Posted on January 27, 2008

The Hole: Part 56

The creature was a hundred yards away when Elliot caught up to Evajean. She shouted Hope’s name while running after him, bent low low to scoop him up if he got within distance. Again Elliot called for her to stop, but Evajean had become attached to the animal—and focusing on it meant not having to look up at the beast.

He grabbed her and pulled back at just the time she caught hold of Hope’s tail. The dog barked in pain as Evajean hauled it up and Elliot was surprised to hear it, realizing with some fascination that the creature was charging them without sound. It’s feet thudded into the grass, yes, but it wasn’t howling or roaring or snarling. It was simply looking at the two of them as it ran.

“Truck!” he shouted at Evajean and turned, yanking her, not looking for a response. But she ran with him, the creature close behind. He could smell it now, a shark sourness like old sweat and urine. This is it, his mind screamed. I’ve gone mad. I’m done.

Evajean pulled in front of him, faster than he could move. The truck couldn’t be this far away, could it? Why was it taking so goddamn long to get there? He pushed himself and then made the mistake of looking back. The best was close, only a dozen yards away at most, and now he could see that its grey skin wasn’t just slick but oozed, clear liquid spilling out of circular rises in the flesh like tiny volcanoes. He wanted to vomit.

The truck was there suddenly, right in front of them. He fumbled in his pocket for the keys, still running, and found them. Behind him, the creature hissed, a sound like a phlegmy cat. The dog barked so rapidly in Evajean’s arms that it sounded like a single long and excruciating call for help.

Then they were inside the vehicle, somehow with the creature not yet upon them. Elliot shoved the key in, turned it, and gunned the engine. The monstrous thing stopped at this, rearing back, its front four legs coming off the ground and kicking. Elliot jerked his foot down on the gas and twisted the wheel, forcing the truck out onto pavement.

They’d only made it up to twenty five miles per hour when the creature recovered from its fright or confusion and started after them again. Lowering its head, it shifted its gait into something smoother, closer to a gallop—though the legs along its length undulated like a caterpillar’s.

As the truck accelerated, so did the monster, keeping pace and always remaining a few car lengths behind. Evajean was twisted around in her seat, staring out the back, while Hope barked madly from under her seat. Elliot watched their pursuer in the rearview mirror, fiercely thankful that the highway was clear of abandoned vehicles.

The creature opened it’s mouth and, from within the ring of teeth, pushed out its pink and tubular tongue. Its color looked almost human. “Make it go faster,” Evajean said, her voice only just loud enough to be audible over the truck’s engine.

The beast surged forward and its tongue slapped the rear of the truck, which shook heavily on its stuff suspension, tossing Elliot and Evajean against their seat belts. The dog barked furiously from under the seat and tried to climb to the back window. Elliot pushed down harder with his foot, but the pedal was already on the floor.

The creature’s tongue hit them again and through the mirror Elliot saw a box tumble out of the bed. Again he cursed himself for not having a gun on hand, instead leaving them packed away with the rest of the supplies. The creature fell back several yards and coughed, its mouth forcing open even wider than it had been, rows of teeth and a second tongue reflecting the sun punching through the clouds.

“What is it?” Evajean shouted at him, but he ignored her.

She twisted in her seat, looking out the back. “I think we’re losing it,” she said.

Elliot nodded. Ahead, the highway curved to the left around a small lake and a grove of trees. Was the creature too big to get through them? he wondered. Could they hid in there, like they had with the warehouse? He had to decide quickly, for they were now only thirty seconds or so from the grove.

As the trees came near, however, the decision was made for him. Elliot had gone tight through the turn, pulling into the left lane and closer to the trees. At the apex of the curve, with the trees no more than twenty feet away, just on the other side of a line of concrete barriers, another of the creatures burst out from the vegetation. It kicked through the concrete, sending large chunks skittering under the feet of the first creature—which tripped and rolled on the pavement.

Elliot screamed along with Evajean this time, and jerked the truck to the right, away from this new threat. It strained against the turn, coming briefly up on two wheels, before crashing back down, almost knocking the wind out of him. He tensed his hands on the wheel, straining to keep the truck under control. Hope howled over Evajean.

The truck bounced and then steadied, and Elliot managed to force it back onto a path that would keep it on the road. Through the mirror he could see the first creature getting back to its feet—a movement that looked very much like a millepede uncurling—while the second stood over it, licking its grey skin with that enormous tongue.

“—going to fight,” Evajean was saying, but Elliot didn’t share her optimism. The licking did not look aggressive but comforting—and “I’m sorry for knocking you over” gesture.

He was right. The first creature, once righted, ran its tongue along the hide of its companion and then the two started again in the direction of the truck.

In front of Elliot and Evajean was only open road and a sign for a rest stop in a quarter of a mile.

“We’re going to do it again,” Elliot said, without turning to look at Evajean.

“What?”

“Get out, get inside. That rest stop, we’re going to drive to it and jump out and break a window if we have to, but we’re going to get inside. Because those things—”

“They’re too big to follow us,” she said.

The truck had topped out on speed. The vibrations from the overtaxed engine were terrible and this short conversation had the warble of talking into a fan. The creatures had regained most of the ground lost during their collision, and were now running side by side, tongues still out, reaching toward the truck.

He had no idea if this plan would work. With the crazies, it had been only a matter of outrunning them, of being able to get far enough away to lose them in the chaos of the industrial complex. But running here wasn’t an option. Their only hope was to get to a place where the creatures couldn’t reach them and then hope they got tired of the hunt and wandered off. No matter what they were, no matter how the beasts had got here, they were animals, and Elliot prayed they’d behave as such.

“What if we can’t get in?” Evajean said, shouting over the engine.

“We’ll break the door or a window.”

“What if we can’t?”

He didn’t want to listen to this, so he stopped paying her any attention, and focused on keeping the truck out of the reach of those tongues. He pulled the wheel to the right and the creatures took ran through several strides before adjusting. They’re stupid, he thought. Maybe they won’t even know to follow us when we stop. Maybe they’ll just stay with the truck.

“The exit!” Evajean shouted, grabbing his arm.

He yanked it away from her, terrified she’d run them off the road, and she pulled back. But her voice still carried only excitement. “Pull off at the next exit!”

“Why?”

“Do it,” she said, and Elliot decided he would. He didn’t know what she had in mind but the thought of not being able to get inside the rest stop of or it being one with only a small shack of bathrooms, easily smashed down, occurred to him, and he knew he couldn’t count on his plan working. They drove past the pull off for the stop and he felt no loss in its passing.

“There!” Evajean said. An exit was just ahead. Elliot pulled onto it and, a moment latter, the creatures turned and followed. “Now go under!” she yelled at him. “Go under the overpass.”

He realized what she was getting at and hoped to hell it would would work. Could the creatures really be that stupid? He didn’t know, but it damn well better be the case, he thought. Because if the creatures figured this one out, he and Evajean were probably as screwed as they’d ever been since setting out on this increasingly imprudent journey.

He twisted the wheel to the left and again felt the truck lean. But it held steady this time and his hands on the wheel did the same. The overpass was only a short distance in front of them and he flushed with hope when he saw that it was clearly too low for the creatures to run through.

Just be so fucking dumb, he thought at the creatures, and drove underneath.