Ogre interrupted his thoughts. “You know, Squid, I’ve been thinking.”
“Yeah?”
“We handled those damn roaches, the ‘Mi-Go,’ with some truck splatter and my .357. I’m almost out of ammo and according to Shuarna we are likely enough to meet up with some heavier dudes.”
“So?”
“So what I’m saying is do unto others before they do unto you.”
“Huh?”
“We need heavier artillery, Squid. We need something with some kick, some punch, some wow!”
“‘Some wow?’ What the hell you talking about?”
“I’m talking about we arm ourselves with some big guns. We get something that will really put a hole in people or monsters or bugs or whatever,” said Ogre, excitedly enough that he took his hands off the wheel for emphasis. As he did the truck veered sharply to the left and while The Squid was convinced for a moment they would wreck and flip over, they found themselves on a dark stretch of highway completely different than where they had been only moments before.
“Where the hell are we?”
“I dunno, Squid, I just took my hands off the wheel for a sec—” His hands started to lift in demonstration.
“Don’t!” commanded The Squid with a finger raised. “You keep hold of that wheel until we figure out where we are.”
While the landscape was familiar to both men, it wasn’t part of where they had been. The earth had gone from a hazy yellowed earth to a green and grey stony desert with rolling hills arching ever higher with each passing mile. Soon enough, pines were scattered about. Great mountains loomed ahead.
“Do you see a mile marker or anything?” Ogre asked.
“I haven’t seen one since we left Toolly. I think this Dreamlands crap erases them, at least from our perspective. I’ve been going off familiar landscapes, but this is not where we were in Utah. This is still familiar, though. I think we must be somewhere past all that.”
“Squid, somehow we are way past the exit we wanted.”
“We missed the Price turnoff?”
“Oh no, long past that.”
“Green River?”
Ogre shook his head.
“Crescent Junction?”
Ogre shook his head furiously. “Nope. We’re way past all that. I think we’re coming up on the Eisenhower Tunnels!”
The Squid leaned forward examining his surroundings out the window. “I think you’re right.”
“Too bad you don’t need to get to Denver anymore.”
“Shut up.”
“Here we go!” said Ogre, as they plunged into the tunnel. While there were overhead lights, not far inside they blinked out and then only the truck’s headlights granted any illumination.
“But this ain’t right either, Ogre-man. Shuarna said to separate the thing from my truck we have to go to where the barrier between worlds is thin and she said that was down in the Four Corners. We gotta turn around.”
“Do you see anywhere I can turn around, Squid?”
“We need to.”
“Maybe after we get through to the other side.”
The tunnel seemed gloomier now, as if the headlights could barely hold back the darkness. They could no longer see the walls or ceiling lost in the atmosphere of the black tunnel. The road, while still relatively flat, became rough and uneven and every now and again Ogre had to dodge the truck around outcroppings of stone.
“What the hell happened up in here, an earthquake?”
“Looks that way, Squid.”
A great wall of cyclopean stone suddenly forced them to come to a complete stop, tires squealing.
“What is that doing here?” asked The Squid.
“Looks like its man-made. That’s not from a cave-in or an earthquake. Someone put that there.”
Shuarna rolled out of the sleeping bunk and asked, “Why did we stop?”
“We almost hit a wall.”
The Squid argued, “That can’t be a wall, we’re in the middle of the Eisenhower Tunnel!”
Shuarna was insistent. “We must turn around and get moving. We cannot stand still! Every moment we stop his forces draw nearer.”
“His forces?”
“We must get moving again,” she urged.
“We gotta get turned around from this earthquake rubble.”
“This ain’t from no earthquake, Squid! Look at those stones. They’re all different sizes and shapes, but they all fit together just right. That’s man-made. That’s a freaking wall!”
Shuarna moved between them to stare out the windshield at the dimly lit stones. “It looks like it curves slightly. Perhaps there is room to turn the truck around?”
The Squid shook his head, “No way, we’re in the tunnel. There’s no room for that. I’ve been here a thousand times before.”
“It won’t hurt to get out and take a look will it? Am I wrong on that?” asked Ogre.
“Fine. Let’s look at how we will have to back up.”
Shuarna took The Squid’s hand. “Please be careful.”
He smiled and nodded. “We’ll hurry.” They jumped out of the cab. It looked like she blushed but he couldn’t be sure. He liked that.
The headlights still shone on an isolated section of the wall. The Squid held a flashlight he had retrieved from the glovebox while Ogre grabbed a spray can. They kicked some smaller rubble out of the way and Ogre spray-painted peace signs on a boulder with glow paint.
“Knock it off,” said The Squid.
“I think we can turn around, but take a look at that,” called Ogre.
Shuarna called out from within the cab. “I think you should return immediately and we should back out. I think we may be in the Vaults of Zin.”
“What?”
“We are no longer on your earth. We may have crossed wholly into the Dreamlands. Come back now!”
The Squid shone his flashlight at her. “Dreamlands, my ass. This is a nightmare trip,” he muttered, under his breath. “We’re already out, we’ll just take a quick gander.”
“Look at this, Squid,” said Ogre, as he ran his hands along the fitted stone. “These are fit so well together I can’t even put my pocketknife in between them.”
“Why would you want to?”
“This means something. I heard about a place like this before where strange cults did weird sacrifices.”
“In the Eisenhower Tunnel?”
Ogre glared. “No man, weird places in South America. Macho Pikachu.”
The Squid shone his flashlight farther out and up. He couldn’t see the ceiling. He walked a short distance away. “This seems taller than I remember. That’s why I think this is just a chunk of ceiling that fell and left it open up there.” The Squid heard a shuffling sound from close by. He turned his flashlight at Ogre who was several feet away, examining the stones. The shuffling was getting closer; it sounded like rubber flapping on stone. The Squid spun the flashlight back the other way.
“Look again,” said Ogre. “These are worked, molded stones. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“There’s something in here with us,” said The Squid.
“Yeah, a wall. Just like I said. Tell me I’m wrong, Squid. Look at it.”
The Squid backed away slowly toward the truck. “We better get outta here.”
“Well since you can’t say you’re sorry, I guess retraction is the better part of valor.”
A second shuffling sound came from another direction within the pitch black.
“I still hear it. Let’s go,” said The Squid, shining his flashlight back and forth.
“It’s nothing, man. You wanna drive and I’ll guide you back?” asked Ogre.
“Yeah,” said The Squid, as he turned to walk back to the truck. Just as he wheeled, his flashlight caught a patch of black fur not five feet away. For a heartbeat, The Squid thought it was a bear, but as he brought the light higher he was not met with a bear’s face but that of a hideous giant monster. Protruding eyes on short pink stalks leered at him beside
a wicked vertical smile. Long curved yellow teeth chomped together as multiple paws as big as bucket seats lunged for him.
“What the fug is that?!” cried Ogre.
Shuarna shouted, “Gugs! Run! Run!”
9. Ace of Spades
Huge arms covered in swarthy black hair swept forward, crashing together. The Squid dodged, dropped and rolled. A massive foot stomped down at him as he rolled away with crushing blows, following his every move.
Ogre was already back in the truck and throwing it in reverse. A massive obelisk of stone crashed against the wall, splintering into a hundred shards just where the cab had been a moment before. “Sumbitch!” cried Ogre.
Another of the Gugs was picking up a second boulder to throw at the retreating truck. The truck’s headlights outlined at least a trio of the gargantuan monsters moving silently forward.
The Squid got up and ran. He leapt and grabbed hold of the side mirror and got his feet on the running board. “Faster! Faster!”
Ogre nodded and backed the truck up as fast as he possibly could, but the Gugs were gaining.
The trailer rocked upward as the rear tires bounced over stalagmites they had missed coming in. The Squid almost lost his footing at that awful jarring but held on for all he was worth. Somehow he still had his flashlight. He swung it outward in the confusion and could not see the far side of the wall.
“Ogre! I think you have room to turn around! Do it and get us the hell out of here!”
The Gugs were almost upon them when Ogre stomped the brakes. The Squid used the opportunity to jump into the cab, just as a Gug slashed its terrible talons along the door of the truck.
Shuarna reached forward and slammed the air horn. The Gugs halted to cover what could only be their invisible ears.
Ogre threw the truck into gear and slammed it forward, hitting a Gug head on and knocking it aside. Turning in a tight circle, Ogre brought the truck and trailer around and hit the same Gug in the head again as it tried to sit up.
The truck sped up, now going forward, and pulled away, easily missing the crumbled stone and sprouting stalagmites in the beams of the headlights.
Dim red light from the brakes illuminated one of the monsters falling behind until the darkness swallowed all sight of it.
“I think we made it!”
Then a heavy crash sounded behind as a Gug leapt aboard the trailer, tearing across the bed with its black talons for traction.
Ogre swung the truck in a serpentine pattern to try and shake the beast loose, but to no avail.
“We have to get rid of it or it will crawl forward and tear us to pieces!” shouted Shuarna.
“Any ideas on how to do that?”
“Try to blind it!”
“Where’s your gun, Ogre?”
“Nuh-uh. If someone is gonna do some shooting, it’s me!” he said, leaping out of the way for The Squid to take the wheel.
The truck jerked back and forth, slowing the monster from coming forward more than a foot at a time.
“Hold her steady!” cried Ogre, as he struggled to aim out the side window.
He shot once, twice, three times without hitting the Gug at all. It crawled another five feet closer.
“It’s getting too close!” The Squid shouted. “Shoot it!”
“Hold her steady!”
Ogre fired again and again, finally hitting the Gug in one of its eyes. It screamed mutely.
When it was only ten feet away from the cab, The Squid turned sharply, and the monster fell back a few feet.
Ogre shot again but missed. “Steady!”
The shaggy demon silently screamed its defiance as it crawled forward.
The road thundered beneath their wheels as death came for them.
Ogre took steady aim. The gun went click. He was empty and the Gug was nearly upon them. It opened its vertical mouth, and wretched sounds gurgled forth as a pink tongue wagged invitingly.
“I’m out,” said Ogre, dejectedly.
The Gug took hold of the top of the cab. It held to the roof like an eagle gripping a fish.
“It will rip the roof off!” shouted Shuarna.
The Squid jerked the wheel back and forth, but with its grip on the cab, the Gug was going nowhere but inside.
“Where’s the fire extinguisher?” called Ogre, searching under the seats for anything to use.
Shuarna clasped her hands together and a blue-lit appeared between them. She chanted strange words and her eyes lolled back up into her skull. She slumped and The Squid caught her with one arm, the other still on the wheel.
“I brought us out of the Dreamlands,” she said in a whisper.
The smoothness of the asphalt beneath the tires met The Squid’s ears. Lights above returned and he could see that they were indeed in the regular Eisenhower Tunnel. The wide open maw of the Gug was struck by steel-reinforced concrete, the ceiling much lower now than it had been in the realm of Gugs. Purple ichor splashed over the truck as the behemoth was broken and tossed from the tractor trailer.
They were all breathing heavily, and welcomed the daylight outside the tunnel as they headed back down the mountain pass.
“Is that what waits for us every time we stop?” asked The Squid.
Shuarna sleepily nodded. “Or worse.”
“We have to get to your barrier-free zone and be quick, then.”
She nodded again and then was asleep.
10. Hush
Shuarna slept but held The Squid’s hand even while unconscious. Ogre raised an eyebrow from his seat in the back, but said nothing.
The highway became a long grey thread through the desert beneath an ever-changing sun and moon. The cosmic dance overhead no longer made them quite as nauseous, but it was still unsettling. It seemed even faster than it had been before, day and night trading places almost as fast as one could notice. They developed a system of pulling into gas stations and having one man run in and pay as the other rushed to fill their tanks. They had no more unwelcome encounters for three stops. It was the fastest they had ever moved like this. They made jokes about being an Indy 500 pit crew for themselves.
As Shuarna finally started to stir, The Squid said, “You know what is a pleasant surprise after all those things?”
“What?” answered Ogre.
“After fighting those bugs, running over that Hound and that Gug crawling all over us, I haven’t seen so much as a scratch on the truck. Looks like we might just make it out of this unscathed.”
Shuarna broke in. “The Shining Trapezohedron repairs itself, ergo the truck is repaired of any sort of damage that is accrued.”
“Sweet! I was afraid she’d be ripped up after Ogre’s dynamite, those flying cockroaches, the Hounds and the Gugs.”
“It was torn apart. But the Shining Trapezohedron is especially powerful in the flux between realms.”
“I’ll drink to that,” said Ogre, raising a beer. He yawned against the bright afternoon sunlight. “Where are we now?”
“Almost to Moab. You know, the whole ‘Arches, red cliffs, Colorado River’ thing?”
“Yeah, I think I stopped at a waffle house there once.”
The Squid nodded, “Yeah, it was a good one, wasn’t it?”
Shuarna blinked at them as if she didn’t understand a word that was said.
“What is it?” The Squid asked. “You’ve never had a waffle? Look at her, Ogre, she’s never had a waffle!”
Ogre leaned forward to stare at Shuarna. “Oh, we gotta remedy that.”
Shuarna shook her head. “I do not understand your interest in what sustenance I have or have not had.”
“You’re in our world now, little girl. You’ve gotta try a waffle!”
“Don’t call her that, man,” said The Squid.
“I’m just having fun here, Squid. Thought we all were.”
“I get it, just… you don’t know her like I do.”
Ogre was indignant. “Oh, you know her better than I do? We’ve all been in the truck the same
amount of crazy time, my friend. You don’t have any more experience on the UFO subject than I have.”
“Jeez, Ogre, let it go. You don’t know everything, Mr. Books-on-Tape.”
“I knew it. Well, you’re blissfully ignorant, my friend. Next time you need a candle in the darkness, don’t come cursing me.”
“See! You’re not even getting your aphorisms right.”
“Ha! I’m not, huh? You didn’t even say it right, Squid. It’s ‘euphemism.’ Am I wrong?”
The Squid just looked at him and shook his head. “Okay, forget it. But about those waffles.” He turned to Shuarna. “We drop Ogre off to get waffles, I’ll fill the truck, and you can go pay the attendant inside.”
“Fine,” said Shuarna. “I will try these ‘waffles’ if we can still be swift. We cannot risk anything catching up to us.”
“It’s a deal.”
They slowed as they pulled into a twilight-soaked Moab. The moon seemed to slide with greasy ease across the vault of sky before disappearing behind towering cliffs of vermilion. Ogre hopped out as they came to a crawl beside the large A-framed waffle house. The Squid parked at the station next door and hopped out to pump his diesel. Shuarna strode into the station. Funny how quickly the whole bizarre routine had become, well, routine. Sometimes he wondered if this was all a dream he couldn’t yet wake from, but the soreness in his legs from sitting too long and the sweat beading on his forehead all said this was real. Still, being with his best friend and Shuarna didn’t seem so bad. He especially thought he’s like to spend a lot more time with her.
“I gave him the entire amount. Fifty dollars?” asked Shuarna.
“That’s good,” said The Squid. “That ought to fill us up.”
“Why did you tell Ogre that you knew me better than he does?” she asked, as she caressed his hand.
“I suppose because you admitted to me that you got us into this mess, and I’ve seen that other form of yours. I think you and I have a little more understanding, that’s all. Maybe something more too.”
She smiled at that. “I like you, Earthman.”
Redneck Eldritch Page 44
