by Shadoe Masters
"Hey, what about this?" Jodi said. She held up an old hose sprayer attached to a length of pipe. The other women looked at her blankly. "We could make a.... flamethrower, maybe?"
Nancy and Kylie exchanged a glance.
"You're right," Jodi said. "That'd never work." She set it down and continued rummaging through the scattered debris beneath the workbench. "Here's some more bottles." She brought three more empty beer bottles to the center of the garage and set them down on the floor with the rest. "Does he leave them everywhere?"
"Apparently," Kylie said, setting down the five she carried. "Have you not introduced him to the wonders of a trash bin?"
"I will when he gets back," Jodi said, her voice determined.
"Well, what've we got?" Nancy said, setting down two full gas cans next to the growing pile.
"A lot of junk," Kylie said.
"And almost three cases of beer bottles," Jodi added.
"I found a first aid kit," Nancy said, indicating the box she'd set on the floor near the front door.
"In case one of those monsters gnaws one of our legs off, we'll have a band-aid ready?" Kylie asked.
"Exactly," Nancy replied. "And, one of the survival kits Burt put together for us." She added that to the pile as well. "That should come in handy."
"You want to tell us why we've been gathering up all these bottles?" Jodi asked.
"I think I know," Kylie said with a smile.
Nancy nodded. "Let me introduce you to Molotov cocktails." She grabbed a bottle and a can of 10-W30 motor oil. "Fill it a little with--"
"What's that?" Kylie said, crossing to the side window.
"What?" Nancy said, following her.
"I hear music," Kylie replied.
"I don't see anything," Nancy said.
"I hear it too!" Jodi said. "It's getting louder."
"Has to be Rosalita," Nancy said, as she also hear the music. "She always plays her radio that loud."
Kylie went to the door and opened it, after taking a cautious glance around. "I'll signal her. She can drive us all right out of here."
Rosalita's light blue Mustang came into view around the corner of Nancy's house. Kylie waved her arms, but Rosalita showed no signs of seeing her. Nancy and Jodi joined her at the window and shouted. All to no avail; the car's radio was too loud.
Something must have caught her eye, though, because she looked toward them and sent them a cheery wave as she pulled off the road, aiming for the gas pump.
"Oh my gosh!" Jodi cried. "Isn't one of those traps right there?"
"Yeah," Kylie said, signaling Rosalita to back off.
But Rosalita didn't figure out Kylie's warning in time. Just as a puzzled frown crossed her face at their strange behavior, the front of her car plunged down into a hole in front of the gas pump.
She screamed and slammed on the brakes, then shifted the car into reverse. It was too late. The back wheels were already off the ground.
"Here," Kylie said, thrusting the shorter of the two swords at Nancy. She'd dashed back to Tyler's desk for the swords as soon as Rosalita's car started to tip into the hole. Now she led Nancy across the street, carefully testing the ground for holes as they went.
Rosalita was already out of her car, trying to simultaneously climb out of the loose sand her car had fallen into and dodge one of the beetles that had hurried over as her car approached the pump.
Then Kylie was there, swinging the daito at the creature's back legs, severing them instantly. "Hurry!" she shouted.
Rosalita didn't waste time. She scrambled away from the loose sand and got behind Kylie.
While Nancy jabbed at it, Kylie hacked off another of its legs, then swung around to slash it through the middle of its vulnerable underside as it toppled sideways.
Nancy dragged a stunned Rosalita back toward Tyler's garage, but Kylie hesitated. "Kylie! Come on!"
Kylie was examining the ground between the pump and the store's front porch. "We could make it!" she shouted.
Then there were three more creatures - two from one side of the store, and another that had dug his way out of the hole at the other side. For another heartbeat, Kylie hesitated.
Then the creature who'd been in the hole under Rosalita's Mustang crawled out from under the car.
"Oh shit!" she cried, and dashed after the other two.
Jodi held the door open while the three hurried to outrun the trailing monsters.
"Madre del Dios!" Rosalita shouted after Jodi had slammed the door between them and the monsters. "What the hell are those things?"
"Something Mixmaster dreamed up, no doubt," Nancy said.
"Where's your radio?" Kylie asked.
"On the passenger seat, in my car," Rosalita said.
"Great," Jodi commented.
"Back to Plan A," Nancy said. She turned toward the pile of junk in the middle of the garage. Jodi and Kylie followed with Rosalita trailing behind.
"What's Plan A?" Rosalita asked. "We have a plan?"
A short while later, the women had assembled a neat case of beer bottles filled with an incendiary mixture of gas and motor oil, and topped off by loose rags from around the garage.
"Just light and throw," Nancy explained, getting to her feet.
"For a pacifist, you sure know a lot about bombs," Rosalita said, helping Kylie carry the case toward the sliding doors at the front of the building.
"Radical friends," Nancy explained with a reminiscent smile.
"I think I've got their pattern figured out," Jodi called from the side door. She'd been keeping watch from the window.
"They have a pattern?" Kylie asked as they carefully set the box down then joined her at the window.
Jodi nodded. "It's the traffic lanes. "If you know what to look for, you can see their traps. Now look where they all are." While the other three examined the ground, Jodi explained. "In front of the store and beside it, where everyone parks, next to the gas pump, where Tyler usually parks the tour jeep, even the path where you guys usually cross the street to get to the store."
Sure enough, the highest concentration of traps were where people usually walked.
"They have some way of sensing this," Kylie said. "Great."
"Let's get rid of them," Nancy said.
All four went to the main garage doors and got ready. "Who's got a lighter?" Nancy asked. From the expressions that passed around the circle, that was the one tiny detail they hadn't thought of.
"I know!" Jodi quickly went to the barrel she'd dragged up next to the desk where she'd thrown out the trash and other items she decided Tyler didn't need to keep. She dug through the contents for a moment then emerged and hurried back over to the door. "Here," she said, handing a red lighter to Nancy - who grinned at the naked woman on it.
Kylie and Rosalita picked up a bottle each while Jodi slid the doors open. "This is making an awful lot of noise," she said.
"It's all right. We want them to hear us this time," Kylie reminded her. "The closer they are, the more we'll hit."
"Just be sure you don't hit the gas pumps," Jodi reminded them. "Or the store!"
"And be sure to throw them as soon as they're lit," Nancy added.
"Gotcha," Rosalita said. "Here they come!"
Kylie and Rosalita stepped out onto the small lip of cement that made the ramp into the garage. Nancy lit Rosalita's bottle, then Kylie's, and both women threw their bottles at the advancing creatures while they were still across the street.
With a loud whoosh, the bottles exploded, both missing their first targets, but one landed close enough to set the creature afire. It writhed and shook, but eventually fell and died.
"Oh yeah!" Kylie shouted, reaching into the garage for another bottle.
"This is really going to work!" Jodi said, handing up bottles to both Rosalita and Kylie.
Nancy lit the makeshift fuses again and the two younger women threw them, this time both hitting their targets. By the time those hit, they were ready with two more. One direct hit this time, the oil in the firebomb coating the creature's thick upper shell and spreading the fire in a thick layer across it's back. The beetle did the unexpected, however.
Diving quickly for the hole in front of it, it vibrated itself underground and put out the flame, then emerged to continue the advance. The next two creatures did the same. Then the creatures were too close, so the women ducked back into the garage and slammed the doors shut.
"Did you see that?" Kylie shouted. "Did you see that? The damn thing survived a firebomb!"
"What are we going to do now?" Jodi asked, the fear plain on her face.
"This is crazy," Rosalita added. "How are we going to get out of here if they can put out our weapons?"
"We'll think of something," Nancy said, ever the calm, mother figure. The worry on her face belied that calm, though.
"So we're stuck here indefinitely," Rosalita complained.
"Only until Burt comes back and calls us a 'bunch of girls'," Kylie pointed out gloomily.
"I think what Burt will call us is the least of our worries," Nancy reminded her.
"Well," Jodi said, heading toward the back of the garage, "at least Tyler finally fixed the plumbing." She went into the tiny bathroom behind the "office" area, but had only been in there a moment when they heard, "Aaarrgh!"
All three women ran to the rescue, but Jodi's face showed only aggravation - not the terror they'd expected - when she came out.
"There's no toilet paper!" she complained.
"Just like a man," Rosalita said with a smirk.
"Here, use this," Nancy said, holding up a newspaper she'd found next to Tyler's desk.
"I don't think so," Jodi replied. She looked around then picked up one of Tyler's shirts she'd dug out from under the couch and headed back to the bathroom.
That lifted their spirits.
"Okay, look..." Kylie began, as she paced around the garage, examining the pile of parts they'd already assembled, as well as the piles and piles of junk everywhere. "We've got to have another option. We have a ton of possible weapons in this building. We've just got to... do what we can with what we've got."
Nancy shook her head. "You sound more like Burt every day."
Kylie grinned. "And as soon as I come up with a Burt-inspired plan, you'll be glad I do."
Burt stepped into his room, a markedly grim expression on his normally serious face. He set a trophy on the dresser just inside the door and promptly forgot about it as he crossed the room to the com link set up next to the bed. He flipped it on to check the signal, but got back nothing.
"Almost 1500 hours," he muttered, checking his watch. She would have set it up by now. Kylie was a little too... casual toward procedure, true, but she never just ignored her responsibilities. She knew he was waiting for her to set that up so he could test the system.
So why wasn't it set up?
It could be just a malfunction, nothing to worry about.
But it had worked fine in the valley. There was no reason for it to malfunction.
She could have set it up wrong. He'd tried to go over it with her...
He frowned. No, Kylie knew that system. He had to admit that.
So what was going on?
For the first time, Burt wished for cell-phone towers in the valley. He had a very bad feeling about this. Something was definitely wrong. Very wrong.
Or the satellite just wasn't working.
He was out of his room and locking the door before he knew it. There was a pay phone at the end of the hall. He took a chance and called Chang's. The lines were still down.
Shaking his head, he dialed Twitchell's number. Maybe he'd stayed home this week after all. Or maybe his wife, Lisa, could just go check...
But there was no answer there, either.
He considered calling Sam, but hesitated. The sheriff had already started ribbing him about his "infatuation" for the much-younger Kylie. He didn't want to add any fuel to that fire.
Still, it wouldn't hurt to have him check in on the girls while he and Tyler were gone.
"Ready for round two, Gummer?"
Jim Duckett clapped him on the back, his friendly smile intruding on Burt's deliberations.
He turned, shifting his mind back to the match, and checked his watch. "Is it time already?"
"Yup," Jim told him. "You showed 'em old Gummer hasn't lost his touch in the easy rounds. Let's see what you've got for the big boys."
"I think I can show you a thing or two," Burt said. He scooped his quarters out of the phone and slipped them back in his pocket.
Kylie was right, he thought. He worried too much. She was armed and capable, and if anything had happened, she'd've called him here from the bunker. She had the number.
This was the first vacation he'd had in months. He intended to enjoy himself. He needed to just stop thinking about that woman for a few days. He'd be fine.
"Let me just pick up my rifle," he told Jim with a feral grin.