Don't Open That Door - GoM 1

18

The Hilux roared out of the woods to stop by Ollie's F100 at the whitening long fence that ran around the old sawmill. Their headlights showed the broad yard between the fence and the barn. Alex and Tom jumped out of the Hilux to find Ollie struggling to keep hold of Claire, who squirmed to set herself free from his arms. In the middle of the yard, Lila and Rob held each other tight. They kissed, oblivious to their four unaware witnesses. And as they kissed deeper, the girl's skin started turning into a thin layer of wood.

"What the hell!" cried Ollie, not believing his eyes when thin, nimble vines showed out of Lila's shoulders.

The vines grew longer in seconds, to wrap around Rob and literally tie him to Lila.

"It's happening!" cried Claire.

Tom rushed to retrieve the machetes from the Hilux and handed one to Alex. They run together to the teens to try to break their embrace, as more vines grew from the girl's body. But when they were only three steps away, the vines grew longer in a flash, enough to lash at them violently, throwing them down to the grown. Tom rolled over to cover Alex, grunting in pain when the vines whipped his back. Alex helped him up and away from the teens kissing in the yard. The vines lashed after them until they were ten yards away.

Lila was almost completely covered in that layer thin layer of wood, and it seemed to grow thicker, and spread over Rob as well.

"She's killing him!" Claire cried out.

Alex and Tom heard Rob's suffocated moan of pain and a soft cracking sound.

"Is that...?" Alex muttered.

"His bones!" Claire cried. "Told you she's killing him!"

Alex and Tom traded a look and he nodded to his left. They spread apart to circle the young couple, careful to stay out of the vines' reach. When they stood opposite each other, Tom made a sign and they ran at the same time toward the couple. Lila and Rob were hardly visible anymore, covered in that thickening bark and vines that kept wrapping around them both, making them look more and more like a short tree trunk. Alex and Tom tried to reach it, but they hit an invisible wall that rejected them. They ended up thrown back to the ground with their feet in the air.

"What's this? Some sort of force field?" asked Tom, jumping back to his feet.

"I think so," Alex replied, robbing her sore back. "Meaning they're gone. This is the mother tree's defense."

"I can get through!" cried Claire. "I gotta get through!"

Tom looked at her on his way to join Alex.

"She's gonna hurt herself," he said.

"Can you knock her out without punching her?"

"You sure?"

"Yeah. We need a moment to decide what we're gonna do. And how."

They hurried back to the trucks, right when Ollie was having a hard time to keep Claire restrained. Alex went on to the Hilux, leaving Tom to help Ollie. In a single move, he rounded the girl's throat with his hands and pressed the exact spots behind her ears. Ollie gawked up at him in horror when Claire crumbled in his arms, unconscious.

"She's just out," Tom said. "Take care of her."

He went to the Hilux, where Alex had Bootter's big old book open on her lap, and read it under her flashlight glow.

"Anything?" he asked.

She read as fast as she could, looking for some way to fight or weaken the mother tree.

"Got it!" she said, and cursed as she read on.

"What?"

"Here's a spell to weaken the douchebag."

"But?"

"I need to be in physical contact with it in order to make it work."

"It won't let you anywhere near."

"And if it does, it'll be to have me for dinner."

A silent shadow came out of the woods at the end of the old road, a few yards away from the trucks. Another shadow came just two steps behind. And another. And another. The first group of people infected with Lila's eggs had reached the old sawmill. Alex got out of the Hilux. She and Tom joined Ollie by his truck, where Claire laid, still out, as more people showed at the end of the track. Alex and Ollie traded a horrified look when the trucks' headlights fell on the faces.

Rob's parents—Lou and Sarah—had been the first ones to get there. Followed by the whole Malher family—Albert, Liz, Stevie, Sophie. And Stevie's and Sophie's friends. Mike the mechanic was there, like Pete and Harry McKayne. And Stone, the cellar's owner, with his wife, sons and brothers.

All of a sudden, the picture got clear for Alex: all of them had tasted Sophie's baking, and Sophie had been dating Rob.

They kept coming out of the woods with their erratic walking, headed for the sawmill yard. They walked through the invisible barrier as if it wasn't there and approached the trunk of the mother tree, taking position in a broad circle around it. By then, there was no visible trace left of the boy and the girl imprisoned inside the six-feet-tall branchless trunk. Vines kept growing from it, wrapping around its top as if weaving it slowly upwards.

Alex couldn't keep from running to the end of the track and trying to stop that surreal parade. Olson, her old boss, pushed her aside without even glancing away from the mother tree. Betty, the inn's owner, just dodged her and went on.

Tom grabbed her arm and gently led her out of the way. Alex looked up at him with widening eyes, overwhelmed. He held her desperate look and spoke as calm as he could, ignoring the people that kept walking by them toward the mother tree.

"Listen to me, Alex. These people is what the tree needs to grow, right?" She frowned, as if trying to make sense of his words. "Focus, Alex. Tell me what's gonna happen to them."

She shivered and breathed deep, forcing herself to do as Tom said—focus. "Roots... The mother tree is gonna use roots to catch them, drag them underground and keep them there, to feed on them."

"Then we've gotta stop it."

"We gotta keep'em away from the mother tree. But it's gonna be a hundred of them. And the embryos inside them are gonna make'em fight us." Her voice grew firmer as she spoke.

"And we cannot chop or burn the tree 'cause we cannot get near it."

"That's why I need to weaken it with Grandpa's spell."

"But it's gonna eat you if you approach it."

"No. I'm gonna be protected."

"You mean there's a way to protect yourself other than drinking bleach?"

"Yes, but I gotta go home. I have all I need back at home."

"And what about these people?"

Alex turned to look at the yard. A huge circle was half completed around the mother tree, which kept growing slowly taller.