Colony
by SpunSilk
Part seven: Thorns
My life is part humor, part roses, part thorns.
–– Bret Michaels
"Get a move on, Edward R." I said, in the morning.
Edward R. Murrow blinked at me, and stretched out to what seemed to be five full feet on the wool rug. I laid a small block of Spam on the floor near the cool fire ashes. He took to eating with gusto.
Moving was hard that morning, I felt like I had really tied one on the night before, but of course I hadn't. Was consuming fresh meat really so hard on a body? For the first time since arriving out here, I actually felt sick. I didn't even make the connection until my check-up that morning. The tennis balls had news for me – my breath caught, and I stared in dismay. The haze had made a jump; turquoise suddenly had filled half of my view. Colony. Colony was working through their life-cycle. Working through it on my energy. It was happening. The Colony infection wasn't something I could ignore away.
Damn.
My own mortality stared back at me in that haze. For a few seconds I sat in shock. Any notion I had held of Colony infection not being able to survive on human aura energy, faded. The incredible isolation of this place suddenly felt very, very cold.
Then my fighter spirit flared. It was the Bronx all over again. Screw this! I was a survivor. I would not submit. It may kill me in the end, but not until then! That thought alone gave my energy level a boost. I would live my life just as I wanted – for however long I still had; I swore it. Hey, my condition wasn't so bad, I could function just fine. Hell, there had been many a morning I had awoken in worse shape than this – and by my own hand too, I might add! I took a deep breath and climbed out from the triangle to face my day, and my fate, on my terms.
When I set out that morning, the cat was keen to follow along. "Scram," I told him. He ignored my suggestion, and padded along silently behind me. "I'm going all the way over to the structures, fool, and spending the day there. Go back. You'll get lost." Maybe he was looking for some adventure. Maybe he enjoyed my company. Nah, he likely smelled the beef jerky in the lunch I carried in a cloth. "Turn around!" I insisted.
But there was no instructing this cat; he did exactly as he pleased. As we left the area of the cabin, he did eventually slip cautiously into the brush on the side of the path, but he kept pace with me silently and was never far, as I made my way toward the mystery I had spotted the day before. It was unnerving how he silently, stealthily, mirrored me along the path. Sometimes I would be convinced he had thought better of the walk, and gone back, then suddenly there he was again – for just a second before he vanished again in the undergrowth.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
The foundation was just where I had left it. I had a crow bar from the cabin with me this time, and with the aid of a good tool I was able to pull the thick thorn-vines off and see what was underneath. What I found surprised me. I had expected to find the wood beneath the thorn-vines to be grey and weathered; weakened with age to the point that the structure had fallen under its own weight, and then been covered slowly over by this thorn plant, the plant taking full advantage of the newly-opened patch of available sun where there had once been a house. But that wasn't the story the wood told. From the manner the beams lay, it appeared more that the house was broken. That's the best adjective I have. The wood was more structurally sound that I would have guessed, and it was splintered at violent angles.
How old was this ruin, then? I pulled off more vines. Edward R. Murrow had gotten bored with my project soon after we arrived and had chosen, instead of helping me, to pounce on various and sundry vermin that skittered through the undergrowth. The malicious thorns were thick around the ruin, but in the end, I proved more stubborn than they. I cleared away enough area to move some of the wall planks and peer below.
Lifting the wooden planks revealed... more wooden planks. I dug deeper. If I didn't know better, I would have said the house looked... crushed. I pondered this conundrum. I glanced over to the stone structure. Possibly a barn? Its walls still stood, although the roof had collapsed, and I trotted over to see what clues it could give me. The roof now consisted of a thick layer of thorn-vine, as I had seen yesterday but with the help of the crow bar, today I was able to work my way inside. The thorn-vines held their choke-hold over this structure, too. Thick and hard they were, and by now I had more than a few red welts from thorn pricks on my hands and arms, and more than a few snags in the seersucker of my suit.
But I eventually got my reward. I worked my way beneath the fallen roof and if I sat down, I could wriggle in a bit and explore the 'ground floor' which was mostly ground (which amused me). As I pulled out my flashlight, Edward R. Murrow suddenly landed in my lap, and I cried out in surprise. He slipped nimbly between the fallen criss-crossed beams to explore in farther back where I could not. "Hey!" I groused. "Where are you going with your tail held so high? I didn't see you doing any of the heavy lifting to open this place up!" He ignored me.
I shone the flash light beam into the far corners, a few wooden and metal tools lay about – and I saw the bones.
My breath caught, but once my brain caught up with my eyes I could make out that they were livestock skeletons. A dozen or so animals; cows or sheep or some such, animal husbandry's not my field. Were they caught when the roof collapsed? Must have been quite a storm. Why wouldn't their farmer have dug them out? Unless this roof collapsed on the same night as the house... Then he would have had other troubles on is mind...
It was a real head-scratcher. I chose a rusty handsaw that lay on the floor, with the intention of using it to further open the opening I had made back at the house. But when I turned to wriggle back out into the sun, I found three thorn-vines blocking my way.
Wait a minute...
I eyed the vines suspiciously. That's not right... I ripped that opening clear... I tried to push them back out of the way.
They were firm.
Holy Smokes! Ice water surged through my veins as I realized what was happening. "Edward R!" I called, my voice register higher than normal. "Come'ere!" I lay into the sturdy vines with the old handsaw, and cut for all I was worth. As I did, I watched with amazement as new vines grew in from the sides – before my very eyes – reaching towards each other to close the opening I had made. These thorn-vines were bewitched! The handsaw cut into the woody vines like a shark's tooth – spurred on, as it was, by the adrenaline in my blood. The cat and I both managed to pass out of the barn, accompanied by the sound of bits of my suit ripping on new-grown thorns, as the opening I had created not 15 minutes earlier calmly closed itself behind me. I rolled up, breathing hard and shaking, starring at the mound of vines. Standing right between my feet, Edward R. Morrow's tail twitched as he too stared warily at the mound, but he said nothing.
I gripped the handsaw tightly and watched as the vines stretched and connected, and resolutely refilled the opening with vicious thorns on woody vines. I glanced over to the collapsed house structure. By now I wasn't surprised to find the area I had cleared on the house had also 'healed' itself.
By mutual agreement, we decided to leave the area.