Vance’s mouth hung open. “And what is everyone else going to be up to?”
“I’ll get the gas out of the gens,” said Brigman. “And I’ll swing this axe when it comes down to it.”
“I’ll throw the gas on it,” said Carlene.
“I will too,” said Monika. I had been surprised when she had joined the group. She seemed to have decided to become a fighter.
“What about your wrist?” I asked her.
She pursed her lips. “It’s okay.” She demonstrated by clonking the cast on a tabletop and flexing her fingers. It did look like she could heft a bucket if she had to. It troubled me that she was going out there with us, but I couldn’t really see a reason to keep her out of it. She was half the age of some of the others who were going, and if an old bat like Mrs. Hatchell was going, why shouldn’t a younger, stronger woman join the battle? It wasn’t like we had a SWAT team of athletic professionals handy.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s have each of the women ready with a half-full bucket of gas. The men will carry the heaviest cutting tools we have in case a root gets hold of someone. Vance will be the rabbit, and once it’s burning hard and chasing him, we’ll all slip back inside.”
“And how do I get back?” demanded Vance.
“You outrun it and circle back. It should be pretty well messed up after burning for awhile.”
Vance breathed hard and blinked for a few seconds. He was probably thinking of all the other things the strange storm might have awakened out there, all of the things we didn’t have any inkling about yet. He was critical to the plan. If I did the running around, and something went wrong, I wasn’t sure I could keep the rest of them together. I wasn’t sure we could keep it together in any regard. If one of us was grabbed by those roots and dragged into the inferno, would the others keep throwing gas on? Would they stand their ground against a nightmare ten times the size of any we’d seen before? I didn’t know.
“I always wanted to be the hero,” said Vance after a bit, looking around at everyone. “I guess this is my chance.”
The first steps went off without a hitch. We snuck down into the large, dank basement. We weaved past old office furniture and medical equipment that should have been hauled away years ago. There were broken gurneys and outdated X-ray machines and ancient computer terminals that were now wired together only by cobwebs. In a back room where the generators slept, we broke out the surgical tubing and prepared to siphon off the gas. The basement reeked of mold and wet concrete, until we started to fill the buckets and then all odors were replaced with the special stink of gasoline. We got about six gallons out of the two generators plus a few more from the cans kept down there. We had plenty of two-gallon plastic buckets, and after filling each one with about a gallon we hauled them upstairs again and handed out three buckets each to the women. We thought about rigging up Molotov cocktails but figured it was too risky without practicing. The last thing we wanted was a nasty accident.
To light the monster, we soaked mops in the buckets of gasoline. The smell in the lobby was overpowering and everyone was forbidden to even think about lighters or matches or lanterns until we got outside.
By ten A.M we were ready to roll. The hunters had carefully wriggled into place and cracked open frosted glass windows. They took careful aim at the dozen or so kite-shaped things that hung like huge bats from the tree limbs. I heard Wilton shout, “Fire!” and three booming shots rang out. Two of the things popped in fleshy explosions. Several others took flight and fluttered around the tree like angry wasps. Another volley boomed and two more went down. By then all the rest were flying, and I grimaced, wondering if they could kill them in the air. I doubted it; we would need shotguns out in the open for that.
And then, before things even got really started, they went horribly wrong. A bullet had clipped the tree trunk, furrowing a line across its bark. There was a spray of orange-white wood pulp and it seemed like a sappy vein was hit, because a dark, yellowy, thick fluid flowed out of the tree’s skin, looking for all the world like alien blood.
“That did the trick,” said Vance beside me.
And indeed, it had. The tree woke up, and it didn’t just wake up, it went berserk. It heaved up on its roots like an angry father standing up out of an easy chair and raised its sagging, single arm. The arm had two knobby elbows in it, and it struck out with sweeping, groping motions like the blind abomination it was. The thick fingers latched onto the heavy towing bumper of a small white pickup and yanked the rear wheels off the ground with a groan of twisting metal.
“Let’s GO!” I shouted to my stunned troops and charged outside. They paused for only a heartbeat, and then I heard them following me. Once outside, we lit our dripping mops. The mop heads flared up into balls of orange heat and black rippling smoke.
“Throw the gas, come on, ladies!” shouted Brigman beside me. His deep sonorous teacher’s voice rang out in the cold still morning air.
The tree shuddered in response to that voice, and I knew it had heard him, and I knew it was enraged.
“Get out there Vance, get its attention,” I hissed urgently.
Vance ran by, pushing a dilapidated shopping cart he had gotten from somewhere. It rattled and squeaked and crashed when he ran it into cars purposefully as he headed across the parking lot. The tree paid no attention, however. It still came toward the lobby, toward the spot where it had heard Brigman’s voice. We were all streaming out under the covered entrance in front of the lobby and taking up our positions, but the tree had a target, it had fixated on the spot where Brigman’s voice had come from. It was headed straight for the lobby doors.
I think Brigman knew it, too. He hung back under the covering, he had his red axe raised, but I could tell he was close to running back inside.
Everyone was moving a bit too slowly, no one knew quite what to do, we were way off script and everyone was yelling now.
“It’s not following Vance.”
“Burn the frigger!”
“Gannon!”
“Gas, gas, just throw it!” I screamed. The women finally moved and threw. They threw it a bit too early, from too far back, and only splattered the roots. Carlene sloshed a load over her sweater, half-tripping as she threw it.
“More gas before we-” I started, but it was too late. Someone had thrown in his mop. I think it was Jimmy Vanton. It did go up with an amazing and gratifying
“Yes!” roared Brigman. “Burn you bastard!”
“More gas!” I shouted and grabbed up one of the extra buckets, I wasn’t sure whose it was and I didn’t care as I heaved it up into the center of the inferno. The ladies did their work better now, emboldened, and tossed their buckets deep into the flames despite the choking black smoke and searing heat.
The tree lurched into gear again, over its initial shock, and kept on its original path. Behind it the white pickup dragged, the front wheels must have been in park because we all heard the tires as they were hauled squealing over the pavement. Some of us naturally moved behind it now, not wanting to be in its path, and we threw more buckets of gas on its back. The pickup’s tires caught and the white painted fenders turned black.
Then that massive arm flexed and the pickup went up and over in an arc. We all watched with our mouths forming perfect O’s of surprise. Flaming, screeching, tortured metal, the tree wielded the pickup like a club and smashed it down with fantastic force on the small peaked roof over the entryway. The old wood and bricks exploded and crashed to rubble. The door to the lobby disappeared.
Someone was screaming. Several someones, in fact. I looked this way and that, taking in multiple disasters at once. Carlene’s arm was on fire somehow, Mrs. Hatchell was trying to bat the flames out. There were legs sticking up from under the burning pickup and the smashed entry way roof-I recognized Brigman’s shoes. And near me, running to me in fact, was Monika with one of the flying things on her back, trying to sink in its fangs.
I grabbed her and slashed at the thing and cut it away. Then I felt fangs in my own neck and howled. I struggled, went to my knees, clutching at the fleshy leaf of meat. I could feel a fluttering sensation in the wound, it must have had a tongue or something like it to lap up my blood.
The tree was still in the game, too. It lifted the pickup a second time, and I could see right then that it was
