Instinct (53 page)

As the group backed farther away from her, the vines swept forward and lifted Judy. They transported her over the shaft and then gently set her down on the other side. Robby glanced over his shoulder and saw the daylight at the end of their tunnel.
 

Tim picked up his pace and ran ahead with the dog.
 

As Robby got closer, he saw that Tim was tugging on the end of a firehose, testing his weight against it. Tim sent Cedric up the slope and the dog bunched his legs up and began a bounding climb.

“Come on,” Tim said, waving Lisa forward.
 

Tim held the end of the firehose steady while Lisa found the right angle to climb. She walked up the slope and used her arms to assist with her traction. Romie went up close behind her.

“You’ll have to go last,” Tim said to Ty. “You can wrap the hose around your good arm and we’ll pull from up top.”

“I can make it,” Ty said. “Just don’t follow too close.” He looped the hose around his arm and slid his grip up the hose in between steps. Even with one arm, he climbed steadily.

Robby stayed deepest in the tunnel. He watched as Judy came to within a few paces and then stopped again. The vines filled the passage behind her. Robby glanced up. The stream of lava that lit up the tunnel looked like it was cooling. It gave off less light. Judy’s vines reached the ceiling, but still maintained a margin around the lava.
 

“Come on, Robby,” Brad said.

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Robby held the end of the firehose. Brad and Tim were climbing slowly. Robby couldn’t tell if they were moving carefully because of the danger, or if they were exhausted from the constant panic. Robby listened to Brad panting as he climbed.

Judy held her ground. Her eyes stared forward. Robby looked for the orange glow that he’d seen in the eyes of the others. There was just a twinkle.

“Judy?” Robby asked. He glanced back over this shoulder to make sure that Brad didn’t hear him. “Judy? Can you hear me?”

A jolt of electricity ran through Robby when her eyes locked on his.
 

“I keep thinking, but I can figure out a way to save you, Judy,” Robby said. “Even if we let you go to the egg, the thing will swallow you. I’m not even sure you’re still really Judy.”

She blinked several times. He knew it must be a trick of the light, but it seemed like the orange glow in her eyes faded.

“Robby!” a voice called from above.
 

Robby glanced back. Tim and Brad had climbed almost all the way up. The hose shook in his hand.

“Tie yourself on. We’ll haul you up,” a voice called. It was a man’s voice. He supposed it could be that
 
guy, Jackson.

“Judy?” Robby asked.

She blinked.

Robby waited another second and then began to climb. He kept his head turned as much as he could, so he could watch her. He wanted to know if the vines were coming after him. When he had just passed the rounded bend of the shaft, and he could no longer see Judy, he heard the voice.

“Robby?” she asked.

“Judy?” Robby called. He stopped climbing and tried to focus everything on sounds from the tunnel. He heard the distant chatter of leaves from the moving vines.

“Robby you have to get up here right now,” a voice called from above. He looked up. Brad and Tim were over the top edge. He saw Ty’s back at the lip of the hole. He was doing something with his good hand behind his back.

“Robby?”
 

Robby couldn’t tell if it was her or not.

He let the firehose slip between his hands and slid back down to the floor of the tunnel. The vines stopped. They were gathered all around Judy, almost enclosing her.
 

“Judy?”

Her lips were parted and her eyes were on him, but she didn’t speak. He began to think that her voice had been some sort of elaborate trick. The thing didn’t want to kill him, but it wanted to break his spirit for some reason. It was working.

“Robby,” she said.
 

“Judy!” Robby exclaimed with a relieved smile. He took a step forward. “Hold still. We’ll get you out of there.”

“No, Robby, don’t!” she yelled. Her body was perfectly still. “It’s in me, Robby. I can feel it.”

“We’ll figure a way to get it out,” Robby said. He took another step forward. He was only two paces from her when he paused. Tendrils of vines, his mom would have called them suckers, came out towards him, like he was a magnet and they were threads of steel wool.
 

“You can’t get it out. It’s in the empty space between my atoms. I can’t describe it, but I can feel it,” she said. The corners of her mouth were turned down into a frown and it looked like she would cry. She didn’t take her eyes from his. Robby wanted to reach out, but the vines were slowly closing the gap. He fought to keep his arms at his sides.

“There has to be something we can do,” Robby said.

“Just say goodbye,” Judy said. “And get out of here. I can’t hold them back any longer. I don’t want to.”

“Judy, no,” Robby said. “I’ll go with you. I’ve seen the inside of the ball. It’s not so bad.”

“No, Robby. Finish what you started,” Judy said. A tear escaped the corner of her eye.
 

Her eyes slowly closed. As her eyelids slipped down, the vines picked up speed. They were halfway to Robby, then only a foot away. The were like a thousand green fingers, reaching forward around Judy’s still body.
 

They had two types of leaves. The bigger leaves almost looked like grape leaves. Smaller, oval leaves ran down each stem. As they moved, the little oval leaves undulated in little waves, almost like it was that motion that propelled the things through the air.

Robby turned and ran.

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He heard the vines clattering behind him. Robby grabbed the firehose and turned his face up towards the sky. He pumped his legs at the loose dirt of the slope and pulled on the firehose. He could heard the things right behind him. Robby knew that any second one would loop around his neck or close around his ankle.

His foot slipped and he fell. With his hands clamped around the firehose, he crashed into the dirt slope. He scrambled, trying to get his feet back underneath him and felt the hose pull through his grip. Robby tightened his fingers as the friction from the hose began burn his skin.
 

Robby found his feet again and the hose jerked upwards, nearly toppling him again. He looped his arm around the hose and held it tight as he ran to keep pace.
 

As he got higher, he saw what Ty was doing with his hand. Behind his back, Ty was motioning for Robby to stop, or go back. Robby glanced over his shoulder. He was barely staying ahead of the vines. Robby crested the lip of the hole and saw the rest of his group. The snow was falling harder. It dusted everything except the lava.
 

A handful of Beardos encircled them. They held guns. These were serious guns, not the odd collection of rifles and shotguns like at the farm. These guns gleamed with military deadliness.
 

“They’re coming,” Robby said, panting. “He pointed over his shoulder.”

One Beardo motioned to the rest and the circle closed in. Robby found himself herded together with Tim, Brad, Romie, Lisa, and Ty. Cedric was over with Jackson and Amy Lynne, near the ambulance. Another small set of Beardos guarded them.

Hampton appeared from the back of the group as Robby was directed away from the mouth of the hole. Hampton stood just a few inches from the lip. Robby watched as the fresh vines appeared from underground. Their green vitality stood in stark contrast to the brown, snow-dusted vines on the asphalt.
 

Judy rose from the ground with her face pointing up towards the falling snow. She was lifted on a thick bed of vines. The vines tilted her up until she was vertical again.
 

Hampton held his ground and laughed. The vines turned Judy around and began to move away from Hampton. The man laughed harder.

“Stop her!” Robby shouted. “There’s still time. All you have to do is stop her, and you can end this now.”

Hampton wore a big smile as he turned towards Robby. “We let it fertilize, and then kill it before it gestates. That’s the plan.”

Robby shook his head and took a step forward. One of the Beardos stopped him with the barrel of a rifle. “No. Just do it now. What do you have to lose?”

“
This
is the plan, Robby,” Hampton said. “We’re going to blow the damn thing up. People smarter than all of us put together came up with this plan.”

Robby turned to the Beardo who was closest to him—the one who was currently jamming the barrel of a gun in his chest. “Why are you listening to him? Can’t you tell he has lost it? Look at him.” Robby pointed and gestured at Hampton.
 

The Beardo kept his composure and didn’t look.

“Did you ever think that maybe he’s the one who is helping this thing?” Robby asked.

One of the other Beardos glanced over towards Hampton.

“Do you even know what happened to Luke? You think Judy was responsible for that, or was it more likely Hampton?” Robby asked. Another of the Beardos took a look at Hampton as the man laughed again. There was more than a hint of madness in his laughter. “Who took over when Luke disappeared? Have you guys ever seen the original orders? Are you certain that Hampton hasn’t been making all this up?”

The man with his gun pointed at Robby held his concentration on the boy. He didn’t react at all to Robby’s accusations until Hampton laughed again. The sound was a crazy cackle. The Beardo turned his head to look over his shoulder.

Robby slapped the barrel of the gun away from his chest and pushed the man. The Beardo’s gun swung up towards the sky as he fell over backwards.

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“Stop!” another Beardo yelled as Robby ran. He turned his gun towards the boy. That’s when Ty lashed out with his good arm. The giant man grunted with pain as he drove his fist into the side of the weapon. The gun discharged, sending a spray of bullets off to the side.
 

Suddenly, their guards were backing away and crouching into defensive postures.

Robby ran through the falling snow and darted around Hampton. He heard the gunshots behind him and kept his body low.

The others scattered, dividing the attention of the guards. One of the Beardos yelled for them to stop and fired his weapon into the air, but they kept moving. The Beardo whom Robby had knocked down rolled to his belly and trained his weapon on the boy. He squeezed off a shot and then his view of Robby was blocked by Hampton.

Robby ran parallel to the river of vines that were transporting Judy’s body. He sprinted faster to beat the vines to the corner of the building. Once they reached there, they could cut him off. Robby crunched through the withered brown carpet of vines and swung around the corner just in time. He looked back to see the fresh vines sweep Judy along.

He saw the depression up ahead and the reflection of the light on the windows of a neighboring house. There was a park area behind the school. Robby ran towards dropoff that led down into the park.
 

He saw the people and horses first. They were arranged in circles. At their center, blocked by Robby’s hand, the ball of light sparkled. The people seemed entranced by the ball of light. They were pinned to the ground by vines that looked no more healthy than the ones Robby was running across. The vines didn’t need to hold these people anymore. The hypnotic power of the light was enough to hold them.

Robby knew what was supposed to happen next. He had seen it in his vision. The gamete—in the form of Judy—would move into the light to complete the fertilization. The remaining animals—the people and horses in the circles—would become the initial investment of energy. After that, the thing would need to grow as the snow deepened around it. Hampton was waiting for that time, when the thing would be vulnerable, so he could destroy it. In Hampton’s plan, all the people surrounding the thing would be absorbed. There were at least a hundred of them.

Robby stopped.

He scanned the area. Amongst the ensnared people, he saw that a number of them were men with beards. They looked softer than the Beardos who carried guns. These were the volunteers who had joined up with the Luke’s posse after coming to the group. Robby saw that most of the volunteer Beardos still wore black backpacks. He took a couple of steps closer to the nearest.

The vines holding the man were still alive. They rattled under Robby’s feet as he got closer to the man. Robby saw wires poking out from the flap of the pack. He started to put it together. Hampton wouldn’t have known exactly where the egg would land, but he would need a way to deliver explosives to the location. What better way than to sabotage the biomass the entity needed?

Robby turned away from the park. He saw it, over the top of a neighboring building. The second-story window of the metal building Hampton had been in earlier. Hampton’s men would watch from there and then trigger their bombers when the time was right.

Robby looked at the closest man again. The bomb wouldn’t do Robby any good. It might not even have a way to detonate it except for the remote control, and Robby wouldn’t be able to figure it out if it did.

He saw a knife in a sheath strapped to the man’s belt.
 

Robby stepped across the writhing vines and reached down. He unsnapped the strap and pulled the knife from the sheath. The man’s face twitched, but he didn’t take his eyes from the light. Robby saw the reflection of the white ball sparkling in the man’s eyes.

Vines made weak attempts to grab his feet and ankles. They didn’t have any power. Only the vines holding the people in place seemed to have any vitality. And, of course, the ones transporting Judy. Robby looked back to her. She was making steady progress and still headed on a collision course with the light.