The Devil's Fingers

by Hunter Shea

  “But—” she protested.

  He stopped short of holding her, his hands balling into fists in frustration of not being able to touch her.

  “I love you, Mighty Mite. I’d die before I let something happen to you. And I’m going with you back to the trailhead. I promise, I’ll keep my distance.”

  She wanted to touch his face, kiss his lips so bad, it physically hurt. “Please tell me I’m doing the right thing by leaving Carrie and everyone else.”

  “You are. Without you, there’s no hope for any of us.”

  Autumn felt the hot sting of tears, pressing her knuckles into her eyes to stop them from flowing. If they did, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stop them.

  “Come on,” Latrell said. “Let’s go back to the camp and let them know we’re heading out.” He cast one last look at the sea of Devil’s Fingers. “And to stay the hell away from here.”

  * * * *

  At first, Autumn was happy to see Seth had returned.

  Then she saw what was growing on his hands, and her heart dropped.

  “Where’s Carrie?” Brandon said. He’d been sitting opposite Seth on a large, flat rock. Tina was laid out on a makeshift mattress of sleeping bags. She was pale as milk and covered in sweat, clearly starting to slip into shock.

  “She took off,” Latrell said. “There are more of those Devil’s Fingers back there. A lot more. It looks like that’s where Carrie and Dan slept last night. I guess they were too close.”

  “How are you feeling, Seth?” Autumn asked.

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Physically, I feel fine. And a little overdressed.”

  Autumn had forgotten she’d taken her shirt off.

  “It’s probably best you take yours off so I can check,” she said.

  “Why bother? We know I’ve got ’em. Between you and me, I don’t want to see them. I’m having a hard enough time keeping my shit together as it is.”

  She cast a glance at Brandon and Tina, making sure they didn’t have any signs of the Clathrus archeri. Still clear.

  “Look, we’re going back to the cars. We’ll be back before you know it,” Autumn said.

  “We?” Brandon said. “I thought it was just you.”

  “I was staying behind to watch over Tina while you went to look for Seth,” Latrell said. “He’s here now. And there’s no way I’m letting her go alone. Not with Carrie still out there. You’ve got a problem with that?”

  Brandon turned away. “No, man. Just…just hurry, all right.” His eyes flicked to Seth, his best friend in the world, who was currently incubating the fungus from hell.

  “Don’t forget the painkillers,” Tina said, her face pinched with agony.

  Autumn pulled Brandon aside. “Did you give her any aspirin or anti-inflammatories?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Good. Don’t. They thin the blood and I don’t know how bad her ankle is.”

  “Gotcha. Be careful. And be quick.”

  “We will.”

  Latrell had put a bandanna on his head and grabbed a bottle of water. “You ready?”

  “Yes.”

  She followed Latrell on the trail, peeking back at the campsite. Brandon had taken his position back on the rock, Tina lying down on the sleeping bags. Seth sat staring at his hands.

  Once they passed through the clearing and were under the trees, she was overcome by the absolute quiet. The sounds of the waterfall faded away. There were no birds chirping overhead. No squirrels dashing up and down the trees. No chipmunks poking through the leaves. Nothing. She wondered if even the insects had abandoned the trail.

  “We should turn over some rocks and see,” she said aloud.

  Latrell hadn’t heard her. He forged ahead, every now and then glancing back to make sure she was still with him. There was nothing much to say at this point. Fear and adrenaline had shot so hard and fast through their systems, their stores of energy were running low. It was best to conserve every ounce of strength they could.

  Just a few miles, most of it downhill, she thought. We can do that in our sleep.

  It was much cooler under the canopy. Goose bumps dotted her chest and arms. She wanted to put her shirt back on, but it was more important she be able to keep an eye on her body as much as she could. She pulled her shirt around her neck, shivering slightly.

  She wished her cell phone worked out here. More than anything, she wanted to call her parents. And not for any kind of medical advice. It was a sure bet even her father would have no idea what had happened to Carrie, Dan, and Seth. She just wanted—no, needed—to hear their voices. To have them tell her everything was going to be all right.

  Maybe it was childish to want that so much, but so what?

  “Whoa!” Latrell shouted.

  He came to a dead stop, arms outstretched as if he were pretending to fly.

  “This is bad.”

  Autumn wanted to scream.

  The trail had been devoured by thousands of Clathrus archeri pods. The ground and trees were awash with them. They hung from the branches, their weight causing them to droop precipitously.

  A solid wall of Devil’s Fingers blocked their exit as surely as a wall of fire.

  “We can’t go through them,” she said.

  “Maybe we can go around them.”

  They stepped off the trail, eyes on the ground, careful to look out for any pods hiding in the brush.

  A fallen, rotting log served as a wilderness bar top, its surface lined with a row of some of the largest egg sacs they’d seen so far. Beyond it was another expanse of the pods.

  “Damn,” Latrell cursed. “It’s like they’re boxing us in.”

  Pfft.

  Autumn heard the whisper of a Clathrus archeri pod bursting. One of the pods on the log curled open, fat tentacles rapidly unfolding.

  Pfft. Pfft. Pffft!

  One after the other, the pods hatched alien-looking fungus. The first hint of death and decay assaulted their noses. Autumn quickly covered her mouth and nose with her shirt.

  “We have to go back,” she said.

  Latrell’s shoulders heaved, his feet shuffling, unsure which way to turn. She knew he hated admitting defeat. “We’ll find another way,” she said. “Come on, before the smell gets to us.”

  If they passed out, they were as good as dead.

  The calm of the forest was overcome by the riot of ripening Devil’s Fingers. Their collective stench crashed toward Autumn and Latrell like a tidal wave. It only took the slightest lungful to spur Autumn into a full sprint. Latrell stayed close behind her, as if he could shield her from the encroaching miasma of spoiled meat.

  Fallen branches, divots in the trail, and scattered rocks seemed intent to make them fall. Autumn stumbled and swayed, but refused to go down like some brainless chick in a slasher movie. The sounds of the Devil’s Fingers breaking free was a hellish symphony at their backs, playing a death knell they couldn’t escape.

  Chapter 13

  Brandon decided to give Tina his joint.

  “You smoke, right?” he said, offering it to her along with his trusty lighter with the picture of Marilyn Monroe.

  “Sometimes in college,” she said, her voice strained from the misery of her shattered ankle.

  “Well, it’s a perfect day to get back on that horse. It should take your mind off the pain.”

  “Thanks.”

  She lit it, took a long drag and let it sit in her lungs until she started coughing. “Wow, this is strong.”

  “I have a healthy tolerance. Only the good stuff works.”

  “Brandon has a reputation as keeper of quality sticky icky,” Seth chimed in, chuckling. He may have been laughing, but he had tears in his eyes. He kept glaring at his hands as if they’d betrayed him.

  “Everyone’s got a special talent,�
� Brandon said. He peeked at Tina’s ankle and turned away so she couldn’t see him cringe. Taking his phone out of his pocket to check the time, he cursed under his breath when he saw the battery was dead.

  “You still feeling all right?” he asked Seth.

  His best friend scratched at his neck. “Do I feel like I’m turning into a fungus? No. Not yet.”

  The chemtrails from earlier had been erased from the sky like chalk on a blackboard.

  They’ve already done their damage, Brandon thought.

  “Anyone smell that?” Tina asked. Her eyes were freshly-blown glass.

  “That’s not skunkweed,” Brandon said.

  Seth got up, sniffing the air. “No, that’s not it.”

  Then it hit Brandon. The fresh mountain air with its scents of sweetgrass, pine needles, and the mineral tang of Merritt Lake was savaged by the oppressive redolence of an abattoir.

  “Crap. It’s those things. Latrell said there were a lot of them back where Carrie and Dan had been,” Brandon said.

  “It’s not coming from there, dude,” Seth said, pointing toward the trail. “Wind’s coming from that direction.”

  “From where?” Tina asked dreamily. Her head lolled on a neck that seemed to be made of overcooked spaghetti. It wasn’t Percocet, but Brandon’s special strain was doing its job.

  “Quick, cover your noses,” Brandon said, searching for something to tie around Tina’s face. He found one of her tube socks—one of those retro socks with the colored stripes banding around the calf—and wrapped it over her nose and mouth.

  “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” she said, struggling weakly against him. He somehow managed to cinch a good knot that she wouldn’t be able to untie in her current state.

  “Keeping you from going nighty-night again.”

  He used her other sock for himself, hoping it was clean. Though even a sock worn by a homeless person who hadn’t seen a shower in a year would have been preferable to the odor that came off those Devil’s Fingers.

  “You good, Seth?” he said, turning to his friend and freezing.

  Seth had gathered his shirt over the lower part of his face.

  An enormous egg sac had grown out of his belly button. He thought he saw the shadowy tentacles within it twitch.

  “Stop staring at my abs, you perv,” Seth said. When he saw Brandon’s expression, he looked down and groaned. “Jesus, I’m fucked.”

  “It’s only the one,” Brandon said.

  “Yeah, for now. What’ll it be like in a few hours?”

  “In a few hours we’ll have you surrounded by doctors.”

  Seth slowly shook his head. “I’m pretty sure this wasn’t covered in med school.”

  “Maybe they can find a way to slow it down, like put you in a medically induced coma so it can’t spread. It’ll give them time to come up with a cure.”

  “Oh, a medically induced coma, huh? Now that’s something to look forward to.”

  “It wouldn’t be so bad. I’ve been putting myself in organically induced comas for years.”

  Despite everything, they shared a laugh while the smell in the air grew thicker, penetrating the cloth pressed to their noses.

  “Hey, is that Autumn and Latrell, or are they deer? I can’t tell,” Tina exclaimed, giggling until she fell onto her back, hands tugging on the sock.

  “Tina, no,” Seth said, motioning for her to leave the sock alone.

  Brandon looked up and saw they were no deer. Latrell and Autumn looked as if they were running hard from something that was out to kill them.

  When he saw the shirts over their faces, he knew they were screwed.

  The air grew more noxious with each passing second.

  “How many of those things can there be to make a smell that bad?” Seth said.

  Brandon made a dry retch, his tongue instantly tasting as if he’d licked the Y incision on a week-old corpse during an autopsy. His vision wavered as his brain shouted at him to find fresh air.

  Autumn tripped, falling facedown on the narrow trail.

  Then Latrell fell.

  They didn’t fall. They passed out!

  His first instinct was to jump in the lake and escape the invisible noxious cloud. But he would still have to come up for air. Diseased air.

  “Dude, I think I’m gonna—”

  Seth crumpled onto his side. His arm was draped over Tina, who was also unconscious.

  Brandon took short, panicked breaths, slapping a shirt over the sock.

  No, I have to get Seth off of Tina! His knees buckled. His lungs burned and spasmed, rejecting the fetid air.

  It didn’t matter what he used to filter it out. The stench of those Devil’s Fingers wasn’t going to be denied.

  Brandon’s world went sideways, then black.

  Chapter 14

  Autumn woke up with dirt caked in her mouth. Her nose throbbed and there was a lancing pain in the center of her forehead. She pushed herself up, spitting mud.

  Cutting through the fog was the memory of the toxic smell of the fruiting Clathrus archeri. She frantically looked for her shirt, finding it wadded up in the grass. Crawling to it on scabbed knees, she realized the stench was gone.

  “Latrell?”

  He lay on his back, snoring.

  “Honey, wake up.” She nudged him with her sneaker. He came to instantly, eyes wide and wild, jumping to his feet.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s over.”

  For now, she thought.

  She couldn’t see the thousands of fresh tentacles in the woods behind them, but they were there, all right: one giant, impenetrable wall preventing their escape from this hell.

  Latrell took one look at her and blanched. “Does it hurt?”

  “My nose?” She sounded as if she’d stuffed tissues up her nostrils.

  “Yeah. I don’t think it’s broken, but it’s really swollen.”

  “I’m trying not to think about it.”

  He pointed toward the camp. “Looks like we’re not the only ones who got gassed.”

  Brandon, Seth, and Tina looked as if they’d decided to take a nap. They ran to them.

  “Nononono,” Autumn murmured. Seth had passed out with his arm across Tina’s side. White egg sacs had sprouted from his arm to her torso.

  Latrell punched the air. “Shit!”

  Brandon groggily rolled onto his back. “Latrell?”

  Autumn looked Brandon over. No pods.

  When Brandon rubbed his eyes and looked to Seth and Tina, he grimaced. For a moment, he looked like he was going to cry. He coughed hard instead.

  “He was just trying to get her to stop pulling the sock off her face,” he said.

  The sock was still wrapped around the lower half of her face, so in that, Seth had succeeded.

  “Why did you guys come back?” Brandon asked, sitting up.

  “We went as far as we could go. The woods are filled with those fucking things, man,” Latrell said, pacing in a tight circle. “I mean, there’s so many out there, a mouse would have a hard time weaving through them.”

  “Oh man,” Brandon said, staring at the ground. “We’re never getting out of here.”

  Tina awoke, screaming. Autumn jumped, nearly colliding into Latrell.

  Rolling away from Seth, she scrabbled to her feet, yanking at the sock. Now that Autumn could really see her, she noticed so many more of the Clathrus archeri pods. She ripped the sock free and Autumn gasped.

  A pulsating pod covered her entire cheek, bleeding into the corner of her mouth. Whatever was inside her mouth was so large, she couldn’t close it.

  She locked onto Autumn, eyes pleading, pointing at the egg sac on her face and mouth.

  “Calm down, Tina,” Autumn said, looking for a quick exit should Tina try to touch her.
“Just take a deep breath.”

  The words sounded as hollow as they felt coming out of her mouth. Autumn would be hyperventilating just like her if the tables were turned.

  “Gnfff ghhhh!” Tina mumbled around the pod.

  “Tina?” Seth croaked.

  When he turned over, his shirt was partially pulled up. A pod the size of a melon was on his belly. He tried to cover it with his shirt, but the material wouldn’t stretch that far.

  Forgetting about himself, Seth rushed to Tina, clasping her arms.

  “I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” he said again and again. Maybe it was the simple act of being touched, but it did the trick. Tina nodded, her face smeared with tears, and melted into his chest.

  “Did you get help?” Seth said.

  “No,” Autumn said, feeling guilty even though there had been no way to get to the trailhead.

  “We have to do something for Tina,” he said.

  Short of tranquilizing her so she wouldn’t be aware of what was happening, Autumn didn’t know what they could do.

  “Tina, you have to relax your jaws,” she said. “I don’t want you biting down on that thing.”

  Seth and Tina’s intertwined shadows drew out behind them. It was going to be dark soon.

  How long were we out? Autumn wondered.

  Now that the Clathrus archeri had come to maturity, they could try the trail again and hope they had started to decay as quickly as they had when they grew from Dan. Maybe she and Latrell could safely navigate their way to the trailhead. With any luck— and dammit, they were overdue in that department—the batteries in the lanterns would last long enough to get them to their cars. Hiking the trail in utter darkness was an invitation to disaster.

  “Latrell and I can try again,” she said.

  “But you said the woods are full of those things,” Brandon said.

  “They are, but they might be in the death cycle by now. It may be the best window of opportunity we’re going to have.”