H Romero - The Girl Who's Made of Leaves - Post Apocalyptic Science Fiction

Rose doesn’t even know how many days it’s been any more since they left Fort Worth. But it’s been a lot. She wonders if the colonel made it out of the hydrogen plant alive. She wonders if the Devil and her followers were blown up. Everyone is probably thinking the same thing, but no one is saying it out loud. The only thing for sure is there’s been no sign that they were followed. So, Rose takes it as a pretty sure sign… the Devil has returned to Hell and taken all her scary monsters with her when she went. Rose notices though that everyone keeps looking back the way they came for a glimpse of anything red.

Rose feels the breeze dancing across her face and ears. It makes her hair and, for the lack of a better word, her vines , lift lightly in the updraft. Small buds are beginning to form along the length of them. Occasionally, she’ll feel of them and give them a gentle pinch, and she can feel everything she does to the vines and the buds.

She soon tires of watching the scenery pass by, and goes back to reading, and finally finishes, the last page of the Bible. There is only one possibility, she realizes, we are living in the time of the Book of the Revelation. What else can explain all the monsters?

They don’t make it to the town before the gas tank is drained, but hope is on the horizon. Rose can see, off in the distance, a house, and an old barn. An orange tractor sits just outside of the barn, maybe they can get some gasoline from it, or the car parked not far from the house.

“It’s a side trip, I suppose,” says Connors, reluctantly. He reaches to open the rear doors and leans into the back of the truck to collect two five-gallon gasoline cans. He checks his sidearm and lifts a rifle, slinging it over his shoulder. He shoves an empty can toward Dr. Shaw who reaches out to take it from the major. He follows the major closely as he leads the group toward the farmhouse. They hug the side of the road, moving cautiously along the thicket of tall pines growing like mighty titans.

Suddenly, Major Connors pulls Dr. Valentine closer into the cover of the trees. Seeing this, Dr. Shaw grabs Rose, pulling her with him, following the others into the tree line.

“What do you see major?” Dr. Shaw says.

“The truck’s moving,” Connors says.

Rose looks out from under Dr. Shaw’s arm which is holding tightly on to her. And she sees for herself that the old truck is rolling slowly along the little farm road.

The major seems confused. He listens for a few moments and asks if anyone can hear an engine.

“I don’t hear anything,” says Dr. Valentine.

Rose crouches down on the rich, pine-needle-covered earth. The needles poke into her knees, but not enough to hurt. The major tells everyone to wait here, and he goes back to the truck and soon returns with the binoculars.

“What do you see,” says Dr. Valentine.

“Well, the windshield of that truck is pretty filthy, but I can see two people. Looks like a man and a woman.” Connors lowers the binoculars and tells the group to stay alert, and if anyone sees anything weird to let him know. He shrugs his shoulders and says, “This looks weird as hell. Where would two, old people be going in a broken-down old truck? Dr. Valentine, if anything goes squirrelly down there, you get the kid and get out of here.

Everyone is trying to get a good look at who is inside the truck. Rose has very good eyesight and can see immediately that the two people in the truck aren’t moving. Something might be wrong with them. She backs away and tells Dr. Valentine that they need to leave, but it’s too late the truck is rolling toward them, and it’s turning so that the driver’s side comes into clear view.

A Wicked Briar is pushing the truck forward. It has the man in the truck impaled on its foreclaw, manipulating the man like a puppet. It used the truck and the dead people inside as a decoy so it could get close enough to attack.

“Run!” Connors says.

Dr. Valentine and Dr. Shaw each pull at one of Rose’s arms, and together they drag her along behind them. Another Wicked Briar burst out from where it, and several others were hiding in a barn. It’s an entire nest of the creatures.

“We’re not going to make it,” says Dr. Valentine.

The Wicked Briars are quickened with the notion of a feast. They’re slinging long barbed threads in every direction, to slow their prey’s escape. And steadily they surround the group. Rose falls to the ground, and Dr. Valentine nearly falls on top of her.

The men and Dr. Valentine are firing their weapons. The loud pops of gunfire assaults Rose’s ears. She puts her fingers in them to block out some of the sounds. The monsters are growing closer. The bullets don’t do anything to slow them down. Rose thinks this is the last time she’ll ever see Dr. Valentine because they’re all going to die. It will also be sad not to see Dr. Shaw again, too, because lately he’s been nicer than Dr. Valentine to her.

The monsters are close enough to tear them into bloody little scraps, but they stop dead still before they make their move. The Turned loom over them, as if to say, checkmate. It has grown quiet, except for the faint ringing in Rose’s ears from the gunshots.

The Wicked Briars ease away from the group and shift their focus on the road from the direction, Connors, Shaw, Valentine, and Rose had come from. Rose follows their gaze but can see nothing. The Wicked Briars suddenly lose interest and skitter away, and in no time, they are gone from sight.

“What happened?” says Shaw.

“They had us, why’d they let us go?” says Dr. Valentine.

“The Major is scanning with the binoculars again. There’s something out there, but I can’t tell what. It’s using the trees for cover. We most definitely aren’t going back to the truck. We’re on foot from here on out.” The major lowers his binoculars.

“Maybe we can use those,” says Rose. pointing to the horses, grazing beyond the fence.

“Horses,” says Dr. Valentine.

“Shaw,” says Connors, “You and Dr. Valentine head on over to the barn, see if you can find some feed or something we can lure them over with. If not, then see if you can find a lasso or some rope. Be careful.”

“Right,” says Shaw.

“How far do you think we are from the ship, Major?” says Rose, never taking her eyes off the scary road behind them.

The ship can be seen in the distance; a massive vehicle coated with a blackened and wrinkled outer skin, veiled in a haze. “I’d say by the look of it, we should be there in an hour or so if we can catch the horses.”

While the major is keeping watch on the road behind them, Rose decides that she wants to see these beautiful animals for herself. The horses spook a little at her presence and run from her, but soon they settle down and return to sniff at her outstretched hands. The horses sniff the air for danger and step closer to her. She leans over the fence. The wood presses painfully into her stomach, but she doesn’t care. She wants them to come to her. She can smell them now. They whinny and neigh at her. She can feel the softness of a horse’s muzzle on her hands, and then another, and another. She can feel their breath on her face, warm and moist and with a fresh smell of grass. Their scent smells so sweet to her.

She steps down from the fence just as the doctors are coming back with some rope, they found in the barn. Rose releases the latch which holds the gate closed and it swings out and opens, pretty easily. The horses follow her silently. “They’ll carry us to where we want to go, they told me so,” says Rose. “And I want this one,” she says, indicating a palomino, that on one side looks as a horse should, but on the other, only an image of a horse reconstructed of interwoven vines and green lush leaves. Rose could feel danger growing closer and closer. Something was coming for them. Something bad.