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Part 3-18: Farmhouse
“Jimena!” hollered Dack.
“We need to go, and go now,” I said, backing away. The creature moved, thudding as trees ripped and fell.
The lady cop came ‘round one of the cruisers, shotgun trained on the green orbs.
“I can’t leave him,” she said, looking back to me.
“You stay, you die. Dead you can’t help him. Alive us might still be able.”
She made a strangled sound and returned her gaze to the eyes of the monstrosity. The set of green lights heaved up, hovered, then came down with a THAMP! They were a lot closer now. It might have jumped.
“Walkerby’s!” I shouted, as small twigs and leaves rushed out of the woods. “Move!”
I bolted, praying my tired legs would keep working until I stopped needing to not die. If that thing started its inhaling trick again, my physical self possessed no known warping skills. There was only going to be one way to stop it, and that was to ram the information superhighway straight down its ugly throat.
We all ran. In the twilight, the thinning forest was a slapping maze of branches and obstacles that appeared out of nowhere. But it was blessedly flat and sturdy ground—passable terrain as Deluxe had called it. And I was happy to take a scrape or two from an inert stick, given the alternatives.
For the next minute or so, the only sounds were crunching footfall, ragged breathing, and steady, sonorous thuds. It wasn’t long before Dack started to pull ahead, and after a moment I recognized Jimena’s lithe form outpacing me as well. But they slowed when they noticed the rest of us lagging. We moved in silence, all air needed to keep moving. The regular announcement of creeping death on our tail was a great motivator, at least for me. I kept seeing Roman’s limbs trailing as the strength of the vine tore him away.
At last, we broke the treeline and emerged onto the Walkerby property. From our vantage point, we overlooked a quaint farm. A simple wooden fence guarded a field of small bushy crops. The field sloped down, and the lines of the plants all pointed to a sleepy white farmhouse. Behind it, a barn and more fields. A single truck was parked outside, beside a canted telephone pole. The lights were on and smoke curled cheerily from the chimney, wisping and fading away against the backdrop of the purpling sky. The first stars twinkled on the horizon and a thumbnail moon watched from up high.
I blinked, and in an instant I saw a ravaged land, the truck ablaze, the house split like a rotten pumpkin and half covered with ropey growth. The sky black with no light, and a clock beginning a chime that had twelve identical notes. Atop the house’s ruined roof sat a lone figure, burning bright blue.
One more blink—back to calm late spring serenity.
“Kill the—rogue wifi—signal,” gasped Deluxe, breathing heavy. “Then we have—this ready.” She shook the remote control at us, then put her hands on her knees and threw up.
I might’ve puked too had my nerves not flash-burned the silhouette of that blue stained demon into my head. Jimena was already moving down the slope, vaulting the little fence with athletic ease. Persi not far behind—spiky hair matted flat with sweat. Only Dack stayed back, helping Deluxe recover.
“No, wait,” I croaked.
“Ma’am, wait a moment,” Persi called to Jimena, who was already fifteen paces into the field.
“What now?” said the cop, spinning, eyes crazed. Life pro tip: you do not want to see someone tall and strong holding a shotgun with a frenzied look in their face. My blood iced, and a bad memory bubbled up with it. That time in the city…
I shook my head and held up my palms, an instinct against Jimena’s boiling mood, I think, and tried to form a coherent sentence.
“Eden. It’s there. Here. Down there, the house.”
Jimena blinked, and her lip twitched.
“She means: frontal assault… inadvisable,” said Deluxe, coughing.
Another thud echoed. Afraid it would shatter my negotiation platform, but doing it anyway, I looked over my shoulder. Orbless, and vineless, for the moment.
“So make a decision,” growled the police officer.
I only had one trick. “We have to go back in,” I said, nodding at Persi. She bounded to my side and grabbed my hand, and she grew in my heart in that moment—weird glow or no.
“You’re golden, girl,” I whispered, and suddenly felt like bawling. She gave me a weird look, which thankfully ruined the moment.
“Do you have the energy?” asked Dack.
“Not really,” I said.
THAMP! went the deathcrab.
“I’d guess the adversary in the rear will move as the crow flies—or as the beast stomps—direct to the house,” said Deluxe. “Best get your bodies out of that trajectory.”
“Give us a thirty count, then spread out and get all IT department on that router, hm?” I said. “We’ll try and distract Eden.”
“Twenty count,” said Jimena, grimacing as another resounding slam rolled out of the trees.
I didn’t wait to say goodbye, I tugged Persi and ran again, legs, abs, butt—all of me—hating the exertion. We skirted the treeline, and up ahead in the growing moonlight I saw a likely fuzz of bushes we might pathetically hide in.
We reached it by the time I’d hit thirteen in my head. Knees hit dirt and we wriggled under, efforts rewarded by a tangle of scratchiness and some terrifically damp ground goo. It didn’t smell like shit, so I counted my blessings and prepared for a harrowing attempt to pull off my fourth Clockworld trip in under twenty-four hours.
“Okay, this might be rough,” I warned Persi, then promptly blew my own mind when I ghosted into the weird grey world faster and smoother than a greased up hobo on a Slip’n’Slide.
The ring, the ring was alive with power. It was tuned into a point, a single burning point in the near-distance, a gravity well—home, the centre, the longing!
I sat up out of my physical body, mesmerized, needing to see the source of this beautiful energy. It was invisible, but there in every other sense, swirling and rushing as sure as a waterfall. It was bliss, it was comfort, it was the opposite of the raging sunburn of wifi in every sense.
“Holy… good, moly…” I breathed, as I saw, and understood.
It was coming from the farmhouse.
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