Chapter 16: Chapter 15

“This feels like the end of the world,” I mused on the situation as I walked the long dusty road from my gate to Mr. Sada’s mansion. “So why the fuck am I still going to work?”

Mr. Sada himself was happy to answer that question for me. The moment Hobb showed me into the kitchen, he pointed at the fog lined television. “Look at this shit Tyson! Look at this shit!”

I looked at the TV. An aerial vehicle was showing a bank of thick black mist rolling across Prescott. Lightning strikes were visible from inside the fog, and the occasional violent movement beneath its surface indicated something inside. 

As we watched the screen, a young man ran down the street ahead of the fog but was too slow as it rushed from multiple avenues and cut him off. As the fog surrounded him, bolts of electricity, and something that moved too fast to be properly seen tore pieces of him off and he slumped to the road. The scene was mercifully covered by thick black fog an instant later.

“Look at that shit!” Mr. Sada was excited. Based on the white powder on his kitchen counter and shirt, I could guess why. “What do you think that shit is?”

The news chyron read “Lethal Dream Phenomenon!” in dramatic font, and they started replaying the young man’s death.

“Some rich asshole in Canada had a nightmare last night. Canada!” He tapped his bull ring on the counter several times and turned back to the TV. “They’re saying it’s supposed to hit Mexico before the morties run out.” 

He shook his head and slapped the counter. 

“Forty-five miles wide, almost fifty deep. Killed millions already, they say.”

The ‘they’ he referred to was that same male Nah’gh host, with a new female Orc host I hadn’t seen before. She wore a very low cut top and giggled at everything the Nah’gh host said. 

I gave a brief thought for what had happened to the poor human host I had seen earlier, but then Mr. Sada was in my face again. He tapped the counter in front of me with his bull ring and made me cringe.

“Yo, Tyson! We got shit to do man!” He waved his arms excitedly. “That shit is gonna be here in like fifteen minutes and is supposed to be on top of us for hours before it passes by.” 

Mr. Sada moved around the counter to the fridge, where he pulled out a mineral water and cracked it open. I narrowed my eyes at the bottle and licked my lips. Trail mix made me thirsty. He turned his back on the fridge and stared at the TV again.

“We gotta get everyone above eight feet. It only affects everything below eight feet.” He spoke absentmindedly, staring up at the psychic television.

“Hey, Mr. Sada, can I get one of those waters?” I asked in a small voice, as I creeped forward toward the fridge.

He absent-mindedly waved a hand at me and I slipped past him to the fridge. The door was open and shut in a heartbeat, and I had my prize. I tore the cap off and guzzled most of the clean, cold water in a single breath. Mr. Sada looked up as I set the bottle on the counter with a clink. 

“Oh, what? No, not my good stuff!”

I grinned at him and lifted the bottle to my lips again. “Too late, you said I could.”

He looked like he was about to whine at me further, but just glared instead. Hobb gave me a hard look that I returned when Mr. Sada wasn’t looking. I flipped off the tall gray man under the kitchen counter where Mr. Sada couldn’t see.

“Whatever, we have important shit to do.” 

He came back over to me, tapping his bull ring the entire way. I fantasized about it breaking his marble counter slab for a second, but then he was in front of me. 

“You gotta go back to the camp and get the tenants eight feet up in the air. That snake woman for sure, but you know . . . you aint gotta get the old lady.”

I took a sharp breath in and stared at him. After a long moment, I said, “I’m taking the golf cart.”

Mr. Sada’s eyes went wide, and he started to shake his head. He had a golf cart that he used to cruise around the camp. He also used it to drive to and from his own mansion, and park it in his garage, ensuring that nobody who worked at the campground ever got to use it.

“I don’t wanna hear it Mr. Sada, this is a bullshit errand and there isn’t any time. You shoulda told me over the phone so I could just gather everyone and bring them here to chill on your second floor until it passes.” 

I sighed and looked at him. 

“If you won’t go yourself, I’m taking the cart. Deal with it.” I walked past Hobb, who arose and looked to Mr. Sada for instructions. “Don’t even think about it, Hobb,” I said on my way by. Hobb sat back down.

Mr. Sada was stunned for a few seconds, but then he remembered to be mad. “Hey, no way. I don’t want that old bi-” He stopped dead in his tracks when I whirled to glare at him. “I don’t want the tenants here.” 

Mr. Sada pursed his lips. 

“There needs to be a separation.”

My eyes narrowed as he spoke, and I suddenly shook my head and raised a hand, cutting him off. 

“Enough. This is absurd, there isn’t any place in the entire campground that’s above eight feet. Not anymore, your stupid friggin’ slimes ate everything in the store and summed a giant beetle to wreck up the rest of the place.”

He stepped forward, face pinched in concern. “What? The office got wrecked?”

I nodded, my hand on the garage door. “And the tool shed. Those slimes are a menace, and they tried to kill me again. I’m gonna start killing ‘em if I see them, guests or not.”

He started saying something else, but I ignored it and went into the garage. I detached the golf cart from its charging station and manually lifted the garage door. 

The golf cart was actually nice. Big and green, with room to seat three. It made me wonder why Mr. Sada had shelled out the extra money for a golf cart with a passenger row if he never let anyone use it, but I just shrugged and pulled out of the driveway. The damn thing was practically silent, it made almost no noise aside from the crunch of its miniature off road tires on the dirt.

Traveling back down the road to the campground was much easier on the cart, and I determined that I was going to use it more often. 

You know, if I lived through the next few minutes, anyway. 

I could see the dream-purchased-storm on the horizon, roiling and bubbling through the Prescott National Forest. It didn’t give me much confidence as I watched it start surging across the open desert toward me in the golf cart’s rear view mirror.

I swerved into the campground and sped down the short dirt road to my old site. After parking next to the Lincoln, I gaped at yet another strange sight. Molls was in the dirt toward the back of the site, writhing in the middle of a dust cloud. 

As I stopped the cart and got out, I stared.

I admit it this time, I had no idea what was happening, and I stared like the curious monkey I am at heart. She appeared to be rubbing her entire body in the coarse desert sand, tossing up great clouds of dust that obscured my vision and prevented me from realizing an important detail before it was too late. Molls was completely nude, and this was how she bathed. 

I had just walked in on her in the tub, in essence.

My eyes popped wide open as I saw entirely too much and fully realized the situation. Her old, orange-stained clothing was hung on a Joshua tree not far away, and what looked like brand new versions of her ruined skirt, sweatshirt, and robe were laid out on the hood of the Lincoln. 

I grabbed the skirt and sweater and started moving toward her. Keeping my head turned firmly to the side with my eyes squeezed shut, I shouted her name. “Molls!”

I heard the sound of a whip crack, and Molls screamed in indignation. Something grabbed my legs, wrapped around my entire lower body hard, and yanked. 

“You dare?!” she hissed directly in my ear, but I just kept my eyes squeezed shut and thrust the clothing out. It didn’t help, I could feel her breasts pressed up against my side. She was cold.

“We don’t have time, Molls. There’s a dream-storm coming, and it’ll kill anything that’s below eight feet. We have to run!” 

I felt her grab the clothing from my hands, and I pointed vigorously to the north. “Go up on the ridge and see for yourself.” I heard clothing rustle against skin, and she set me down.

“You can open your eyes,” she snapped. I did, and quickly averted my gaze. She was still wriggling into the skirt, and as I was looking away to point north again she zipped the side of it and straightened to glower at me.

“I’ve gotta go get Phyllis. Grab what you need and meet me over there, okay?” I raised my hands and started moving toward the golf cart. 

“And for the record, I apologize for disturbing your privacy.”

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Her scales flushed bright pink and her oversized eyes widened. She took a breath while staring at me, and then shook her head. She slithered hurriedly to the ridge and then immediately turned and raced back to the Lincoln. 

As I pulled away in the golf cart, I saw her retrieving more clothing from the interior of the car. I looked away as I realized it was underwear. A moment of insanity crossed over my mind as I saw the snake-priest woman look at me, a pair of snake-panties in her hands. 

All I could think of was my favorite anime. Anytime the main character was confronted with a sexual situation, he got a nose bleed. I turned my head away from her by force of will and tried not to giggle at the thought of getting a random forceful nose bleed.

Phyllis. I had to go save Phyllis, right. 

The golf cart was pretty zippy, but I still managed to lose to Molls. She hurriedly dressed, and then slithered at top speed over the privacy mound and straight to Phyllis’ torn up Shasta. 

I pulled up in front of it to see the Nah’gh woman peering into the suit’s armored eye-sockets. Her torso shifted to me as I got out of the golf cart. 

“She’s not responding.” Molls shrugged and made room for me on the deck as I approached. Her body was long, I realized, as I stepped over her coils to get to Phyllis.

The mech was leaned back, legs crossed comfortably before it. The machine's giant metal hands were clasped easily across its midsection, and the helmet was bobbing slightly. 

“She’s watching TV,” I said. 

I began knocking on the mech in various areas, but the metal didn’t make much of a sound. It was solid, armored, padded, and unmoving. Casting about, I grabbed my old stubby Mossberg and used the butt to knock louder on her suit. No response.

I returned to the golf cart and left the shotgun in the front seat. I was after Mr. Sada’s people-poker. He had an actual fireplace poker he used to nudge people out of his way on busy days. 

Customers, even, back when such a thing was still frowned upon. 

He kept it in a small cargo compartment in the front of the cart. It was like a glove box, but it was always open, and extended across the entire front end of the cart. I bent over and grabbed it, then turned back and approached Phyllis’ mech again.

Behind them, in the near distance, the dream storm was brewing. I could see things in the dark cloud at this distance, writhing and wriggling in concentric circles. 

“Phyllis! We gotta go!” I roared, and swung the fireplace poker at the mech. 

It caught the weapon on the downswing, with an impossibly fast movement, and then reached out and swatted me away. I landed in the ruins of the neighboring RV that Phyllis had blown up the morning before. Fiberglass and aluminum collapsed, and I sailed into the kitchen counter, shattering the cheap plywood.

My eyes blinked rapidly as I gasped for air on the floor of some burnt out RV shell. It had been a nice fifth-wheel at some point, but when Phyllis shot it with her fusion cannon, everybody that had been here fled. 

My cartoon starfish popped up in my peripheral vision and began its stretching routine. “Damage detected, user! Thanks for the charge though! Let’s get to work!” 

Tendrils extended from my armored portions and started the work of sealing a handful of external lacerations, on my back and the back of my head. The ragged edges of the RV’s siding had done a number on me as I flew through.

Molls was at the door suddenly. “Are you alright?” she exclaimed. 

Daylight poured in behind her and my eyes refused to focus. She looked like a serpentine angel, reaching down to my face. She brushed aside a tendril from the suit and cupped my cheek to look in my eyes. 

“I think you’re okay. Just dazed, you took a bad hit to the head.”

“You’re pretty,” I slurred. 

Then I realized what she had said about my head and felt a surge of panic as I felt tendrils shoving their way through my chest and toward my neck. 

Molls blinked and recoiled, but then stared at me with her head cocked as I began slapping at my chest and trying to compress my neck to stop the tendrils. All that did was choke me, so I stopped and shouted at the cartoon in my vision. 

“Stop! Cease all cranial repair functions!”

The cartoon starfish cocked its metal head at me. “But damage detected user! Damage detected!”

I shook my head, and my vision cleared up a little more. “That’s okay. Do not repair the inside of my head. Just the outside.”

The starfish shrugged and vanished, and the tendrils in my chest receded. I sighed in relief, and then glanced over to see Molls staring at me, eyes wide and arms crossed. She glanced between me and the space of empty carpet I had been speaking to and narrowed her eyes. 

“Cartoon starfish, sorry Molls. Wasn’t talking to you.” 

I stood, shakily, and used the crushed counter to support myself until my legs felt steady. That lovely painkiller was back, and the world got easier to deal with suddenly. I smiled up at Molls and nodded to her. Tendrils wove and writhed behind me, lasering my flesh back into place. 

She nodded and slid back, opening space in the doorway for me. I took a deep breath and started walking. The world around me shined brighter, and I sighed in comfort as I entered the Arizona sun again. It really was nice in the desert if you let it be. 

Drugs helped.

 I stumbled down the RV steps and regained my footing outside. Molls slithered down behind me.

“This starfish. It is pretty?” She asked, in a quiet voice.

I froze. She slithered in front of me and peered down, waiting for my answer. I glared at my feet for a second and shook my head. Then I shrugged and met her eyes. “No, Molls. That part I said to you.”

She flushed pink again and pulled away a short distance. Her arms uncrossed, and she tasted the air with a flicker of her tongue before turning fully. “Phyllis! Phyllis, we must go!”

I nodded to her back. “Reasonable reaction,” I said, following after her. 

A sound was building in the north. The only way I could describe it was as an electric threshing. Air being cut repeatedly, and the sharp snaps of lightning without thunder. My aim was the golf cart, and when I flopped into it, Molls turned back and shook her head.

“There’s no time. Your vehicle is too slow. We must go now, and hope Phyllis survives.” Molls slithered over to me and held out her arms. “She is mighty, and a smart shopper. I have faith she will be fine.”

I nodded. My head was still swimming with starfish pain killer and the concussion I was sure I had. Sure, Phyllis was a smart shopper. That was a sane and reasonable thing to say about someone in this context. Then Molls was looking at me with her head cocked to the side again. 

“Come,” she said. I blushed.

Then it clicked and I stood up from the cart too quickly, stumbling and regaining my balance. She wanted to carry me. As I took the two steps required to be in arms reach, I wondered what that would look like. 

Would I get tossed over a shoulder in a fireman’s carry? Cradled, like a baby? Shoved under an arm like baggage? 

I glanced at her long tail and imagined being wrapped up in it as she hauled ass across the desert, bouncing along behind like a set of ‘just-married’ tin cans. 

Then she lifted me in her surprisingly strong arms and cradled me. One arm went under my armpits, and the other beneath my knees. She raised me until I was pressed against her breasts, and I had an arm slung around her shoulders and hood. We took off.

Molls was at least as fast as a car when she wanted to be. She tore around the corner of the campground and up the dirt road toward Mr. Sada’s mansion. The storm was right there, directly behind it, churning and whipping toward us. 

Molls put on another burst of speed, leaning forward. She dropped me off at the entrance of the garage and went ahead to open the door. I turned back to grab the garage door, and stopped, transfixed as a new type of monster approached.

It looked like a whip-armed starfish, floating in the street.  It was also clearly made of clay. A ball of hardened ceramic hung in the air, supported by dozens of small clay tentacle limbs. 

It whipped and cracked its arms as it moved toward the driveway, and bright blue arcs of lightning danced in the air. I stood transfixed for a moment too long, and it shot out an arm at me with a spark of electricity. 

Black fog rolled into the garage and Molls screamed wordlessly behind me. I looked up at my arm to see why. It had been snapped away from the elbow to the wrist. My hand dangled from the metal armor and blood fountained from my new stump.

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