbolism.
Robert had been wonderful while Kevin was healing. Kevin's cast came up to his waist to keep his pelvis immobile. There was a bar slung between his legs, and Robert had to carry him like that, with one hand on the bar and the other under Kevin's back. Robert insisted that the family keep up their routine, and since Tamara had her hands full with Ginger, Robert hauled Kevin everywhere they went, to the zoo, the circus, basketball games, or Tamara's academic functions.
Robert's forearm was rubbed raw from the plaster, but he never uttered one word of complaint. He bore whatever pain was necessary to keep the family together. He was always ready to make time for the kids. In fact, she sometimes suspected that might be the reason he'd never made the kind of selfish sacrifices it took to become a radio star.
What had changed? Why is he so cruel about my Gloomies? What has happened to us?
She kicked away the covers and stood, peeling off her nightgown. She walked to the window and raised the shade, letting the sun warm her. The woods that bordered the back of their lot were airy and calm and full of songbirds. The new buds seemed to have swollen and exploded almost overnight.
The forest could be a symbol for unknown danger, or it could just be a bunch of trees.
Either way, she was going to do her thirty sit-ups, take a shower, and go down to Barkersville to do some shopping. Maybe she would buy Ginger a yellow Easter dress. Then she'd go for a drive, just for the hell of it. Stay out late just to bug Robert. Let him worry, for a change. She flipped on the radio and heard Robert talking over the fade of a Beyonce song.
“This is Bobby Lee with you, stick around, Dennis Thorne's going to have a Blossomfest preview and the rest of WRNC's High Country News, coming your way right after these messages.”
Why did she love that insensitive bastard so much?
She looked out the window at the top of Bear Claw, preparing herself for the expected flash of light. The ridge was golden in the sun, the striations of its slopes like waves in an ocean of soil and stone. No strange beacons signaled her, no meaningless syllables pierced her skull. The clouds brushed the mountains as if scrubbing away the nonsense of telepathy and an overactive imagination.
Maybe Robert was right. Gloomies didn’t exist.
Eggs… shish.
The alien collected the symbol, added it to the others that had drifted into the cave. It had received more input from its roots and tendrils, but the symbols made no discernible patterns. After the symbols passed through its filters and reached its center, they were digested along with the bright energy of the forests. The alien fed on the information, but could not focus on all the new signals that flooded its raw senses.
The creature pulsed against the granite, heated by the solar rays that leaked from the mouth of the cave. It was growing stronger from the sustenance. Soon it would be able to move, to crawl from the darkness and expand its search for food. In the meantime, it would rest and analyze.
