Impossible Possibilities

8. Bono

Well, I’m pretty sure I just heard him say something like killer squad or killer squads, or it may of just been killer squash.  But either way it did have the word killer in it.  Well, I had attracted a few of these close moments with killer, first you know, waking up… here.  Then the potato man, then the crazy driver, then train that fell God knows how far, then the threats to cut me up, then the crashing ship—and now killer squash?  Great.

Stop. We stopped.

Maybe Perry finally realized he had been pulling me through mush and stuff I no longer thought was just water. Maybe he decided to direct me around the ponds and shit instead of through them?  “Som’ing mo’ed in fron’ of us,” he said. No he still had no regard for the mush.

“What is it?” I asked, in hopes of getting a description.

“I ‘hink it’s d’he killer squa’.  May’e or may’e no’,” he stopped for a moment and squeezed on my arm only to pull me forward once more, “no it’s no’ d’he squa’. I didn’ ‘hink so. Dhey don’ norma’’y  come ou’ this far, I’m pre’’y sure dhey aren’ even ‘ill  abou’ ano’her fi’e or si’ more miles. We go’ a ways.”

So we continued, luckily the mush lessened so I wasn’t stepping in shit anymore.  But the damage was already done; the bottoms of my pants were completely ruined and my bare feet felt like something vile.  Well, good news was I could clean my feet, at this point I was kind of glad I didn’t have shoes on or those would be soaked through as well. 

I heard a deep growl, almost like someone’s stomach rumbling from hunger.  Perry heard it too because his hand squeezed hard on my arm, “Run!” he shouted as he picked his fairly brisk walk into a clumsy run with me being dragged behind him.

What was chasing us? What was chasing us?  The rumbling increased as my loose arm bounced off one of the many twigs we were poorly circling.  It must be one of the carnivores that shot down the ship.  It must be!  I stumbled over a root, almost falling, but Perry’s body did a good job at catching me and keeping me upright. 

We kept running through the forest of twigs.  As we ran I turned my head around.  Truthfully I didn’t know why, but at the moment I just wanted to see what was going on.  Instead images flooded through my head—it was the Dream Catcher working to push visions of what might, or might not be happening behind me.

The metal twigs smashed down all around us, the wood splintering into thousands of directions.  White claws burst through the darkness spawned in front of me.  A dark red chunk of meat in between the claws prowled after us wrecking everything in its way.  As the claws forced themselves open the chunk of meat lunged out wrapping itself tightly around one of the metal twigs inches in front of me.

Perry forced us down, shoving me forward. I turned towards him just in time to impact the ground with my elbow and side of my face.  I didn’t even have time to catch my breath before he forced me up only for drag me into a second dive.  A loud whipping sound slapped the ground beside me.  I could feel the wind across my nose right before leaves flung up into my face.  Perry pulled me up again and we continued to run.

I tried to turn around as my body bounced off a twig.  Perry didn’t seem to notice and kept me from going down as he pulled me through the air.  I wanted to see!  In the blackness the white claws reemerged. The chunk of meat looked like a split muscle, two points at its end—a tongue.  The claws were teeth, large droplets of liquid dripped off the claws as a growl ricocheted off the surrounding twigs. 

I watched as waves of sound rippled through my surroundings and refracted off the twigs into dozens of directions.  Perry pulled us behind a larger tree, blocking my line of sight, and everything went black.  I heard crunching as sound rippled through the darkness, eating away the nothing.  “Bono!” Perry yelled in between breaths, “it woul’ es’plain d’he pur’le sac’s we been s’eppin’ on! And why are d’he ‘ree’s are so small!”

Black, black, black—nothing was working, it couldn’t capture the trees.  Black, black, black, black, black—green, sharp. Claws! A sparkle of light bounced off the pair of sharp claws as they ripped through the large tree we circled moments ago.  A glimmer of red sprayed out of the tree. I tried to search the blurry shadows for more.  Bead like white eyes and connected with me, I turned away from them as I noticed Perry slowing down.  I looked at him.  The darkness forced three red scratches down his arm into my mind.  Had the Bono really gotten that close? Had it made contact with Perry?

 A loud crack.  Something smelled like rotten eggs.  Sound waves boomed across my almost completely black vision. Clicking. Air refused to force itself down my throat.  Perry fell, I went down with him.  My hand went for my throat, only to grab the metal pole of the breathing machine.  It turned itself off.  I couldn’t breathe. Something sharp stabbed through my hand, the one Perry was still holding onto. 

Whatever stabbed me went through his hand too. I moved my hand away from my metal throat and reached out for Perry’s back, it was covered in the needles just like the one shoved through his and my hand.  He wasn’t moving—I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t feel, I couldn’t roll around in the puss and mud.  My focus faded.  Numbness overthrew my body as my hand grew heavy on top of his still body and pushed down against his back sending several of the sharp points through my own hand.

Nothing.  Nothing… nothing.  Stillness.  End.