The freed vine recoiled, snapping back to its place on the car; and suddenly, the mass of vines began to shudder, a seismic telepathy that radiated through the woods around and before him. It seemed to ripple through the men as well, freezing them in place as their static-etched voices cried out in shock.
“What the fuck…!” Burroughs yelled; and then the entire road wobbled spastically underfoot, as if some giant air bubble had compressed and shifted beneath its surface. Deitz nearly lost his balance, and Franklyn fell: a capsized beetle, fat limbs waggling, silently flailing at the air.
And that was when Deitz caught sight of the shambling figure in the woods; the mangled mud-angel himself, features hideously flattened into a leering expression that was one part grimace, one part grin, flat eyes bright with broken glass as its broken right hand spasmed up.
It was waving hello.
Or, possibly, good-bye.
“RUN!” Deitz screamed to his terrified men; and in that moment, the skin of the mud beneath their feet burst like an enormous blister, giving way to a stagnant yellowed reeking quicksand pus that dragged them down, poisoned earth and bacteria swirling around their ankles, their hips, their thrashing arms heads hands, then gone without a bubble or a prayer.
Swallowed by the road.
Deitz stared as the road split open before him, felt the gelatin ground go loose beneath his feet. Then he dove, screaming, every ounce of strength in his body hurling headfirst off the road. Diving for the safety of the green green grass. His only hope.
No hope at all.
It was like landing on a bed of poisoned nails. Each blade was a crystalline razor, a chlorophyll needle punching in through his protective garb to rake his flesh as he hit, shoulder first, then rolled onto his back. Clothing, skin, and muscle shredded, making him shriek as the blades sunk deeper. Impaling. Injecting.
Infecting him.
Mortal pain threw his head back. His eyes flew open. The world went upside down. He could see the HazMat trucks, sucking down into the road as well. From his point of view, it was as if they were ascending into heaven.
Deitz passed out, came to, passed out again. His own dying cycle of seasons. He came to, some time later, overwhelmed by the sweet stench of chlorophyll, blood, and the overriding taint of something he couldn’t place because there was no place for it in the world that he had known.
That world was gone.
It was in him now. He could feel it. It was in everything, remaking the world in its own image.
Deitz couldn’t move, couldn’t speak.
He could only wait.
Soon the shadow of the first vine came: sightless, patient, intuitive. Deitz knew it was only a matter of time.
But it seemed to take forever.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Gary sat in the Studio B control chair, a computer joystick in one hand and an unlit Marlboro in the other. Smoking in the studio was verboten, though everyone did it anyway; the only reason Gary refrained was the repair-tech common sense that said you fuck it up, you fix it.
But he was sorely tempted by the image on the screen.
Before him was a rack of monitors; twelve nine-inch Sonys framing a twenty-inch Conrac screen, six to a side. The left six were dedicated to video effects, character generation, all things computer-based and digital.
The right six were split between the rack-mounted Betacam modules and broadcast monitors showing the up-to-the-minute programming of ‘PAL and the local competition. On monitors 7 and 8, tiny little Eagles got ready to do battle with equally diminutive Giants in a Philadelphia stadium the size of his empty ashtray.
And at the moment Gary could not care less.
He was watching the outtakes of Kirk and Mike’s entrance onto Toad Road: the bars and tone, the first sweeps of establishing shot. The landscape looked strangely overgrown, alien. “Check it out,” Mike’s voice-over bled up. “You gotta see this…”
Kirk appeared on screen. “Lemme see…” he said, reaching for the camera.
“Cam switch!” Mike chortled. “WHOA…!”
The image jostled and blurred as the deck changed hands. Mike suddenly appeared on screen, grinning a stoned grin. “Look, Ma, no hands!” he said.
“You jerk!” Gary winced. ‘PAL was a union shop; he could get their asses fried for a stunt like that.
“Now remember what I showed you.” Mike moved closer, until the lens swallowed his face in shadow. “Set it on a number three filter, and no gain, and…”
“Huh?” Kirk said.
“Never mind. Just open up the aperture and bring it into focus, like this…”
Mike’s nose suddenly became macro-clear, huge and cratered as the surface of the moon. “Got it?”
“Got it,” Kirk said. “So which one’s the off button?”
The image blipped off.
Gary fast-forwarded and made the A.D.O. dump, the technology converting Kirk’s magnetically encoded source tape into bytes of digital information. Once there he could use the computer editing system to do damn near anything he wanted, editing-wise.
At the moment, Gary wanted only one thing: to see who was driving that fucking truck.
“C’mon, baby,” he cooed, rocking the stick like he was locked into the world’s scariest Nintendo game. Except the monsters in this game hung around after the change ran out, he thought. And they played for keeps.
Just ask Mike.
On the screen, the truck was blasting through the tree again: he slowed the digitized image, smoothing the jangling death-dance on the tape.
“You stupid fucking cowboy,” Gary muttered in memorium, “I hope this was worth it.”
He found a perfect moment in the chaos, paused it, then reached over to the computer keyboard and scrolled down the menu. Tap Tap. Z is for Zoom. Tap tap tap tap. Eighty percent.
On the screen, a glowing blue box appeared around the truck, blinking.
He tapped in a few more commands, hit “go.”
The box blew up then, filling the screen. “C’mon, motherfucker,” he whispered. “Show me what you saw.”
He switched to the Conrac, enlarging the image to the limits of tape saturation. He pushed it until the actual pixel resolution could go no further.
And there it was, drawn in a game of digital connect-the-dots, hovering on the brink of image dissolution. The thing that froze an experienced cameraman like a spotlighted deer. The thing that was worth dying for.
It was a hideous idiot countenance: a lopsided grinning skull, jaw hanging crookedly, eyes bulging like meaty ping-pong balls, filthy kerchief around its neck, its long black hair a wild corona as it hunkered down behind the wheel.
It was a ghost truck driven by a corpse.
And it was loose somewhere in Paradise.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Gary muttered. This was too weird. He picked up the phone and called down to the newsroom.
“Yeah,” Laura answered, tension lacing her voice.
“Did you raise Kirk yet?” he asked.
“He won’t answer,” she replied.
“Big surprise,” Gary snorted. “Anyway, I think you better get up here.”
“Did you get something?” she asked, the anxiety in her voice giving way to excitement.
“I don’t know what the hell I got,” he said. “But whatever it is, you’re gonna want to see it.”
“I’m on my way.” She hung up.
Gary sat there a moment, holding the dead receiver in his hand and staring at the screen. Then he called home again. Just in case.
The phone rang once. Twice.
He let it go, as if sheer persistence might carry the day.
Three times. Four.
Hoping they were off somewhere, having a nice lunch and saying terrible things about him.
Five. Six.
Gary let it ring.
Hoping against hope that the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach was really all in his head…
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The first thing wrong that Micki noticed were the sudden profusion of starlings.
There were thousands of them, fluttering over the trees that made up the knobby ridge of the park, filling the air with their raucous din.
Jesus, she thought, shades of Alfred Hitchcock. When did they take over? Micki loved Nature in all its beauty as much as the next girl, but starlings? Sturnus vulgaris, the Hell’s Angels of the bird-table? No, thank you very much.
They dominated by sheer numbers—driving other birds out, stealing nests and eating the young, and then overbreeding until the sheer tonnage of their droppings alone was enough to destroy a stand of woods. Then they’d die off or migrate elsewhere, to begin the cycle anew.
No doubt about it. A starling infestation was a sure sign that all was not right in Oz.
Micki and Gwen lay on a blanket by one of the picnic tables. They loved the park dearly: more than a handful of their fondest memories, from childhood on, had their genesis there. As girls, they had come here often: picnicking with their families, clambering around on the rocks, staring at the sky and dreaming of magical lands. As teens, they got high and laid out on the lush green veldt, sucking up the panorama and dreaming of other kinds of magic.
On the ridge, across the valley, three steel needles jutted into the sky, warning lights flashing on them at regularly spaced intervals: TV and radio broadcast towers, transmitting their signals to the world at large. They, too, had been there forever, or at least since the fifties, and hence were part of the women’s memories as much as the hills and trees and sky.
“Remember how we used to imagine that they were magic?” Micki said wistfully. “And how we could climb them to the cities up in the sky?” She sighed.
“Yeah,” Gwen sighed back. “’Course now we know the only thing up there is Championship Wrestling and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.”
“The Home Shopping Network…” Micki added.
“Ted Turner’s colorized classics…” Gwen chimed in. They looked at each other, ready to burst.
“Geraldo…” they chimed in unison.
“Ooooooooh!”
They both grimaced their best persimmon-face and broke up, laughing longer than they needed to, like schoolgirls mooning over who kissed who at the junior prom. Micki took hold of Gwen’s hand, squeezing.
“Jesus.” Micki winced. “The death of innocence is gruesome, huh?”
“Nah,” Gwen said, squeezing back. “Innocence never dies. There’s always a new generation to fall for it.”
Micki smiled, and they fell silent for a moment, staring out at the towers.
“Hard to believe,” Micki said, in genuine awe, “that Gary actually climbs those things.”
“The center one,” Gwen said, gesturing. “Twice a month, whether he wants to or not. Scares me half to death, every time.
“Speaking of which,” she added, apologetic, “I gotta make a phone call.”
Micki looked at her and sighed grievously. “Hurry back,” she said.
Gwen stuck her tongue out playfully and waddled off. Micki smiled and settled back on the soft carpet of grass, contenting herself with earth and sky. As far as she was concerned, there had never been a better place for cloud-watching than at the top of that hill, stretched out on your back with the sky above and the river below, almost able to touch those great billowing creatures that unfolded before you. Creatures that only you could see.
You, that is, and your very best friend…
A shrill, deafening din suddenly rose up, startling her. Micki turned to see a riotous black wave fill the sky, as the starlings took off en masse for the far end of the park.
Good riddance, Micki thought. She glanced over to the phone kiosk some ten yards away, where Gwen was tethered, listening to her home phone ring off the hook.
“‘Back in a flash, honey!’” Gwen hollered, aping Gary’s twang. “‘Ah promise!’ LIAR!”
Micki groaned. The picnic basket sat before her on the blanket, taunting her with the aromatic reminders of apples and smoked turkey, Dijon and whole wheat. Her stomach grumbled sullenly. Gwen had claimed that she’d parked in the restricted spaces to be close to the bathrooms, but one sight of the little booth and Micki knew the true reason.
“Domestic bliss,” she muttered sarcastically. “You know I love it!” Micki closed her eyes then, feeling the warm flood of energy that always infused her when Bob-Ramtha spoke. She arched her back like a cat being stroked, and smiled inwardly.
“I know they love each other, Bobba. That’s their problem,” she said. A petulant look crossed her face. “No, I am not being mean! I’m just hungry!”
“Damn him!” Gwen yelled, slamming down the receiver. Micki turned back to her, saw the hurt disguised as anger as she chugged back to the table. “I swear to God he drives me crazy sometimes! He just did two shifts, back-to-back, and that’s the third time in the last month. Now’s he’s back in there again!”
“You guys really oughta get a machine,” Micki offered.
“Gary hates ‘em.” Gwen shrugged angrily, waddling closer. “He says that if you get a message, you’re obligated to return the call. ‘Course he always picks up the damned thing anyway, so why bother?”
“Guess that’s why they call him the Great Communicator.”
“Hey.” Gwen flashed her a mock-killing glance that had just a whiff of the real deal in it.
“Sorry,” Micki said, dismissing the issue. “So can we eat now, please? I’m starved.”
Gwen looked at her as if she really wanted to continue, as if a charge had built up that had to go off, and would sooner than later. She started to sit, stood right back up again. “Whoa, shit,” she said, grimacing. “Not again.”
“Poor baby.” Micki sighed. She started to stand; Gwen waved her off.
“No, don’t bother, I’m used to it,” Gwen said, grabbing an apple from the basket. “You know,” she muttered, “if Nature was really a woman, She wouldn’t have designed the plumbing like this.”
“You got a point.” Micki laughed, and reached for an apple herself. “But it’s clearly not a man, either. So what is it?”
“Nature,” Gwen concluded, “is just crazy. That’s all.”
Her voice was answered by the din of ten thousand black birds as she waddled up the path and disappeared, heading for the hopper. Micki got up from the table and plunked herself down on the dry grass, the better to munch her apple and ponder Nature’s supposed insanity.
Overhead, the starlings were returning. She stared into the sky as the black wave rose, tight little iridescent triangles swooping in complex aerial maneuvers, beautiful and terrible all at once. Micki watched in fascination as the birds started to assume a kind of chaotic formation, swirling like iron filings around a magnet into a looping repetitive pattern, a definable shape.
Like a flying figure eight, she thought.
Or an infinity symbol.…
“Damn, that’s weird,” she said to herself. Then to her companion, “Bobba. Whaddaya think…?”
There was no reply.
“Bobba?” Micki said again.
Two things you got used to as a channel. One was the constant presence of your guide, like a comforting cloak. The other was a curious absence of fear regarding your own mortality, events like this morning’s plane ride notwithstanding. When you knew where you were going, and you were never alone, what was there to be afraid of?
“Bobba?” Micki stood up, suddenly stripped of the one and given the other inverse abundance. A chill gust blew up from the water, giving her gooseflesh.
Then Bob-Ramtha’s presence lurched back into her consciousness with a vengeance.
Get out of here, he said.
“Huh?” Micki said, her brain whanging from the sheer force of the intrusion. “Where were you?” she asked. The presence redoubled, a psychic body-slam in the center of her head.
GET OUT OF HERE NOW.
Micki wasn’t accustomed to hearing fear inside her head. Th
e Bobster was a New Age kind of ancient entity: he did not dispense fear lightly.
“What’s going on?” she asked, turning her gaze toward the trees and the little wooden hut.
NOW.
And that was when the first screaming started.
There was a Dumpster just off the path near the bathrooms, by the old-fashioned hand-pump fountain that supplied rinse water. Its hinged double lids were thrown back, and it was full to overflowing with food and trash, paper and plastic, half-emptied soda cans and candy wrappers galore. A swarm of yellow jackets buzzed sluggishly over the garbage, probing for treats.
Because Gwen was about to burst and her mind was elsewhere entirely, it didn’t strike her as odd to see wasps on a Dumpster in the middle of November. The call of Nature was screaming in her bladder; she pumped some water into the little fountain bowl and rinsed her apple, then waddled on as fast as her feet would carry her.
Gwen looked out over the park as she hiked. To the east over the river the sky was darkening: a violent, ugly atmospheric pigmentation. The storm was returning with measured steps, slowly reassembling its power base. She could feel the rising wind, buffeting soft but insistent against the grass. She could hear it, whistling through the trees.
We should go soon, she thought, and took a bite of the apple.
Bitterness flooded her mouth, coating her tongue, sinking into the spaces between her teeth.
“AGH! PFEH!!” Gwen gagged and spat the offending fragment as far away as she could. “What the hell…” she began, looking at the apple in her hand. Droplets of water laced its surface like silvered ribbons.
Droplets that suddenly, impossibly moved…
“Guhh…” Gwen tried to speak, but her lips and gums were going numb, and the inside of her cheeks felt utterly dead.
Omigod, her mind whimpered. Am I poisoned?
That thought was followed instantly by another, ten times more urgent.
Did I poison the baby…?
Gwen dropped the apple. It crumbled apart, pinkish meat giving way to reveal a wormy, rotted core.
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