Paul Jones - Extinction Point - The End

Using her feet to propel the bike forward, Emily scooted closer, heading towards the break in the tree line surrounding the open field. As she approached, Emily could see that what she was looking at was colossal and certainly not a natural part of the park vegetation. Leaving the road, she lifted the front tire of her bike up onto the grass verge of the field and headed through a natural corridor between the trees. In front of her the sun was beginning its descent toward the western horizon, its light reflecting off the still surface of the ornamental pond known as the Conservatory Water. The pond was— had been —a favorite hangout for model boaters from all across the city.

The sun’s rays bounced and scintillated off the lake’s surface, sending bursts of light through the gaps between the trees. The light was so bright Emily had to squint and shade her eyes to avoid the dazzling reflection.

She couldn’t see a damn thing from where she was standing; she’d have to risk getting closer, she decided. It was probably better to do it on foot, if this developed into a situation, she would be faster on the grass using her own two feet rather than trying to pedal the bike across the field. She leaned the bike against a nearby maple tree. She was tempted to drop the bergen too, but if something unpredictable did happen then she needed to get out of there as fast as she could. She did not want to risk having to leave the bergen and its precious contents behind.

A break between the trees where she stood led into the open field, beyond that there was another line of trees and beyond those, was the structure. She started through the break, cautiously heading towards the object. Emily was still two-hundred feet away from the structure when the light breeze ruffling through the branches of the trees shifted in her direction and she caught the faint, but now familiar smell of ammonia.

She stopped, her head pivoting from side to side, looking for any sign that she was not alone, but she could not see anything she considered a threat. The aroma of ammonia was so faint it could be from anywhere; in fact, for all she knew, the smell might just as easily be the millions of gallons of water of the Conservatory pond slowly stagnating. Her better judgment told her to just turn around, get back on her bike and ride away as fast as she could, but her natural curiosity got the better of her, and she decided to press on.

She was glad she hadn’t left the shotgun with the bike. Her hand unconsciously reached out and caressed the black metal of the weapon slung across her chest.

Emily took a few steps closer, shading her eyes as best she could from the glare. She guessed it must have been a cloud drifting across the face of the sun for a moment that finally gave her the chance to see the object clearly. The light from the pond suddenly dimmed, her vision cleared and the towering structure swam into breathtaking focus. As her eyes roamed over the object, Emily knew that if she had a week to stand there and stare at the sight before her, there was no way she would ever be able to understand what it was she was seeing.

It stood at least forty-feet in height; a towering, incongruous amalgamation of red flesh. Three intertwining limbs as thick as Emily’s torso twisted together and reached towards the sky. The base of the structure swept out into hundreds of interweaving duplicates of the main shaft; where they met the grass of the park Emily could see mounds of dirt kicked up like gopher holes, as the thick tendrils burrowed into the ground.

The main trunk seemed to be made of scales, large red scales that overlapped each other like armor. The structure gave Emily the impression of a piece of artwork, as though it had been specifically designed to look like a natural structure but made from the leftover bits and pieces of something unnatural. Its symmetrical appearance was ruined as Emily’s eyes took in the top of the trunk; it looked unfinished, as though the designer had simply stopped midway in its creation. It was a mess of irregular angles and crenulations.

Emily began edging her way closer, her eyes fixed firmly on the imposing structure, oblivious to the low hanging branches of trees she pushed through as she moved nearer. She maneuvered around the left flank of the structure, placing the water of the pond behind her and it. From this vantage point, Emily could see a mass of translucent tendrils, each shot through with mottled spots of pink and red, growing from the base of the structure. They crept across the grass, between the thing’s roots, over the concrete boat dock and then dropped down beneath the surface of the pond.

Emily stepped down onto the concrete landing area of the boat-dock and took a few careful steps nearer to the mass of tendrils. Standing just a few feet from them, she knelt and leaned in closer. Through the transparent outer skin, she could see the tendril contained some kind of clear liquid within it. It looked like water from the pond, but this giant plant—it was hard to categorize exactly what phylum she was looking at—must be filtering out the dirt and other crap from the lake, because the water in the tendril looked crystal clear to her, while the water in the Conservatory pond was green and brackish. Running through the center of each gelatinous tendril was a second smaller tube, as thick as Emily’s thumb and filled with a darker fluid. This other liquid was a mass of different shades of red ranging from bright red to dark congealed-blood brown.

As Emily watched, the tendrils periodically expanded and then contracted, squeezing the water further up the tendril towards the trunk, and with each pump of the water heading towards the ‘plant’, Emily could see a smaller amount of the mottled red fluid in the inner vein pumping out towards the pond.

Emily got to her feet and followed the tendril to the lip of the concrete dock where it disappeared into the water of the pond. She looked out across the expanse of the water, shading her eyes with her hand as the sun was once again bouncing uncomfortably off the water. Towards the center of the lake Emily could just make out a thick red sludge forming on the surface, but the sun and the distance made it difficult to focus on it.

Emily turned in the direction of the structure, began walking back across the dock toward the grass verge… and froze. From the corner of her right eye, she caught something moving fast along the concrete toward her.

Tap–Tap–Tap–Tap.

Emily’s head snapped to face the source of the noise. She instantly regretted her decision.

The creature skittering across the hot concrete landing toward her was like something out of the tortured dreams of an insane-asylum inmate. The thing had eight long spider-like legs; each leg was articulated by four bulbous joints that gave the creature a lopsided, almost limping gait. The end of each leg was tipped by a scimitar shaped claw, tempered to a point, and made the creature look as though it were standing on tiptoe. The top of each leg attached to another bulbous extrusion much like a human shoulder joint, and that joint was in turn attached to a long corkscrew shaped body. The head was nothing but a burgundy colored bulb attached by a short neck of concentric rings that allowed the head a small degree of pivotal motion. Positioned at 12-and 6- o’clock on the creature’s featureless head was a long fleshy stalk. At the end of each stalk was a black bulb and Emily realized with horror that she had seen that same strange appendage before. She knew that if either of those black bulbs were to open, each would contain a single eye.

Just below the bottom eye, where the creature’s chin should have been, a third limb sprouted, swaying left and right as the monster scrambled over the concrete. This limb ended in a pair of serrated blades that whirled periodically like a rotary saw. At the tail end of the creature, Emily saw a wavering set of diaphanous red streamers, similar to the poisonous stinging arms of a jellyfish but much finer. As the creature loped towards her the streamers undulated and flowed in a sinusoidal rhythm that was, to her stunned mind at least, absolutely beautiful in its elegance, and the exact opposite of the rest of this repulsive monster’s body.