“Cal? Cal? I hear you. Stop yelling. What happened? What’s going on?”
Cal was her best friend. She trusted Cal. She stared up into his handsome face, tears streaming down his cheeks. Why was he crying?
“Camm!” Relief oozed from his voice. “Camm, you’re back!” He turned and called over his shoulder. “She’s back! Camm is back!”
Another voice nearby yelled, “Time to get her out of here. Right now. Let’s go!”
She felt Cal lifting her on one side and someone else lifting her on the other side. She concentrated her focus on the other person. It was Granny—he was lifting her too.
The two men picked her up between them, her wounded leg painfully reminding her that she was human as they carried her out through the mammoth oak doors into the pouring rain.
What fogginess lurked inside her head quickly washed away in the wet driving rain and wild wind. Lightning flashed above her. Thunder boomed around her. She shook her head to clear it.
In a rush, everything came back. The snake had come. The rat and she had killed the snake. The rat was still alive, still in the mansion. Was this real? Was this her feverish imagination?
Camm slowly reached up to gently cup Cal’s cheek. She studied his large, tear-filled eyes. “Why are you crying? Is the snake dead? What happened to the rat? Why are we out here in the rain? Where’s Martha? Where is everyone else?”
In response, Cal simply gazed down at her, a huge, goofy grin on his face. Reaching in, he gave her another kiss. A long, warm kiss in the driving rain.
“Cal? Where is everyone? What’s going on? Why are you kissing me?”
Cal continued to grin at her, but she heard another voice. “Welcome back. You had us worried for a while.” It was Agent Allen. “Nice to have you back among the humans.”
Camm twisted around and reached out to her, taking her hand with a firm grip. “Linda, what’s going on? Where is everyone? Why are we standing in the rain?”
Agent Allen smiled and squeezed Camm’s hand back. “The snake is dead. You did a bang-up job on it. Everyone, except Mr. S, is now in Trona, in our own world, safely out of the conjoined mansions. Granny’s two Indian friends were sent back to their world—they’re home again. We did that while you were out of it. And now, it is up to Mr. S to get rid of the rat and . . .”
She didn’t finish the sentence.
A deafening roar filled the air along with a searing hot explosion of white light punctuated with bright multi-colored sparks and flashes. The entire slate roof of the mansion lit up in bright blue flames. Repeated explosions boomed around them—shock waves shaking them to the core. The very stones of the building burst out in wavy, blue lines of electrical fire. The walls of the mansion twisted and warped with violent crashings and deep boomings.
Everyone watching backed away from the sudden intense heat as the bricks, stone and mortar of the mansion were engulfed in a huge conflagration that shook with thunder and flashed with lightning. It was hard to tell if the mansion was blazing with an intense flame or just glowing white hot, radiating light like a trillion-watt light bulb.
Everyone backed up some more as the ground shook with another violent detonation, and the mansion or mansions imploded in on themselves, collapsing down to a single point of hot, blue light, which suddenly blinked out in one final, brilliant flash.
All that remained was a huge hole in the ground where the mansion basement had been.
The mansion’s stones and masonry were gone. The windows and doors were gone. The roof and chimneys were gone. The large stone steps and heavy oak doors were gone. The whole structure and everything in it had lit up like a magnesium flare and disappeared into thin air.
The mansion was gone, all gone.
The rat was gone too.
And, Mr. S was gone as well. He had not made it out in time.
XXXV
This different. Everything different.
The entire mansion had transitioned to a new world and taken the green rat with it.
Moments later, the whole structure began to crumble. The rat had scrambled clear just before the mansion completely disintegrated. What had been the rat’s home, its prison, was now a huge heap of stones and slate. All three stories had buckled, leaving behind a small mountain of rubble. It was impossible to tell it had ever been a mansion, let alone a habitation of some kind.
The collapsing bricks and stones had destroyed everything within. Even the grandfather clock was demolished—that clock had controlled the rat’s freedom all these years. It was something the rat both worshiped and hated. Now the clock was destroyed. Nothing remained to hold the rat.
Instinctively, the rat knew that for the first time in decades, it was truly free. Free of the mettlesome humans. Free of the deadly snake. Free of the mansion with that indestructible chain and inter-dimensional frame that held the rat in stasis in hyperspace. Finally, it was completely free of the clock.
The rat rose up on its hind legs to survey its surroundings. This environment was odd, but full of life. Nothing like the human world it had lived in for decades. Nothing like the other world the snake had inhabited. And, nothing like its own world, from which it had been snatched.
No, this world was nothing like those worlds. To begin with, this was not a desert.
The rat was surrounded by lush, verdant greenery. The air hung heavy with humidity, and water dripped and pooled everywhere. Large, thick blankets of moss covered the trees, which shot up high into the sky. In the shade below, gargantuan fern-like plants waved in the evening winds. Around the ferns, broadleaf florae flourished and sounds of wildlife filled the air.
Realizing it had been sent somewhere new, the rat’s first objective was to understand this new hunting ground. The dead snake should have afforded the rat weeks of food, but the snake’s carcass was now buried deep under piles of stone and rubble.
The rat sniffed the air. Much life here. Life everywhere. Much prey.
A sudden bellowing noise startled the rat. A gigantic head and neck elevated out of deep water. The head and neck were as large as the snake, but were attached to a massive body with a tail longer than the neck. Green underwater plants hung dripping from the large, duck-billed mouth.
The rat knew this prey was too big to hunt. This gargantuan creature could squash the rat with a single step. The rat needed to find defenseless creatures closer to its own size.
Abruptly, the rat saw something moving through the trees, watching it. Something with dagger-sized teeth and large, razor-sharp claws at the end of two, short arms. This creature had thick hide, ran on two legs and towered high above the rat. This creature saw with eyes placed wide in a giant head, giving it excellent three-dimensional vision. Those eyes now focused on the rat.
The rat knew at once this creature was a hunter. This creature ate meat.
The rat spun and ran, bounding through the underbrush, jumping over moss-covered pools of water. The predator behind it ran too, shaking the ground with each step. With no idea where to go, the rat sought only to put as much distance as possible between itself and the creature chasing it.
The rat had not run like this since first meeting the Mojave Green rattlesnake.
Now, again, the green rat was being chased. It was being hunted. It was the prey!
XXXVI
“Why don’t these people have air conditioning?” Agent Allen wiped sweat from her brow.
Near the gaping hole where the mansion had once stood, the original team of Swift Creek agents, or what was left of them, had found an abandoned but furnished house where they gratefully took shelter from the storm. Camm remembered this house and the people that lived here. She remembered trick or treating at this very house the night little Hughie Jones disappeared.
The memory was still painful, but Camm was relieved to know the green rat was now gone. All she had suffered in her quest to elim
inate the rat had paid off. Trona was safe at last.
The rain still came down in sheets outside, though the wild violence and unusual chill of the storm had vanished with the mansion’s departure. Trona’s heat had returned, and now included the high humidity that had come with the storm front.
Getting everyone out of the rain, Granny had set up his own team in one house and the new agents in the house next door. Neither place had air conditioning, but this house had a swamp cooler, which admittedly worked better when the air was hot and dry. Under current conditions, it added to the humidity more than it cooled the air, but it felt good to Camm and Cal.
“Oh Linda, sit down and try to relax.” Camm motioned Agent Allen over to an empty seat. “For Trona in the summer, this is pretty comfortable. We don’t often get rain storms.”
Cal sprawled next to Camm on the loveseat, an arm draped behind her shoulders. “Could be worse off,” he volunteered. “You could have been in that mansion when it went up like a Roman candle. I wonder what it looked like from the inside.”
Agent Kline nodded solemnly. “It was pretty nip and tuck there at the end.”
The big man wiped his face with a large kerchief. He sat closest to the window mounted swamp cooler, taking full advantage of the large fan and fast-moving air.
“Camm, if you hadn’t finally come out of it when you did, there might have been more of us in the mansion when it disappeared to who knows where.”
He shook his head, scowling at what that might have been like. “I will tell you, I didn’t know if you would ever break the mental connection you had going with the rat. Good thing Cal knew how to reach you. By the way, good job Cal!”
Cal grinned over at Camm. “Just doing what any good friend would do.”
Camm smiled back and elbowed Cal in the ribs. He sat up to defend himself, but just then Granny walked into the room carrying a large platter of chocolate chip cookies, napkins, a half-gallon of two percent milk, and glasses. Everyone helped themselves to the cookies as he circled the room. Cal grabbed a handful and a glass of cold milk.
Even Camm had to admit Granny’s cookies were delicious. She figured he must have found the ingredients to make the cookies in the home they were in, but had no idea how he managed to find a half-gallon of fresh milk on the spur of the moment.
Camm poured herself half a glass. “Great cookies, Granny. Where did you get the milk?”
She rubbed her sore leg. Agent Allen had changed the dressing. She would have to go to the hospital in Ridgecrest and have it looked after, but that could wait until after the storm had passed.
The cookies were still warm and squishy on the inside. Granny smiled at Camm. “If you’re serving the world’s best cookie, it should, whenever possible, be served with milk.”
That didn’t answer the question, but Camm just rolled her eyes and savored the cookie. Besides, she needed answers to more important questions.
“So, what happened in the mansion?” Camm glanced around the group cautiously. “When I was, well . . . you know, out of it?”
“Camm, you really scared us in there.” Martha spoke from the Easy Boy recliner. Lenny sat crossed legged on the floor in front of her, leaning back against her legs. Martha’s eyes grew large and round, almost tearful, as she recounted what had happened. “At first, it looked like you were merely communicating with the rat. You know, with your mind. But, then you seemed to go deeper. Your whole body went limp. Your head slumped down onto your chest. Your eyes rolled back into your head, so we could only see the whites. You started moaning and jerking and drooling.”
Lenny nodded his head in agreement. “Really, dude, it was freaky.” Concern was also evident in his voice. “Your body went limp, but was also kind of twitchy, moving with the rat. We could tell you were connected.”
He stopped to glance around the room. “Hey, Granny!” Lenny interrupted himself. “How about another cookie?”
Granny gladly acquiesced, extending the platter of cookies toward Lenny, exposing his upper arm as he did so. “Cool tat, Granny.” Before Granny could withdraw, Lenny grabbed his wrist, squinting his eyes as he examined the tattoo.
Cal continued Lenny’s explanation. “Camm, when the rat attacked, your body would lurch. When the rat clawed at the snake, your hands and arms moved too. Most creepy of all, when the rat bit the snake, your mouth made biting motions, like you were biting the snake too.” Cal shook his head, recalling what had happened. “Do you remember any of this?”
Camm nodded. “It was like we became one. Not at first, you know. At first, I just gave it commands. Well, not really commands, but like suggestions. And then, I lost track of where I stopped and it started. We became more unified, kind of interwoven. By the end, I was seeing through the rat’s eyes, hearing what it heard, and tasting the flesh and blood of the snake.”
Martha shivered. “That must have been awful!”
“That’s the scary part.” Camm gave a mirthless chuckle, her eyes lost in remembrance. “At the start, I was repulsed, but as I got in deeper, it wasn’t awful at all. It was freakin’ incredible.”
Around the room, everyone froze and grew quiet, staring at Camm as if she had just stepped off a spaceship from Mars. Agent Allen scowled.
Camm shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know how else to describe it.”
Granny finally pulled his arm away from Lenny. “I’m going to check on our brothers in arms next door to see if they need anything.” This announcement dripped with sarcasm. “I’d like to know which one of them shot you, Camm. You know, so I can give him a lesson in gun safety.”
Everyone smiled at the thought of Granny teaching those new guys a lesson. Granny left the house and ran through the pouring rain to the house next door. He didn’t take along any cookies to offer to the latecomers.
Camm sat up straighter, glancing around at the little group. “I was truly lost inside the rat. I didn’t know any more who I really was. So, how did you guys bring me out of it?”
“Oh Camm, we tried everything.” Martha’s voice quivered. No one minded. She had earned her street creds. “Or almost everything. We yelled at you. We tried shaking you. Agent Kline even slapped you. It looked like nothing was going to bring you out of it.”
Camm touched her cheek. Now that Martha mentioned it, her face did feel a little tender.
“We were all yelling at you. We had decided to just pick you up and haul you out of there, but Mr. S said we first needed to break the connection between you and the rat. Granny was going to try his stun gun on you, but said he honestly didn’t know if it would do more harm than good.”
“At that point,” Agent Allen picked up the narrative, “Mr. Jones took you in his arms and kissed you. I thought he was crazy if he thought a kiss would bring you back, after everything else had failed. But then, he kissed you again, and I thought . . . ”
Agent Allen’s voice cracked, and she looked away for a moment. The room was quiet as Agent Allen cleared her throat and continued, “I thought, maybe, he was kissing you goodbye, because you would never pull out of it. But it worked. He kissed you, and you came back.”
Cal smiled a shy smile and turned his gaze to Camm. “I was never kissing you goodbye. I was always bringing you home. Everything we had done up to that point were things we could do to both you and the rat. I mean, we could yell at the rat; we could shake the rat; we could even slap the rat. But the one thing we would never do is kiss the rat on the lips.” His body shook in revulsion at the mere thought.
“I could never kiss the rat, but I could kiss you. I wanted to kiss you. I thought maybe the real you, that wasn’t connected to the rat, would feel the kiss and want to separate itself from the rat. It worked.”
“Here, here.” Agent Allen held up her glass of milk in a mock toast. “Never underestimate the power of young love.” Martha blushed and Camm giggled.
The front
door flew open, and Granny stalked back into the house dripping wet. He glanced around the room, getting everyone’s attention. “I have interesting news,” he announced.
Immediately, Lenny interrupted. “I know what your tat says.”
Granny ignored him. “It seems these new agents showed up to stop from happening what in fact did happen. Oh, they didn’t care about the rat or the snake. They just wanted to keep open a portal to the other Searles Valley world. They had orders to make sure we didn’t mess up the portals. Someone in government got it into her head we could mine rare minerals and elements in the other world and bring them back here. The whole process could be done cheaply without regard to environmental laws or any other complications, at least in this world.”
Agent Kline asked, “You mean like mining plutonium?”
“Exactly.” Granny lowered his voice. “Rare minerals and elements are worth a lot. Plutonium, for example, is now a hot item, expensive to produce and in real demand. Programs like the space program can’t get enough. The alternate dimensions are seen as virtual gold mines for such rare elements.
“They’re pretty upset next door, because not only did we lose the mansions, but the dimensional portal at the plant, between this world and the other, collapsed in on itself at the same time the mansions disappeared in blue flames.”
Agent Kline nodded. “I’m not surprised the plant portal was destroyed. An unimaginable amount of energy was in play. If there was enough energy in both storms to cause the conjoined mansions to transition, I can see how it would collapse the separate portal at the plant. After all, the plant and mansion portals were connected and interdependent.”
Martha’s brow furrowed as she turned to Camm. “I wonder what happened to the other way that we took through the mountain—with the underground river. What happened to that portal?”
Fatal Green Page 26
