James Axler - End Program

Chapter Three

The cloud of thorns hurtled toward Jak. He saw them and rolled, moving faster than he could consciously think, pulling up the collar of his jacket even as the thorns thudded against his back. The garment held, the tough fabric repelling most of the spines, a handful embedding up and down its length. Around him, hunks of trees and bushes were obliterated, cut to ribbons by the deadly onslaught.

Jak scrambled forward like a predark sprinter at the starting blocks, launching from the ground back onto his feet. He sprinted back toward the hole in the ground where the redoubt was located.

Behind Jak, the mutie plant’s limbs flailed through the air, sending a second volley of thorns at his retreating figure. Jak peered back over his shoulder just once, saw the way the plant was moving, long, snakelike roots pulling up from the soil and slivering across the ground, propelling itself after him. Amid the green leaves, the man-face was strained, mouth open, eyes wide, watching Jak angrily as the plant trailed across the ground. Jak whipped up his Colt Python pistol and fired a lone .357 Magnum bullet at the face looming in the heart of the monster. He had turned away by the time the bullet struck, but he heard the swish of leaves tearing as the projectile slapped against the plant’s greenery.

* * *

DOWN BELOW, RYAN and his companions heard the shot and went on high alert.

“Triple red, people,” Ryan ordered, bringing his blaster up to cover the hole in the ceiling through which Jak had exited the redoubt. “We don’t know if that was Jak or someone else—”

“It was Jak,” J.B. confirmed. “Sound of a Colt Python, can’t mistake it.”

“What if someone else has the same weapon, John Barrymore?” Doc asked without looking away from the hole, his LeMat trained on the tiny patch of sky that could be seen through it. “Or what if they took it.”

“Point taken,” J.B. said, “though it’d be a bastard coincidence if it was someone else’s.”

Before the companions could discuss the issue further, Jak leaped through the opening above them, moving with the agility of a monkey. Behind and above Jak, the companions saw the thick, trailing cords of the mutie plant as it reached into the hole. In a second, it launched another wave of razor-sharp thorns—straight into the redoubt.

“Gaia!” Krysty cried as Jak came into sight.

“Get back!” Jak screamed as he dropped through the gap in the ceiling.

His six companions stepped back without question, and the clutch of thorns thudded against leaves and the hard surfaces of the walls and floor, striking with rattling beats. Doc took two on his left sleeve, while three more struck J.B.’s fedora—but none of them penetrated its target.

“By the Three Kennedys!” Doc gasped, brushing the thorns from his coat before they scratched him.

“What the hell is that?” Ricky hissed, stepping forward and raising his Webley Mk VI to target the shadowy mutie plant as it reached through the hole.

“Get back, kid,” J.B. cautioned, reaching forward and shoving Ricky back. The youth was adventurous and courageous, but he had an impetuous streak that could get them all into trouble, J.B. knew, if he didn’t keep his eyes on him.

Jak stood on a branch twelve feet above the floor of the control room. He leaped, tucking and rolling as he landed amid the dense foliage, his blaster clutched close to his chest.

“Friend of yours?” Krysty asked as Jak recovered at her feet.

“Angry plant,” Jak replied, turning to face the gap in the ceiling.

“So I see,” Krysty stated.

Impossibly, the plant lunged into the redoubt, roots trailing behind it, branches flailing ahead like the limbs of an octopus. With the plant blocking the hole in the roof, the control room became suddenly darker, its details lost in shadow. Whatever the plant was, it had a hunting nature and a rudimentary instinct, chasing after the young man who had disturbed its resting place.

The human face in its center eyed the companions in the semidarkness, eyeballs swiveling. It spotted Mildred with her colourful beaded plaits and sent one of its snakelike limbs toward her. The limb was fifteen feet in length and lined with thorns and budding flowers the color of sour milk.

Mildred stepped back and blasted a shot from her ZKR 551 target pistol, the weapon booming in the underground chamber. The bullet struck the limb, carving a line along its surface before embedding halfway down its length. At the same moment, another cluster of thorns spit from its surface, striking her along the left side of her torso and both legs.

Mildred yelled in pain, dropping to the floor.

The limb flailed toward her face, but Doc stepped in to block it, slicing at it with his sword stick. Then he fired his LeMat directly into the crook of the joint where that limb met the trunk. There was no time to check on Mildred’s condition.

Across the room, J.B. and Ryan were busy fencing with another limb.

“Ugly green son of a bitch,” J.B. snarled as he fired a burst of 9 mm bullets at the flailing limb.

The narrow end of the spiny protrusion whipped around and around like a bolo before grabbing J.B.’s blaster arm and yanking him off his feet.

J.B. yelled in agony as he was lifted from the floor and felt the thorns digging into him. Ryan took careful aim, holding his SIG Sauer in a two-handed grip. The one-eyed man squeezed the trigger, sending a 9 mm slug into the limb that clutched his oldest friend. The Swiss bullet drilled into and through the limb, three inches in diameter, pulling a great gout of green bark and fibrous material with it as it emerged from the other side.

There was a sound like splitting wood and suddenly, the fractured plant limb struggled with J.B.’s weight, swaying to and fro as it tried to hang on to its victim. Still in its grip, J.B. brought around the muzzle of his mini-Uzi until it pointed at the core of the plant, where that human torso rested amid the green. Then he fired, holding down the trigger for a short burst as the limb tossed him left and right. The volley of 9 mm bullets punched into the main stem of the plant in a line of dark circles, moving upward toward the human lungs and face in its center. As the bullets reached for the man within, other parts of the plant seemed to lunge forward—thick, waxy leaves swishing across the path of the bullets like a gaudy slut doing an old-style fan dance, each fan shuttering into place.

“The man’s the driver,” J.B. hollered as he swayed six feet off the ground, still snagged in the plant’s grip. “Chill him and we might get out of here with our asses inta—”

J.B.’s statement was cut short as he was slammed headfirst into a wall by the flailing limb, the brim of his fedora snapping back, his throat issuing a croak of pain.

Ryan took another shot, lining up carefully with the figure in the center of the mutie plant. Around him, Ricky, Jak and Krysty were doing the same while Doc thrust and parried a lively limb with his sword cane.

Thorns whizzed from the fast-moving limbs, hammering into the walls and striking the companions as they fought.

Ricky held his hand up to shield his eyes as a wave of thorns rattled against him, ripping threads from his clothes and embedding themselves into his flesh.

The mutie plant loomed through the gap in the ceiling, half in and half out of the control room, but it was large enough to crowd the room itself. A tendril lashed toward Ryan as he loosed another shot from the SIG Sauer, whipping him across the face and knocking him back.

“Fireblast!” Ryan yelled as he toppled backward, slamming against the overgrowth, the leaves and ferns forming a soft bed beneath him. He was momentarily disorientated, the hard impact of the floor cushioned only slightly by the springiness of the flattened leaves. Ryan heard a whisper of sound, felt fléchettes of thorns pepper his chest and face, digging in with vicious precision.