They had almost made it to the mountains when the two remaining Graboids proved just how smart they really were.
Vin noticed something unusual from his lookout perch in the Cat’s rusted bucket but didn’t realize what he was seeing until it was too late for Chris to stop; the solid-appearing ground under the bulldozer’s tracks disintegrated and the heavy vehicle pitched forward into a yawning pit, dumping Vin out of the bucket and almost throwing Chris out of the cab to join him. The older man caught the edge of the roof just in time, then scrambled down to the ground anyway to haul the dazed college student back into the relative safety of the trailer. A trickle of blood was running down the side of Vin’s face from a gash above his left eye. “They dug a trap,” he muttered disbelievingly. “They dug a trap.”
The trailer shuddered and lurched to one side, dust shooting up in the air, and there was a mad scramble for the guns everyone had dropped. But the bullets couldn’t penetrate the hard ground far enough to have much effect. Then Ezra limped to the downward-tilting side of the trailer with a scowl on his face and a grenade in his hand. “You hungry?” he hissed at the unseen Graboid, yanking the pin out of the grenade. “Then you can eat this!”
He threw the grenade and yelled for everyone to duck, which everyone did. Over the sound of the exploding grenade came the high-pitched scream of a Graboid, and as everyone watched in amazement two plumes of dust streaked away from the trailer at high speed. “You scared ‘em,” Chris said approvingly.
“I don’t think so.” JD was squinting at the hole the grenade had made in the ground. “I think it hurt them - they’re so sensitive to vibrations, I don’t think they had any choice but to run.”
“Then maybe we could use the grenades to get out of this,” Buck said. “Do we have enough to make it to the mountains?”
Vin shook his head. “Naw, we’d need fifty of those things, we’re a good mile, mile and a half from where we’d need to be.”
“We could use them to make it to those rocks, though,” Josiah said suddenly. Everyone turned to look. Sure enough, a fairly large outcropping of the residual boulders that studded the valley floor were within running distance. “One or two grenades should get us there, and then we’d have more time to come up with another plan.”
No one said anything, everyone just stared at the wide expanse of ground between the trailer and the rocks. Then Chris straightened up from where he was leaning on the side of the trailer and slapped Josiah on the back. “Aw hell, he’s got my vote. If we stay here they’re just gonna suck us down, at least over there we’ll have a fighting chance.”
The dust plumes were coming back. What supplies they had were quickly divided up, and Ezra handed off the bag of grenades to Vin. “You run the fastest,” he told the younger man. “You can make the rocks before the rest of us and throw another grenade if necessary to keep those monsters away.”
“Good idea,” Buck said, checking his gun even though he knew the weapon wouldn’t do him much good. “Havin’ an up close and personal encounter with a Graboid ain’t high on my list of things to do today.”
Everyone ducked again except for Vin, who stood with grenade in hand waiting for the right moment; the trailer lurched violently and he yanked the pin and tossed the little bomb toward the rocks before ducking down next to Chris. Another explosion, more screams…and JD, keeping watch from the other side, jumped up and yelled, “It’s working, there they go!”
Vin was already over the side and sprinting for the rocks, Buck, Nathan and JD close behind him. Chris lifted Billy into his arms and ran as well, followed by Mary, Josiah and Ezra. No one looked back; no one wanted to witness the moment when the two Graboids turned around and came after them…and so no one noticed when Ezra’s injured ankle gave way and sent him sprawling face-first onto the ground.
Ezra’s first instinct was to yell for help, but he thought better of it. Calling out to the others would result in one of two things, he knew; either someone would risk their life to run back and save him …or no one would. Taking a chance on either option was unacceptable to him, so he fumbled out the grenade he’d hidden inside his shirt and then froze, hoping the hard pounding of his heart wasn’t enough of a vibration to draw the monsters to him. But if his hope proved unfounded, at least he’d be able to take one of the Graboids down with him.
Yelling from the direction of the rocks let him know that not only had Vin reached safety but also that the Graboids were returning; he didn’t dare move enough to look up and see for himself, but his grip on the grenade tightened. The vibration of something approaching transmitted itself to Ezra through the earth he was lying on, and he drew the grenade in close enough so that he could pull the pin out with his teeth…
…And then strong hands grabbed his shoulders. Ezra’s head snapped up, and he found himself looking into Josiah’s fear-widened pale blue eyes. Before either of them could say anything, however, the ground shook again and then erupted just beyond the Southerner’s feet to release the gaping beak of a Graboid. Ezra didn’t think twice; he ripped the pin out of the grenade and hurled it into the monster’s mouth, then threw himself against the older man and knocked him over backwards.
Josiah barely had time to register what was happening before the Graboid blew apart with an indignant shriek that was echoed by the other monster as it fled the grenade’s painful ground-shaking concussion. Scraps of reeking orange flesh and gobbets of slimy fluid rained down around them…and then there was silence. The compact body that covered his went limp with relief. “The rocks, Mr. Sanchez,” Ezra whispered. “The remaining creature will return momentarily.”
“Of that I have no doubt,” Josiah replied. He climbed to his feet and pulled Ezra up with him, supporting most of the younger man’s weight and half-dragging him to safety. Once the others had pulled them up onto the rocks he sat down heavily and looked out at the blasted remains of the second Graboid. “That was too close.”
“It sure as hell was,” Chris snapped, dropping down on his haunches next to Ezra, who had flopped down on his back with his eyes closed and hadn’t moved again. “Just what exactly did you think you were doing out there, Standish? Why didn’t you ask someone to help you?”
One green eye opened to squint up at him, then closed again. “Ah…thought ah could make it.”
“Yeah well, you thought wrong,” Larabee insisted, but the hand he dropped onto Ezra’s uninjured shoulder squeezed a reassurance, not a reprimand. “Don’t pull that shit on us again, okay?”
“Ah have no intention of doin’ so,” the Southerner drawled, a small smile gracing his face. “The last monster is all yours.”
“’Bout time you shared,” Buck quipped. “So does anyone have an idea how we’re gonna get the last one? This here rock might be safe, but unless it starts to rain it’s gonna be gettin’ mighty dry up here mighty quick.”
“These MREs have juice in ‘em - some of ‘em do, anyway,” Vin put in, holding up one of the silver-gray packets that had been in Ezra’s supplies. “We can hold out for a bit.” He ripped into the MRE he was holding and started taking out food. “Get over here, JD, you need to eat - the rest of you too, man don’t think straight on an empty stomach.”
Chris made sure Mary and Billy were taken care of before settling himself next to Vin and tearing open his own dinner. “You’re damn handy to have around, you know that? We get graduate students out here all the time, you ain’t like any of ‘em I’ve ever met.”
Vin snorted. “Probably ‘cause I ain’t a graduate student.”
“Vin’s part of the Wildlife Department program,” JD jumped in. “He’s, uh, out here because my professor thought I needed some help, uh, because I don’t…”
“JD,” Vin said softly, and the younger man subsided and dropped his head. Vin sighed. “Professor Hill did send me with JD an’ he did ask me to look out for him, even said he’d see to it I got some kind of credit when we got back…but officially speakin’ I ain’t even out here and I never was. I ain’t gonna lie to you all, I’m hidin’ out as much as Ez over there is. Got a pretty high price on my head, if the professor hadn’t decided to help me lay low for a while I’d probably be dead right now.”
Everyone stopped eating to stare at Vin, and Nathan scowled. “Oh great, that’s all we need, someone else that’s willing to get innocent people killed to save their own skin,” he snarled disgustedly. “What did you do, get in trouble with a gang or cross someone up on a drug deal?”
Now everyone was staring at the doctor, and Buck shook his head. “Soon as we get off this rock, Doc, I’m unpluggin’ that satellite dish of yours.”
“And I’m haulin’ it off to the dump,” Chris grunted, giving Nathan an unfriendly look. “This shit we don’t need right now, Doc.”
“Really, Dr. Jackson,” Mary admonished. “That was uncalled for.”
Ezra sighed and painfully rolled himself into a sitting position before anyone else could say anything. “Gentlemen, Ms. Travis…we truly don’t need any of this right now. Mr. Tanner, you will have to excuse Dr. Jackson’s behavior; he has not been given opportunity to process his loss as of yet and we must extend him all due consideration. And let me be the first to tender my regrets that your expected safe haven proved to be anything but. Should we both escape this situation, I will do whatever I can to assist you in your predicament.”
“Ain’t sure there’s much anybody can do, but thanks all the same,” was Vin’s reply. “Sounds like you and I’ve got a bit in common, Mr. Standish.”
“Unfortunately,” Ezra said, but a dimpled smile blossomed on his face. “And please, call me Ezra.”
“Vin,” the younger man told him, returning the grin. But his grin faded into a slight frown as he watched Ezra gingerly settle himself back down on the sun-warmed rock with a small gasp poorly disguised as a sigh. “You sure you’re all right, Ezra?”
“As long as ah’m not expected to move for a time, the answer is yes,” the Southerner drawled tiredly. “But thank you for asking.”
Vin locked eyes with Chris. Think that worm messed him up more than he’s lettin’ on, the concerned look said.
Think you’re right, Chris answered in kind by means of a slight nod, with a flick of his eyes toward Nathan and an almost inaudible sigh that said he expected no help from that quarter at the moment. But there ain’t nothin’ we can do about it now. “You got any ideas, Tanner?” he asked out loud. “Other than jumping down off this rock and trying to chuck a grenade in that thing’s mouth before it eats you?”
“If we had a stick of dynamite or something maybe we could fish for it,” was Vin’s answer. “That ain’t gonna work with a grenade, though – no way to set it off from a distance.”
“We’ve got food, can’t we just wait it out?” Mary wanted to know. “I mean, won’t it get tired of waiting for us and eventually go look for something else to…hunt?”
“It’s possible,” JD said thoughtfully. “But these creatures are absolutely unprecedented, there’s nothing like them in the fossil record. They could predate the fossil record…”
“And we’ve just never seen one until now,” Vin interjected with only the barest trace of sarcasm.
“…but that’s not plausible,” JD continued with a nod to his fellow student. “And since we don’t know anything about them, there’s no way of predicting this one’s behavior except for the obvious. And what we do know would make me think it won’t be going anywhere; this rock is a perfect conductor, the Graboid can ‘hear’ every move we make so it’s not going to forget that we’re here.”
“Yeah, we already know they’re smart,” Buck put in. “Too damned smart if you ask me. Where would something like this come from, anyway? Outer space?”
“Are they space monsters?” Billy piped up excitedly. “We could call the Power Rangers to come save us!”
Everyone laughed. “Wish it was that easy, Billy,” Chris told the little boy. “But I think this time we’ll have to get the monster ourselves. And I don’t think they’re space monsters.”
“Could be some sort of genetic experiment,” Nathan said without looking up, toying with the crackers he’d pulled out of his MRE. “Maybe the government…”
“So now we’ve gone from Homicide to the X-Files,” Buck cut him off. “I was joking, Doc, wish I could say I knew you were.”
“Actually,” Josiah said slowly. “He might have something there.” Everyone stared at him and he shook his head. “I’ve been in Perfection longer than any of you, remember hearing some of the old-timers talk about an old mine hereabouts that the Army was ‘storing’ stuff in back in the forties and fifties.” He sighed, looking troubled. “Big black barrels, they told me. Lots of ‘em.”
JD sat up a little straighter. “Some biochemical agents have teratogenic effects…”
“Whatever toxic waste they dumped down there could cause mutations,” Vin translated quickly. “But that ain’t our problem right now; right now we just need to figure out what to do about the last Graboid and knowin’ his momma’s name and his home address ain’t gonna get us there.”
“Hear, hear,” Ezra agreed drowsily.
“Shut up, Ezra,” Chris ordered without heat. “We want your opinion, we’ll wake you up – this one’s ours, remember?” The Southerner snorted softly but didn’t open his eyes or say anything else, so Chris turned his attention back to the matter at hand. “Okay, what we’ve got so far is that this thing chases anything that makes a vibration and bullets won’t kill it but a grenade will if you ram one down its throat, else it just runs away from the noise and then comes right back. And it’s smart enough to figure things out and make plans.”
“This thing may be smart, but there ain’t no way it’s smarter than us,” Vin insisted. “We’ve got to remember that it’s just an animal. If we can make it react like an animal, not give it time to think, we can take back control of this situation.”
“Hmm, you mean kind of like startin’ a stampede to drive your cattle someplace they don’t want to go,” Buck said. Then his eyes and Chris’ both widened. “Wait a minute, that’s it! A stampede!”
“That’s it!” Chris exclaimed. “The canyon rim, fellas,” he prompted, seeing everyone else’s mystified looks. “Buck and I’ve been repairin’ fence three days now, tryin’ to keep any more of Dobson’s longhorns from goin’ over the side. We can use the grenades to drive that sucker right out through the canyon wall!”
“We got us a God-damned plan!” Buck yelled. Then he flinched, shooting an apologetic look at Mary. “Pardon my French. But guys, this’ll work!”
Vin looked thoughtful. “Might,” he said, standing up and peering out in the direction that he knew the canyon lay. “Just one problem I can see, though; how you gonna make him go in the direction you want him to? He’ll only run so far at a time and we ain’t got too many grenades left, can’t afford to waste ‘em.”
“Vin’s right,” JD agreed, looking a little sickened. “We’re about what, two, three hundred yards from the canyon rim?”
“About that,” Chris confirmed, frowning as he saw where the two college students’ reasoning was going. “You don’t think we could drive him that far with the grenades we have left?”
“We could try, but if he took off in the wrong direction we’d have wasted our last chance,” Vin said. “Only got three grenades left. No, what we’ll have to do to make this plan work is lure the Graboid out that way and then drive him over with the grenades when he gets close enough so we can be sure.”
“You’re sayin’ someone’s gonna have to make a run for it,” Buck observed slowly. A horrified hush fell on the group, and Ezra opened his eyes. “One of us is gonna have to try to outrun that thing.”
“I’ll do it,” five voices said at once.
Chris snorted and shook his head. “He said outrun not outcrawl, Ezra.”
“I can make it,” the Southerner argued. “If I wrap up my ankle very tightly, I can make it. And ah’m the only logical choice and you know it, because if I fail you haven’t lost anything. I’ll take just one grenade with me…”
“Haven’t lost anything!” Buck exploded – made even angrier by the fact that he could see agreement with the younger man’s suicidal offer on Nathan’s face. “What the hell do you mean, that it don’t matter if you get killed?!”
Ezra tipped his head so he could look directly at Buck, and the expression in those green eyes made the other man go cold inside. “Ah’m already a dead man, Mr. Wilmington.”
“No, you aren’t,” Josiah rumbled, scowling. He scooted over next to Ezra and planted a large hand in the center of his chest to keep him from sitting up; Ezra’s wince at the restraining pressure told the store owner that bruised or cracked ribs were most likely on the man’s list of Graboid-induced injuries. “Where there’s life, there’s hope, son – and ain’t no one here going to let you sacrifice yourself to that monster just because you can’t find your hope right now.”
“JD, you can’t go either,” Vin said. “You can’t trust that trick knee of yours not to go out, runnin’ over this rough ground.”
“I can make it,” JD echoed Ezra’s earlier assertion with an equally stubborn look. “And because the soil right around here is kind of rocky, it’ll take the Graboid a little bit to get up to full speed…”
“Buck has bad knees too,” Chris interrupted. “So neither of you are going, end of discussion.” He looked at Vin and cracked a grin. “Looks like that leaves it between you and me. Rock, paper, scissors?”
Three rounds of rock, paper, scissors later both men were still coming up with the same hand each time and Buck was all but rolling on the ground with laughter. “Dammit, cowboy, I think you finally met your match!”
“Don’t call me cowboy,” Chris growled. He glared at his callused hand like it had betrayed him. “Well, I guess the old standby ain’t gonna work this time.” He cocked an eyebrow at Vin. “We could go together?”
Vin nodded slowly. “Reckon that’s what it’s lookin’ like – might be safer that way too, be able to back each other up. We need to find out where that Graboid is before we do this, though, ‘cause I don’t want to jump off this rock and land in its mouth.”
Everyone scattered to find rocks to throw to try to flush out the Graboid except for Josiah, who was still pinning Ezra in place. “Why don’t you get back to that nap, son?” the older man suggested firmly. “We’ll wake you when it’s time to go home.”
Ezra’s protest was cut short by a slight increase of the pressure against his chest and he gasped slightly and shut his eyes again, biting his lip. “Ah’m…not your son.”
“For now we’ll just pretend you are,” Josiah insisted with a smile and eased back on the pressure again. “Billy, bring me some of those rocks if you would please? I can pitch them over the side from here…”
They finally settled on throwing the rocks to one spot at a time to try to draw the Graboid as far away from Chris and Vin’s chosen jumping-off spot as possible. “There he is!” Buck yelled triumphantly as the ground he’d been aiming at heaved and a few tentacles erupted through the sandy soil. One of them was torn and headless and he grinned. “And it’s our old pal Stumpy, too!”
“Even better,” Chris snorted. He looked at Vin. “Ready?”
“No time like the present,” the younger man answered, and they both jumped off the rock and ran for the distant edge of the narrow canyon. Neither of them dared look back to see if JD had been right about the Graboid needing time to get up to speed. They skidded to a stop not two feet from the steep drop and spun around with grenades in hand; the monster was closing in, the ground heaving up and then caving back in as it rushed along close to the surface. When it was about fifteen feet away both men threw their grenades into the trench it was leaving in its wake and then dove out of its path as the small but deadly missiles exploded.
The twin explosions were followed by the Graboid’s now familiar high-pitched scream and the earth in front of it was plowed up violently as the monster hurled itself away from the source of its pain. It erupted through the canyon wall and, with a final, echoing scream, fell to burst like overripe fruit on the rocky ground a thousand feet below. Chris and Vin peered over the edge at the mess, grinned at each other, and turned to head back to the rocks. “Think we can get the Cat out?” Chris wanted to know.
“Sure as hell gonna try – be a long walk back if we can’t,” Vin replied.
“Yep, sure would.” Chris waved at the rocks, where the others were jumping and cheering to see them coming back. “Hey, Buck!” he yelled. “Guess they can’t fly after all!”
The ride back to Perfection was a much happier trip than the ride out of it had been. Mary took Billy home as soon as they returned to town, and the seven men all sat down in a hastily cleaned area in Josiah’s store to discuss what to do next. They were still cut off from the outside world until the road was cleared of its rockslide and the phone lines were repaired, and although it would be possible for someone to hike out of the valley now there were other problems that required more immediate attention. “Tomorrow mornin’ early we need to head back out to Nestor’s and look for Melvin,” Buck said. “Got to do somethin’ about ol’ Nestor’s…remains, too, and all them sheep that thing tore up…”
“Gotta do somethin’ about what’s left of them Graboids, too,” Vin added. “Especially that one in Ezra’s basement. No tellin’ what’s gonna happen when that thing starts to rot – if it ain’t already.”
“What a pleasant thought,” Ezra drawled. “But I believe we have larger problems than carrion to worry about, gentlemen.”
“You mean like tellin’ the cops?” Buck asked. “Well they may not want to believe us but they ain’t gonna have much choice once we show ‘em a dead Graboid or two. Hell, boys, we might just get us our fifteen minutes of fame out of this!”
“That could be a problem for Vin,” JD said with a frown. “No one’s supposed to know he’s out here.”
“Could pose that same problem for Ezra, too,” Josiah chimed in. “Unless one or both of you boys wanted to disappear, we could always say the Graboids got you…”
“I ain’t gonna lie,” Nathan insisted. “Especially not to the police.”
“No one asked you to, Doc,” Chris told him tiredly. “But I’m more worried about what’s going to happen to Perfection when this story breaks – and trust me, if Mary had a working phone it would have broken already.”
“That is part of the larger picture but I believe you all are missing the obvious,” Ezra said. “Those…things, they had to be mutations, the product of generations of worms warped by radioactivity or God knows what else seeping out of that forgotten mine. But think, gentlemen; worms aren’t the only multiplicitous life forms in this particular ecosystem.”
“He’s right,” Vin agreed, shocked. “Oh damn, I can’t believe we didn’t think of that.”
“All those bugs,” JD breathed, his expression reflecting increasing alarm. “Some insects turn over a new generation every few days, the mutation rate would increase exponentially…”
“Wait a minute, you boys are saying there could be more Graboids?” Buck demanded. “I thought you said there were only three!”
“There were only three…Graboids,” was the graduate student’s pointed answer. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t a hundred of something else.”
“And that’s only the tip of the iceberg,” Ezra spoke into the shocked silence that followed. “The mutations themselves may seem to be the immediate problem…”
“But the government’s response to them could be even worse,” Chris finished for him, his mouth setting in a grim line. “That’s what I was getting at before. At best the government will send in the EPA, who will take over this valley and Perfection will disappear - and we would be lucky not to get in trouble for wiping out an entirely new species. At worst,” he looked at Ezra, who nodded solemnly, “the government might decide to cover it’s own ass before the EPA finds out about the shit they dumped out here and we would all disappear.”
Nathan looked from Chris to Ezra and shook his head. “Stuff like that don’t happen in this country,” he insisted. “I’d expect Ezra to be paranoid, bein’ in the Witness Protection Program and all…”
“You never asked me who ah was bein’ protected from,” the Southerner interrupted softly, and there was a look in his eyes that closed the doctor’s mouth with a snap. “But in this instance, my…situation may actually be of benefit to all of you.” He pulled what looked like a small silver cell phone out of his pocket, flipped it open and pushed a single button; after a long moment of listening he said, “It is important - to you as well as me. And it can’t wait.” He listened again and then flipped the phone closed; his eyes were bleak, his face not quite as expressionless as he was trying to make it. “Our only hope will arrive within a few hours, gentlemen,” Ezra told them. “I have an idea that may save us - and Perfection as well.”
Nathan’s hackles rose again. “You had a cell phone all this time…”
“Obviously it wouldn’t matter if I had, as this valley is a ‘dead area’ service-wise for such devices,” Ezra interrupted tiredly, tucking the silver phone back into his pocket. “You might liken this device to a portable version of the infamous Bat Signal; it is designed to contact but one individual and I am only permitted to use it in direst emergencies.”
Buck made a face. “Them Graboids weren’t dire enough for ya?”
“Sadly, no,” was Ezra’s reply. “The qualifying definition of ‘dire’ was not left up to me, and I dare not challenge the judge’s parameters. He was none too happy to hear from me as it was.”
“Why’d you call him then?” Vin asked.
“Because we need help – help I believe he can provide.” Ezra rubbed his eyes with his hand. “It would be best if we could bring one of the carcasses back here, or at least enough of one to prove our tale of monsters that erupt from beneath the soil to devour anything that moves.”
“We can take him to see the one at your house if we need to,” Chris said. “The one part we already had with us is still here in the back of JD’s truck wrapped up in that tarp, and that plus all the damage around here should be enough to give him the idea.” He frowned at the Southerner, who was still rubbing at his eyes. “Why don’t you get some more sleep while we wait for this guy to get here, Ez? You could use it.”
“I certainly second that,” Josiah rumbled; the Southerner still hadn’t let anyone look him over, but the fact that he was in pain was plain to see.
Ezra sighed. “Much as I would like to do so, it would not do at all for me to be asleep when the judge arrives - or drowsy from being hastily awakened either. The outcome of this meeting is far too important to jeopardize it with such a display of weakness.”
“Sounds like you’re afraid to piss him off,” Vin commented.
“Ah am,” Ezra admitted. “Judge Travis can be a hard man, but he has a strong sense of justice and fairness and I believe he will be inclined to do what he can for us so long as his initial impression of the situation and the players involved is a favorable one.”
“You mean his impression of you, don’t you?” came from Nathan.
The Southerner sighed again, shifting in his chair to find a comfortable position that probably didn’t exist. “That too. Ah’m afraid my first meeting with him was under…less than ideal conditions. Ah was definitely not at my best.”
Nathan looked like he wanted to pursue that, but several less-than-friendly looks from the other men stopped him. “Well, I don’t know about you boys,” Chris said, taking a long pull from the dented beer can in front of him. “But I think we should all just kick back and relax until this guy gets here, ain’t really nothing we can do until then.”
“Yeah, the Cat’s gonna need some fixin’ up before we can do anything else with it,” Vin seconded. “And the sun’ll be settin’ in another couple hours, too.”
“I’ll go check out your backup generator, Josiah,” Buck said, levering himself up out of his chair and draining the rest of his own beer before tossing the empty can in the general direction of the debris pile that now scattered itself across the space where cluttered shelves of dusty merchandise had once stood. “We’ll see about gettin’ the main line fixed up again tomorrow, all right?”
“Sounds good.” Sanchez drained his beer as well and reached for another. “We can use the microwave to nuke up some dinner, then; I don’t want to try the stove until we’ve checked the gas line.”
“You and Ezra need to take a shower if you can,” JD pointed out. He had declined the beer and was nursing a cracked bottle of YooHoo instead. “You’ve both gotten fluids from the Graboids on your skin, it would be a good idea to get it off as quickly as possible.”
“He’s right,” Nathan concurred with a frown, unhappy with himself for not thinking of that earlier. “Don’t know what kind of reaction you might have to that slimy stuff. Mary’s electricity’s still on, why don’t I walk you both over there and then I’ll check you both out once you’ve got it all washed off – need to check Ezra over anyway.”
Ezra had closed his eyes and was cradling his beer in both hands. “Ah’m fine, Dr. Jackson.”
Vin stood up. “I’ll help you get ‘em over there,” he said. “JD, while I help him why don’t you get all those readouts and things put together so we can show the judge when he gets here? Might make a better impression if it looked like we was organized.”
“Sure thing, Vin,” JD agreed. “I’ll get our sleeping bags and stuff, too. You mind if we crash in here tonight, Mr. Sanchez?”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Chris said, vetoing the store owner’s nod. “This place is too wrecked, anything could crawl in here – and I mind what Josiah said about the gas line, too. I’ll walk over to Mary’s with you boys and see if she’ll let us all spend the night there.”
“Might make her feel better, at that,” Josiah agreed. He stood up and stretched, then jerked his head at Vin to come help him pry Ezra up out of his chair. “Somehow I don’t think any of us are gonna want to be alone tonight. I know I sure as hell don’t.”
Two hours and forty minutes after Ezra’s call for help a helicopter set down in the middle of the rutted road that ran through Perfection and a heavyset older man got out of it and stood looking around. He leaned back into the craft to say something to the pilot before striding across the dusty, debris-littered ground toward the sagging store. “What the hell happened here, Standish?” he called out to the man who had come out of the wrecked building to stand on top of the fallen rusted awning. “Are Mary and Billy all right?”
“They are unharmed, sir,” Ezra answered quickly, doing his best to minimize his limp as he walked out to meet the judge. He saw the man’s eyes narrow and knew his best hadn’t been very good. “The house sustained some minor damage, but nothing that cannot be fixed.”
“Unlike this building here,” Travis said dryly. “Are those six gentlemen over there part of this?”
“Yes, your honor.” The Southerner led the judge over to JD’s truck where the others were waiting. “Judge Travis, these are Mr. Larabee, Mr. Wilmington, Dr. Jackson, Mr. Sanchez, Mr. Tanner and Mr. Dunne. And this,” he said once the man was close enough to view the severed tentacle lying on the unrolled tarp. “Is a piece of one of the culprits. Mr. Wilmington christened them ‘Graboids’ due to their practice of coming up through the ground under the intended victim and grabbing it with these biting tentacles in order to drag it into the creature’s mouth.”
“This isn’t the whole thing then?” The judge looked over the ragged remnant thoughtfully. “Where’s the rest of it, gentlemen?”
“The rest of that one is splattered all over the bottom of
“They did a number on the bulldozer or we would have tried to bring a bigger piece back to show you,” Vin added.
“It looks like the bulldozer wasn’t the only thing they did a number on.” Travis held up his hand for silence before anyone else could speak. “No, gentlemen, my time is limited so I’d appreciate hearing this story in order from one person.” Everyone looked at Chris, and the judge smiled slightly. “Looks like you’re appointed, Mr. Larabee. Now the short version, if you please.”
Chris took a deep breath and told him, starting with he and Buck finding Nestor’s severed head in the pen full of ravaged sheep and ending with their plans for the next day. Travis didn’t interrupt him once, just listened and watched the expressions of the other men as the story was told. When Chris was done explaining their concerns about the outside world finding out about the Graboids, the judge nodded and said, “That would be about right, I think. Now what is it you want from me?”
The question had been directed at Ezra, who quickly straightened up from where he’d been leaning rather heavily against the side of the truck. “It was my idea that we might be able to work out a mutually beneficial arrangement,” he said. “The main consideration here being that neither any unnatural creatures nor the news of them needs to leave this valley. Were at least some of us to shoulder that responsibility and be provided with resources to do so, I believe we could contain the problem.”
Travis cocked an eyebrow at him. “And if you can’t?”
Ezra’s expression didn’t change. “Arrangements will have to be made for that eventuality, of course.”
“I think I see what you’re getting at,” the judge said thoughtfully. “And just how many of you are willing to do this?”
“I can stay,” Vin said quietly. “If that’s all right with everyone, of course.”
Nathan started to say something but Buck elbowed him sharply and he closed his mouth. Travis looked at the two of them and then asked Vin, “Who’s after you, son?”
“Construction union had a contract put out on me,” Vin answered without hesitation. “I’m worth five thousand to the first person
that can show proof they killed me.” The
judge’s expression said he wanted the rest.
“They were sabotagin’ one of our jobs, messin’ around with the machines; got one man killed and
hurt some others. I saw two of the ones
that did it and testified against ‘em, got ‘em sent up the river for a good long time.
“No, you’re right, they won’t, so you’ll most likely be safer staying here,” Travis agreed. “You and Mr. Standish have that in common. What about the rest of you?”
“Sounds like the change of pace I’ve been lookin’ for,” Buck spoke up. “Bixby would seem mighty boring after this.”
“I’ve lived more than half my life here,” Josiah rumbled. “I’m not leaving Perfection because of a bunch of bugs.”
“Could end up being more than just bugs,” Chris said quietly. “I plan to make sure we get a handle on this before what just happened here spreads out to someplace else.”
“I’m staying too,” JD said.
Vin immediately objected. “JD, you’ve got your degree to finish…”
“I have this summer’s research and my thesis,” JD corrected. “I can do both of those right here, Vin.”
“What do you think those things were, Mr. Dunne?” Travis demanded of the graduate student. “You seem to be the one that would know.”
The abrupt question startled JD, but he recovered quickly. “They look like they could have developed from nightcrawlers or some other large worm,” he answered. “But we don’t really have enough information to start forming any solid theories so there’s no way to be sure at this point, sir.”
“And are you planning to try to find out?”
JD knew a loaded question when he heard one; it was a tactic his mentor, Professor Hill, was fond of using. “I’d like to, sir,” he said carefully. “If…if that’s going to be all right with you?”
The judge smiled, pleased. “You are a private citizen, Mr. Dunne; you can do whatever you like. But if you were inclined to find out anything about those creatures, I would certainly be interested in hearing about it.”
JD beamed. “Yes sir!”
Nathan sighed deeply. “I can’t rightly say I don’t want to be in on that research either…and if you’re all gonna be going up against monsters you’re gonna need a doctor around. I’ll stay too.”
“Are you certain, Dr. Jackson?” Ezra asked softly. “After what happened, it may be difficult for you to remain…”
“What the hell would you know about it?” Nathan snapped bitterly. “Don’t try to talk to me about what happened, you don’t know nothin’.”
He wasn’t looking at the Southerner when he said it or he would have seen Ezra flinch – and Travis’ sudden troubled frown. “Dr. Jackson, what are the nature of Mr. Standish’s injuries?”
“He’ll be fine,” was the sullen reply. “He just got banged around some, ain’t nothin’ to worry about.”
“Whether to worry or not is my decision, not yours.” The judge’s voice was suddenly hard and cold as steel and the doctor’s head snapped up. “Now answer the question I asked you.”
Nathan’s mouth opened but no sound came out. “A badly sprained ankle, dislocated shoulder, couple of cracked ribs and a bunch of bruises, and a bump on the back of his head that probably didn’t do him any good either,” Josiah answered calmly. “So far neither of us are having a reaction to being splattered with dead Graboid, though.”
“Thank you, Mr. Sanchez,” Travis replied in a much more cordial tone. “In that case, I would say that Mr. Standish should be in bed instead of standing around outside. Will you see to it?”
“My pleasure, Your Honor,” Josiah told him with a grin; he liked the judge already. The big man gently took Ezra’s uninjured arm. “C’mon son, you heard the man.”
Ezra started to protest…and then stopped, a look of utter failure and disappointment flickering across his face as his shoulders slumped. He didn’t resist the store owner’s careful pull on his arm. “Ah told you before, ah’m not your son,” he protested softly
Josiah just chuckled as he led the smaller man away. “And like I told you before, for now we’re just gonna pretend you are.”
Judge Travis spoke with the other men for a little longer, asking pointed questions and having them write down the names of the dead for him, and then they found other things to do while he went to the house himself to see Mary and Billy. Chris was waiting, though, when he came back out. “Everything okay, Judge?”
“I’m sure if it wasn’t you would have done something about it before I arrived,” Travis told him with a small smile. “My daughter-in-law talks about you sometimes. She says you’re good with the boy, I appreciate that.”
Chris shrugged. “I like Billy, he’s a good kid.”
“Remind you of your son?” Chris shot him a startled look and the judge shook his head. “I make it a point to know who I’m dealing with, Mr. Larabee, especially where my daughter in law and my grandson are concerned.”
“I can understand why you would,” Chris answered. “No, he doesn’t remind me of Adam, not really.”
“Glad to hear it; just wanted to make sure Billy wasn’t standing in for a ghost.” Travis wasn’t apologetic. “He’s got enough stacked against him without that, losing his father so young and all. So, do you think you and these men can keep this situation from turning into a bad science fiction movie?”
“I don’t know,” Chris said honestly, taking the abrupt subject change in stride. “Personally I’d say what worries me the most is that it’s possible there are already sequels in the works all over this valley. We need to find that mine first and then work from there to plan out what we need to do.”
“Sounds like a solid strategy to start off with,” the judge approved. “What about these men, think you can make that work too?”
“Dr. Jackson’s just had a rough time today, he’ll come around eventually,” Chris told him. “And if you mean Ezra, I’d trust him with anyone’s life but his own. He’s got this idea that he’s pretty much a walking dead man anyway, I got the impression that he doesn’t trust you too much because he knows you don’t like him – said your first meeting was ‘less than ideal’.”
“I’m afraid you don’t know the half of it,” the judge sighed,
remembering where Ezra had been the first time he’d seen him. “You have to understand, Mr. Larabee, I don’t dislike Ezra – wouldn’t be helping
him if I did. But I think that boy has only
trusted one person in his life that didn’t turn around and slap him in the face and the
Chris had to agree with that. “So Ezra didn’t do anything wrong?”
“Good God no!” Travis exclaimed. “We were the ones who did wrong, and I’ve done my best to correct that. Not that what happened can be made up to him, of course. But the way I see it, this situation could very possibly be the saving of that boy, it could give him a new lease on life…or at the very least, he’ll certainly be guaranteed a much more merciful death if your monsters get him than he will if his do.”
“Judge Travis, who did Ezra inform on?” Chris asked. “Now you’re calling them monsters and it sounds like the government was right in there helping them out! Just who exactly is after this guy?”
“That I can’t tell you,” the judge answered evenly before turning on his heel and walking back to the waiting helicopter. But he paused before getting in, looking back at Chris with an indefinable expression on his face. “But if his mother ever shows up here looking for him, Mr. Larabee…shoot first and shoot to kill. Because she will.”
The End…until the next monster comes
along…