Liar's Harvest (The Emergent Earth) (21 page)

The other creature spun to face me, turning its back on Chuck. He promptly grabbed the back of its neck with one hand and its crotch with the other and lifted it up over his head. The stick men were tough, but they were only half as heavy as a human being.

Chuck turned towards the tree and heaved the flailing horror into the trunk. It struck with a hollow thud and then turned into a black, shapeless mass that spun and flailed frantically.

The swarm went wild, forming a wall of vibrating sound and heaving motion that seemed to fall towards us like a slow motion tidal wave.

Anne was still staring at the remaining half of the shattered stick man, oblivious to the danger behind her, so I scooped her up in a fireman’s carry.

We ran.

I looked back at the top of the tree, but there was no sign of Prime.

Only the shattered bars of the empty cage.

34

I
plunged back into the tunnel. The roots on the walls and ceiling were limp now that the Heart had been claimed, allowing me to race back up the slope, Chuck hard on my heels.

As soon as the chainsaw scream of the hive began to fade into the distance, I realized that Anne was pounding on my back with both fists. She stumbled away from me when I put her down and then fell to her knees, retching.

Half-dollar patches of blood seeped through the rips in her jacket, which stretched tight across her back as she shuddered and gasped.

When I touched her shoulder she jerked away from me and stood up, one arm across her stomach, the P250 still clutched in her hand. “Don’t. I’m fine.”

“You sure? It looked like the swarm was about to swallow you whole.”

“I would have been right behind you if you hadn’t scooped me up like that. Jesus, it feels like your shoulder was trying to drive itself through my entire body. You’re lucky I didn’t throw up all over you.”

As she spoke she dug the clip out of her back pocket and swapped it into her pistol. She released the slide and racked it in one smooth, practiced motion, then stood glaring back down the tunnel.

Nothing appeared, so she holstered the weapon. “Prime got the Heart?”

“Yes.”

“Dammit. Because of me.”

“Did you ask me to drop out the sky on that bastard? That was my call, so I’m the one that lost the Heart.”

“That’s bull. You had to save me, so you let Prime win.”

“I needed to save you because Prime outmaneuvered us. Again. He came prepared to deal with us, and that’s why we lost. He was ready to slow us down in the tunnel with the fire and he hid armored troops in the cavern in case he needed to distract me. It wasn’t because you were the weak link, it was because he anticipated me bringing backup armed with pistols.”

Chuck shrugged out of his backpack and tugged at the zipper. “I never want to see that shit again. What are you supposed to do if you can’t shoot those knots?” He handed a bottle of water to Anne.

She rinsed her mouth out and spit, then took a long pull. “Throw them into a swarm of tiny woodchippers?”

Chuck laughed. “Pretty cool, right?” He drank out of the last bottle, then tossed it to me. I wasn’t thirsty, but I drank it all in one long gulp. I couldn’t help it, I was starving.

I handed back the empty bottle. “Prime has the Heart. Not good, but just having the Heart isn’t enough. Remember what the Trickster showed us. The stick men collected bones for Prime, but only when there were enough did Prime use that green spark. Assuming that the spark represents the Heart, then he still has to wait before he can use it.”

Chuck put the bottles away and slung the pack over his shoulder. “What if he already has some bones? He could be using the Heart right now.”

“I don’t think so. So far he’s only taken the blood sacs. As far as I know, he doesn’t have any bones yet, much less the number that the vision indicated.”

“The vision was mostly metaphor, Abe,” said Anne. “The Heart wasn’t really a green spark and Belmont didn’t really cause a big rainy flood. Who knows how many bones he actually needs?”

“The vision might have been symbolic, but the part with Prime seemed pretty damn specific. And if the next step is some kind of massive bone collecting operation like the vision implied, then you can bet Prime will be visiting town soon. We need to stop him before that happens.”

Anne and Chuck nodded, their gazes turned inward as they pictured what the aftermath of an army of stick men would look like.

We headed back up the tunnel, making the best time we could. The bodies of the burned wooden men were still there and still smoldering, but the rest of the tunnel was mercifully free of flame and smoke. When we were close enough to see daylight at the tunnel entrance, Anne’s phone started chiming.

Bing. Bing. Bing. Bing.

She dug it out of her front pocket and checked the front, then held it to her ear.

“What is it?”

Instead of answering, she pushed a button and handed me the phone.

I was listening to her voicemail. Henry’s voice came out of the tiny speaker, exasperated and terse. When the recording ended, the next one started. I listened to each one, but they were all variations of the same message, spoken hours ago.

“Get back. Get back now.”

35

H
enry’s chair was still on the lawn. A few feet away was the still carcass of a wooden man, part of its chest blown out.

“He’s in the house,” said Anne. “I can smell him. His hands, anyway.”

We ran across the lawn. “I didn’t know he gave off a scent.”

“Well, now you do.”

The windows of the pickup truck were smashed out and all but one tire had been shredded. It sat lopsided in the drive, debris scattered in a wide circle around it.

Misshapen footprints marred the painstakingly drawn design in front of the porch. Gravel had been shuffled through or kicked away, leaving long runnels that cut across the carefully inscribed tentacle pattern. The skull in the center had been reduced to a handful of shards and fragments.

My blood caught fire in a way that I hadn’t experienced since before Belmont. The only word that came to mind was desecration, but I don’t know why it mattered to me. The design was grotesque, an alien mandala that glorified a being of pure malice and dread. I should have scrubbed it out myself last night. But I didn’t. It never even occurred to me.

I leapt up the front steps and charged through the front door with Anne and Leon at my back, guns drawn.

Henry was sipping out of his mug and reading his book. He pointed at a pile of sandwiches that dominated the center of the kitchen table. “Lunch?”

I gaped at him in confusion and then sagged against the wall in relief. “You’re all right. Jesus, Henry. You scared the crap out of me.”

He grinned. “Figured the old man’s luck had run out, eh?”

“Something like that.” I took a seat at the table.

“I thought the same thing when that creature came barreling out of the woods at me. But even I can hit the side of a barn with two barrels of double-aught. Dropped the son of a bitch like a sack of potatoes. I came inside after that. No sense in tempting fate.”

Around a mouthful of toasted rye and ham I said, “So that’s what the messages were about?”

He handed me a cup of coffee. “Not entirely. Did you find the Heart?”

I shook my head.

“Too bad. No, I called Anne’s phone afterwards. After I got inside, more of those creatures passed by the house. It seemed to me that they were headed towards town, so I figured I’d call the Sherriff’s station. Try and give them a warning, maybe talk to Leon, but they’re not answering. I did manage to raise Emily at the hospital, but all she said was that the ER was full and she’d have to call me back after her shift. Then she hung up on me. That was the last call I was able to make. Phone’s been dead ever since.”

“What are you thinking?”

Henry shrugged. “That Prime has a solid grasp of the tactics involved in this kind of infantry assault, thanks to Leon. In this case, he knows that he has to deal with communications and the local police presence first.”

“What time did you lose the phone?”

“About an hour ago. My guess is that Prime was busy last night making himself a wooden army out of the people he’s butchered. Now that he’s managed to get the Heart away from you, I think he’s ready to act out the rest of the Trickster’s vision. He’s ready to harvest.” Henry took a sip from his own cup. “You need to get to town.”

A forest of wooden men, passing bloody bones from hand to hand until they reached Prime, who stacked them high and wide. That wasn’t going to happen.

I looked out the kitchen window. “Did you see the truck?”

“I did. Too bad it was a wasted effort. We’re still mobile.”

“The Rover?”

“Yep. I went behind the shed and pulled the tarp off as soon as I saw my truck. I’m guessing a vehicle out in the open made a nice target of opportunity, but they didn’t take the time to search for another one.”

“Nice to catch one break, at least.” I reached for another sandwich, but the plate was empty. I tried to remember how many I had eaten, but I couldn’t. Even my coffee was gone. Chuck and Anne each had a sandwich in their hands, clutching them like they had snatched them out of a fire.

Chuck shook his head. “Jesus, man. I thought I was gonna lose a finger reaching in there. At least you stopped before you ate the plate.”

“Sorry.” I poured another cup of coffee and took a gulp of the scalding liquid. “First things first. Anne, take a seat and pull up your shirt. I’ll be right back.”

I went to the bathroom and returned with alcohol, a clean towel, and some adhesive bandages. When I got back, she had turned the chair around and was now leaning forward with her arms across the chair back. I winced at what was displayed there.

There were two-inch-long lacerations on her back from the serrated jaws of the black insects, the edges already red and puffy and crusted with dried blood. I wet one corner of the towel in the sink and dabbed at the wounds as gently as I could.

She grunted a little when I had to drag the rough cloth over torn skin. More than once the wounds pulled open as I cleaned them, gaping like tiny mouths.

“Chuck, go ahead and get your shirt off, too. You’re next. Henry, can you grab ammo for the pistols and Anne’s shotgun?”