Only mother had the size and strength to slice a grown man in half with her tail. I knew this before I even saw her sleek giant shape shaking Mr. Hansen's mutilated corpse aside like an unwanted puppet.
"No!" Rebecca moaned, tears pouring down her cheeks. "No no no no!"
Behind mom, Spike Head pushed through the corn stalks.
Mom's still feeding her young, I thought sadly. If only she knew how precious human life truly is.
Still, no time to grieve lost souls, theirs, or Mr. Hansen's. I whirled and faced the girls. "(Manna)! Run!"
Breaking Mrs. Hansen's rules, we hastily rushed through the foliage, stomping, bending, and otherwise abusing anything green that got in our path. Dead humans don't need air.
Sarah wailed as she half ran, half staggered away from Mom. Rebecca also looked sad, but it wasn't her dad, so she remained somewhat focused. Still, her eyes watered like broken faucets.
Along the way, the security card, back on my tail, got snagged on an oak branch and some corn plants, flying off.
I couldn't afford to stop and get it. Mom could easily skewer the children like she did Mr. Hansen, and I had no clever distractions to prevent it. I could only hope to find another way out, or run a circuit and come back for the card.
I skirted a rabbit hutch, came close to knocking it over. The girls stumbled.
We kept going, stopping when we reached the entrance.
"Where's the card key?" Rebecca asked me.
"Lost it. Is there another way to open this door?"
Sarah sniffed and nodded, pointing to a release button on the side of the door.
The moment I raised a claw to touch it, something banged against the exterior, a bumpy claw scraping against the dirty glass.
I jumped back with a start.
A clump of wheat rustled, and Hissandra's spotty dome emerged from the sheaves.
Quoting Bugs Bunny, I hissed, "Exit, stage left. (Judas)."
Unfortunately, as we raced that way, and my family closed in, Pug Face came darting around the hutch and out through the stubby soybean plants. The girls sobbed in tandem.
"Hey!" a voice screamed.
A series of loud metallic clanging sounds followed. "Over here!"
Mrs. Hansen stood on a staircase, beating the steps with a heavy robotic arm from a farming machine.
"Mom?" Sarah whimpered.
My mom and sisters all whirled to look at her.
"Watch them," my mom growled to Pug Face.
She and her children padded off after the source of the disturbance.
We only faced Sydjea now. It didn't make things any easier. I gestured for the girls to get back, retreating into a plot of sunflowers and soybean plants.
"Sarah?" I pointed to a nearby cornfield. "Is there another exit this way?"
She didn't speak. She could only sob, gasping for air as we ran.
"Sarah? (Jesus)."
Sarah shook her head no, wheezing in between sobs.
"The reservoir is back there," Rebecca said. "There's nothing but sprinkler controls and a rock wall."
As entertaining as it would have been to give Sydjea a bath, it would accomplish nothing. I sighed in frustration. "Let's keep going. Maybe we can find a (Jehoshaphat), a weapon or a place to hide."
Mrs. Hansen, with seeming tirelessness, continued to yell and bang things. I wondered how long she could keep it up.
"Baa."
I whipped my head to the side. A splotchy four legged furry animal clopped awkwardly out of a wire cage.
I stopped, staring with fascination at the creature's pupils, each shaped like minus signs, brown, white and black coloration, pointy knots protruding from its skull. I wagged my tail.
"S-Smalls," Sarah gasped, wiping her eyes as she tried to compose herself.
The sound of shrieking at the other end of the chamber told me Mara still held her position effectively, keeping Mom and the others distracted. I hoped it would stay like that.
"Smalls?" I repeated, puzzled.
Rebecca snorted. "It's from The Sandlot. There was a goat in The Big Green. She always gets those mixed up."
A blank stare is hard to get across when no one can see your eyes. "Is this a movie? (Angel)."
She responded with an eye roll. "Yeah. `You're killing me, Smalls!'"
Sarah chuckled.
"See? You made her laugh!"
Sydjea caught up with us, reducing the goat to a bloody set of chops, ribs and entrails. Sarah screamed.
Just when the girl had calmed down.
"C'mon, let's go!" I growled, grabbing her arm.
Hmmmm!
With surprising speed, a white mechanical arm shot out from the wall, clamping a talon-like claw around Sydjea's neck.
I instinctively crept backwards, dragging the girls with me.
A second mechanical arm popped out of the wall a few yards from the other, its clawed hand closing into a fist as it turned ninety degrees on a spool joint.
The arm pointed its fist at Sydjea, slowly extending its middle digit in an obscene gesture.
A second later, Sydjea shrieked, thrashing as the claw squeezed her neck, cracking the outer shell of her throat.
I tugged Sarah away from there.
The girl stumbled along the best she could, moaning and sniffling, attempting to get a hold of herself.
Rebecca sobbed a little, wiped her eyes, but kept pushing onward.
Although Sydjea wasn't bright, she wasn't stupid. With a little clawing and spitting acid, she destroyed the mechanical fingers, shaking herself off as she hit the ground.
After spinning around and around to see who caused the choking, she gave up, chasing us with renewed speed.
Pop pop pop pop pop!
Sydjea yelped as dozens of metal shafts rained down on her backside.
Arrows.
Whoever, or whatever it was, happened to be so well concealed in the foliage that I couldn't see them. Of course, my infrared still didn't work.
Shrieking in outrage, Sydjea turned to face her attacker, receiving a dozen more bolts for her trouble.
"Ugly assed space roach!" a voice shouted. "You've failed this planet!"
An arrow burst open, coating Sydjea's back with a strong smelling chemical.
Seconds later, she became a shrieking fireball with legs.
"C'mon!" I cried to the girls, darting into the corn. "(Chair)!"
Mrs. Hansen screamed.
"Mom?" Sarah cried. "Mom!"
"(Satan)! No!" I hissed. "We can't! (Mizpah)! She made all that noise to save you!"
"Then we need to save her!"
I sighed. "All right. Once we find a safe way to get there."
We crept low through a soybean patch, searching for a plot that offered good concealment.
"Psst!"
Who was that? I glanced around and saw nothing.
"Psst!" It was louder this time.
In my infrared, I could just barely make out a dancing red blob on the ground.
Human, I guessed.
Trusting it to be our mysterious helper, I hurried nearer.
A bony hand waved to us from a cluster of soy.
I came closer.
Long hippie hair. Glasses.
His hand clutched a strange combination Gatling gun and crossbow, his chest crisscrossed with a set of infrared goggles, card keys, and bandoliers loaded with strange looking tools.
In the dirt next to him lay a pair of black and white gloves with the word `Nintendo' emblazoned on them. The controls to the machine arm, apparently.
Grouchsticks!
Wow he crawls fast, I thought.
The man pointed to a square hatch half buried in the dirt. "Quick! In there!"
I stared at the square hole with distrust.
"Or stay out here and die. Doesn't really matter to me as long as you send the girls down."
Nodding, I hurried the girls to the hatch, supervising their descent into a narrow concrete compartment.
Mr. Pittman waved his crossbow at me. "Soldered a Holtzmann Auto Seeder to a Blackhawk Perfect Storm 10. Told you I was a MacGyver!"
I didn't know what any of those terms meant. I only vaguely remembered Doug telling me what that a MacGyver spent all his time making explosives from avocados and tinfoil.
Brice slung his bow over his shoulder, belly crawling to the opening.
He glanced anxiously over his shoulder. "Yo. Bernie. Get your ass down there before I plug you."
I knew by the tone of voice that he really wouldn't harm me, this was sarcasm. I decided that I liked this man.
It appeared that I could fit inside the tunnel okay, as long as I didn't turn around. Thankfully, I wasn't claustrophobic.
I wasted no time diving in. Once I reached the bottom, Mr. Pittman tossed a smoke bomb into the field above us, slamming the metal grating shut.
He clamped a metal cord to the grating, attached it to a beer bottle with something like silly putty stuck to it, connecting the device to a tunnel wall of the tunnel.
"They'll have a nice surprise when they try opening that grating," he muttered as he hurried down to us. "A little ammonium nitrate, plus a few (ahem) additives to preserve freshness."
I only stared in bafflement. All I knew about ammonium nitrate was its use as fertilizer.
"What about mom?" Sarah cried.
Grouchsticks shrugged. "We can always build you a new one." Again, the deadpan. I couldn't tell if he were serious or not.
"What! That's mean! How can you even say something evil like that!"
Brice looked annoyed. "Kidding! Look, kid. To the best of my knowledge, your mother doesn't know we're here. She volunteered to be the distraction while I came and rescued you. Relax! Once we go topside, I'll get your mother. She'll be okay. Trust me. Your mom's a trooper." Then, under his breath, "Last longer than us, that's for damned sure."
"Was Sarah's (maranatha) Sarah's mother in the military?" I asked.
The man let out a small chuckle that sounded like a cough. "Something like that."
A dark passage, but safe enough. At least Ss'sik'chtokiwij would find it difficult to get inside.
"It's going to fork, but you want to take Access Tunnel B," Brice said over my shoulder plates. "It's on the left diagonal."
We crawled ahead.
"Good Lord, Bernie! Your ass smells like rotten meat and burning styrofoam!"
I think I crawled too slow, for the next thing out of Mr. Pittman's mouth was, "Bernie, I swear to God, if you cut me in the face with that pointy tail of yours, I'll personally make sure that it never bothers anyone again!"
I tucked in my tail protectively, making an effort to hurry.
After crawling in silence for awhile, I asked, "What is this place for?"
"For escaping your people killing cousins," Brice said.
"No," I said. "(Yes)."
"You asked, and I'm telling you. That's what it's for."
"What else?"
"Nothing else comes to mind."
Smart ass.
"They use it to fix the irrigation system," Rebecca muttered.
Sarah whimpered. "I can't see."
"Here."
Click. A blinding ball of light flew over my head.
"It's a baseball!" Sarah said with amazement.
"Kid, when this is all over, I'll show you how to play Tunnel Ball."
Bang! Dirt and debris rained down into the tunnel. The humans coughed as a cloud of dust rolled in.
They're not crying, I thought. It's the dust.
"Left diagonal," Grouchsticks repeated in between coughs.
We reached a hub, a cylinder of concrete with paths branching out in seven directions. We took the diagonal and found ourselves at a ladder leading up to a stubborn grating that both girls had to work together on in order to open.
Above we discovered a dimly lit hut filled with electronic devices and computer parts. The bric-a-brac burst from the tables and shelves: Chemicals, radio equipment, machine components, and strange superhero toys.
I hadn't read many comic books, so I only knew Green Lantern, G'nort, Wolverine, and that one stern looking lady in the red-purple bikini, whoever she was.
Grouchsticks climbed out of the tunnel, slamming the grate shut.
In seconds, he had his crutches on, gesturing to the room. "Welcome to the Technodrome!"
Nobody got the joke except him.
Shaking his head, he did a pull-up on a nearby work table, leaning his full weight on its surface as he punched buttons on a computer. "This was supposed to be a gift for you girls. I planned to surprise you with it this coming Christmas."
He flipped a switch on the side of the keyboard. "But since I doubt we're going to make it that far, and we need a distraction..."
He typed something in, turning little lights on several buttons red, green and purple.
With a motorized grinding sound, a tall shiny object rolled out of a darkened tunnel, its shape like a giant saltshaker, the top bedecked with grating, two lights and a camera-like eye on the end of a stick. From the front of its gray body jutted two attachments, a glass and metal tube, and a toilet plunger.
The machine's head wiggled back and forth as it spoke in a voice loud enough for everyone in Hydroponics to hear:
"UNIT 375 AWAITING ORDERS!"
"Christ almighty!" Mr. Pittman cried.
Without thinking, I blurted, "Amen."