Shifting

Sixteen

I went back to my empty cot and closed the door. I didn’t want anyone to see this.

I pulled the stone out of my pocket again and here, in the darkness, it glimmered plainly. I took out my saber and ran the stone along the edge. It was indeed rough enough to use as a grinding stone. Usually, one would have used a softer stone like soapstone, but it worked quite well. After scraping each side perhaps twenty times, I thought to see the faintest blue glimmer along my blade. I chewed my lip and breathed harder, feeling like I was doing something evil, but fun, like finding dad’s playboys as a kid. I scratched at the blade more, and the faint glimmer turned into a glow.

I put the stone back into my pocket, sheathed my weapon and went to check on things at the front entrance. The fog outside looked even thicker, if anything. It looked like someone had pressed a gauzy blanket against the glass. Only a few feet of gray concrete walkway was visible outside now. Erik Foti was in the lobby peering out dubiously at nothing. He gripped and re-gripped his shotgun nervously. He glanced at me as I walked up.

“Yeah, I know, guard duty.”

“Hmm,” I said, “looks kinda strange out there. Is everyone inside?”

“Everyone except for Brigman, he found nothing wrong in here and went outside to check the fuse box. He thinks maybe one of the trees fell over in the storm and hit the lines that came up from the basement.”

“He’s out there in that? Alone?”

“Yeah, well…” Eric trailed off. None of us wanted to go out there. It wasn’t the roiling fog itself, exactly, it was the things that might be out there in the that stuff. The things you wouldn’t be able to see.

“How long has he been gone?”

Erik paused before answering, and then he sighed. “Too long.”

I nodded, and swallowed. “I’m going out. I’ll just sweep around the building once and see what’s up.”

Erik’s face worked, I looked at him and he was flushed, his cheeks purple. “No,” he said quietly, putting a hand out in front of me, “I’ll go, I should have gone already. I’m on duty.”

“Erik, it’s cool-”

“No, no, it’s not. You went for that girl and I chickened. I’m going to do this one.”

I nodded. “I’ll stand right here. Let me know if something is wrong.”

He glanced at me again quickly and nodded. Then he grinned. “I’m not gonna scream, don’t worry.”

I chuckled politely.

Then he edged open the door, and a white tendril of smoky vapor curled into the waiting room. He slipped outside and the fog ate him up.

He went to the right. I noted that, in case he didn’t come back and we had to look for him. He went around to the right, I repeated in my mind so I wouldn’t forget.

I cracked open the door, even though I didn’t want to, and listened. It couldn’t have been much past two in the afternoon, but you’d never know it looking out there.

Vance came up next to me. “There you are, what-?”

I put up a hand and shushed him. For once, he actually fell silent, not an easy thing for Vance, I knew. He and I listened at the cracked doorway like thieves.

We waited and strained our ears and listened. A minute passed, then another, I think, before I heard anything special. What I finally heard wasn’t the welcome sound of shoes on wet pavement coming back home to us, but instead something that sounded like the creaking and twanging of guitar wires breaking in unison.

Vance and I looked at each other.

“What?” he asked in a hushed tone. Somehow, we both wanted to keep quiet.

“The chain link fence,” I whispered back, envisioning something out there, ripping slowly through the fencing that the last of Redmoor’s citizens had hastily erected.

More wires creaked and twisted and snapped. Then there was a jangling sound that could only be the chain links coiling up, and a crash that reminded me of the sound a trashcan makes when it is knocked over and spilling its contents. A figure loomed in the fog and we both drew back a pace. I saw a round belly and a red axe. It was Mr. Brigman.

“Something-” he panted, pushing in through the doors, “Something’s out there. Something big.” I didn’t like the emphasis he put on this last word.

“Where’s Erik? Did he find you?”

“Yeah, he did, he went to check it out. Something was messing with the fence line. We worked so hard on that fence. It’s not even finished yet. Anything that wanted to could just go around. Why would they want to tear up the fence? Why not go around?”

This simple question seemed to really bother him. But I didn’t have any answers, so I didn’t try to give him one. The things were mad, who knew why they did anything?

Faces started to appear behind us at the three nurses’ stations. Everyone seemed to stay behind the reception desks, as if somehow a four-foot tall wooden structure with a Formica countertop would protect them. The Nelsons were there, and Monika and Mrs. Hatchell and even Doc Wilton, plus about a half dozen others. They were all dark oval faces and bright big eyes in the gray light. Everyone was quiet. Everyone was listening. We were Neanderthals huddled in our cave while a saber tooth nosed around outside.

Everyone hung back, that is, except for Holly Nelson. She came forward slowly to join us. In her hand she had that screwdriver. Her lips were pressed in a narrow line as she studied the fog outside. I almost smiled, she was a fighter, all right. I found it interesting in a detached way that no one called her back to safety. She looked much older now with a bandaged head, a hunter’s jacket and blue jeans on. She had as much right to play this game her own way now as any of us did. There wasn’t really any safe spot anymore, and all of us knew it. I realized that kids were going to be growing up very fast in this new world.

I drew my saber then, and it rasped out of the sheathe with a long sighing sound. I rested the blade on my shoulder and pushed open the door another few inches. The mist swirled and broke up enough for me to see glimpses of the nearest cars parked just a dozen feet away.

“Erik?” I hissed. Something moved out there, and for a second I thought something had heard me. I listened to what could only be the crunching, tinkling sound of glass breaking. It was probably a car window caving in.

I had my head out, then a foot. Then I figured screw it, and stepped out into the fog.

It was colder out there than I had realized, and the fog had a funny, almost seaside smell to it. The odor was faintly swampy, like rotting organic material and stale water. I could see further out here, the windows had been fogged up with condensation. Outside, it was not so bad, I could make out cars for about twenty feet off, but the chain link was at least a hundred feet away, I calculated from memory.

I heard the door open and a murmur came from behind me. I had an audience. Vance poked his head out behind me.

“Friggin hero,” he muttered in annoyance.

I almost muttered back, faithful sidekick, but figured, just in case, it wasn’t worth getting slaughtered.

“Vance?” I heard a weak, desperate cry. His voice came from somewhere ahead of us in the thick mist. It didn’t even sound like Erik’s voice really, but it had to be him.

“Make a run for it, Erik,” I told him. “Come to my voice.”

In reaction to my words there was a crunching noise and huge thumping, bashing sounds. Two cars at the edge of my vision shifted. Tires screeched and I saw a bumper spin around. I realized that the entire car had spun with it, as if an elephant had lunged and knocked it aside.

Then finally, I heard the distinct sound of a car door popping open and there came the welcome sound of rapid footsteps out there somewhere in the fog.

“Come to my voice, this way, this way,” I said, speaking louder than I wanted too. I stepped forward and I felt Vance and Brigman come out behind me. I had to give Erik a direction to run, to guide him with my voice. “This way, man, over here, run it!”

I heard him trip and curse. Then he came out of the fog, crawling, scrambling, and dragging one foot. He still had his shotgun and his face was a death’s mask. Something huge thundered forward after him, we still couldn’t see it in the fog, but we heard its fantastically heavy tread and heard what had to be the chain link fence it was dragging. The fence clattered and jangled as it swept over the cars like a bridal train.

I ran out to take his hand.

“Oh sweet Mary-” sobbed Erik. I had time to see that his face and arms were bloody and his shirt was mostly missing. His haunted eyes met mine and then it had him.

When I first saw it, I really thought something had swung down a branch or a log, using it like a club to strike him on the back. It took me a slow second to realize that the wooden thing was a hand. A huge, claw-shaped hand with three foot-long fingers like a pitchfork. The hand stabbed down, grabbed Erik’s legs, and lifted him upward.

Erik twisted as he was lifted from the ground and got off one shot with his shotgun. A chunk of bark sprayed as if he had hit a tree, which of course, he had.

The thing in the parking lot was an ash tree come to life, just as we had read about in the newspaper stories. The ash looked nothing like a man in the shape of a tree. It was just an ash tree that could move. The thing’s bark was grayish-brown with black cracks that ran down in runnels over its body. The bark slipped over the wood and seemed more flexible than any normal tree, more like thick, armored skin. The roots, festooned with clumps of fresh black earth, writhed about like questing tentacles. It seemed to walk on its roots-or more exactly: it glided on them, as if it rode upon a thousand snake-bellies. The roots flailed and flipped and grabbed at the cars they passed by. Behind the tree dragged the chain link fence we had hoped would protect us. It wore the fence like a cloak of woven, jangling steel.

I charged the monster and chopped with my saber at the massive arm. I was shocked to see the blade sink in more than an inch. Had the glowing stone really sharpened the edge? Fluid, smelling like fresh sap, welled up from the cut. The thing shuddered a bit, either from pain or rage. It did not cry out, because it had no voice. The upper branches that jutted up into the fog far above me swayed and shivered. Its bright yellow leaves rustled.

I looked up at the trunk expecting to see a face, but there was none. There were no eyes, there was no nose. But there was a maw. On the side of the trunk, about eight feet up, a chomping, grinding hole made chewing motions. I had no doubt that was the destination it had in mind for its prey.

It lifted Erik higher and my saber with it. I hung on and gave a tremendous yank to free it. Erik’s headphones dropped to clatter down into the twisting mass of roots, along with an assortment of Ted Nugent and Chili Peppers tapes and lifeless batteries. Like a nest of ravenous snakes, the roots thrashed about, grabbed and tore at each item in blind eagerness. I thought it would lift him up and drop him into its hole, but I do not think it could reach that far. Instead, it just took his leg, starting with the foot, and began to stuff him in. Bones snapped and blood ran down the trunk. Erik’s face was white, and he was beyond screaming, but he had a grip on a knobby twist of the tree branch that served it as an elbow and he was struggling with all he had.

I could not get any closer. The roots had a hold of my ankles by now. They cinched up on my legs like pythons and I slashed wildly at them. I recall my voice was hoarse from shouting but I have no idea what it was that I said. I pulled out my.45 from my coat pocket and unloaded most of the clip into the trunk. Orange-white, splintery holes appeared in seven spots on the squirming trunk. I was gratified only by a slight shuddering and an increased activity in the roots, which turned into a frenzy.

Erik was looking at me, and I think he was still aware, and to me, his eyes pleaded with me, although he was unable to speak. I took aim with the last round, before those roots could pull me off my feet, and I put Erik out of his misery. I think he would have done the same thing for me.

Vance and the others had my arms then and were pulling me out of the thing’s grip. Brigman with his fire axe was the most effective, chopping off roots as they tried to grab us. Vance dragged me, raving, back into the medical center.

We huddled in there, whimpering and shivering in the dark lobby, surrounded by cheap musty furniture, beige painted cement walls and curled up magazines. We tried hard to be quiet, while outside, the tree crunched on Erik’s bones.

It seemed to take it a very long time to finish.