Feeding Frenzy (Watty Award Winner)

Smells Like Mean Spirit: Chapter Thirty-Six

Roberto allowed himself to sink deeper into the fallen leaves beneath the ash tree. Root threads wormed up around him, whiskering across his cheek, then into his ears. Around his waist and limbs, the white roots grew thick and muscular as pythons, pinning him to the ground.

"Are you okay Querida?" He strained against the roots to see Lynette lying beside him. She had closed her eyes and smiled, as if dreaming.

The pressure built in his ear canal as gathering threads crowded against his eardrum. They pushed through. He saw fireworks and a blinding white light, pain made visible. His arms and legs felt warm for the first time since the autumn leaves started turning. Struggling against his bonds was impossible, so he forced himself to relax, think. Roberto refused to let this be the end.

He sensed something wriggly worm its way up his spine. Time to call the fumigators.

Dumb idea, answered a voice in his head. But you're intelligent enough, an acceptable addition. A chorus of agreeing voices filled his mind.

Now I know Querida means 'Dear.' Roberto recognized the voice of Professor Rudolph in his head.

She is no great addition, I'm afraid, said the first voice.

If she doesn't merit a place among the walking, said another, she can nourish the collective.

Suddenly, Roberto could sense himself as he was, a cooling body on the cold ground. Snaky threads carried his thoughts below, conjoining his mind with something sinister and decayed, a dead thing that refused to join the good earth around it. If he were still alive he would scream.

Who are you?

You're mine.

Roberto thought he felt a spirit enter him, the way the mind interprets ghosts in shadows, or wisps of fog. Was he really dead? Couldn't it be a dream?

In dreams, Roberto might be flying, or kissing a girl, or reliving the first time he water-skied. The problems of the day, his parents' strange insistence on Loon Lake; these things would rub up against each other, in the tumble dryer of his mind. There were even dreams where he remembered colours, like the blue sky over Lima's beaches, or the deep crimson of his parents' Persian carpets. But in dreams, he never had a sense of smell.

This was different. There were no images, no events. Instead, he heard the chorus of voices in his head, bound to an entity of collapsing flesh. The roots which entrapped Roberto bound them together. He could no longer tell which senses were his own, as the earth began to rumble and spread beneath him, tumbling Roberto into a reeking charnel pit.

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Maaja