Rampike

by European P. Douglas

  “You’re right,” Sam said, and he leaned in and kissed Susan who grabbed hold of him to her.

  Sam waited a moment and then pulled away. He looked at them both and went to the back for more gas and walked towards the trees.

  Chapter 34

  When Joe heard the engine of the truck start up, it was the hardest thing not to go to the side of the building where he would be able to see them and wave goodbye. He knew the reason, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit to himself that it would have quite possibly been too difficult and there was a huge chance he would have chickened out of his plan and ran down to get into the truck with them. He stood listening to the sound of the tires on the snow.

  The roof sagged with the weight of the gasoline and spray tanks but Joe was sure it would hold. It would get lighter by the minute after all as he went about his work. Joe would just have to be careful not to slip on the depression or spill any of the gasoline which would make it even more slippery again and could seriously hamper his speed when the time came for action. Which was to be soon judging by how close the whitest trees were now. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw downslope the rear red lights of the truck with the others.

  “You better help them Maul,” he said bitterly. He knew he’d never know if they made it or not and that was a shame, but on the scale of things tonight, it wasn’t the worst one.

  He looked down over the tops of the trees and though it was hard to be sure he would bet that the white was getting much closer on that side too. No time to dwell on it, he thought, there’s still work to do. He went back and took up the spray cans and filled the gas and carried one to opposite sides of the roof and placed them down. He saw from the upslope side that he could probably start spraying now and most of it would hit an infected tree but he decided to wait for as long as he could. Let the white come and bend to the building like he’d seen up at the Thorndean place and then hit it hard for all he was worth.

  The thought of this felt good, but it also spawned a new idea he hadn’t thought of up to now. He looked down on to the street and saw his jeep parked outside the tavern beside Sally’s old jalopy. Up a little was Susan’s recovered car and over at Jeff’s old garage was the out of operation car that had belonged to the young couple who had been unfortunate enough to pass through this place.

  He rushed down the stairs with one of the spray cans with a fresh idea boiling in the front of his brain. He jumped into his jeep and drove it up the road and parked at an angle on the verge of the road just short of where the ground dipped into the trees. He got out and sprayed the inside of the car with gas and then lit a match and held it to the now wet seat. A small fire started, and he leaned in and blew on it to spread it. When he thought it looked like it was self-sustaining, he took off the handbrake and using the door and the frame of the jeep he used all his strength to push it over the verge and then jumped clear as it rolled a few feet into the trees. Some of the trunks snapped and broke and then as he’d hoped branches and vines reached down and pick up the car to crush it. Joe didn’t wait around to see if this new plan would work completely but set off back down the hill and took Sally’s car.

  He drove back, and this time went over the verge in the car and jumped clear as it tipped over. It didn’t roll down the hill but teetered there, but this would be good enough he thought, perhaps even better if he could get the car to explode before the trees crushed it. He sprayed this one too and set it alight and then ran back down to get Susan’s car.

  All the while he was doing this, the horrible screeching crunching noise rang out as the car was pulverized and cubed. Joe was just about at Susan’s car when there was a loud bang and the sound of sparks flying. He turned and saw that the car’s gas tank had exploded and that some of the tendrils and branches were on fire but not as bad as he could have hoped. Still, every flame was important, and that wasn’t going to stop him. He knew the others might do more damage than this.

  “Thank God we live in such an isolated place and everyone leaves their keys in their ignition!” he said, smiling as he got into Susan’s car. He let the car roll into the ditch to the side of her house and set it alight there. That would soon set the house burning too, if the larger fire Joe was hoping to spread didn’t get there first.

  Lastly, he pushed Jarrod’s car to the middle of the road, set it alight and let it off down the slope. He didn’t really care where it ended up when it went off the road, so long as it was into some trees and it was still on fire. He watched it and saw it was staying on the road a lot longer than he thought it would, but even if it kept in a straight line, the road didn’t and it would go off soon enough. He walked back to the tavern and to conserve some of his breath and wondered briefly where Alan Carey’s car was.

  Joe was back on the roof before he heard Jarrod’s car crashing down the hill a ways. He couldn’t see it so he didn’t know it if was serving its purpose but he knew it was in the trees now and with a full gas tank it was going to blow when the big fire got there. As he looked down the hill, he saw five lines of smoke rising into the night sky, and then more and more. Sam must have gotten flames going. It was looking good from where Joe stood and he only wished he could see flames already. The white death was in Mercy now from all sides.

  Rushing to the centre of the roof Joe filled the spray tank once more and went to the uphill side of the building. The trees and stretching limbs — slow now, not like the vicious tendrils — reached out for the building walls. Joe sprayed furiously, moving up and down the length of the ledge and getting as good a soaking of the dry white wood as he could. He did this until the can was empty and then got one of the unused sections of ripped sheets and dabbed it some and set it alight.

  When it flamed he went to the edge and leaned over and placed it gently onto one of the limbs hoping it would catch fire to the gas he’d sprayed about.

  WHOOSH! Flames ripped up at his face and Joe had to fall away back onto the ceiling, his eyes burning from the heat and the smell of his singed eyebrows and even nose hairs filling his head.

  “Fuck!” he said pressing his hands into his eyes to lessen the pain. It had gone up way faster than he thought it would. It was like how people always warn that it can happen but it never does. He sat up and looked, and through blurry eyes could see that flames were licking up over the height of the building and it had already spread some. It was a great start!

  Joe jumped up but as he did he felt a terrific pain in his left arm as he used it to get up. He fell back down on his side and held the arm out. What he saw was horrible. His sleeve was torn and ragged but burned and looked like it was melted into his forearm so that the fabric and the skin were indistinguishable. His arm was roaring red, and the pain seemed all the worse now that he’d seen it. He cursed himself for not being more careful. All the time he’d been spraying the wind was probably bringing some of it back onto this arm it could have been soaked for all he knew as he leaned down to start the fire. It could have been his shirt as much as the wood that caused the flames to go up so fast. How could he had been so stupid?

  Sitting up much more carefully this time he looked around the town. It was almost up on him on all sides now and this was what he’d been waiting for. He stood and saw there was a fire going not too far down the hill and he smiled. This had been the couple’s car burning, and it was a good size fire already. Even better, he saw that the sky down the mountain was rapidly filling with dark smoke.

  “Well done, Sam!” he said feeling that the younger man had been able to get some good spreading fires going.

  Joe went to the downhill side of the ceiling and picked up the spray can that was there but found that he couldn’t pump the nozzle properly with his injured arm. He cried out in pain as he tried it and dropped the hose. His good arm was killing him and there wasn’t enough fire going yet to complete his plan.

  Chapter 35

  The two women were rigid with fear as they watched the solitary, wary figure move down the centre of the road, his head
swivelling all around waiting for some sign that an attack was coming. In his arms, he carried a small box and they could hear the clinking of a few bottles inside as he moved.

  Sam could feel their worried eyes on him and it heightened his sense of unease. It made it feel as though something would happen because of how tense everyone was about it, like some ancient self-fulfilling prophesy. He listened keenly against the sound of the wind and the idling engine of the truck; his fear was the sound of the tendrils approaching. He’d seen all too much of how powerful, swift and violent they could be and he didn’t want to see another one unless it was dying in flames.

  Back up the hill he saw that the fires he’d started with the bottles were growing. He didn’t know how long it would take to get going in the way Joe had been counting on but he sure hoped it was sooner than it looked. He turned back to face his own task; there was nothing he could do for Joe now.

  Sam was close enough now to hit the tangled mess blocking the road. He set the box down, took out one of the bottles and placed it too on the ground. He lit a match and held it to the rag of sheet in the neck of the bottle and waited for the blue flame to puff into life. The fire took hold of the rag and climbed towards the neck. Sam stood up, planted his feet and threw aiming for dead centre.

  His throw was a little off, however, and went too high and dipped down, so much that he thought it wasn’t going to hit the wood at all but instead land harmlessly in the snow. Thankfully, the tinkling of shattering glass came at the very bottom of the wall of wood and the fire spread out among the lower limbs as the gas splashed out and caught aflame. As he stood looking at the fire climbing up the wall he saw it was better that he had almost missed. It made much more sense to start the fire at the bottom than in the middle.

  He lit another bottle and took a few steps closer this time and aimed for an area about ten feet to the right of the first one and launched it. This time his throw was better, but this meant he didn’t get low like the last one, this one hitting about three feet higher from the ground. Still, it would do the trick.

  At this moment as he bent to light the next bottle the thought came to his mind, ‘Why is this so easy? Why isn’t it fighting back?’ In that same instant, his ears cocked to the sound they’d all heard earlier on. Fear gripped him, held him firm to the spot. He was looking around but couldn’t make out where the sound was coming from.

  The loud honk of the truck horn shook him to his senses, and he turned and ran.

  “Run Sam!” Sally cried out. “It’s coming from the roadblock!” Sam didn’t turn to look back, he knew Sally was right and if he hadn’t, Susan’s screaming of his name would have convinced him just as quickly.

  He pumped his legs as fast as he could, feeling the pain in his chest as he gasped in cold air.

  “Turn the truck around!” he shouted waving his arms as he ran towards them and seeing as he did that Sally was already doing this.

  “Run Sam!” Susan called again as if he was just standing there; the urgency in her voice gave him a boost mentally but his battered body was not up to giving him any more speed or stamina. He buckled slightly at the knees and he could feel himself slowing down, the lack of oxygen pulling at him, telling him to stop.

  That was when the horrible fibrous tendrilic noise filled his ears and he felt a sudden hard pain in his left leg as his feet were swept out from under him. He lost all bearing in the fall and landed heavily on his side, gashing his head against the ground.

  “Sam!” he made out Susan’s hysteric scream and then he felt the grip of the white around his legs and coiling up over his body. He was dazed and winded but he knew he had to get up, that if he didn’t this was the end for him. He tried to open his eyes, but they were filled with tears and blurry so he shut them tight again at once.

  Snow peppered his face as the rear wheels of the truck skidded to a stop nearby. He heard the doors opening and then noises he couldn’t quite make out. He opened his eyes again and could just make out images of movement, what must have been Susan and Sally out trying to pull and smash the killer branches off him.

  “Get back in the truck!” he called out in pain. “Get away from here!”

  He managed to get his eyes clear, and he saw both women pulling and kicking, both with tears in their eyes and fury in their hearts. It gave him great strength to see how hard they were fighting for him but still he needed them to try to get away and save themselves. He started pulling and snapping at the twigs and tendrils with a renewed strength and anger and to his surprise, he felt the painful crushing of his torso ease a little with the combined efforts of the three of them.

  “Wait!” Sally shouted and she broke off from the fight and moved around the truck. At that same instant, a new assault began on his body and Susan shrieked as they pulled and clawed at her too.

  “Sally!” Susan called out incredulous that the woman had run off at such a moment as this.

  “Take this you filthy killer!” Sally shouted as she came out from the other side of the truck and doused the tendrils beyond Sam and towards the wall in gasoline from one of bottles and then tossed the damp rag she’d already lit up onto it.

  The fire whooshed up and almost at once the ends that held Susan and Sam lost their strength and both of them wriggled and dragged themselves free. Sally stamped and jumped at their attackers around the area of the fire and they snapped and cracked and turned to dust all over before pulling back and retreating quickly towards the wall which they noticed now was starting to burn nicely.

  “We don’t have time to watch this,” Sam said pulling at both women’s arms. “We need to get in the truck and drive through where the fire is at its most intense in the blockage!”

  Susan limped towards the truck but Sally stood where she was looking at the road ahead of them

  “Sally!” Sam urged again.

  “He’s here,” she said still staring ahead.

  Both Susan and Sam followed the direction of her gaze and sure enough, there at the edge of the forest was the beast made of wood with the man’s body, what was once Maul Thorndean’s body, staring back at them with a furious and menacing look.

  “We need to go now!” Susan shouted and Sam pushed her and helped her into the truck.

  “Come on, Sally,” Sam said glancing back at Maul. “He doesn’t look like he has any plans to help us!” The former tavern keeper stood a moment longer staring before she moved towards the open door of the truck.

  As soon as she moved Maul let out a raging howl and moved towards them, not running but moving quickly all the same.

  “Quick!” Sam said fumbling for the gun he hadn't even noticed was no longer on him.

  Sally jumped in and Sam slammed the door shut behind her and jumped up into the back. He was only in and Sally started the truck moving when Maul slammed hard against it and hooked his thick branch arms over the side. The truck was moving now, back towards Mercy and Sam stamped and pounded at Maul to try to loosen his grip and knock him off but nothing he was doing seemed to have any kind of effect at all.

  “Turn!” Maul growled deeply in a voice that was almost like the gruff one he’d owned in his former hermetic life. Sam continued to stamp and kick, taking no notice.

  Maul roared in anger once more and one of his arms shot out and landed a heavy punch in Sam’s midsection that sent him reeling against the back of the cabin. The women in the front screamed and looked back to try see what was going on.

  Sally jammed on the brakes and jumped out in one fluid movement and stood at the side of the truck looking furiously at Maul.

  “Maul!” she shouted with tears in her eyes. “What are you doing?”

  “Turn,” Maul said deeply again without looking her way. He looked at Sam and then at the boxes on the bed of the truck. Sam watched and wished he’d thought of setting Maul on fire instead of trying to kick him off the side. There was nothing he could do now; Maul would have him killed before he could light a single bottle.

  Then to
the surprise of them all, Maul took up one of the bottles himself. He looked at it carefully like a wild animal inspecting a carcass in the woods appraising it to see if it was edible. Without warning, he took up another bottle and then with a grunted growl smashed them both over his own twiggy bark covered back. He then turned his back to them and jumped down out of the truck.

  None of them knew what to do.

  Maul began moving back down the road, heading for the blockage. The three of them watched in surprise but also with some great measure of distrust waiting for him to turn and attack again. What started as a shambling gait however very quickly turned in to a run and Maul was off very fast down the road.

  “What the hell is he doing?” Sam asked.

  “I have no idea,” Sally answered.

  Maul was nearing the blockage now and they could see the fires Sam had joined up and continuing to spread upwards and outwards.

  “He’s not going to stop,” Sally said just as Maul put his head down and rushed like a football player right into the centre of the wood where the flames burned brightest. Sparks and wood flew in all directions and the sound of the crashing wood filled the air.

  “Get back in the truck!” Sam called. “He’s punching through for us!”

  Sally didn’t need to be told twice, she jumped it and let the handbrake off before reengaging the engine and turning the truck around.

  “Go, go, go,” Sam said pounding on the cab roof. “As fast as you can!”

  The truck caromed down the hill gaining speed by the second. Sam had to bend down and hold on tight as it skidded and swerved all over as Sally tried to maintain control. Looking ahead, they saw Maul come back through the wall at another point and now he too was on fire. Howling like a wild animal, he looked at them one last time and then went running through the woods back towards Mercy, setting branches and twigs alight as he went.