There was no sign of the Jeep when they got back to the store, but Dr. Jackson was inside sitting at one of the tables with a shell-shocked look on his face. "Where’s Ezra?" Chris demanded, fearing the worst.

"He went back up to the house," Josiah answered unhappily. "Said he’d keep the radio on 19 in case we needed anything, but he thought it might be better if he got out of here for a while."

Chris didn’t like the sound of that either; Jackson was openly suspicious of Standish at the best of times because he was in the protection program, it would be like him to try to blame the Southerner for what was going on. "Someone want to explain that? We need to all keep together…"

"He wouldn’t let me get her." The doctor didn’t look up from the scarred tabletop, but his hands were clenched into fists and his voice was too flat, too even. "Bastard wouldn’t help me dig up the car, forced me to come back here and leave her…"

"Shit." Chris had hoped Jackson’s wife was in Bixby. After what had nearly happened to them he had a pretty good idea what must have happened to Rain, but he also couldn’t just let the distraught man sit there and put the whole thing on Standish either. He was at the table in two long strides, pulling the resistant doctor up out of his chair. "C’mon, you too Josiah, you boys have to come see this - we found out what’s doin’ it, we’ve got part of one of ‘em in the truck. Would’ve brought it in here but it stinks to high heaven and JD ain’t sure if we should handle it too much, might be poisonous."

"Poisonous?" Nathan pulled against Larabee’s grip as he was dragged outside but it didn’t do him any good. "No, it was…it was the Mafia or some drug lord that killed Rain, killed all these people just to get to…" He saw what was in the back of the truck and his voice trailed off. "What in God’s name…"

"They come from up under the ground," Buck told him, a slight scowl on his face; he liked Ezra and thought Nathan formed too many of his opinions based on supposition instead of fact. "Trashed our truck, almost got us - Mafia don’t hire man-eating worms, Doc."

Nathan took a closer look, careful not to touch. He wasn’t willing to let it go that easily. "This little thing ain’t big enough to pull a whole car…"

"It sure as hell hung up the truck," Chris told him. "See back there at the end, where it’s all ripped up? That’s where we pulled it off the rest of the monster when Buck put the truck in low gear, this part was biting our axle."

"Like Buck said, they’re under the ground," JD chimed in. "We’ve been picking up vibrations all over the place from them moving through the Pleistocene alluvial that makes up the valley floor…"

"He means the dirt," Vin translated. "Some worms have these little hairs that work kind of like oars, they ‘swim’ through the dirt; the one of these that came after us would have bigger ones, maybe even something like little flat bone spikes, but it would work the same way. They can move as fast as a car."

Josiah was frowning now. "They?"

"From the readings we took, there are three of them," JD said. "These little snakey things," he gestured at the torn corpse in the truck. "These are just…well, think of them like tongues, the animal senses vibration through the soil and then uses these to hook whatever’s vibrating and drag it in to be eaten." He made a face. "They have to be some sort of mutation, there’s nothing like them in the fossil record."

"This is JD, by the way," Buck told Nathan and Josiah. "Him and Vin over there are this summer’s grad students. Hell of a welcome to Perfection we gave ‘em, I’d say." He looked around with a frown. "Hey, where’s Mary and Billy?"

"They went home," Josiah told him. "Mary thought she ought to get Billy out of the store for a while."

Chris sighed, seeing the look the big man shot at Nathan. He understood what was going on; even though Rain and Nathan’s marriage had been anything but a happy one, he knew that the shock of what had evidently happened was deep and they couldn’t really blame the doctor for his behavior right now. He wondered briefly how Ezra had gotten the man to leave the buried car and then decided it didn't matter - the Southerner had probably saved the doctor's life, and if that had to be done at gunpoint then so be it. Nathan would get over it eventually. "Well, I guess as long as they’re in the house they should be okay. Let’s all go figure out what we’re going to do next, then we can bring them back over here. We really should all stick together from here on out."

Vin wrapped the piece they had back up and tucked it back into its corner and then they all went inside the store to go over their options. There weren’t many. With the only road out of Perfection blocked the only route out of the valley was an old Jeep trail that wound up into the mountains, but unfortunately there were only two vehicles in town that could navigate the rough backcountry track and one of them had just been sucked halfway into the ground. Ezra’s SUV could probably make it, but that brought up the question of who they were going to tell once they were out of the valley.

And of what they were going to tell them. "These things don’t even have a name," Buck complained. "The kid here says they’re…uh…"

"Completely unprecedented in the fossil record," JD supplied.

"No one’s ever seen anything like ‘em before," Vin clarified. "Which is gonna make gettin’ someone to believe us awful hard, even with the evidence we’ve got - the local law is a lot more likely to figure one of us is doin’ the killin’ and this is all part of some big scam."

"I still think…"

Josiah cut the doctor off before he could get started again. "Dammit, Nathan, we’re not going over this again! This isn’t Ezra’s fault, all right? I don’t even see how a smart man like you could think that."

The doctor scowled. "We don’t know why he’s out here! Could be anything, these things could be genetically engineered…"

"You watch too much TV, doc," Buck interrupted disgustedly. "Even I know better than that."

"And I don’t think someone’s gonna spend billions of dollars on science-fiction monsters just to take down one investment banker," Josiah added. At Nathan’s look of surprise he snorted. "Yeah, that’s what he is - stumbled onto something fishy one day and reported it, now here he is. He’s been helping me with my money, store ain’t been this far out of the red in ten years and I’ve actually got some retirement set back now. Boy’s good at what he does, let me tell you."

"This ain’t gettin’ us anywhere," Vin said abruptly. "We have all got to get out of here - those things move through dirt like a fish through water."

"They’re not as fast as a car," Buck observed. "We outran ‘em in that little one-lung truck you boys have."

"I ain’t too sure about that," was the surprising answer. "I was slowin’ ‘em down by drivin’ over rocks; I didn’t think they’d be able to go through solid rock."

"Which means we should be safe once we reach the mountains," Chris said, with an approving look at the younger man, who just shrugged. "I’d been wondering if they’d be able to follow us up the jeep trail, so that’s one problem out of the way. Now all we need to do is call Ezra to come pick us up and try not to do anything that might attract those things before he gets here."

"Since they seem to be attracted to vibrations, as long as everyone stays inside and reasonably quiet we shouldn’t have a problem," JD said. "We’ll have to be quick when the SUV gets here, though, because for all we know they could be right outside…"

At the far end of the store, the ancient cooler groaned and began to shake and squeal. The floor vibrated, heaved…and erupted as something out of a nightmare burst through the worn wooden floor and let out an inhuman scream. It was huge and eyeless, and had a gaping tripart mouth; half a dozen snake-tongues came boiling out of the horny hooked beak to grope greedily at the vibrating cooler, dragging it across the floor toward the hungry creature. "Graboid," Buck whispered, gagging a little at the foul stench that had come with the monstrous worm. "That’s what they are, Graboids; they just come up out of the ground and grab you."

The floor vibrated and heaved again from the opposite direction, breaking the men out of their shocked paralysis. "Get off the floor!" Chris yelled. "That trap door over there, climb the shelves, let’s get up on the roof!"

Six men scrambled up onto the rickety shelves to reach the small trapdoor in the ceiling that led to safety as the cooler’s electrical cord was pulled from its socket and it rattled into silence. A second Graboid erupted through the floor and screamed. Buck was the first one to reach the door, slamming it open with his elbow and then looking back to make sure everyone was following him. Everyone else was almost there except…the second, now frustrated Graboid could feel the vibration from the shelves nearest it and hooked onto them; the shelves began to tip like dominoes falling. "JD, jump!"

The seismology student managed to hop across the tops of three sets of shelves before the domino effect caught up with him and he was thrown through the window with a yell, followed by a shower of canned goods and assorted hardware. Buck yanked himself up onto the roof and ran for the raised edge, screaming at the top of his lungs, "Kid, get off the ground! GET OFF THE GROUND!" He looked over…and his heart sank into his stomach; only the canned goods and rusted tools remained in front of the shattered window. "Oh God, kid…"

"I’m okay, Buck!" the young man’s voice called out breathlessly, and his head jerked up. JD was scaling the splintery ladder attached to the side of the water tower not ten feet away, and he waved when he saw Buck looking. "Did everyone else make it?"

Buck looked back, saw Nathan and Chris pull Josiah up onto the roof and then saw Vin clamber out right behind him. He turned back to JD with a smile. "Yeah, everyone’s okay! You stay put over there, don’t vibrate!" JD had reached the narrow maintenance walkway that circled the tank by this time and sank down to sit on it; he gave Buck a thumbs up and a grin. "The kid made it," the relieved handyman told the others.

Vin came over to look and waved at JD, then began to look around. Chris came up beside them and did the same, followed by Josiah; Nathan remained by the trapdoor, looking down into the store, watching the Graboids. "We’ve got to get that CB," Chris said grimly, looking down the side of the building. "Got to get Mary and Billy and Ezra up on their roofs, figure out a plan…"

"I’ve got a plan," Vin said. He had pinpointed the window the CB radio was sitting in front of, and with a little help was able to climb down and grab it, handing it up to the other men before allowing himself to be pulled back up onto the roof. "Lucky thing the cord stretched this far."

They called Mary first, and within minutes they were relieved to see her and Billy edge out onto the sloping shingles of their house. Ezra didn’t answer his radio, which scared everyone until Vin spotted something moving around outside of the house up on the hill and realized that the man was outside. "I think he might have binoculars with him," he told everyone, squinting. "Probably checkin’ things out, lookin’ for something out of the ordinary - everyone wave your arms around, give him somethin’ to see!"

Moments later the radio crackled. "What are you all doin’ up there?! Is somethin’ wrong?"

"Ezra, we found out what’s doin’ it! They’re these things, under the ground…"

Another static crackle. "Hold on, I’m not hearin’ you right. Try switching to channel 2 and try again."

Chris twisted the little knob, squinting at the faded numbers, and Nathan reported quietly that the Graboids below had left. Buck pressed the button. "Can you hear me now, Ezra?"

"Much better." There was only a hint of static now. "Now whatevah are you talkin’ about? I thought you just said somethin’ was under the ground…"

"They are under the ground!" Buck exclaimed, frustrated. "They’re these big monster things, they come up from under the ground and grab you."

"That explains why you’re all up on the roof," the man said. "I don't think they can surprise me that way, though, seein' as how the basement floor is solid concrete. I have the front perimeter alarm on, do you think that would detect one if it came close? I could try to shoot it…"

Buck started to answer…and then stopped, his mouth hanging open; he could have sworn he’d just seen a dust plume on the hill. "Josiah, you ordered those perimeter things for him, how do they work?"

The big man frowned. "They send out a sonar pulse every five seconds to a matching sensor a little ways away, then if something interrupts the signal they…" He broke off in horror as he realized what he’d just said. "Oh my lord, sound waves…"

Chris snatched the radio from Buck’s lax grip. "Ezra, get up on your roof! There’s one headed right for you, those sensors will draw it right to the house! Get out of the basement!"

"Headed right…where? I don’t see anything, what do you mean ‘draw it right…" There was a rumble and then a crash and Ezra yelled, "What in God’s name…" before the radio went dead in Chris’ hand. Buck’s shoulders slumped. "Damn," he muttered.

Suddenly the sound of small-arms fire echoed across the hard desert floor. Five men stood frozen on the warped roof, staring out toward the distant house, none daring to breathe through the brief silence that spoke of reloading or changing weapons preceding each volley of shots. And then there were no more shots. Four of the men turned away, but Josiah continued to squint across the distance, gripping the wall tightly and murmuring what might have been a prayer under his breath. JD’s voice cut through the silence, plaintive and hopeful. "Did he…did he get away?"

A muffled explosion sounded; Josiah roared in triumph, pumping his fist in the air. "YES!"

The other men flew back to his side. "What the hell was that!?" Chris demanded. "What does he have in there, a rocket launcher?"

The older man shook his head. "Nope, but he’s got a box of concussion grenades - I just hope he got his ears covered in time…"

Behind them, the radio crackled and came back to life. "Does anyone know a good taxidermist?" a tired Southern voice asked breathlessly. "I want this bastard stuffed."