The drive to Quinn's plot of land was undertaken in world record time, in case anyone was recording that sort of thing. Brittany and Santana pulled up to the usual spot where Quinn's trailer was located. 'Somewhere quiet' had been the reason Quinn gave for moving to Perfection. Brittany suspected she had murdered someone and was in hiding but she was mildly scared to ask and Santana refused to ask for her. Another theory was simply because her bff Santana lived there, and Brittany S. Pierce couldn't argue with that.
Both Brittany and Santana, together and individually, had spent a lot of time up at the plot helping her build so they were a little surprised to find only the framework of the house there; the trailer and Quinn's car were missing. Without getting out of the truck they looked around, puzzled.
"Ahem."
Both women looked over to the rock face of the outcrop which ran along one side of Quinn's plot. Perched on a granite ledge only ten metres from the truck sat Quinn. She glared at them.
"She looks pissed," Brittany murmured. "It makes me sweat when she gets pissed."
Brittany leisurely turned the truck around so Santana's window faced Quinn and parked up next to the rock. Quinn levelled a death glare at them.
"Um," Santana shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Hey, Quinn. How're you? Good. So, it turns out there's some freaky shit in the ground."
"I am aware," Quinn said icily.
"You know?"
"I am sitting on a fucking rock and do you see my trailer or my car?"
Brittany looked around the plot but there was nothing but sand, rock and a stack of timber.
"Uh, no?"
"Look again."
Deep rutted tyre tracks in the sand were gouged across the plot then disappeared as though returned to the desert, erased in the wind.
"That 'freaky shit' doesn't like Dixie Chicks. It pulled my car under and tried to eat my radio. Then it came after me in my trailer. I had to climb out of the roof vent and watch as it imploded into the ground."
"Did you see it?" Brittany asked excitedly.
"Of course I didn't fucking see it, it's in the fucking ground."
"Don't talk to Britt like that." Santana snapped at Quinn, then said to Brittany. "If only it had tried to eat her house she'd have ripped it out of the ground and strangled it with her bare hands."
"I bet. Uh, you want to get in?" Brittany asked with a hopeful smile.
Quinn muttered angrily to herself giving the death glare to the dirt. "Under the ground."
"Quinn, get in the damn truck. Puck needs medical attention."
"What's wrong with him?" She jumped head first through the rear window and wriggled onto the back seat. "My med bag was in my car."
"Something chewed half his leg off probably the thing that came after you. Puck got away lucky."
"Lucky?"
"Schuester and Finn weren't so fortunate."
Quinn yelped and rolled onto the floor and Santana grabbed onto the seat as Brittany slammed her foot on the throttle and swerved off the track and off road.
"Britt, where are you going?"
"To my place. I have to get something, and check my readouts."
"Now? We need to get back to the store!"
"I know. I swear this is important."
"How much more important can it be than Puck's life?"
"All our lives are as important as Puck's. None of us will be alive if we don't get out of this valley. I have to get a signal out. We're being hunted by something that has deliberately trapped us in the valley with it. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. The valley is closed, the lines are down. We need to get help and we need to know what we're up against."
Santana stared out into the desert grimly hanging onto her shotgun as the truck bumped along the rough ground.
"I trust you."
As they rounded the ridge they could see Brittany's trailer in the distance surrounded by unusual pieces of machinery.
"What's this stuff for?" Santana asked curiously.
"I'm using the valley bowl as a receiver. The natural sand base is a good way to catch particles."
"What kind of particles?"
"Whatever comes flying out of the beginning of the universe."
Quinn and Santana exchanged a matching look of bewilderment.
"Um, how do you know if you've caught one?"
"Hold up, shit is being fired at us out of space?" Quinn pulled a face. "How long has this been going on?"
"Only forever. Don't worry about it, it's nothing bad just cool. I have multiple sensors dotted all over the valley. This one collates highly sensitive seismic activity. This past week… there have been strange readouts," she admitted with a deep sigh.
"I haven't had time to look at them closely and, to be honest, I assumed it was Finn working on the road or Sue having a mad half hour; they mess it up all the time with their explosions. But now… I'm not so sure."
Brittany pulled up next to large cube shaped piece of machinery fifty yards from her trailer and gingerly stepped out onto the ground. She looked around warily. Within three tiptoed steps she was at the device and pulling open a hatch. She pulled out a roll of paper printouts and hurried back to the truck.
The readouts were laid out over the dashboard and spread out three different sheets. They all looked at the seismograph printouts where ink sprawled across the paper in messy squiggles.
"Look. Here." Brittany pointed out a large abnormal fluctuation on one of the charts.
"Looks like Quinn's handwriting to me," Santana muttered. "What are we looking at, Britt? It's a big squiggle."
"I didn't know what it was, only that it's not the particle readout I was looking for so I wasn't too bothered. I figured Sue was firing off grenades or something. But look, here." Brittany pointed out another fluctuation on another sheet.
"This reading is from the sensor on the western ridge thirty minutes before this one on the southern side. And another seven minutes later to the north east." She pointed out multiple fluctuations on the readouts.
"What does that mean?" Quinn asked dreading the reply.
"We're in deeper shit that we thought. There are more than one of these things in the valley. There's at least three."
Quinn gritted her teeth and stared out over the valley floor. Santana looked horrified.
"What the ever loving fuck?" she spluttered. "Three of them! Are those things aliens? Did you know they were there?"
"No, of course not!"
"Is that why you're here?" Santana asked accusingly. "Is that why the men in black were looking for you?"
"No. You know why I'm here," Brittany said softly. When Santana didn't reply she turned and opened the door again.
"Will you stop walking on the ground?" Santana hissed furiously. "Where are you going?"
"I need to get something from my trailer."
"Uh, no you don't. We need to get back. Puck needs Quinn and Rachel Berry is loose in my store unsupervised. If she's touched my iPod and messed with my playlist I'll kill her."
"Just one thing." Brittany dashed over the rough ground toward her trailer and disappeared inside.
Santana cursed so hard even Quinn looked taken aback. She fumbled with the truck door then still hugging her shotgun ran after her shouting, "Brittany Susan Pierce, get back here!"
"No, no, no, it's fine," Quinn said quietly to the empty seats. "Just leave me here, it's not like we know if these things eat trucks. Fuck."
Santana stumbled up the step into the trailer, a few seconds later she had Quinn draped over her back. They stopped in the doorway and watched as Brittany adjusted her ponytail through the battered faded NASA cap now on her head.
Quinn spluttered. "Is the hat necessary? We're being hunted by aliens and you're accessorizing?"
Brittany winked at her then rummaged through a drawer.
"Where did you get that hat?" Santana eyed it suspiciously.
"Space camp."
"You went to space camp?" Quinn gasped enviously. "I always wanted to go there. My mom made me go to cheerleading camp instead," she huffed.
"Not exactly, I didn't 'go' to camp, I was an instructor." Brittany began searching through another drawer pulling items out by the handful and chucking them to the side. "Besides, if you hadn't gone to cheer camp then you wouldn't have met me," Brittany dorkily waggled her eyebrows at Quinn.
Santana scowled and elbowed Quinn in the ribs and shoved her back out the door then went further into the trailer.
"Was that necessary?" Quinn squeaked, rushing back inside. "Fuck, you've got a bony elbow. I bet you sharpen them."
"We'll be coming back to what happened at cheer camp at a later time but for now … you worked for NASA?" Santana asked while Quinn wheezed for air.
"Work. I'm on sabbatical."
Santana stared at her open mouthed.
"Sweet baby Jesus in a fig roll. Your girlfriend's an astronaut, Santana. Did you know this? Hell, I'd have snapped her up first if I'd known."
"I am going to remind you, Fabray, that I have a shotgun and if I wasn't saving it for the fugly ass alien dirt kraken it would be up your ass already."
"They're not aliens," Brittany muttered without looking up still concentrating on her search.
"Well, turns out you're the expert!" Santana gestured wildly waving her shotgun around. "And never mentioned it in any kind of comprehensive English."
"Ohhh," Quinn watched wide eyed sensing drama.
"Aha!"
Brittany grabbed a small four inch metallic cylinder with a red plastic cap at one end. She raised it triumphantly and grinned at the women watching her.
"Here come the cavalry!"
She slammed her fist down smashing the red end down on the stove. The thin plastic cap shattered and the cylinder immediately began to emit a beeping noise. Pots and a frying pan rattled and one tumbled to the ground with the force of her blow crashing onto the cat's dishes below.
"Whoops!"
To their dismay the trailer began to tremble and the exterior steps quickly sank into the sandy dirt below.
"Time to go."
Brittany led the way through the shaking trailer into the small bedroom at the back and scrambled out the window. Situated next to the trailer for its shade was an outcrop of large boulders fairly common across the local area. In an undignified scramble they ran to the nearest rock and climbed up the face until they were perched at the high point twenty feet off the dirt.
Clinging to each other in a dusty trembling group, the women watched as the trailer sank as though bogged down in quicksand. When half of it was submerged the movement stopped as the creature responsible became uninterested in the non-edible object.
"I bet that's the dickshit that ate my trailer. You damn shithead!" Quinn yelled at the now still trailer and danced hopping mad on top of the rock. "I hope you get metal splinters and septicaemia, dirtsucker!"
"You tell it, Quinn!" Santana snorted.
"Quiet!" Brittany watched the area with a frown. "It can hear us. It can't travel through the rock but it can hear us. The rock must transmit the vibrations."
"I wonder if they can climb outside of the dirt."
"Why would you put that thought out there into the universe?"
Later on no one would admit to who let out the ear spitting shriek that occurred as the monster erupted from the dirt at the base of the rock. Like a scene from a low budget sea world horror flick it reached halfway up the solid rock, its fat grub-like body writhing as fat hairs along its flank tried to find a grip on the rock. Ten foot of the grub flailed and thrashed against the rock, it was impossible to tell how much of it remained under the ground.
When it realised it wasn't getting anywhere the creature opened its mandibles, an insect like shiny beak, and six tentacles extended further up the rock reaching another six foot higher. Each snake like tentacle had its own individual mouth which snapped and lunged at the women perched just out of reach.
It bellowed as Santana emptied shotgun cartridge after cartridge into its open maw. Three tentacles were blasted clean away from the mouth and the others quickly retreated back into the main body. The large grub-like body wriggled and writhed, a piercing shriek emitting from it as the monster sank back into the ground. The sandy dirt settled smoothly over the top of it and apart from the orange blood spatters on the rock face there was no further sign of the creature.
"Now we know," Santana squeaked. "Now we know what it looks like and that is butt ugly."
"I didn't need to know. I'm not sure I needed to see that. I could have gone for longer not seeing that." Quinn's hands were white with the force she was gripping on Brittany's jacket.
Brittany stared at the ground in amazement.
"That was so freakin' awesome." Quinn slapped her on the arm. "Apart from the eating people part."
Sometime later….
Quinn picked up a fist sized rock and threw it at the sandy crater the grub had created. A snake tentacle popped up like a periscope and bit down on the rock shaking it about like a dog with its favourite toy then spat it out with disgust and slid back into the sand.
"It must get sand everywhere," Santana mused. "In its mouth, in its tinier mouths, up its butt, on its food, everywhere."
"One was at the pass, the one that got Fi-" Brittany paused "-Schuester and Puck. There's one here, where's the third?"
"Get the fuck out of there, trailer trash!" Quinn screamed at her newfound mortal enemy who, as evidenced by the rippling sand was now investigating around the end of the trailer.
"What was the red thing you smashed?" Santana asked Brittany as they sat on the top of the rock watching Quinn berate the monster.
"An emergency beacon. If a satellite was passing it'll be picked up."
"By who?"
"NASA. My boss at NASA, she's um…. She likes to be prepared."
"Your boss gave you an emergency distress pulse beacon thing that links straight to NASA? Who the fuck are you?"
"Brittany S. Pierce," Brittany S. Pierce smirked. "I reckon we've got until not long after dawn before Sugar comes a calling."
"Sugar?"
"My boss. Sugar Motta, Director of Theoretical Experimental Department."
"Sounds like a stripper," said Quinn, sitting down next to them.
"Is that who those guys in suits were?" Santana asked. "Do they work for your boss?"
"I don't know. You scared them off," Brittany grinned. "I mean, she's been trying to get me to go back to work but my experiments here have been keeping her off my back. The patchy comms in this valley were driving her mad. She even sent me a snail mail letter. I've never seen such angry longhand."
"We have to get off this rock before your rescuers get here," Quinn sighed. "I need to check on Puck and we also have the tiny problem of having no water in the middle of the desert."
"That thing probably knows we're still here because you keep bitching at it," said Santana.
"Fuck you, why don't you run over there and bring the truck closer?" Quinn retorted.
The trailer groaned and settled even deeper into the desert. The setting sun reflected red and gold off the remains.
"Maybe it'll get bored and just go away on its own."
As the sun rose over the valley Santana woke up with sand in her mouth, back ache and a crick in her neck. She was warm apart from her legs which were bare but found her top half was covered with Brittany's denim jacket. She was snuggled next to a still snoring Quinn. Santana made sure to elbow her hard as she sat up and looked around for Brittany.
"Morning," Brittany smiled from the highest point of the rock she was perched on. A small pile of stones lay next to her. She picked one out and threw it out onto the sand. The sand churned and let out a hiss and a puff of dust.
"It's still there," she sighed, coming back over to sit next to Santana.
"Will Sugar be here soon?" Santana asked as she draped the jacket over the two of them.
"She'll re-task satellites to watch us now that its daylight but she'll just see us sitting on a rock. I don't know what she'll think. Last time I had one of those distress thingies Lord Tubbington chewed the end and set it off. Sugar was so mad she sent him to cat obedience classes. It wasn't pretty."
"We can't wait any longer, Britt. We need to get Quinn to Puck."
They sat in silence and stared out into the desert as the sun slowly rose and the temperature lifted.
"Have you ever been in space?"
"No." Brittany smirked. "Would you date me if I was an astronaut?"
Santana nudged her. "Shut up."
"I'll ask as soon as we get out of this. Sugar owes me. Hey Sugar, I need to go into space to impress a girl."
Santana rolled her eyes and sighed. "You don't need to impress me."
Britt smiled at her. "First, we'll have to distract the beast so we can get to the truck."
"Distract it how?"
Brittany leaned into her. "You're very distracting, you tell me."
"I need coffee if you're going to be like this." Quinn sat up bleary eyed and rubbed her face. "I had a dream about how to kill it."
"That's great, Quinnie, are you going to share with the rest of the class?"
Quinn looked around the rock before leaning in towards the other two and whispering. "You're going to act as bait and I'm going to get that gas bottle," she said pointing to the small gas canisters Brittany used for cooking. They were scattered away from the trailer knocked onto their side on the ground. "Then I'm going to shove the bottle down its throat and you're going to shoot it in the face, and boom. I also had a bacon sandwich in this dream."
"Why are you whispering?" Brittany asked, perplexed.
"So the bad guy can't hear the plan."
Santana snorted.
"That's insane," Brittany and Santana said at the same time.
"We're not going to risk shoving gas down its throat," Brittany said sensibly. "We're going to get the truck and run away."
"Who's the fastest?" Santana asked.
"I am," said Brittany.
"Clearly you've never seen Santana run for the bathroom after eating 3 tacos for a dollar."
"For fucks sake, Quinn." Santana couldn't meet Brittany's eye.
Brittany thought it better not to ask for now. "Look, I'm the fastest. Santana will cover both of us with the gun. Quinn you're the distraction."
"Rock paper scissors."
"Face it, you'll never get that gun off Santana without someone getting shot, and just think, you can tell that creature exactly what you think of it. Head for that rock over there," Brittany pointed to another large boulder embedded in the desert dirt about a hundred metres away. "Make as much noise as possible and when it goes after you I'll run for the truck."
"My dream plan was better than running. I hate running."
"One time you dreamt you were a ball of cheese and would roll across the valley like a tumbleweed building up speed until you used the valley sides as a half pipe." Santana pointed out.
"That was a top 5 dream and I'd been smoking weird shit with Puck. Shit, Puck!" she groaned. "Give me the gun. If it's going to run after me I want the gun."
"Over my dead body," Santana hugged her shotgun tighter.
"There's no guarantee it will follow you," Brittany pointed out. "And you need to concentrate on running."
Quinn jumped up and down on the rock and let out a snarl.
Santana and Brittany took a step back in tandem.
"Eat my trailer, eat my car, I'll eat you, you filthy turd licking dirt fucker!" Quinn let out a piercing scream of rage jumping up and down on the rock. "You want a piece of this?" she slapped her chest and screamed.
"Oh my god, what have we done?" Santana gasped in wonder.
Without a warning Quinn bolted down the side of the rock opposite to the site of the trailer and ran out onto the dirt. Brittany looked over at the crater the grub had been hiding in and saw the sand trickle slowly.
"It's moving," she warned.
Quinn screamed and ran like a bat out of hell tearing across the dirt. Santana winced as she watched her trip over a tuft of grass and land on her face.
Brittany watched the sand ripple as the beast began to follow her.
Quinn scrambled to her feet and ran, screeching, "Come and get me mother fucker!"
"It's fast. Like, are they supposed to be that fast?" Santana pondered, watching the dust plumes puff up. She watched as Quinn made it up onto the rock with seconds to spare as the grub burst out from the dirt and the smaller snake headed tentacles snapped at Quinn's feet. She kicked one in the face then rolled out of reach on top of the rock. Quinn began to cheer for herself whooping and hollering making as much noise as possible.
"I guess with the right motivation anyone is capable of running," Santana said, turning to talk to Brittany. Who wasn't there? Santana looked over to the truck to see Brittany pull open the door and dive into the driver's seat.
She laughed at the sight.
"I'm king of the world you bristly grubshit!" Quinn yelled behind her.
Santana's smile faded as the truck remained silent. Brittany stuck her head out of the window and looked across at her.
"The keys are in my jacket!" she yelled.
Santana felt the pockets of the oversized denim jacket she was wearing, she had had to roll the sleeves up to fit her. She pulled the truck keys out of her right pocket and held them up helplessly for Brittany to see.
Santana looked back at Quinn who was running up and down the rock keeping the creature occupied and snapping at her heels.
"Aww shit." Santana shouldered her shotgun, tightened her shoelace and ran.
Quinn was now spitting at the grub. A big gob of it landed on its head.
"Yeah, your daddy should have done us all a favour and- Hey!" The grub sank back into the earth. "Where you going? We were just getting to know each other."
She looked over to the other rock to see Santana running for the truck.
"What? That's not in the plan! Hey fuckwit, get back here!" She yelled at the retreating wave of sand that was targeting Santana. "No, get back here!"
Quinn watched in horror as it rapidly gained on her.
"Surprisingly fast for a worm," Quinn said to herself. "Shit," she whispered, unable to do anything but watch.
Brittany jumped out of the truck and ran for the nearest gas canister. There would be no time to start the truck and get away. As Santana ran head long for the open driver's door Brittany climbed up on the hood of the truck and held the canister over her head. She watched the sand and dust plumes bear down on Santana.
The grub burst out of the ground rearing up in the air in front of the truck and aiming for Santana who was fumbling with her shotgun. Before it could lunge Brittany threw the gas tank into the open jaws. The creature hesitated in its attack on Santana contemplating the morsel in its throat.
"Shoot her!" Brittany screamed.
Santana jumped backwards into the open truck and fired the shotgun directly into the monsters mouth. The gas canister ignited instantly.
Brittany was blown backwards over the side of the truck with the force of the blast. She hit the dust with a thud that winded her and cringed as grub guts splattered over her. Santana was more fortunate being shielded from the blast and the monster chunks by the windshield as blood and guts rained down over the local area.
Shocked at the explosion Santana struggled to her feet and ran around the truck to Brittany, throwing herself down at her side, knees scraping the dirt. She held her shaking arms out checking Brittany for injury.
Brittany was grinning wildly at the carnage, wiping guts off her shirt. She sat up slowly and raised her hand up to Santana's tear streaked face.
"It's okay, I'm okay. We did it," she said softly. Santana looked her up and down shaking at the sight of orange blood and splatter all over Brittany. "It's not my blood, I promise, mine's red."
With her assurance she wasn't hurt Santana threw herself into Brittany's arms hugging her tightly and sobbing.
In the distance they could hear Quinn whooping triumphantly from the top of her rock.
"We will never hear the end of Quinn's dreams from now on," Brittany said, holding Santana.
Santana snorted into her neck and held her tighter.