Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Work In Progress: sample chapter from my new book ‘The Drive’

Copyright © 1\5 2008 by S. J. Johnson

All rights reserved.

Printing in the United States of America

Subject Heading: ‘THE DRIVE’

Publishers Note: The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

==============================================



The Drive

*****

Ch. 4

the aq’rai

They started by inspecting the ground as they walked. ‘The road has to be here somewhere,’ Brian thought. ‘We’re probably in the bottom of a river bed and the road is just covered with this sand is all.’ he continued to comfort himself with reason as he and his son searched and walked on in silence
Randy scuffed at the ash white sand with the side of his sneakered feet as he took each stride just like his father was doing.

The sand crunched under the pressure of every footstep in a manner that reminded him of walking through crusted frozen snow. Brian checked the small compass on his keychain, the gift that Kyle had given him for Father’s Day only last week and secretly hoped that the needle was pointing them in the right direction.

It was difficult for them to really see anything of the landscape due to the thickness of the fog. Vision was pretty clear for a couple of feet but further than that and things became vague and shadowy. Further still and everything became virtually invisible. A muffled silence wrapped around them and Randy shuttered at the eeriness of it all. He looked back to the rented van, now just a dark blue smudge in the haze behind them.

“I mean we can’t even really see where we’re going.” Randy asked. “Dad, do you honestly think we’re gonna find the lodge?”

“Well,” Brian cleared his throat, “we can’t just sit around and wait for someone to come rescue us, bud,” he related to Randy. “We haven’t seen another car the whole time we’ve been here now, and from what uncle Ben told me,” he continued emphasizing his point by waving his large hands as they walked. “The lodge is a pretty popular resort so there should be lots of traffic going to and from, but there isn’t.”

Then half thinking out loud and half confessing a theory, “I didn’t want to say anything back there but I think maybe we went off the main road a bit in the dark last night, or there was a bridge that was washed out that didn’t show up on Mapquest or whatever and the van’s now sitting in a dried out river bed or something. In which case, that would explain why there’s no traffic. I don’t know son, all I do know is we can’t just sit around and wait anymore.”

“Ok.” Randy nodded, “I get it, but I think we need to hurry. They’ll be freaking out if you don’t get back soon with help.”

They both stopped in stride and he looked at Randy with a small smile. Randy looked back at him, Brian saw a maturity there that he hadn’t seen in him before the last couple of days. He was seeing his son in a glimpse of new light, as a man, almost as an equal for the first time in Randy’s life. It was both rewarding and surprising for Brian and his heart suddenly swelled with pride. Without the need for further conversation, the two started walking again together with a quicker pace to their steps.

Unfamiliar shapes loomed in the distance just beyond their view. Some were smallish, while others were menacingly large, every size and blurry shape in between. They passed large, flat glass-smooth rocks and more of the petrified looking sticks as well as a few of the sand-bushes, some covered in the green creepy crawlies, others still stretching their branches up and out from the stems, but no vegetation that Brian or Randy could recognize. Then Brian noticed that the color of the sand had changed at some point into a darker charcoal grey and it forced him to consider also at how the small sand bushes had been formed.

“I don’t think we’re alone out here bud,” Brian motioned at a small sand bush just in front of them, “I was just thinking something or someone had to have made the water that turned the sand like that.” then he kicked at it with one of his brand new boots, spraying the wet sand out across the path in front of them.

For a while, Brian’s thoughts lingered on the thing that had eaten the ‘bug sand-bush’ right where Kyle had been poking at it with a stick and he secretly hoped that the rest of his family were all right, as he quickly stepped away from where the sand plant had just been.

Randy put his arm to his Dad chest, “Hey Dad, do you hear that?” Brian looked all around them, his ears peeled to hear anything.

“Hear what?” Brian asked in a whisper.

“I… I don’t know. It was like, someone asking me who we are, or more like ‘what’ we are.”

“You can hear someone talking?” Utterly on guard now, Brian desperately searched the mist for the people that Randy could hear, and then Randy shook his head and looked to Brian apologetically with a chuckle, “I think this place is starting to get to me.”

Brian playfully punched him in the arm, “Jesus, Rand. Stop freaking me out like that,” they both laughed.
They walked on for what seemed like hours crunching in the sand, lost in their own fearful thoughts. Every once in a while Randy would stop short and listen to the dead fog. “What is it Rand? Brian implored of him and looked at the same point that Randy was glaring at.

“I don’t know, Dad, it’s weird. It’s sort of like when… I honestly can’t describe it. Are you sure you can’t feel that?” Randy’s expression twisted, the palms of his hands out in front of him as if he were trying to listen with both his ears and the palms of his hands to the faintest sound that he had ever heard. Brian slightly shook his head in response, checked the compass once again and they continued moving east.

For some time they searched the fog for some sign of the lodge, the road, or anything recognizable but always keeping an eye on the silhouettes for any signs of movement as they continued on. Brian listened intently, frustrated that he couldn’t hear the sound that made Randy so apprehensive.
The oppressing gray-white fog that wrapped around the landscape added to the unnatural feeling of the canyon that they both wanted to be far away from.

While moving along waiting for Randy to ‘hear’ something again, Brian began to fantasize about how good dinner was going to taste at the lodge’s restaurant, “I’m going to order the biggest fucking steak they’ve got, maybe two of them” he thought with a smile and then he realized how sweet Kathy was going to feel underneath him tonight in their warm, soft hotel bed.

“Whoa, Dad,” Randy shot out his arm in front of Brian, breathing in short gasps his eyes darting around crazily scanning the fog.

“Aq’rai, aq’rai!” the loud shrieking sound seemed to resonate at them from all directions at once, putting Randy and Brian immediately on alert as they froze like statues. They both took a fighting stance, waiting for something to come running out of the thick air at them. Together they searched the fog for any sign of the source of the first real sound that they had heard beside themselves since they left the van, but saw nothing that might be the cause of it.

“What the hell was that?” Randy whispered the question.

“God, I don’t know,” Brian mumbled back clutching the stick like a baseball bat.

“Aq’rai, aq’rai!” the sound came again, and then Randy touched Brian with one hand and pointed out in front of him with the other. A hunch of a shadow moved very slowly along the horizon just barely out of their sight.

“Aq’rai, aq’rai!” it sounded like a warning. Something about it sounded desperate in such a way that both Brian and Randy immediately understood.

“What the fuck was that?” Brian‘s whole body tensed fiercely with stress and anticipation. Without hesitating or understanding why, Randy knew that they had to get moving now or something bad was about to happen to them. He grabbed Brian’s wrist and ran quickly off to their right, away from the source of the sound, straight toward a dark mass lurking in the fog.

Brian did not resist as he followed behind him, but he kept watch on the screeching murky spot moving just out of sight in the misty air. As the large shape that they ran toward got closer and bigger, Brian’s uneasiness grew, then suddenly it revealed itself to be a large, black, arching rock formation. They dodged underneath its frame and stopped, panting painfully. The thick moist air was hard to breathe while running.

Randy focused on the shapes in the fog. Brian tried to see what he was staring at intently but couldn’t see anything different from what they had been seeing up until this moment.

“What is it? What do you see, Rand?” Brian whispered nervously.

“Shh!’ Randy put up his hand then pointed in the direction that he had been concentrating, Brian heard a soft swishing noise, his ears focused on the sound and his eyes followed. Then he saw what Randy had been looking at. A massive, dark shape began emerging from the cloudy air in front of them.

They both stood, clutching the side of the stone archway and each other, as a gigantic creature, like something out of a low budgeted B-rated horror movie, came hulking directly at them.

It came close enough that they could see its mass was dark gray and covered in long, matted fur, its face completely hidden under crusted locks. It trudged slowly toward the men from out of the fog apparently unaware of them. Both Brian and Randy held their breath.

It continued to get closer until it stopped close enough that Randy could have reached out and touched it had he not been standing there so absurdly shaking in terror. Suddenly, with a thunderous rush, this huge creature released what must have been the entire contents of its bladder and then moved its colossal body around and stopped directly behind them.

The stench of the ammonia was unbearable, forcing Brian to retch and burning their eyes. The hot stream forced a wild river through the sand which ran right past their feet. The sand immediately jumped for its new prey and began to grow skyward at an awkward but alarming rate. They both took a small step backward to avoid the climbing columns that developed seemingly out of thin air right beside them because of the sand’s reaction to the flood of liquid.

The stony arch provided absolutely no protection at this point, as they were forced to crouch, exposed together between the twisting, expanding wet sand and the enormous and threatening animal.

Then the beast’s body odor caught them off guard as putrid warm breath blew over them. The hulking monster slowly turned what should have been its head in their direction. They froze in place ready to spring, as it sniffed the air around them in great gusts.

“Aq’rai, aq’rai!” the now familiar sound reached out to them from far away. The beast stopped and twisted to listen to the sound as well, turning its massive head and body in the direction of the sound.

“Aq’rai, aq’rai!”

The giant animal huffed a gurgled, wet grunt in Brian and Randy’s general location then began lumbering its bulk toward the distant sound, shushing almost noiselessly across the rich blackened sand. Randy and Brian stood there without moving, breathing shallow until it had all but disappeared back into the fog.

Believing them to be at a safe distance from the hairy giant, they briskly walked away from the rocky arch and away from the sand-bush that was growing and forming out of nothing.

Realizing now that they had lost the path that they had been following, Brian checked the compass and started to lead them back east when Randy grabbed Brian’s sleeve. He looked back to see Randy shaking his head in argument, overwhelming dread still hung on his face.

“What?” Brian questioned. “No, it’s gone now, Rand. We need to keep going up that way, east to the lodge,” he objected.

“No. Not that way, Dad.” Randy countered quietly, “It’s not safe.”

“What? But, Rand we … How would you know?” Brian strained to see what Randy must have been seeing as another threat.

“I don’t know. I just know that we can’t go that way anymore. It’s not safe.” Randy looked at him with a stern conviction that made Brian hesitate. He began to think about how Randy’s intuitions had saved them twice already on this miserable trip and then something deep inside him told him that maybe he should trust his son on this as well, and he began to listen. He looked into his Randy’s eyes, they were begging Brian to believe in him.

“Okay, then which way do we go?” Brian asked finally.

“Back to the van. I really think we should get back to the van, Dad.” Randy didn’t wait for Brian to argue his point and started walking. Brian followed quickly checking with the compass on their direction and intensely scrutinizing the fog ahead of them as they walked.

“Wait,” Brian followed him confused, “What’s going on, Rand? What is it that you hear this time?”

“Nothing. I just know that we’re in danger out here and we need to get back to the van,” Randy stopped for Brian to catch up then continued, “We aren’t safe. I can’t believe you can’t feel that, Dad. It’s so strong now, it’s like pushing me.”

Abruptly, Randy halted and looked out in all directions then began walking again at a much more brisk pace. Brian glanced at the small compass again, its needle spinning madly inside and followed suit not understanding why Randy was suddenly acting so strangely.

“Stop and talk to me bud. What the hell is going on?” Brian pleaded.

“No time. We’ve got to run, Dad. Right now! Run!” Randy yelled a whisper and then he shot forward at a dead run.

It was all Brian could do to keep up with him, breathing raggedly and in fear for their safety, surveying the area around them to trying and figure out what it was that had just sent Randy into such frenzy.

Something unexpectedly hit Brian on the back hard enough to send him sprawling onto the ground, the water bottle he had been carrying went flying somewhere far out in front of him. As quickly as he could, he got back on his feet using the stick still tight held in his fist for support and struggled to see what had hit him with such an incredible force.

Ahead of him Randy was waving his arms around manically. Then he saw the reason why. Something was flying around just above Randy who was doing his best to dodge it as it would dart down to grasp at him with its two long spiny legs.

It had a small armored body and four dragonfly type wings that beat so fast that they were at times difficult to see. It also had two small arms that appeared useless for its size and a split maw full of needle like teeth that glistened as it gnashed them at his son.

Brian rushed to Randy’s side to help fight off the flying demon when another one appeared out of the fog and began attacking him too. They both screamed and swung their arms at the things when Randy, by sheer accident, throwing his arm at one of them and water came out of the spout of the water bottle in his hand spraying the creature, causing it to flail wildly in the air then fall to the ground screaming the most awful piercing sound, its skin sizzled everywhere that the water had touched it.

The sand beneath the creature immediately recognized it as a source of moisture and set to work engulfing the flying thing until it was merely a wriggling lump in the sand. They looked at each other excitedly. “Water!” they shouted out in unison.

Brian immediately began searching for his own water bottle that he had lost in falling. It took him only a few seconds to locate it and he joined Randy in warding off their flying attackers. There were half a dozen of them now, all screaming at the men in the same dog whistle high pitch. The two men sprayed and slapped at them and kicked at the fallen wounded. Finally the last two flew off in search of easier prey and Randy and Brian went back to running in the direction of the van again.

A while after they had started, Brian begged Randy to stop for a moment so that he could catch his breath. Even though Brian was in excellent physical condition, it had been a long time since he had had to run such a long distance but adding to this fact he was running in sand wearing the mountain climbing boots that Kathy insisted he get because they made him look rugged, tired him very quickly.

The inside of Brian’s chest felt as if they were on fire, his muscles burning as they both sat down safely away from the sand on a large, flat rock which was slightly angled out of the ground.

“Where the hell are we, do you know? We couldn’t have walked that far from the van. We haven’t been gone that long.” Brian strained to fill his lungs with the damp air as he spoke to Randy and looked at the small compass again. Its long pointer pointed at the ‘N’ no matter in which direction Brian turned it. Now Brian wasn’t sure if they were lost, the compass didn’t work, had probably never actually worked and they had been roaming around out in the fog for well over an hour, possibly just turning in circles.

“I’m doing my best to get us back safe.” Randy admitted scratching at his the shin of his leg. “It’s kinda hard to tell where they are but I’m doing my best. And those flying things just came out of nowhere. Sorry.”

“What do you mean, ‘Hard to tell where they are’? You can see something? Who’s them? I thought you could only hear them. What the fuck bud?” Brian tried desperately to stretch his vision and see through the thick fog. “I can’t see shit out here.”

”I can’t see them either, Dad. I just kind of know where things are. It’s kind of like I can feel them out there,” Randy looked at his Dad in regretful bewilderment. “God, this is freaking me out,” then scratching at his legs even harder, “You honestly can’t tell where things are?” he asked through his teeth.

“No,” Brian chuckled looking back at him perplexed, panic started to bubble in the pit of his stomach in concern about Randy’s ‘new vision’.

Randy was feverishly scrubbing at his legs now, his expression becoming one of desperation.
“What’s with your legs, bud?” Brian asked concerned.

“God, I don’t know but they itch so bad it’s starting to hurt.” He tugged and scrubbed at the legs of his pants in a fit.

“Let me see. Take them off,” Brian referred to Randy’s Levi’s.

Without hesitating Randy pulled down his pants around his ankles as fast as he could move. Both of his legs from the tops of this shoes and half way up to his knees were red with smears of blood, the flesh painfully inflamed.

They gawked for a moment when they saw that the sand had worked its way up under Randy’s clothes and now clutched onto his legs and ankles.

The sand was sucking so thirstily at the sweaty, bleeding flesh that it had bored thousands of tiny holes all up and down his legs so that his son’s blood fed the swelling dirt which was spreading like a gritty virus. They both rubbed at his legs to get the sand off.

“Dad, it really burns!” Randy was becoming hysterical with the pain, the sand sticking to their hands, Brian felt the skin on the palms and backs of his hands begin to shrivel and tighten and itch.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Brian waggled his hands violently to get the sand off of him but it didn’t work, but then he rubbed them on his pants and the sand seemed to shed off easily.

Brian was struck with an idea and he tore off his thick brown flannel shirt and rubbed it all over the bleeding area of Randy’s right leg in an attempt to dry it off. The sand began to fall away from Randy’s skin when the dryness of his shirt stroked it and the moisture was wiped away.

“It’s working.” Brian continued to wipe at his legs.

Randy took off his Levi jacket and did the same to his left leg.

“Take your shoes off,” Brian said.

Randy complied, and Brian rubbed his shirt all over his feet too. ”Where the hell are your socks, Son?” he partly asked him.

Randy, who was feeling much better now that his flesh didn’t feel as if it was being seared, chuckled lightly, “Damn, Dad. You picked a great time to lecture me about the way I dress again.” He answered.
Brian rolled his eyes. The filthy blood encrusted shirt was tossed on the dark sandy ground, Brian wasn’t going to risk putting it back on and told Randy to do the same with the jacket.

They sat there for a couple of minutes, Randy still dressed in his just boxers from the waist down and both of them panting like dogs in august, they relaxed for a minute. The cool air felt good on Randy’s tortured legs. It seemed as if the whole day had been one adrenaline rush after another.

“We should get back on our way to the van now,” Randy stood up and quickly dropped back down onto his hands and knees.

“What the …” he tried to stand again and found that his legs wouldn’t hold up his weight, once again he dropped back on the glassy surface of the rock.

“Hey bud, you okay,” Brian asked him ending a well needed stretch.

“Yea, I uh… Don’t know, my legs are sort of weak, I guess.” He looked at his damaged legs. Randy shrugged it off and shook out his pants but stayed sitting. He carefully turned them inside out and slapped them on the edge of the rock to knock out any remaining eager sand that might have lingered, then one leg at a time he gingerly put his pants and shoes back on.

He attempted to stand one more time, he wavered a bit, his legs felt heavy and sluggish, almost half asleep and numb, but this time he at least remained standing. He took a step and fought to keep his balance, then he took another, it was the same.

“Dad, there’s something wrong with my legs.” He confessed.

“I can see that,” Brian grabbed a hold of Randy and wrapped his arm around his sons waist, “Here, lean on me.” Brian provided support and Randy was able to walk much easier with his help, Randy wrapped his arm around Brian’s broad shoulders.

“Well where to bud?” Brian asked his wincing son.

They walked in the direction that Randy indicated and one step at a time he slowly regained some strength and feeling in his legs, enough to start walking on his own again after a while. Eventually the sand began to change back to the more familiar lighter color and Brian began to renew his hopes that they may in fact headed in the right direction.

They stopped to stand under a huge bug covered sand tree, so that Randy could recover his bearings. Brian looked up in awe at the swarming yet leafless green boughs above them and thought how it resembled the beautiful ocean coral he had in his fish tank back home.

He worried that they were possibly lost in the fog-shrouded valley and in his urgency to be reunited with the rest of his family, became more and more annoyed about Randy’s sudden need to stop and meditate. Slowly, Randy turned his body all the way around ‘looking’ for the right way to go until he faced Brian again.

“Well, I have good news and bad news, Dad.” Randy informed Brian.

“Okay, what’s the good news? I really don’t need any more bad news today.” Brian asked not knowing whether to completely trust in his son’s new found ability.

“Good news is, the van is just over in that direction. The bad news is that something is between us and the van. So we have a choice, we can walk all the way around it, which will take us awhile to do or we can bolt for it and hope that it doesn’t find us.” Randy waited for Brian to make the final decision.

“How are your legs? Can you run?” Brian asked him.

“Um, yea sure, with your help for a little while maybe.” he answered, looking down at his legs.

That’s when Randy noticed the ground changing directly below where he stood. The creamy, white sand appeared to be making a lazy swirling pattern around his feet. Then the ground opened up and prepared to swallow him. Randy jumped straight up but was stopped midair.

What appeared to be an immense Venus flytrap that been laying in wait concealed just beneath the surface of the sand at the base of the sand-‘tree’, slammed its leathery jaws tight on Randy’s right leg. Soft, black pencil-thin tentacle like teeth wriggled around on his leg obviously trying to get a better grasp on his him.

“Oh God, Dad,” Randy shrieked, “It’s crushing me!”

Brian put his arm around Randy’s back and pulled with every ounce of strength he could gather. Randy held firmly onto his father who jerked trapped leg. Randy was wildly kicking at the vice grip on his leg with the other.

With a sickening pop the thing released him and not stopping to let go or check to see if Randy still had his leg attached to his body, Brian ran away from the tree, strongly clutching his damaged son securely under his arm.

“Fuck this!” Brian exclaimed and they hastily headed in the direction of that Randy had mentioned that the van would be. Randy did his best to run, tripping ridiculously alongside him.

They ran hard like this, rushing past all manner of shapes and jumping over what might be rocks and bushes hiding in the misty veil until at last through the fog the familiar shape of the van began to emerge into view.

Finally being able to see their goal renewed Brian’s strength and he pushed himself on even faster until he realized that there was something very wrong with the van. As they approached they could see something was all over it and there was no other sign of life anywhere.

“Jesus Christ, what the hell are those now?” Brian exclaimed adjusting his hold on Randy pulling him even tighter against his ribs, ignoring his own pain, he concentrated on getting them closer to the van, shocked in disbelief at its condition.

Palm sized pink gelatinous things were wriggling all over the whole vehicle, their slimy trails coating it completely. These had two small fin shaped limbs at the front of their bodies, with suction cups on the ends that they used to pull themselves forward with. It appeared that either their slime or even these things themselves had eaten away at the paint everywhere that they had touched the surface, all the way down to bare metal.

“Dad, let go,” Randy pushed away from his side, “Mom!” Randy yelled trying his best to walk upright without help.

They couldn’t see into the windows because of the thick coat of smear that covered every square inch of the outside of the van. ‘Jesus ‘H’, where are they,’ Brian thought madly looking all around him into the fog.

“Kathy!” he screamed at the van, “Are you guys in there?” He was beginning to panic now. He wondered what had been going on here while they were away.

“Mom, Tiff!” Randy echoed next to Brian.

“Kathy?” He reached down to pick up one of the sticks from the ground and tried to scrape one of the pink things off of the van. Then an idea came to him, “Honey, if you can hear me, honk the horn!” he yelled as loud as he could.

The most glorious sound that he had ever heard was that of the vans horn blaring loudly at them only a second later.

“Thank God,” he almost cried.

“Let me help.” Randy grabbed a stick for himself and limped over to Brian’s side. They both pried and slid the huge gooey slugs off the van to drop them on the thirsty ground, which seemed to bring the sand back to life by hungrily devouring them as fast as Randy and his father could put them there. The side door, just clear of the slugs, slid open wide and anguished cries from inside reached out at the two men.

“Get in here!” Kathy screamed at them.

Without hesitation they did as she had told them and they jumped inside, the door slid shut immediately behind them. All three of the people inside, Kathy, Kyle and Tiffany, were crying hysterically.

“What happened?” Brian pulled his younger children Kyle and Tiffany into his arms.

“Oh my God, Bry, I am so glad you and Randy are ok!” She could barely speak through her sobbing. She was twisted almost completely backwards in the front passenger seat as she pulled her hair away from her face with both hands.

“We’ve been so scared! You’ve been gone forever and I thought… oh, but you’re here now. Where’s your shirt? … and Randy too, oh my God.” She choked back her sobs then continued. “There’s something out there, Bry, something big. Very big!” Her eyes became wild with recollection and the sobbing children pushed against their father even harder.

“Okay. Okay, now you have to calm down. I can’t understand you. Is everyone here alright?” Brian searched her face for the answer. Randy put his hand on her shoulder and this seemed to calm her a bit as she looked into his eyes.

“Mom, we’re okay,” he said gently and the crying all round seemed to slow down.

“We really need a drink. Is there anything left?” Brian asked.

“Here,” Tiffany handed him a can of soda. Randy popped it open and gulped at it thirstily then belching loudly he handed it to Brian who did the same.

Randy spoke first breaking the silence, “We’ve been running for a while. We had to use our water as a weapon. There were these flying bug things that get hurt with water and we …” Brian grabbed his arm and gave a smiling unspoken reminder to Randy about the mental state of his audience. Randy understood and cleared his throat before continuing, “Anyway, we had to use the water.” Randy crossed his arms and pretended to smile.

“What’s wrong with your leg honey?” Kathy asked with swollen lips noticing the bloody legs of his pants and running her hands along his arms and face to check for other damage.

“I just tripped and skinned up my legs a little. No big deal.” Randy lied hesitantly.

“What’s been going on here?” Brian interjected quickly to change the subject. This question sparked another bout of sniveling from the two kids in his arms. Kathy swallowed hard and explained through sobbing hiccups.

“We went outside for just a minute, the kids had to go to the bathroom and I couldn’t say no to that. We were out there, we stayed very close to the van, and this thing came right up to it. It was sniffing all over and I did this,” she held her finger to her lips. “You know, to tell the kids to be quite so that it wouldn’t hear us and then, oh my God it’s so embarrassing.”

The expression on her face was painful as she tried to find the correct words, “Then, it heard us.”

Kyle looked up at Brian and confessed to them for her, “Mom farted, really loud.”

Kathy let out a short gasp. The interior of the van paused for just a brief silent moment then exploded with laughter. The energy they were all experiencing, fueled from hysterical fear had transformed into hilarity.

“It’s not funny you guys,” Kathy broke down and began laughing too.

Laughter soon subsided and she continued with her story, “Anyway, when it discovered us, it screamed at us. So loud I thought it was going to break my eardrums. Then it ran off and we got back in the van.”

“Then the others came too,” Tiffany added, her smile lost as she remembered.

“Yea, the flying ones came and they landed on the van. They were coming from everywhere. They were eating these pink wormy things and there were so many of them. We didn’t make a sound, we just waited here for them to go away. And they did. They went away when the big… I don’t know what that was, but there was a big buffalo like animal, but it kind of walked on its hind legs instead of all four like a real buffalo. When that thing showed up the flying things took off and left all the worm things on the van behind.”

Kathy struggled for the right way to describe the situation that they had gone through.

“Yea Dad, it had long dangly ‘Predator’ hair things coming out of the hump on its back and its face was all smashed like this,” Kyle added pushing his nose up with his whole hand.

“And it bumped the van so hard, Dad. It almost tipped us over.” Tiffany pointed out excitedly.

“It smelled like something dead or rotten, we could smell it even with all the windows closed. It knocked the van around trying to get inside.” Kathy indicated the concaved ceiling above them.

She looked at Brian exhausted and yet grateful to have them all back together. In the momentary silence they could hear the slugs slurp their way around just outside again. The vehicle moaned like twisting metal and suddenly dropped a couple of inches as if one of the front tires exploded.
“What the …” Brian looked at Kathy.

“It’s been doing that for a while now, I think it’s the tires popping. By the way, the pink things multiply, Bry. Really fast and then they’re just everywhere.” She shrugged, “Oh, but we aren’t stuck on that rock anymore, the buffalo thing fixed that for us.”

Astonished Brian looked at her in amazement then quickly maneuvered his way into the driver’s seat and seized the keys still sitting on the console next to the steering wheel. He fumbled nervously sticking the key into the ignition, ‘Dear God, please’, he prayed to himself and finally finding the mark, he turned the ignition. The windshield wipers noisily scrapped back and forth cutting at the glass and smearing a thick sludge across the surface of the windshield in large streaks but the engine only barely coughed.

He turned off the wipers and tried the key again, this time the engine roared and he shoved the gear shift into drive with an exaggerated yell, “Yea!” Then he pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor, ‘flat tires or not we’re getting the hell out of here’, he thought.

“Hey, do you guys smell something burning,” Randy asked, as he sniffed at the air.

The van lurched forward a couple of feet and then the engine cut out. Once more Brian twisted the key but this time the engine didn’t catch, it only clicked. He tried again and yet again, but it would not start up. ‘I’ve probably flooded the fucker,’ Brian thought to himself.

“God damn it!” Brian barked out loud, insanely punching at the steering wheel and dashboard.

He wanted nothing more than break down and start crying with anger and frustration. His throat tightened around his Addams apple making it hard for him to swallow as he leaned over the steering wheel and starred at his ruined new boots. His brain wouldn’t work, he was so exhausted at this point that he went completely numb.

“Brian,” Kathy’s softness pulled him out of the well of hopelessness that he was free falling into. He looked at her with wet blood shot eyes.

“We’ll figure this out, honey. I’m just glad you guys came back safe and sound.” Her expression was that of dread and trust at the same time. “What happened to your shirt”?

He breathed in sharply and forced himself to sit up straight in his seat. He took a deep cleansing breath then turned to the rest of his family quietly waiting behind him. He paused before he spoke so that he could calm his voice.

“What do we have to eat back there, I’m starving?” He asked them with his best practiced smile.

Tiffany smiled shyly and produced a Styrofoam container containing the hamburger from her uneaten lunch at the diner. He took it from her gently, opened it and tore the burger into two halves with his bare hands.

“Who wants the other half of this?” he held it up.

“I do,” Randy took it from him in a flash and instantly chomped into it with eagerness.

Kathy gently caressed Brian’s arm then, when she felt that her timing was right, she asked, “So, did you find the lodge? Are they coming to get us out of here? You talked to them about holding our rooms for us and they will, right?”

He couldn’t answer her with what he knew she needed to hear, so he didn’t say anything at all except for a slight smile as he looked briefly back at Randy who was staring at the floor. Then trying to keep from choking he took another huge ravenous bite of the burger.

*****




I would love to hear what you think of this sample chapter, Please feel free to leave a comment. Thank you

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