|
Imperfect Solutions 3
Tremors: The Subtext #23
by Setcheti
Rating: FRT:MP,MV
Disclaimer: I don’t own Tremors, because if I did the series
would STILL BE ON THE AIR.
Burt’s truck roared into Perfection and slammed to a stop in
front of the garage, and Burt jumped out almost before the tires had stopped
spinning. Everyone in town except for Jodi was already there, including
Twitchell and two embarrassed-looking men in fatigues. “Would someone please
tell me what the hell is going on!” the survivalist demanded, pulling off his
sunglasses. “Jodi just said that we needed to come right back, that it was
urgent.”
“It was,” Twitchell assured him. “Just urgent for the two
of you, not so much for us. Threat’s all taken care of here.”
“We found a way to kill the crabions.” Tyler explained.
There were dark red splotches on his shirt and pants, but he shook his head
when Burt’s eyes widened in alarm. “Not what you think – it’s tomato soup. I
got splashed when Nancy threw it at the crabion these two guys,” he jerked a
thumb at the soldiers, “let loose in town.”
“Imagine our surprise,” Malcolm chimed in; he, too, was
splashed with red. “There we are, sitting in the garage, minding our own
business…”
“Takin’ a break in the shade, like we were supposed to be,”
Tyler interjected, with a nod for Nancy.
“When movement catches our eye, and from out of the shadows
steps a creature which should not in any way, shape or form have been where it
was standing,” Malcolm continued with a flourish. “A live, unrestrained crabion…standing
between us and the door.”
“Venom drippin’ from its tail, little beady cone eyes
followin’ our every move,” Tyler said. “We were still trying to figure out
what to do when Nancy comes in, spots the crabion, screams, and throws the pot
of soup she was carrying at it.”
“Whereupon the crabion staggered and fell over, twitched for
a little bit, and then died in a most unspectacular fashion. Although we still
aren’t entirely sure why.” Malcolm waved a hand vaguely in the direction of
the lab. “Our resident science-types took the carcass away; they believe they
should be able to isolate the cause of death fairly quickly. Which is why we
had Jodi call for yourself and Larry to return to town as quickly as possible.”
Burt blinked at both men, then turned to Nancy. “You killed
a crabion…with tomato soup?”
“Homemade tomato soup,” she corrected. “I made it for
lunch! But if that’s what it takes to kill those things, I can make more.”
“That would be a dreadful waste of your wonderful cooking,”
Malcolm objected, shaking his head. “I’m sure they’ll come up with a better
solution than that.”
“I certainly hope so – I can only imagine the hassle I’d get
if I tried to requisition a sprayer truck full of tomato soup to kill monsters
with,” Twitchell said. He tucked his thumbs under his belt, rocked on his
heels. “As you can see, I brought these two highly trained military men to
Perfection with me to try out your napalm idea, Gummer,” he said. “They were
messing around over at the store and their little test subject slipped its
leash. They noticed it was gone about thirty seconds before we heard all hell
break loose in the garage.”
“We didn’t know it could get out of the cage…”
“If you’d paid any attention to the reports I gave you, you
would have,” Twitchell snapped at him. “Gummer and his people had already
figured out that crabions could work their way through chicken wire, so I’m not
sure why you thought you could bring the damned thing in here in a glass tank
and then stick a wire lid on it like it was your pet iguana while you ran off
to play someplace else.” The man retreated back into embarrassed silence and
Twitchell rolled his eyes, returning his attention to Burt. “We can still try
the napalm if you want. I’m sure you know how to use it.”
“I do.” Burt considered. “We marked four nests in today’s
sector before Jodi called us in, though. It would be nice if a less toxic –
and less expensive – method of extermination were available. The fewer
chemicals we spread all over the valley the better off we’ll probably all be.”
“Yeah, more mutations we definitely do not need,” Tyler
agreed. “The worst the soup’s gonna do is make tomatoes grow.” He pointed a
finger at Larry, whose mouth was opening to say something. “I have seen that
movie. Do. Not. Go. There.”
“I wasn’t going to; Mixmaster can’t do that,” Larry defended
himself, shaking his head. “It can’t make plants that walk.”
“Yet,” both Malcolm and Burt muttered under their breath at
the same time.
“Don’t jinx us,” Twitchell complained. “Because if the
plants around here start walking around, I’m gonna recommend that we pull out
and nuke the site from orbit, got me?”
“If we start seeing creatures from that particular movie,
I’ll fire the missiles for you,” came from Malcolm. He returned his attention
to Burt. “Four nests, you said?”
“And we hadn’t even covered the entire sector yet,” was the
survivalist’s reply. “Have we had any reports of other problems today?”
“A possible cyobactyl attack over by the Angelos’ place,
they’re missing a sheep,” Twitchell said with a shrug. “I’m not counting it
until they know for sure the damned thing didn’t just wander off. Other than
that, nothing.”
Burt thought for a moment, and then he nodded decisively.
“I say we should go out to the nearest nest and do the napalm test, just like
we’d originally planned,” he said. “Hopefully by the time we come back Cletus
and Casey will have more answers for us.”
“We’ll finish off the crabion pot we were working on,”
Malcolm told him. “And get a start on the next one, just in case.”
“No, you’ll eat something first,” Nancy contradicted him.
“You and Tyler are coming over to the house to get cleaned up and have lunch,
and then you can come back out and finish the crabion pot. If we even still
need it by then.”
“She has a point,” Burt agreed. “But if a permanent solution
doesn’t come as quickly as everyone hopes it will, we’re still going to need at
least a few pots on hand.”
“I think a little extra manpower could help with that,”
Twitchell said. He gave the two soldiers a look. “Who put the wire lid on the fish
tank?” When the younger of the two men, whose name patch identified him as
Adams, sheepishly raised his hand, the agent pointed at him. “You’re staying
here to help make crabion pots while your buddy goes with Gummer and Larry to
test the napalm. And once they come back, he can pitch in too.”
The other soldier, whose patch said Simmons, immediately
objected to that. “We weren’t sent out here to…”
“Endanger civilians?” Twitchell spat back, and the man
looked at the ground. “No, you weren’t. But in light of the fact that your
fuck-up may have had a hand in solving this problem, I’m offering you a
one-time only get-out-of-a-reprimand-free card. You pitch in to help, and I’ll
conveniently forget to mention how stupid you both were. We understand each
other?” The two soldiers hesitated, and then they both nodded. “Good, I knew
you weren’t complete idiots. Simmons, you go get your stuff, and Adams, you let
the Reed boys here show you what you can get started on while they’re having
lunch. Get a move on, we’re burning daylight!”
Simmons made a beeline for the equipment they’d brought,
and after flashing Burt a two-fingered salute Twitchell ambled off in his wake.
Adams looked from one Reed to the other, fidgeting nervously and not quite
meeting either man’s eyes. “I don’t know how to weld.”
“Then we won’t ask you to do that yet,” Malcolm told him
with a shrug. “You can sort metal scraps out of the pile in case we need to
make more pots today, and when we come back out you can help pound things into
shape. Follow me, I’ll pull some pieces out so you’ll know what to look for.”
He led the reluctant soldier around the side of the garage, and
Tyler rolled his eyes. “Bet we’ll have to teach him how to use a hammer, too.
This should be an interesting afternoon.”
“For all of us,” Burt agreed. “Hopefully the one we’re
taking knows what he’s doing, or Larry’s going to get a crash course in
practical firebombing.” He did smile, just slightly, when he saw the hopeful
look on Larry’s face. “I’ll show you anyway after the current crisis has been
settled; it’s the sort of thing you should know how to do properly in case it
ever comes up again.” His attention went back to Tyler, his gaze flickering quickly
away from the red stains on his lover’s shirt. “We should be back in an hour,
hour and a half at the most.”
“We’ll be back out here workin’ on the pots by then,” Tyler
told him. “If we can get one more done for today, then we’ve got the four nests
you already found covered no matter what.”
“That will work.” Burt hesitated. “You’re sure you’re…”
“It never even got near us, thanks to Nancy,” Tyler
reassured him; the more physical reassurance he would have liked to provide
would have to wait until later. “And the soup wasn’t hot enough to burn.”
Larry cleared his throat. “Is Malcolm okay?”
“Yeah,” Tyler answered with a shrug. “He turned about three
shades of white when he saw that thing watchin’ us from the doorway, but he was
grabbin’ something to hit it with at the same time and swearin’ a blue streak
–we thought it being there meant they’d made it into town without anyone
noticing.” He grinned. “Once Twitchell and the soldiers came runnin’ and we
found out what had happened, though, that’s when the fun started.”
“Malcolm verbally ripped those two soldiers into tiny little
pieces,” Nancy said. “They were a lot cockier before that.”
“And a few Britishisms aside, he didn’t even use profanity,”
Tyler tacked on. “I was impressed. I think Twitchell was too, because he didn’t
even try to get a word in edgewise.”
“I wouldn’t have either,” Burt looked at Nancy. “How about
you? Are you all right?”
“Since the soup killed it? Yes,” was her answer. “If it
hadn’t…”
“Then Malcolm and I would have beat it to death and been
sorry about our lunch goin’ to waste,” Tyler told her. “Crabions are dangerous
when there’s a bunch of them all in one place, but one by itself is just a big
ugly bug.”
“That can jump really high,” Larry added, and was
immediately sheepish when Burt and Tyler both gave him the same exasperated
look. “Sorry.”
“I already knew that about them anyway,” Nancy reassured
him. “And just for the record, I was trying to hit it with the pot, not the
soup. No one was more surprised than I was when it fell over and started to
twitch.”
Burt shrugged. “Even if the soup – or the pot – hadn’t
killed it, the distraction would have given Tyler and Malcolm the opening they
needed. And there’s plenty of antivenin at the research station.”
Nancy nodded…but then she saw the look on Larry’s face;
whatever thought it was he’d just had, it wasn’t a happy one and he had very
obviously swallowed it instead of blurting it out. She frowned. “What?” He
shook his head. She stepped closer to him, concerned now. “Larry, what?”
Larry looked at Tyler, who sighed. “The antivenin Cletus
used on Malcolm works…but it may only work the first time. On Malcolm, anyway; there’s
no tellin’ about the rest of us.”
“They’re only guessing at this point, because no one else
has gotten stung. Malcolm’s reaction may have been atypical,” Burt elaborated.
“Like someone with an allergy to bee stings. The first sting may make you sick,
but the second could kill you – or the second might not, but the third or
fourth might.” He shrugged, putting his sunglasses back on. “If we can kill all
of the damned things, we won’t have to worry about it.”
Nancy nodded even though she didn’t really agree with him.
Burt was just being Burt, always projecting complete confidence that they were
going to beat the mutations one more time. Tyler was the same way, and Malcolm
– she’d heard all about that from Larry after the first crabion incident. But
even if the crabions were wiped out…well, she hadn’t forgotten about the
mutated plant pollen. How many other quietly deadly things were out there, waiting
for someone to stumble across them? How long would it be before their luck ran out?
|