Tandem of Terror (9 page)

He stumbled as he backed out of the room
nearly tripping on the plant's vines that coiled around the living
room floor. "Nikki, Adam..." he called. "Guys, I need your help." He
tripped into the hall, following the vines as they trailed into the
guest room.

"
Guys wake up! I---" His words
died in horror as he switched on the light. He watched the plant
coil into the bodies of his friends...while they were still
alive.

Their bodies twitched and wriggled as the
vines burrowed into their chests and stomachs, entwined their arms
and legs, and coiled into their gagging mouths. Nikki stared at
Cameron, her face a mask of horror and draining of all color, her
eyes flooding with tears.

He watched, grief-stricken, as their flesh
turned a shade of light green. The plant began changing from its
color to a pale pinkish color, resembling human flesh. A sound like
tearing paper filled the room as new stalks plunged out of Adam and
Nikki's bodies and spread across the ceiling. Drops of blood rained
from above.

Cameron stumbled against the wall and cried.
"Filthy murdering plant! I'm gonna rip you leave by leave. Get the
hell off them!"

He lunged but hit the ground in a crash as
the vines wrapped around his legs and sent him to the floor. The
vines slithered over him with their razor-sharp prickles, ready to
feed.

Remembering his dream, Cameron sat up and bit
into the plant, ripping them from his legs with his teeth, a
mixture of blood and white pus splattering his face and pouring on
to the floor. He jumped to his feet and ran into the hall.

The plant had grown to monstrous size, it
covered the living room, the ceiling, the floor, it writhed and
quivered like a nest of serpents, a gigantic spider. Vines and
stalks lashed at him like whips. The overgrowth blocked the front
door.

All exits seemed to be blocked. He backed his
way towards his bedroom as the plant slowly stalked him. With a
twist and turn, he made a sprint for his bedroom. The plant charged
after him, its vines slithering down the hall. Cameron threw
himself into the room and slammed the door behind him. The door
cracked and buckled as the vines ripped the wood apart piece by
piece.

Cameron eyed the window and headed for it, a
vine shot through the door at him, missed and shattered the window,
glass showered to the floor. Another vine speared Cameron through
the leg. He howled in pain and stumbled to the floor. It began
dragging him to the across the floor like a grappling hook. A piece
of broken glass found its way into his hand and he cut frantically,
hacking as hard as he could.

He severed its grip, a piece of it still
wiggling in his leg and limped to the window. With his strength
dwindling he tossed himself from the house, jagged glass scratching
his back. He lay on his belly, smelling the soil and grass at his
nostrils. He heard the plant inside, ripping through the rooms,
consuming his house. He knew soon that it would go after the rest
of the neighborhood. He had to do something.

He looked up and saw his small tool shed
across the backyard. He limped his way over to it and through the
junk and piles of unused tools he found a jug of gasoline he kept
for his lawnmower. In the first light of dawn he searched for a
source of fire and discovered a box of waterproof matches from his
camping days on a rotting shelf. How long had they been there?

He walked back to the house, blood seeping
from his nose and onto his lips, the salty taste filling his mouth.
He watched as the humongous plant busted through the roof,
shattered the other windows and hunted for him.

Vines and stalks spun and shot at him,
attempting to spear him again but he managed to dodge them. Quickly
he doused the side of his house with gasoline and lit a match. A
flesh-colored vine speared his hand. The match went out.

He bit back the pain as rage filled him. His
eyes saw red as he brought his bloodied hand to his mouth and tore
the plant out with his teeth again. Again he lit the match and cast
it upon his house. The flames roared and the plant was caught in a
blaze. It shrieked and Cameron laughed. He fell to his knees and
laughed and laughed...

It was then that he heard the cell phone
ring. He suddenly remembered putting it in the pocket of his pajama
bottoms. He answered. "...Melissa..."

"
Hi Cam...Yeah it's me. Did
you get the surprise gift I sent you? I thought of you the moment I
saw it. It was in the back of one of my roommate's silly horror
comics. She really loves those things. Any way, I thought you would
get a kick out of the freaky thing. They called it the
monster
plant. A mutation of the Venus flytrap only this one
feeds on blood. Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous? I
knew that you would love it being so nuts over your plants and all.
So, did you
enjoy
it?"

Cameron just laughed and laughed and
laughed...

The Witch
Killer

Eric S Brown

The war had started long ago. No one had
expected it, the war between machine and man. It was nothing like
what Hollywood and science fiction had painted it to be. The
machines didn't nuke the world or storm the cities in force. No,
they played a much more subtle game, using humans as their pawns.
Maybe this was due to their lack of numbers. Less than four dozen
A.I.s existed in the coalition of evil who sought to rid the world
of mankind. They preferred the much simpler tactics of manipulating
us into killing ourselves through poisoning the environment, the
darkness of economic collapse, and gathering terrorists
organizations to their cause when they did feel the need to resort
to violence. That's where we come in. We're not what you would call
ordinary folk but we very well may be humanity's last hope to stand
against the technological edge the machines have. My name is Zack
and currently I am en route to our next mission.

The wings of the S-92 cut the night air
stirring up a storm of sand as it touched the ground. Zack sat
inside its spacious cabin, his head bouncing as he hummed along to
"Bad Moon Rising". He flinched with surprise as Maria grabbed him,
pulling him to his feet. She was the kind of commanding officer you
really didn't want to piss off yet it was Zack's mission in life to
just that.

Zack pulled off the earphones as he stared
into Rhia's anger eyes. "Are we there yet?" he asked.

"
We got incoming!" Florida
yelled saving him from her rage. Twin anti-aircraft rocks flew
towards where the S-92 sat.

"
Zack!" Rhia
shouted.

"
On it, boss," Zack shouted
as he jumped out of the bird into the open sand. He threw up his
hand and flickering shield of blue formed over the helicopter. The
sound of the explosion was deafening. Zack's face twist in pain and
he fell to his knees but the shield held. Before he could get to
his feet, Rhia and Florida were racing past him.

He took a second to get his bearings then
leapt up, chasing after them. The S-92 was already rising. It
lifted itself from the earth and streaked off into the night. This
was bad and Zack knew it. The place was teeming with hostiles. But
then, it was always bad if his squad got called in. They were the
elite and the last desperate option when a battle simply couldn't
be lost.

He caught Rhia and Florida as they were
cresting the dune which stood above the base they'd been sent in to
take out. For some reason, the brass wanted to make sure it was
wiped completely off the face of the earth but needed to do so
quietly as it rested on soil belonging to Egyptian government. It
didn't matter that it belonged to terrorists. The UN would start
all kinds of trouble if it knew what the U.S. was up to here. This
needed to be dealt with quickly and quietly but already it had
become a storm of death and bullets. The conventional troops that
been sent in had fracked it up royally and died in the process.

He kept them all three shielded as rifles
chattered in the darkness and bullets pinged off the energy
encasing them. Florida chanted a series of ancient phrases as her
eyes flooded from the inside with a white, milky fluid. Her eyelids
fluttered as her body shook briefly where she stood then it was
over. She blinked and her eyes were normal once more. "There's
sixteen enemy soldiers down there and... Something else. I couldn't
see it clearly. We got another thirteen closing in on us from all
sides."

"
Okay," Rhia said. "Zack,
take that base. I want it gone and those men down there dead
ASAP."

Zack gave his best war cry and ran headlong
down the dune towards the base. Rhia and Florida dropped to the
sand making themselves as small of targets as possible. With Zack
gone, so was the shield. Rhia lifted her M-16 and opened fire at a
cluster of men approaching them from the east. Florida followed
suit, her own rifle spitting empty shell cases. 'Bring it!" Rhia's
voice bellowed as she emptied her clip and lightning sprang from
her eyes, frying one of the closing enemy soldiers as he ran
towards her while she was reloading.

As Zack raced down the side of the dune
towards the base, he said the name "Azaroth" over and over again
channeling the power of the demon lord into his body. When he could
hold no more, he stopped in his tracks as he reached the bottom. He
lifted both his hands outstretched at the base. The base imploded
on itself, vanishing in a patch of darkness blacker than the night
around it. Zack smiled. Their mission was done.

His smile disappeared from his lips. As the
supernatural darkness vanished, something stood on the sand where
nothing should have been able to continue to exist. Its body was
made of a gleaming metallic alloy and its green eyes stared at
him.

"
Oh crap," Zack muttered. He
took off sprinting back up the dune as fast as he could. "Rhia!" he
screamed. "We got a Witch Killer!"

Witch Killers were their worst nightmare.
Like in arms race, once the U.S. had began to field elite soldiers
with supernatural abilities, other nations sought a way to even the
playing field. The things were hulking robots that carried more
destructive power than a tank company. What made them so horrible
however was that they were constructed from "holy" metal. Every
bolt, nut, and circuit inside of them had been blessed and
sanctified against evil. No demonic power could harm them or even
effect them.

The robot opened fire with the four fingers
of its left hand as Zack ran. Streams of armor piercing rounds dug
into the sand behind him as tracer rounds streaked through the
darkness.

Rhia and Florida were waiting as Zack reached
the top of the dune. Both of them returned fire at the thing.
Sparks danced on its armored skin where their bullets struck
harmlessly. "Options?" Rhia yelled.

"
Get the frack out of here
and make for the extraction point!" Zack shouted back in her
face.

Florida said nothing.

Fire erupted underneath the Witch Killer's
feet as it became airborne. It flew at them as it opened its mouth
and spat a missile like object at their position. Florida screamed
as the spear tore through her chest, puncturing her heart. Her
hands clasped the silver metal protruding from her as she tried to
pull it out her before she slumped to the sand and lay still.

Rhia had dealt with Witch Killers before. She
summoned up her power and directed it into the sand itself. A
raging wind, like a mini-tornado, became a sand storm and darted
onto the robot. Magic couldn't effect it directly but she was
hoping the sand could screw it up as it would a normal machine as
it found its way into inner circuitry.

"
Run!" she screamed at Zack.
He didn't need to be told twice. He folded his arms over his chest
and hummed. A flash of light in the night and Zack was gone,
teleported away to their base on the mighty Nimitz class aircraft
carrier which waited in the Gulf.

The Witch Killer emerged from her storm and
landed in front of her. "NO MORE MAGIC LITTLE WITCH," it said in a
dull, inhuman voice. Rhia tried to dodge as it reached for her but
the thing was too fast. It grabbed her, lifting her into the air
with a single hand. Its cold fingers closed tighter around her
neck. She struggled against its hold and drew the Desert Eagle
which rested in the holster on her hip. She fired point blank into
the thing, again and again. The Witch Killer tilted its head like
an animal as if surprised she had tried to attack it with a real
weapon. It reached with and tore her hand holding the gun from her
body, tossing it away. Her blood poured onto the sand from the
wound as sweat beaded on her forehead from shock. She knew this was
the end even before it reached for her face. The last thing she saw
was two gleaming, silver fingers as they pressed into her eye
sockets and her screams echoed across the desert.

Dust To
Dust

John Grover

Dry cracked earth, dry cracked skin. They
mimicked each other.

Skye felt she couldn't make it here for an
entire year. An entire year in the middle of nowhere? What choice
did she have? The law was the law, and the sentence had to be
completed. It was the only way for her to put it behind her and
move on with her life. Still, the air was hot and heavy, and the
sun was a judge watching over her every movement with its
blistering gaze, righteous and angry, growing hotter with every
passing day. The Arizona land was scorched and barren, unwelcoming,
withholding any bit of solace or pleasure as if it too punished
her.

The dust and sand storms were the worst. They
were always so unexpected, stirring up at a moment's notice and
leaving their horrible imprint on this God forsaken place, blowing
across the desert, howling through town with fury, scratching and
clawing at every living thing, scouring the land. Malicious and
spiteful they were like taskmasters lashing Skye with unforgiving
whips leaving her battered and marred.