4~
That evening, Greenman knelt before his shrine, his heart full of bile and fear. Today was witness to one of his rarest and most shocking defeats.
After giving himself time to think about what had to have happened in the arena, and who may have actually did what to turn that whole thing around, his mind still, stubbornly, came back to Marcie Fleach, as the primary instigator of it all.
It didn't matter that there was no earthly way she could have taken over the robots so completely, from where she was, it was her leadership of that rabble, however nominal, or her damnable luck, that snatched his offering, and his victory away.
And so, despite his simmering hatred for the girl, he needed to explain and atone for sin of failure.
Quieting his wrestling mind through the turmoil of his anger, he finally reached his way into the clearing of the mind-forest, where the three deities awaited him.
"My lords, my wretched failure stains my soul, and I have no right to come before you, but I only ask you, as a humble man, to see past my faults and continue to guide me. I still wish to exalt you for all the blessings you have bestowed upon me, but my enemies still stand between me and your glory. What must I do?"
The three gods spoke as one. "The young woman you ensnared with your schemes, now stands before you, as you once stood before Rome, heart afire in defense of village and father."
"As I once stood before Rome…in defense of village and father," he pondered. "But, I was too young, and I failed to save either. Rome invaded and took what she wanted…all I had. That's why I came to you."
Then, suddenly, the simple genius of an idea came hard upon him, and brought a sly, eager smile to his face. "Yes, and I must do the same…to take what I want, and to make her fail!"
"Indeed, a plan had blossomed and bloomed in your mind. Our guidance has, once more, taken root in you," they hinted. "But, be cautious! She is a druidess, in spirit, if not in name; she is the alchemist, the truth-seeker, and the warrior who will face you cloaked in a she-demon's fury. Be cautious, Emperor. Be cautious..."
The animals living in the pitch-black of the forest around his home, sensed his presence, and gave him a wide berth, as he hiked through the Pine Barrens seeking out a suitable clearing.
At last, the dark shroud of the canopies gave way to a wide patch of the starry sky, as he stepped out onto a field ringed with woodlands.
Greenman strode with purpose to the very center of the vast opening. There, he took a large pouch of seed and a flask of spring water from his belt. With careful paces, he walked the complex pattern of a wide triskelion in the grass, sowing seeds and watering them, as he trod.
When he was done, he stood outside the pattern and waited.
There soon came a soft sound ahead and below him, the sound of grass blades and roots tearing, of earth disturbed, and a green field bearing drawn in lines of black soil, under the starshine.
Within the borders of the triskelion, the land gave birth to alien figures and low shapes, silhouetted against the sky. Thorn Soldiers and Herb Hounds, almost one hundred strong, stayed where they emerged, their new-born senses taking in the cool night, their pseudo-brains waiting for their commands.
"Robots. Machines," Greenman said with bitter disdain. "Why did I think I needed them? This world has changed me, as much as it did my faith, and for the worse. I turned my back on the Green, and was punished for it. I will do so, no longer."
He touched his fingers onto his temple in telepathic communication to his bellicose crop, and said, quietly, "Rest, my army. Feed on the earth and grow strong, for tomorrow, my crusade will sack one last, poor town."
The mail truck was left idling on the curb, as a postal worker walked across the lawn of a suburban home, on the residential outskirts of town. Although a professional, she was confused by the recent turn of events concerning her job.
No longer called the United States Postal Service, her superiors back at headquarters informed her that it was now called the American Union Postal Service, and although its origins were now different, its function and hierarchical structure were still true to the erstwhile organization.
She stuffed the mail through the slot in the house's front door, and then heard the sound of small feet padding on the grass behind her.
'Dog,' she thought, reaching for the repellant on her belt.
She calmly turned, and raised the can up at a sinewy, four-legged, fern-covered creature, and froze.
It looked impossible, alien, and it moved on its own volition. Everything in her brain told her that whatever was in her can, it wouldn't possible be enough.
The can fell from her hand and rolled on the lawn, grabbing the Herb Hound's immediate attention. It leaped at the object, sniffing it and turning it over with its claws.
The postal worker took that opportunity to run back to her truck, in a wailing panic, put it in gear and take off, up the street. What she saw up the next block, made her stop the vehicle and freeze, again.
A shambling, leafy green host of tall, powerfully-built plant-men were marching in the middle of the street, and fanning out through the neighborhood, approaching any morning jogger, person going to work, or homeowner getting the mail from their yards, with menace.
Since the Herb Hounds were, undoubtedly, faster, they were the vanguard, scouting ahead and clearing paths for the Thorn Soldiers to take on their march.
The mail carrier turned her truck around, and accelerated from the block, with three Hounds in eager pursuit.
She needed to get away, she needed to call for help, and just as importantly, she needed to find someone else to cover her shift, because, at least on her route, the good people of Crystal Cove were not going to get their bills and alimony checks, today.
"Did you notice that the cops didn't read us our rights, yet?" Red grumbled to a nearby Velma, as they, and the rest of the gang sat in the police waiting area.
"For the second time," she instructed. "We're just here to be questioned on what we saw in the stadium, yesterday, Red. We're not under arrest."
"The only good thing to come out of all of this, is that, no matter how weird all of this turned out, because of what happened to Deputy Carlton, Greenman has to be a wanted man, by now," Daisy mused aloud.
"Yeah," Jason added. "Let's see him try any of that sacrifice stuff, when there's an APB out on him. That should slow him down, and force him to lie low." He hoped that Daisy's logic was sound. He was in no hurry for a rematch with the man.
Out of all of them, Marcie looked the most skeptical about that. "I don't know, guys. Greenman may be hamstrung, but he's rich, which means that he has resources, plus, he's real slippery. In any case, I went over his history book, last night, for more details. There were some more things that he wrote, in English, but still most, in Gaelic, and I don't want to miss any details, like what Greenman meant when he wrote 'water of the king.' What king?"
The gang, then turned their attention to the sound of the door of the Sheriff's Office, flanked by two waiting deputies, opening and the following sound of the sheriff, himself, saying to the other, inside, "If you won't do it for me, then do it for the kids! That nutcase just took out one of my men, and I am not going to allow him to do the same to *you!"
His guest briskly walked from the office, and the gang had the rare privilege of seeing their mayor up close and in person. However, she was not in much of a handshaking mood.
"Bronson, I don't want my people to see me cocooned around police protection, while they don't know when this crisis will end!" Mayor Nettles countered.
"I know!" he said. "That's why I'm only giving you two deputies. If we weren't so busy, I'd assign half the force on 24-hour shifts!"
"And how would that look, Bronson?"
"It would look like a man trying to protect his stubborn mayor-wife!"
Decelerating in their collective work to listen, it was equally rare for the police station to be privy, whether they wanted to be, or not, to the drama of the two of them. Professionalism, it seemed, wasn't always a strong bulwark between their opinions how things got done.
The tinny voice of a reporter relating the local news on Stone's office TV, gave an awkward respite from the tension.
"The staff of Crystal Cove Hospital is still trying to figure out the pulmonary edema epidemic plaguing them," she said. "Although administration tells us that they will not turn away new admissions, if nothing is done soon, this may push staff and resources to the breaking point..."
Janet took that time to take a glance at her watch, roll her eyes in annoyance, and sigh to her husband. "Okay fine, Bronson. I'll keep the deputies, but only because I don't have time for a debate. I have to hurry back to the office to come up with something to calm the people. Have you got things under control, here?"
"You know I do," Stone placated. "And if the people can't see that you're thinking about them, then maybe they don't deserve to be here."
"Bronson, you'd make a lousy mayor," she replied, shaking her head with a smirk.
"That's true."
"Take care."
While the mayor and her escorts left the station, Marcie continued to muse on the strange passage Greenman had written. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she subconsciously, kept finding some vague, nebulous importance in why he wrote that.
"King's water?" she muttered. "King's...No, wait! No way! Not king's water! Royal water. Aqua regia! Greenman's an evil genius!"
Red raised a ruddy eyebrow in confusion. "What? First you don't want this guy put away fast enough. Now, you're saying he's a genius?"
Urgently, Marcie stood from the bench and walked over to Stone. "Sheriff, we have to go to the hospital. You have to convince the staff that they have to evacuate the patients from there, like right now!" The sheriff was, typically, slow to consider.
"Mary Jane, I don't have the time to go off on one of those half-baked theories of yours," Stone dismissed her. "There's nothing going on at the hospital that the doctors can't handle. Now, if your questioning is done, I have to prepare a manhunt for that wacko with the plant monsters, and that's on top of the vandalism and looting that we're already trying to keep a lid on."
The walkie-talkie clipped to Stone's belt, suddenly, squawked for attention. "Sheriff! Sheriff! This is Bucky! Come in!"
"This is Sheriff Stone," the sheriff answered. "What's the situation?"
"Sheriff, you are not going to believe this, but we're getting reports of...plant monsters moving through the town. They're attacking everybody they see out of doors. We've told people to stay in their homes, but it looks like a group of those things broke from the group and surrounded the hospital!"
"Are they breaking in?"
"No, sir. They're just standing outside, like they're guarding the place. The press already got here, but we've got men standing by to try and get rid of these things."
"Stay where you are, Bucky," warned Stone. "Those creatures are dangerous. Tell the men that I'm on my way. Stone, out."
"Believe me, now?" asked Marcie, in a huff.
"Normally, there's always time for a good 'I told you so,' however, now's not the time," Sheriff Stone pontificated. "How do we go up against an army of those things? We just barely dealt with them in the stadium. What good are bullets gonna be to them?"
"Stone, you look upset, dude," Red commented.
"Don't you know that the best way to relieve stress..." Daisy added.
"Is gardening?" Marcie slyly finished.
Hanley's Hardwares, with its half-boarded up facade, had survived its bout with recent looters, as the proprietor George Hanley tended his counter with a watchful eye, looking both within, and sometimes without.
It seemed like a boon to his business when he heard that people needed more tools to help shore up their defenses against the sudden rash of vandals and thieves.
Now, he heard the sound of vehicles parking in the lot, outside, and watched the front door, expecting it to open with customers, or, at worse, more vandals and thieves.
The door swung open to allow Sheriff Stone and a group of teenagers to enter his store, and although he wasn't familiar with the youngsters, the sight of the sheriff brought a grateful smile to his lined face.
"Hey, thanks for saving my store from those looters, last week, Sheriff!" Hanley said, reaching out to shake the man's hand, firmly. "What can I do for you?"
Stone stood up to an officious height, and said, in a straight, if regretful, face. "I'm afraid that we're going to have to loot your hardware store, Hanley."
"What?"
The Clue Cruiser and Red, on his motorcycle, followed Sheriff Stone's police cruiser into the normally bucolic neighborhood of Crystal Cove Hospital, but found that they all had to maneuver through a cordon of news vans and transmitter trucks before they could park next to the other police cars along the far curb of the property.
As Stone stepped out of his car, he noticed Bucky coming towards him, and asked, "Bucky, what are all of these news crews doing, here?"
"They just showed up a little while ago. I guess they've been covering the other monsters coming to town. We don't know what to do, Sheriff. The monsters haven't done anything, yet, but we don't want to shoot them, if they do. They're too close to the hospital."
"They're probably counting on that," Marcie said. "Not to worry, though. We have something that will change all of that."
"Bring the men around, and we'll get you loaded up," Stone told Bucky, as he walked around to the trunk of the cruiser.
He unlocked the door, and as the other officers gathered around him, he revealed the appropriated booty of the hardware store: pruning poles, economy-sized bottles of weed killer, and large, portable sprayers.
"Uh, Sheriff, it's good that you have a green thumb, and all, but-" a confused Bucky said.
"No, Bucky," Stone explained, taking a pruner. "These are our weapons. Trust me. These'll work on them. Okay, everybody grab something, and follow me."
The officers did as instructed, selecting pruners and filling sprayer tanks with herbicide, then they walked beside the sheriff, and formed an offensive line by him, when he stopped a few yards from the wary Thorn Soldiers.
The teen gang went to the Clue Cruiser's forward trunk, armed themselves, and then, joined the line, moments later.
Marcie could feel every camera and reporter's eye on her, felt the weight of the world watching this, all of them wondering what in the world was she and other teenagers doing in the middle of a police action.
Was her father watching her? Did he care, if he was?
"All right, you plant monsters, listen up!" Stone bellowed. "This is Sheriff Bronson Stone, and I'm giving you until the count of three to leave this property, immediately, or you'll face the full might and force of the Crystal Cove Police Department, and I know you don't want that!"
The closest Soldiers to the human line regarded the loud, bellicose man, while the other Soldiers maneuvered behind them to set up a defensive line, and Herb Hounds slinked to its sides, forming flanking positions to close around the men.
"One!" the sheriff counted, tightening his grip on his gardening implement. "Two! Thr-"
Bucky, already tense from this unfamiliar encounter, fired an early shot from his backpack sprayer. The stream arced its short distance across the yard, and splashed against the 'face' of a Soldier, who backed off and fell over in pain.
Its wooden body convulsed, as its bulb-head began to shrivel, giving it the appearance of an old onion. The body, finally, grew still, as the head rotted and fell from the body, all under the eyes of both parties.
Bucky looked over and saw Stone's iron, disapproving stare, wilting, himself, under it.
"Sorry, Sheriff," he apologized, meekly, but the damage was done.
The officers, as a whole, knew that they were not used to fighting like this. Judging from the physicality of the opponent, however, the nature of the weapons made sense, so they had to fall back on their melee martial arts training and sharpshooting to make the most of these pruners and portable sprayers.
The Thorn Soldiers raised their thorn-swords and marched forward, looking like an enormous, dangerous, moving hedge, hoping that their combined weight and force, coupled with their weapons, would, literally, drive them into the ground. The police and the gang had no choice, but to raise weapons and charge into the swell.
Both forces rammed into each other, with the humans taking the worse of the charge, getting slammed back and tumbling onto the ground, as if they ran, full-tilt, at a copse of trees.
They all got back to their feet and, frantically, switched tactics. Mob rules, every man, boy, and girl for themselves, as they, also, covered each other, when the opportunity presented itself.
The police and the gang split up and tried to use their greater speed and maneuverability to flank and surround the Soldiers in some grand, improvised Pincer Movement.
By dint of their numbers, they managed to succeed, but by doing so, they wound up falling for the Soldiers' trap, by getting outflanked by the outer ring of even faster Herb Hounds, who were waiting in the wings to encircle the humans.
Now, the fighters faced a fearful, desperate battle on two fronts, either focusing their melee fights on the Soldiers, or turning to slash at the Hounds, who sought every opportunity, as a pack, to swarm them from behind.
Marcie, carrying a sprayer, brandished the nozzle in one hand and an Insta-Ice capsule in the other, while she dutifully covered fellow sprayer, Velma.
Her idea, which seemed to have some effect, was to throw the capsule on the concrete ground in front of a Soldier or approaching Hound, and let the solution splash on their lower extremities, freezing them so they couldn't move, and thus, were easier prey to her gun.
Jason, however, with sprayer in hand, looked more like a nervous lawn sprinkler, twisting and turning to spray anything that looked the least bit threatening, but a dire thought intruded upon him. By trying to shoot at everything, he was wasting precious weed killer. A real tactic had to be implemented in the middle of all of this non-productive chaos.
After driving a Soldier away, he jogged over to Sheriff Stone, who had just managed to slash off the head of another Soldier, and whispered into his ear, when the man had a moment.
Stone turned and bellowed into the noise of battle. "Men! New plan! Pruners, face the plant-men! Sprayers, cover the pruners, and attack the dog-things!"
Officers and teens rushed to restructure their positions, giving the Thorn Soldiers pause.
Then, the pruners began to slash at the defensive Soldiers' heads, once again, but with more purpose, now that someone was watching their backs.
Herb Hounds, seeing their partners getting driven back, tried to run past the Sprayers to help, but only had gouts of herbicide blasted into their muzzles, driving them off, where they wilted and, soon, died.
Eventually, the number of plant creatures started to dwindle, as this wasn't the full host of the small army that Greenman had spawned the night before. With the Herb Hounds cowed or decimated, fighting concentrated on the Thorn Soldiers, with fallen, decapitated ones littering the courtyard, like debris after a hurricane.
None of the human fighters noticed that their defeated foes were now sporting one less arm than before.
"Keep up the pressure!" Stone commanded. "We've got 'em, now!"
"Sheriff, look!" Bucky yelled, pointing behind Stone and most of the other deputies and teens.
They all turned to see new Thorn Soldiers coming out of the upturned earth of the ruined, nearby landscaping.
"Oh, yeah," the sheriff muttered to himself. "I forgot that they could do that."
As the reinforcements shook the dirt from their new bodies and approached, he called out, "Men, form up on me!"
A deputy yelled, "Sir, I'm almost out of weed killer!" That was joined by other warning cries of weed killer depletion.
"Stone!" Red called out. "Let some of the deputies go get more weed killer, while we hold these guys off!"
"That's Sheriff Stone, to you! But, you've got a good idea," he admitted, before turning to the rest of the fighters.
"Okay, two of you go get more ammo!" he directed two of the deputies. "The rest of you sprayers, listen up! When these things die, a part of their bodies break off and become new creatures. If you see that happening, spray whatever you got left at the body part. Don't let it grow!"
"Yes, sir!" all the sprayers yelled out.
Without preamble, weary, pruner-armed citizens and law enforcement joined in battle with the new wave of Thorn Soldiers and the remaining, emboldened Herb Hounds, while the sprayers waited for their chance to kill the ones yet to come.
Anxious security guards, interns, doctors, and nurses stopped in the course of their rounds to watch the turmoil of the battle raging just across the walkway and courtyard.
Security had long turned off the automatic glass doors to keep their leafy captors from entering the building, but even before the fighting, the plant creatures had made no overtures in storming the interior. After enough time had passed, it was strongly assumed that their presence was just to make sure no staff members or patients had left.
Just then, a bespectacled girl, favoring her midsection, managed to slip behind the chaos and make it to the doors.
A guard rushed over to the doors' controls, and let them open for her, before a Thorn Soldier could turn around and notice the charitable act.
"What were you doing out there?" asked the guard. "Are you all right?"
Velma, looking pained and doubled over, thanked the guard, and then, staggered up to the receptionist's desk, where a doctor regarded her stooped condition with concern.
"How did you get past them?" the physician asked. "Did those things hurt you?"
Velma shook her head. "No, I'm fine. They were too busy to notice me. I know from the news that you have an epidemic running through the hospital, but did anything strange happen, before then?"
"Not that we know of, but a tall man came by about an hour or two before those monsters showed up, and said that we should call the news because we were going to make headlines. I guess he was right about that," said the doctor, shrugging.
"Okay, I've got just one more question to ask."
"What is it?"
"Where's the bathroom?" Velma asked, leaning a little more forward in her private fight for bodily control.
"Down the hall and to the right," the receptionist chimed in.
"Thanks!"
Hurrying from the stall, Velma rushed to the sink to wash her hands. She knew that every moment she wasn't out on the courtyard giving her support in the fight was another chance of failure for her friends and the police, but she was brought up too well to break such healthy habits, so she endeavored to only rinse her hands, instead.
Absently, she mused about how good the bathroom's ventilation was, and gave a glance to the vent sitting on a high corner of a nearby wall. Immediately, her orderly mind gave a hiccup of incredulity. Something about it was off to her.
Carefully, Velma stepped upon the smooth sink nearest the wall, gathered her balance, and then, leaned across to the grate. The ventilation grill had its slats facing up, instead of down, telling her that it had been installed up-side down.
Peering closer, she saw that the head of one of the screws that had been painted over with the rest of the grill, had that paint torn from the bottom of that head, and the screw, itself, was inserted at a crooked angle. The grate was replaced in haste.
"Who'd want to fiddle with the ventilation?" Velma pondered. "It could just be maintenance, or maybe..."
She climbed off of the sink and quietly opened the bathroom door, looking out from her limited point of view in the doorway. There were a few nurses and a doctor or two walking through the hall, but more importantly, there wasn't a guard anywhere in the corridor.
Velma waited until the staff cleared the hallway, and then, she slipped out of the restroom, to search for another door in the immediate ground floor area.
With most of the people by the entrance still watching the battle outside, she took the opportunity to move further into the hospital's interior to find it.
Sauntering past staff, Velma decided that the door had to be situated centrally in the building, and so, she turned a corner that led to an elevator lobby, and on the other side of the passage was the door she sought. A metal door with the word 'Basement' stenciled on it.
She grasped the handle, hoped that it didn't set off an alarm, and then, stepped through.
Velma felt more like the fictional Dante, as she descended from one landing to the next, on her way to the sub-basement. On the wall of a level below her, were stenciled the letters HVAC, goading her to reach it.
She opened the door to find a large, noisy chamber walled with fans and huge conduits, generators and electrical equipment, monitoring computer consoles...and bodies on the cold, concrete floor.
Velma felt hesitant to walk any further into what looked like a crime scene, but in spite of the hum of machinery, she heard a faint groan come from one of the HVAC operators.
She rushed to him, helping him to turn over, so he could breathe better. After catching his breath, he came to ask, "What are you doing down here?"
"I wanted to see if there was anything in the ventilation system that's making the people sick," she explained, honestly.
The worker's eyes widened at the word 'ventilation.' "You have to leave! There's something in here! It came out and attacked us, when one of us heard something moving in one of the ducts!"
Velma looked around. The distracting noise of the place meant that she could only rely on her sight to watch out for this thing the man warned her about, so she forced herself to scan for any corner, any shadow, any detail out of the ordinary, which proved difficult, since this was her first time in this setting.
Off to a low corner, she saw a vent with its grill removed. Since it was done without damage, she surmised that it was the grate that one of the workers opened to investigate before the attack.
Then, a furtive movement from an operations console made Velma turn to see the impossible, a disembodied human arm crawling along it.
Velma then noticed an open tool box, nearby, and ran for it. She grabbed a large wrench in time to see the arm react to her presence, and catapult itself towards her, with sprung fingers.
She gasped at the distance it quickly covered from the launch, stepped back to adjust her swing, and batted the weighty arm from the air, with a grunt.
The appendage hit a wall near some generators, rolled over and used its fingers to drag the rest of the limb behind the power plants, using them as cover.
"You have to get out of here," the worker said, weakly.
"That thing is a clue," Velma argued, not seeing the arm creep up the curved side of a conduit, behind her. "Besides, I can't leave you, here."
The man, suddenly, noticed the movement, and pointed to the arm, as its fingers flexed for another launch.
"Look out!"
Velma turned to the general direction, behind her, but it was already in the air, and the arm's flight was too fast for her to react to. With a clumsy, hasty swing, she missed the incoming limb, as it bore its hand for her collared neck.
By reaction, she dropped the wrench to catch the arm by its strong, flexing wrist, but her fear to avoid its grasp made her back away, and then, stumble to the floor, still fighting to keep the hand from coming down to her throat, which it, slowly, began to do, by hard-fought inches.
Velma squeaked when she felt murderous fingers reach inside her sweater's collar, and brush eagerly against the skin of her throat. Then, as a change in tactic, a port in the center of its palm opened, allowing a clear mist to wisp out, as its hand now angled to grasp her face, instead.
Its fingers clenched in programmed desire to lock its palm tight against her mouth and nose and showed no signs of stopping. Velma, who was already going on pure adrenaline and terror, had no idea on how to destroy it, even if she managed to keep it from killing her.
A shadow fell across her and her struggle with the arm, as a woman's hand clamped down onto the forearm of the limb, and the other grabbed its wrist from the back.
"Okay, I got it!" she called out to another figure approaching them.
"I got you covered!" said the other figure, a male. "Throw it!"
The woman snatched the arm from Velma's desperate hold, and as it fought to free itself, the woman pitched the appendage into a far corner.
It rolled to right itself onto its fingers for another run, but then, a bullet tore through its thick forearm. The force of the shot flipped it over, spouting a cloud of clear steam from the bullet hole.
Surviving processors understood that it was still under attack, and continued to try and counter-attack, turning over, once again, this time, with more difficulty, and raising its fingers to pull it along for a suicide charge.
A barrage of bullets from the two security guards' service revolvers perforated the limb, and blew it into smoking, twitching pieces.
The woman guard helped Velma up and asked, "What are you doing down here? Cameras caught you coming down."
"There's something in the hospital...in the vents...that's making people sick," Velma explained between gasps of air. "That arm might have something to do with it. It tried to gas me."
"Radio it in," she told her partner. "And call some EMT's down here, too."
"One arm couldn't possibly make the whole hospital sick," Velma reasoned. "There's got to be more of them in the vents. Tell the staff that they have to open every window in the place. We've got to air it out, completely."
"You got it, but how do we deal with these arm things?"
"They're robotic," Velma said. "If it's not too late, there's a patient, admitted here, who might be able to help."
With that, Velma wearily walked over to the recovering worker, and helped him to his wobbly feet.
"I know this may be asking a lot of you, right now, sir," she told him, as she walked him over to an unmanned console. "But, I was wondering if you could...hit exhaust on this whole building?"
"I might," he admitted, feebly. "But, I'll need some help."
"Hey, I'm not going anywhere."
An Herb Hound rounded Daisy, after Red dispatched the Thorn Soldier that partnered it, losing his pruner from his hands in the process, when its teeth became stuck in the creature's neck stump, when it fell over.
The Hound scrambled and leaped up at a surprised Daisy, but instead of landing upon her and tearing through her, Red rammed his bulk into the beast, forcing it and him to fall to the ground.
"Red!" she yelled.
A terrifying tussle ensued where Red could only try to bear his weight down on the most flexible parts of the Hound he could find, in an attempt to break it, while the beast twisted, so its claws and teeth could find purchase in his body.
With a quick, fortuitous turn, the Hound managed to free itself from Red's grasp, faced him, and then, sank its thorn teeth into Red's shoulder, shaking its head to saw deeper into the flesh and force the teen on his back.
A yelling Red, held his ground, and then, held the Hound around its neck in an enraged bear hug, then he twisted his body and wrapped a leg around the creature's frame to gain more leverage, as he poured more strength and focus into the hug at the base of the neck, and drove his bleeding shoulder up against the bite to force the beast's head back, further and further...
There was a sudden crack near the beast's shoulders, as the flexible, wooden neck, finally, snapped at the base under the irresistible pull of the chokehold, and the extreme backward angle that the head was placed.
Red and the beast fell over, and only when she didn't think the creature would move any more, did Daisy run to an injured and tired Red.
"Why did you do that, Red?" she fretted, putting her hand over his shoulder wound to stop its flow. "I still had some weed killer in my tank, you dumb-dumb!"
"Spot was coming for you...and I guess I didn't think," he admitted, catching his breath. "Heck, you'd have to water me...like begonias, from all the dumb things...I've done before."
Her answer for his self-deprecation was to hug him. "Oh, stop it, Red. You've got a good head on your shoulders, and you know it. Besides, I happen like begonias, and you don't have to have brains to be beautiful."
"Hey, who are you callin' beautiful?" Red asked, wearily, in mock-challenge.
Daisy faced him and told him, squarely, "You, dumb-dumb." Then, she kissed him, gratefully, deeply, and then, he eagerly did the same.
The last of Marcie's herbicidal stream trickled upon the browning bulb-arm that tried to escape, its drying tendrils curling in its death throes.
All around the courtyard and walkway, friends and police stood in fatigued triumph over the remains of the felled Thorn Soldiers and Herb Hounds, and nothing on, or in the ground, stirred by their feet, as they congratulated themselves and took their collective ease.
A ringtone chimed in Marcie's wool jacket. She let the nozzle swing free to her side, as she reached for her phone.
"Hello."
"Marcie, it's me, Velma," said her friend, on the other end. "Good news! You were right about what was killing the patients. The staff is opening all the windows in the hospital, and I just helped accessed the hospital's environmental system to purge the fumes outdoors! We just saved the hospital!"
Marcie gave a grateful sigh, and had to grin at the level of their combined success. Even better than defeating the plant monsters, the people inside were safe, and would not be the newest victims of Greenman's mad crusade. This was a victory for the history books, even though, ironically, it was a history book that helped them.
"That's my girl!" she crowed. "Come on out, V! I'll be waiting for you!"
The gang had since departed, leaving the police and the town's tree removal crews to deal with the clean up.
A reporter from the number of news staff that had recorded the battle for posterity, crossed the street and headed for the sheriff, followed by a man hoisting a camera that the reporter glanced over to speak to.
"This is Rob Packman, CCN News! Until a few hours ago, Crystal Cove Hospital was the center of a siege held by a host of incredible plant monsters. But, that was before the heroism of Sheriff Bronson Stone and the brave men and women under his command, finally, broke that siege and freed the hospital. I'm here with the sheriff, himself, fresh from this incredible victory."
He pointed his microphone at a cock-sure Bronson Stone, and asked him, "Sheriff, tell us! How did you manage to destroy these creatures?"
Stone gave a theatrical sigh. "Well, Rob, believe it or not, I dealt with these creatures before, and I knew that the only way to deal with a plant monster is to prune 'em 'till there's nothing left. Yep, when I see a weed, I whack it."
"Stirring words, Sheriff, but what about the teenagers we saw fighting alongside you and your people. What can you tell us about them?"
Stone looked surprised. He didn't expect to be answering questions about those buttinskis, but his ego wanted to spin it, so that their positive presence in the fight was, somehow, his idea.
"Oh, them? They're...uh, just, uh, members of the department's new youth training program," he said, mendaciously. "Local law enforcement likes to train the next crop of fresh talent as early as it can, and I believe that on-the-job training is essential."
"So, the police department isn't worried about possible charges of child endangerment, then?" Packman asked, training his microphone in the sheriff's face, as it were a weapon, which in some journalistic respects, it was.
Stone visibly frowned. Now, that his egotism backfired on him, his moment in the sun was in jeopardy. When in doubt, he thought. Distance yourself.
"What? Did I say training?" he amended, hastily. "What I meant to say that they're just a bunch of nosey kids who took it upon themselves to interfere in a police matter. It's a good thing we were on hand to save them from the monsters, too. Now, if you'll excuse me, we have some more weeds to whack, and a sheriff's job is never done!"
"A fascinating account, Sheriff. Thank you for-"
A worried Stone leaned over to ask Packman, in a low voice, "Uh, that part about the training thing, that's not on record, is it?"
The reporter gave a self-satisfied stare into his camera. "This is Rob Packman, signing off."
"Marcie, you have to see your father," Velma said from the passenger seat of the parked Clue Cruiser. "Talk to him. Patch things up."
Marcie slumped in the driver's seat and sighed. "I want to, V, but we were so angry with each other, when I left. I just couldn't understand why he was so mad at me, when Greenman was the one who took the park away from him."
She bowed her head in painful memory, and added, "He said some...really hurtful things to me, and I just had to leave."
Velma reached over and put a supportive hand over Marcie's. "But now, you both had time to let things cool off. He probably wants to talk to you, too, but he might be too proud or ashamed of himself to make that first move. If you do it first, you'll prove to be the bigger woman in this. He'll see how mature you're taking this."
Marcie gave a glance of amazement towards her friend. The weight of her council sounded so solid, so mature in its own right, that it left her little room for doubt of its success.
"Listen to yourself, V," Marcie chuckled, incredulously, feeling a little better for it. "You sound like a school councilor. How do you know so much about things like that?"
Velma gave a knowing smirk. "When you've a teacher, like I was, you learn how to settle disputes between students and their parents, all the time. Now, go in there, Marcie Fleach, and make up with you father, or do I have to give you a time-out?"
"All right, all right, Miss Dinkley. I'll go," Marcie acquiesced with a sigh. "Jeez. You might not know this, but you're not a teacher anymore, you know."
"Girl, once a teacher, always a teacher. Now, go!" Velma said, ending with her pointing past Marcie to the house she parked in front of.
Glumly, Marcie stepped out of her car and walked with uncertainty up the walkway to her old home. Despite all of the adventures she had away from it, she needed the solace that only the familiarity of home could give her.
She approached the front door. If Winslow wasn't out shopping or socializing, then there was a good chance that he was at home, at least, that was what she hoped, as she raised her fist to knock on the door.
Her knuckles rapped on the door with enough force to be heard from inside, but the force pushed the door open, instead, making Marcie's innards chill with concern.
Stepping into the foyer, that concern was justified when she saw furniture, overturned and out of place, drapes hanging half-torn from their rods, and broken bric-a-brac littered across the floor.
"Dad!" Marcie called out into the silent house.
A moment later, the front door opened to admit Velma, who saw the mess of the house, and walked over to Marcie, worried.
"Did you call me?" she asked. "What happened?"
"I don't know. I just came in and the place was like this. I'm going upstairs. Could you check down here for me?"
"Yeah."
Marcie ran up the staircase, calling out for her father, checking every room, and even climbing up into the attic for him, but there was no one.
She walked back down the stairs, a pall of dread hanging over her, like overcast. She returned to the living room/foyer area, where she saw Velma waiting for her.
"Did you find anyone?" Marcie asked, unable to hide the fear in her voice.
Velma shook her head. "There was no one down here." Then, she handed her a folded letter with Marcie's name written on it, for her to take. "I saw this taped to the back of the front door. It's for you."
Marcie unfolded it. It was a simple message, but it, clearly, held the greatest of import to her.
"For my book and your interference," the note, ominously, read.
"Greenman," she whispered, crushing the letter. This war between them was far from over, and it claimed yet another soul on the scoreboard of people that she and the gang couldn't protect. "He's got my father, V."
Velma could only feel for her friend, feeling, ironically, blessed that her own family wasn't accosted, but she didn't want to upset Marcie with expected platitudes and empty words of comfort. So, she quietly walked up behind the grieving girl and held her. It was a gesture that proved far better than words, for the both of them.
The moment was then interrupted by the front door opening, once again, this time with two men in dark business suits filling the doorway and casting shadows on the two girls.
"Who are you?" Velma asked the intruders.
"Are we addressing Marcie Fleach?" asked the first suited man.
Marcie turned from her worries to face the men. "I'm Marcie Fleach. Who wants to know?"
"We're from Creationex. We were sent to bring you there. An important matter has come up, and you have been recommended at the highest levels of the company to handle it. Please, come with us."
Marcie gave a sad look around her violated home. There was no reason to stay. Her father was out there, alive, she hoped, and, strangely enough, these men's impromptu arrival was just the thing to momentarily shake her out of her despair. Somebody needed her. That was enough.
"C'mon, V. Let's see what they want," she said, as the two girls prepared to leave the foyer. The voice of one of the men stopped them in their tracks.
"Wait," he said, shaking his head. "Our representative only asked for you, Miss Fleach. I'm afraid that your friend can't come with us."
With a wintry look that was begat of fatigue, familial worry, and just plain insult, Marcie bore it down on the two men in the doorway.
"Look, you. My friend and I have had a very busy day trying to stop a madman, only to find out that said madman has kidnapped my father. Now, you two come out of nowhere, and tell me that some high muckety-muck from Creationex wants to see me, and I can't bring my friend along? Now, I like the company, but the way I see it is this, either she comes with me, or your boss can just manage without me. Understood?"
The two men in the threshold seemed to have a wordless conference for all of a few seconds of deliberation. Then, the first man, finally, said, "Fine. She can come with you."
As the two men parted to allow the girls to leave the stricken house, Marcie muttered under her breath, bitterly, "I thought so."