by Ike Hamill
“That’s weird,” he said.
“Why is that weird?” Trina asked. She folded her arms and hugged them tight, despite the warmth of the room.
“I just figured they were from outer space,” Gerard said. He grabbed the gray metal and began to pull.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He didn’t answer. Gerard put a hand on the man’s stomach for leverage and applied more pressure. She saw the tubes pull at the man’s loose skin. As the tubes began to withdraw, they pulled blood and gooey flesh from the holes. The old man began to shake as Gerard pulled the machine farther and farther away from his body.
“Stop,” Trina said. “You’re hurting him.”
“I’m not hurting him more than this thing was.”
He kept pulling. A couple of the tubes that invaded the man higher up on his torso popped free from his flesh and retracted into the gray metal. The long legs started to wake up and wave around under the thing. Gerard repositioned his arm so that none of the claws would be able to grab him.
“What are you trying to prove?” Trina asked. “Stop it.”
“I’m going to set him free.”
As he pulled, all but two of the tubes came free from the man’s flesh. The last two held strong. As Gerard pulled, he only managed to tip the man forward. One of the tubes pierced the man’s skin next to his navel. Through the ripped shirt, she could see several wounds left behind from the retracted tubes.
“Help me, would you?” he asked.
She resisted for a second, but saw that Gerard wasn’t going to give up. She moved behind the old man and gently looped her hands around his arms so she could hold him up while Gerard pulled.
“It’s no good,” Gerard said. “I think they’re wrapped around his spine or something.”
Even as he finished the sentence, the tubes broke free from the machine and Gerard fell backwards. He put both hands on the machine to hold it away from himself and keep the flailing legs from grabbing him.
The extracted tubes hung limp from the machine. Trina looked over the old man’s shoulder and saw with horror that the last two tubes hadn’t pulled out at all. They were still hanging from the old man. At least for a second they were. As she watched, they seemed to burrow, like metal earthworms, and disappeared into his body. She recoiled from the sight and backed away. The old man lost his balance and began to fall towards her. Trina tripped and the old man came down on top of her.
Gerard laughed as Trina struggled to get out from underneath him.
“It’s not funny,” she said. The old man’s head thumped to the floor as she finally extracted herself.
Gerard managed to sit up with the machine thrashing and clawing at the air.
“What are you going to…” Trina began to ask.
Gerard started beating the thing against the floor.
Trina looked at the group of standing people. They didn’t move. She glanced through the window to see if anything else had noticed the noise. When she looked back to Gerard, he was making good progress on destroying the machine.
“If people can make it,” he said between blows. “Then I can destroy it.”
The little legs stopped waving with a crunch and the case began to pop apart. Gerard took a break from his destruction.
“I saw one of these things invert before,” he said. “All the little legs flipped direction. Maybe they lose that ability when they start to feed? Maybe this one is a different model?”
He banged it against the floor a few more times. Something popped and Gerard dropped the thing and backed up. Trina saw why—there was yellowish goo leaking from the machine. She looked closer and saw threads of red in the yellow.
“It is fat,” he said. “The thing was harvesting his fat just like the crazy lady said.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“Look at it. The thing was packed full of the old man’s fat. That’s why he looks like a deflated balloon. I wonder what they want it for.”
“Disgusting,” Trina said.
“Just imagine how much is in all those things,” he said, waving towards the crowd of people.
As she watched, an absurd amount of the yellow goo leaked from the seams of the machine. It was like it had been compressed inside the thing. There was too much volume of fat—if that’s what it was—to have fit inside the case.
“Why would Controlled Scientific Devices make fat-sucking robots?” Trina asked. Her cousin on her mother’s side had worked for that factory, back when there was a CSD plant up the road. The most advanced thing she had ever assembled was a network adapter for servers. That was before all the work went to Ireland and the plant closed.
“I suspect they’ll make whatever they’re contracted to make,” Gerard said. “So you should be wondering who would pay them to make fat-sucking robots.”
Trina shrugged.
She was about to say something else, but she lost her train of though when Gerard said, “Shhh!”
“I wasn’t…” she began.
He held up his hand and she heard it. There was the sound of an engine. It sounded like a car racing down the main drag.
Gerard moved to the window.
“Want to help me rescue the rest of these people?” he asked.
She looked back at the old man and then cautiously knelt next to him to lay a hand on his back. His chest rose and fell with slow breaths. She could feel the thump of his heart beating.
“I’m not sure rescue is the right word,” Trina said.
Chapter 38 : Dunn
[ Flight ]
“GEORGE!” MARY YELLED.
AT the sound of the engine, the boy had turned and started running back towards town. She started to go after him. With her tight ankle, uphill was much easier than down. George didn’t have that problem. He was pulling away fast.
“George Joseph Dunn, you stop right this instant,” she yelled.
He stopped and turned halfway around. She knew that look, he was trying to decide if he should bolt.
“Don’t do it!” she said. “Your father told us to keep going no matter what. If I can manage this hill, you can too.”
“But the truck!” he said. “That was the sound of Dad’s truck. We should go find out where he’s going.”
“I’m sure he will be along just as soon as he can. For now, we have to do as he said.”
George balled up his fists and stomped a foot. Sometimes she loved when he still looked like a little four-year-old boy, pouting because he didn’t get his way. Today, she had no time for it. She was barely able to motivate herself to continue.
George’s eyes went wide.
“What?” Mary asked. She turned with the question.
There were three of them standing in the middle of the road. Mary didn’t recognize them.
“George, come here,” she said. Mary put out her hand.
They were about fifty yards up the hill. The man in the center was standing on the road’s dotted yellow line. The women on either side were standing in the travel lanes. At least they looked like women—Mary wasn’t completely sure.
There was something uncomfortable about the people. Maybe it was the way they had just appeared. Maybe it was because they were simply standing there and not making any attempt to call out to Mary and her son. Maybe it was the strangeness of the day that was making Mary feel odd.
George took her hand—he must have felt uneasy as well or he wouldn’t have been so quick to comply.
Mary waved and started forward. The three held their ground.
“What do you think?” she whispered to George.
“I don’t like them. They look funny,” George said.
“Me neither. You want to cut off into the woods?” she asked. George looked at her gravely and nodded. To their east, the lake curved away from the road. There was a good patch of woods between them and the water. A little farther south, the woods intersected the sand pits. Even farther, up over the hill, they would come to
the cemetery. That’s where they were supposed to turn off anyway, but the trip would take a lot longer if they fought the whole way through the forest.
“We’ll go far enough to get around them and then we’ll come back out to the road, okay?”
“Yeah,” George said.
George led the way. Mary kept an eye on the three people for as long as she could see them through the trees. They didn’t move at all. They didn’t even seem to be watching Mary and George as mother and son climbed through the woods. The going was slow and Mary relied on George to find the best path. He had a great sense of direction and had grown up finding his way through forests. The boy had a knack for it.
He stopped.
“You gotta keep moving George,” she said. “As soon as I stop I’m not going to want to start again.”
“I think there’s more of them,” he said.
He pointed, but she still didn’t see. George looked around and saw her eyes scanning and not locking on anything.
“See that yellow?” he whispered.
It took a second, but she finally saw it. The yellow was the dress of a short woman or a girl. As they began to move forward again, Mary cringed at how much noise they were making as she shuffled through the leaves. George could move like a barn cat when he wanted to, but Mary was practically dragging her foot through the underbrush.
“You recognize her?” Mary asked.
“Yup,” George said. He was terrible with names. If he had come up with one for the person, he would have definitely announced it.
“Where’s she from?” Mary asked.
She looked down at her son. He shrugged.
“Great,” Mary said under her breath. Both she and Vernon were so good at remembering people. She didn’t know why George hadn’t inherited the ability. As she moved forward towards the yellow, she figured it probably didn’t make much difference. Regardless of who the girl was, she shouldn’t be standing out here in the woods.
Mary’s opinion evolved as she got closer. It was definitely a girl, and it might not actually be so strange that she was out here.
She turned back to George and whispered, “That’s Lori Palange. You know her.”
Mary was wrong and she knew it as soon as the name left her mouth. She wasn’t Lori Palange any longer because her mother had finally married that Greg Jankovic fellow. In an interesting twist, they had given Lori her stepfather’s name, but the mother was still a Palange.
“Jankovic,” she told her son. “Lori Jankovic. You know her.”
George shrugged.
It wouldn’t be out of the question for Lori to play in these woods. Her grandparents lived not far from there. Mary decided to reserve judgement until they got a little closer. She wanted to see if the girl was glassy-eyed, or maybe just standing there because she was frightened. Maybe she had witnessed some strange things that day too.
Mary ducked under some brittle pine branches and locked eyes with Lori. The girl was crying.
“Lori?” Mary whispered. “Are you out here alone?” There was still a good distance between them, but the girl seemed to hear.
Lori shook her head.
Mary’s eyes swept the trees and then went to her son. “George, do you see anyone?”
He shook his head.
Mary inched closer. Lori didn’t look like a walking coma, not like the people in the road or Peg Polhemus. She trembled as she stood there. She looked like a scared little girl.
“Wait here, George,” Mary said. Her son seemed perfectly willing to comply.
Mary was a little spooked by Lori, but her compassion won.
“Who else is here?” Mary asked the girl.
She was older than George by a couple of years. Maybe it was the tears or the trembling, but she looked significantly younger.
The girl lifted a trembling hand away from her body and then pointed at the ground.
Mary tilted her head and looked down at the leaves and tree roots.
“I don’t know what you mean, honey,” she said. Both times she had been pregnant, Mary had hoped for a girl. But there were some times, like this one, that she thought maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t gotten her wish. She didn’t seem to communicate with little girls very well.
The girl’s lip began to quiver. Mary couldn’t tell if she was going to cry or say something. She moved a little closer after looking back to verify that George was holding his ground. She had no need to worry—George was glued to his spot. He had an arm wrapped around the trunk of an alder, like the tree was his best friend.
“Lori, what got you so frightened?” Mary asked.
The girl pointed again and then looked down. She whispered something that Mary didn’t catch.
“Say it again?”
Mary inched forward, shifting weight off of her bad ankle.
“Demons,” the girl said.
Mary stopped and straightened a little. “Demons?”
Lori nodded solemnly.
“Honey, there aren’t such things,” Mary said. She said that before she had a chance to consult her memory—were the Palanges particularly religious? She couldn’t put a faith to Shelly Palange. She might be spiritual in a non-specific way. Of course Greg Jankovic’s parents were pretty churchy, but they hadn’t passed it onto their sons. Besides, Greg had only been the girl’s father for what, a year?
Sometimes kids picked up their own ideas about religion. Who was Mary to judge?
“They talk to me,” Lori whispered. “They’re watching me right now.”
A couple of thoughts flashed through Mary’s mind. Maybe the girl was mistaking some of the recent craziness and pinning it on demons. Maybe the girl was a little off.
“Do you see them right now?” Mary asked.
Lori didn’t move her eyes away from Mary. She shook her head.
“How do you know they’re watching?”
“They’re always watching,” Lori whispered slowly.
Mary felt the skin tighten on the back of her neck. The girl had always seemed normal before. Today, she was downright spooky.
“Where are your parents?” Mary asked.
“Demons got them,” Lori said.
Mary frowned. “You come with us. We’re going to figure this out together, okay?”
“They won’t let us go,” Lori said. “I’ve tried.”
“Don’t you worry about a thing. You’re with us now, and everything is going to be okay. You just give me a little spin, okay?”
Lori looked confused and frightened as Mary twirled her finger in the air.
“Just spin around for me real quick. I want to see how pretty your dress is before you get it all dirty out here in the woods.”
Mary wanted to see if Lori had any of the little yellow lights on her skin, like Peg Polhemus. The image of Ricky’s thigh with the yellow lights flashed across her memory. She quickly blinked the image away.
Lori still looked confused, but she put her arms out away from her sides and began to spin. She was frightened, but still more obedient than either of Mary’s boys would have been. Maybe a girl wouldn’t have been so difficult. Mary watched closely as Lori twirled. She couldn’t be a hundred percent, but the girl looked normal. She was frightened, but normal.
“Don’t you look pretty,” Mary said. She tried to conjure a reassuring smile. “What a darling dress! Come on, George, let’s get going.”
Her son was reluctant to come along. Mary took Lori’s hand while she still held it out. The girl flinched, but Mary held tight.
“Which way is your grandparents’ house?” Mary asked.
“No!” Lori said. She tried to pull her hand away again. “I told you, demons got them.”
“Relax,” Mary said. “We’re not going there. I’m just trying to get my bearings.”
“Your what?” Lori looked up at her.
“I want to know what direction to go.”
“That way,” George said. He moved up on Mary’s other side. “Her house is that way.�
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Mary looked between the two kids. Lori nodded.
“Okay,” Mary said. “We’ll swing wide around it then. Sound good?”
Lori was shaking her head. When she opened her mouth to speak, Mary interrupted her. “I know, I know. Demons. We’ll figure that out when we see them.”
[ Stopped ]
George navigated them through the woods. He took them close enough that even Mary could see the outlines of the house through the trees. Lori didn’t even look where they were going. She kept her eyes fixed on those shapes that represented a place that her people called home. In normal circumstances, Mary would have dragged the girl back to Earl Palange’s house. She wasn’t in the habit of abducting truant children.
Mary listened to her own feet. Flanked by the silent children, she was still making a racket.
“Where are the dogs?” Mary asked.
Lori didn’t answer.
Mary stopped and asked again. Earl’s business was a constant source of irritation for his neighbors. Despite the fact that he had built his house out in the woods, away from town, everyone within two miles knew that Earl ran a dog boarding facility. He had all the proper permits, and his property was inspected every year, but he did not have the approval of his neighbors. If the wind was blowing to the north, the lower half of the town all complained about the noise of the barking and baying dogs.
Mary never heard the noise. Their house was on the other side of the hill. But within shouting distance of the house, the dogs should have been going crazy at the sound of Mary’s shuffling steps.
“Demons got them,” Lori said.
“The dogs?”
The girl nodded.
“Maybe you should tell us a little about these demons,” Mary said. She immediately regretted the thought. If the kids started to panic, they would be impossible to keep under control. “Never mind, Lori. You can tell us later.”
“You’ll see,” Lori said. “They won’t let us get much farther.”
Mary frowned.
“We’ll see together,” Mary said. “Stay close, George.”
George was facing the wrong way, walking backwards. “There’s something behind us,” he said.
