Rhubarb (35 page)

Together they pushed, but the hose stayed firm. “Again,”
said Martin.

“We’ll probably blow ourselves up doing this,” Lee said even
as they heaved once more. Then a third time.

“Come on,” Martin said, as much to the hose and the stove as
to his companions. “Once more. Give it everything.” They backed up to the wall
and rushed together.

The oven crashed into the worktable, rearranging everything.
Pans banged and clattered across the tiles. The table crashed against the glass
and the door. The hose hung loose now, hissing. Martin’s taxed respiratory
system already ached for better air.

The door slid open, scraping chunky gray slop onto the
floor. A pink and sticky Jeffrey burst in, staple gun first. The path closed
off, he slithered onto the table, sliding to a stop on the remains of the
baking, looming and breathing heavily. His skin browned and puckered in the
volatile air.

Martin held up his lighter, thumb on the striker.

“You wouldn’t dare,” said Jeffrey.

“Why not?” asked Martin.

“You’ll die, too,” said Jeffrey.

“You’re going to kill us,” said Martin. “What’s the
difference?”

“You murdered them,” said Cheryl.

“They wanted to shut it down, didn’t they?” asked Lee.

“There was some discussion about the ethics of including
such an ingredient in the product, yes,” said Jeffrey. “Chumpdark wouldn’t
listen to reason.”

“And you couldn’t give up, could you?” asked Martin.

“Now I return to the board of directors, single-handedly
having acquired the recipe and started production. I’m a hero, and lucky to be
alive,” said Jeffrey.

“What about them?” asked Martin.

“Unfortunate casualties of a violent, primitive species,”
said Jeffrey. “History will thank us for ridding the galaxy of you.”

“You know we can’t let you get away with this,” said Martin.

“Please,” said Jeffrey. “It’s already happening. I initiated
the planetary entry sequence right before I came in here.”

Martin repositioned his thumb on the lighter’s little
knurled wheel, digging for the will to snap the striker home. Jeffrey jammed
the staple gun against Martin’s forehead with a warning laugh. Lee bellowed and
lunged, but Jeffrey knocked him back. Tentacles encircled Martin’s waist and
throat. Another snatched at his hand, but Martin kept a death grip on the lighter.
Suckers sucked and clawed at Martin’s knuckles and skin. Martin gasped for
breath and kicked to get away, scraping at slippery, rubbery skin with his free
hand. A tip of one of Jeffrey’s tentacles covered the top of the lighter, and
Martin flicked the wheel.

If it sparked, it did nothing. Martin’s head throbbed, and
his lungs screamed for a clean breath of air. And then he collapsed, free, as
Jeffrey howled a throaty, spewting growl of pain and rage. The wooden handle of
a kitchen knife protruded from his torso a few inches above and behind one eye.
No small-handled paring knife, but one of the big ones capable of chopping
through a whole handful of rhubarb. Cheryl held her footing on the table amid
the flailing tentacles, hauled off with a rolling pin, and pounded the knife
home. It sank in, handle and all, with a spray of watery pink goo. Jeffrey
tumbled sideways, screeching, clutching at his body, eyes panicked.

“Blow us up already!” Cheryl shrieked, clamoring across the
table after him with her rolling pin and another knife.

Martin sucked what oxygen he could into his lungs through
his ravaged throat and nearly blacked out. Knowing only that his thumb had to
do something, he fumbled it on the top of the object clutched in his fist. A
hand clamped over his.

“Don’t. Not now. He’s gone,” said Lee. Martin longed to lie
down on the floor, but Lee grabbed his arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

Lee helped Martin over the table, and they followed the
slippery trail of alien blood out of the Herbert’s Corner kitchen. The exploded
remains of one of the goons coated the vestibule. Lee retched over his
squelching feet. Martin forced himself to hold his breath for a few more
seconds. A dollop of squid dripped onto the back of his head, and he slapped it
away before it dribbled into his collar.

They hung together in the corridor, sucking for air and
scuffing gore off their shoes.

“Is everyone okay?” Martin asked as he slumped to the floor
with his back on the wall.

“We’re not dead,” said Cheryl.

“Thanks to you,” Martin said. “You were amazing.”

“We have to stop him,” said Lee.

“He’ll be easy to find.” Cheryl pointed her rolling pin
toward the trail of pink glops and Jeffrey’s diminishing howls. “Come on.” She
offered a hand to pull Martin up.

“No,” said Martin. He still needed a few moments to catch
his breath.

“What? Come on,” said Cheryl.

“We have to stop this ship,” said Martin.

“How do you propose to do that?” asked Cheryl.

“Chumpdark’s ship,” said Martin.

“Chump dar…?” asked Lee.

“The CEO, the fat one. His ship’s in the hangar. We fly it
out, and then set it on a collision course at whatever looks most like the
engines, then get the hell off,” said Martin. “It’s what Stewart and I planned
to do. Also…”

“Also?” asked Cheryl.

“We destroy whatever we can on the way out. You should see
the rest of this ship. It’s like it’s made of cardboard and chalk. We smash
anything that looks important. Set fires. Whatever.”

“This place is huge. There’s no way we’ll inflict enough
damage,” said Lee.

“It’s also automated,” said Martin. “Sever enough
connections, and stuff stops working. From what Stewart told me, this is mostly
a dumb warehouse. Where we are is probably the command and control section, so
if we do enough damage here, it might kill off huge parts of the ship. But
we’re running out of time.”

“You guys do that,” said Cheryl. “I’m going after Asshat.”

Martin grabbed her wrist. “No. Please,” he said.

“Let go of me,” said Cheryl.

“We have to stay together,” said Martin.

“You don’t know what he’s put me through,” said Cheryl.

Martin let her go and got to his feet. She took a few steps
backward down the bloody corridor. “We have to destroy this ship now, before it
gets to the portal,” said Martin.

“Then go do that,” said Cheryl.

“I agree. We can’t waste time hunting,” said Lee.

“If the ship gets in the atmosphere…” said Martin.

“He’s wounded. It won’t take long,” said Cheryl.

“Cheryl, I can’t destroy this ship if you’re still on
board,” said Martin. “It’s why Stewart asked me to come. Not to kill them, or
even to save Earth. He wanted to save you.” Cheryl stopped. “Stay with us.
Please.”

“Fine,” she said.

“Besides,” said Martin, “if we destroy the right stuff,
he’ll come looking for us.” Cheryl had a great smile.

A few minutes later, they gathered outside the door of
Cheryl’s trailer, on the alien side, free from the stench of alien innards and
natural gas. On the human side, they’d opened all the doors, and had broken
every natural gas line, even as they’d gathered up what Lee called “utensils of
mass destruction.” Along with the rolling pin that had nearly killed Jeffrey,
Cheryl had rearmed herself with a savage meat cleaver. Lee had a rolling pin
and a meat tenderizer. Martin clasped a thick, wooden cutting board with a
handle—a shield to go with his rolling pin sword. Their pockets bristled with
knives.

Cheryl rolled up an
Awake
magazine and let Martin
light one end on fire.

“I hope this works,” said Martin.

“There’s enough gas in there for another Hindenburg,” said
Lee.

The magazine burned quickly. “Open the door already,” said
Cheryl.

Lee opened the door, and Cheryl tossed the flaming magazine
in underhand. It unrolled, flipping end over end, and struck the ceiling. It
fell, igniting the air around it. Lee closed the door, wide-eyed. Martin stared
back at him and blinked twice.

“Um, run now,” said Cheryl.

Martin tumbled weightless through the rotating collar of the
junction, out of the faked gravity and faked Earthscapes into the ship proper.
He collided with Cheryl. A fireball roared down the corridor from where they
had come, its flames swirling into balls as the gravity weakened.

A klaxon screeched, and the collar’s aperture swirled shut
in an instant. A growl ate at the far side, and then another distant shudder
rattled the walls.

“That’s probably got his attention,” said Lee. Martin
laughed until he noticed the floating pink globules of alien blood, a trail of
breadcrumbs leading them to Jeffrey.

“We have to go this way,” said Martin, pointing in the
opposite direction.

“Are you sure?” asked Lee.

“They brought me down here earlier. To get the cigarettes,”
said Martin. He gripped a structural rib and whacked at a conduit with his
rolling pin. The pipe shattered, and the wire inside ripped apart. Nothing else
happened, but it felt good. “Just like going through the jungle.”

Lee hacked at another conduit, but the blow thrust him hard
against the far wall. He grabbed the top of his head. “I guess there’s a
learning curve,” he said, taking a second whack, this time braced.

~ * * * ~

Martin had envisioned leaving something like the
Screwmobile’s tunnel of destruction in their wake. They’d broken countless
pipes and conduits, had torn through walls to get to infrastructure, and more
than once they’d been sprayed with some kind of oily fluid that globbed out of
what Martin hoped weren’t sewer pipes. In one room, they had managed to
puncture several enormous tanks without drowning or gassing themselves. In
another they had rendered a Skylark-sized lattice of glowing and flashing
crystalline plates to inert shards. Drops in the bucket.

The truck had lodged in a cavernous, machine-laden
framework, and Martin wondered if they’d hit the jackpot. Lee whistled.
“There’s a lot to mess up in here,” he said.

“I—wish—we—knew—if—we—were—doing—any—real—damage,” said
Cheryl, as she whacked at an array of conduit.

“We can’t waste too much more time,” said Martin. “We’ve got
to crash the ships.” He almost pushed off down the tunnel but uncoiled himself.

“You guys go on,” he said.

“What?” asked Lee.

“Go figure out how to fly that ship,” said Martin.

“I thought we had to stay together,” said Cheryl.

“I’ve got a full load of shrapnel sitting on a full tank of
gas,” said Martin. “Should carve out a pretty good hole in the middle of this
place.”

“How are you going to do that?” asked Cheryl.

“I’ll figure something out,” said Martin.

“How are you going to get out in time?” asked Lee.

Martin sighed hard, and then said, “I’ve got some
slow-burning fuses.” The last cigarettes were bent and crushed, but intact
enough. “Set one in the right place, burns down, then boom. Should give me a
few seconds.”

“Martin,” said Cheryl, shaking her head.

“This truck’s not good for anything else,” said Martin.
“This isn’t up for discussion. Go. I’ll be right behind you.”

“Be sure and have the engine running. Get the gas flowing
through everything,” said Lee.

“What? Have you blown up a truck before?” asked Martin.

“No, just seems like a good idea,” Lee replied.

“Enough, go. We might be getting near the portal already, so
don’t spend any more time breaking stuff,” said Martin. He watched them float
away until Cheryl stopped looking back.

“What are you doing, Martin?” he muttered to himself. There
was no procedure in the FastNCo. employee fleet manual for this.

Martin hacked at the wreckage with his cutting board and
rolling pin until he could get to the gas flap. He twisted off the gas cap and
almost snapped it onto the retaining hook, but tossed it away instead.

Martin returned from the cab with the first pieces of cloth
he could find, a couple of FastNCo. polo shirts from his bag. He rolled one
tight and fed it as far as possible into the unleaded gas hole, only a few
inches at most. Peeling more debris away, he dug into the back of the truck and
found the long bolts he’d special ordered for an account in Glendive. He used
one to push the polyester a good ten inches down the throat of the gas tank.
Martin tied the other shirt in line and tamped in more fabric until he smelled
gas. He stretched the wick out to a flat bit of wreckage where he could rest a
cigarette. With his rolling pin, he pounded in a couple of two-inch
bright-finish eleven-gauge common nails to hold it all into place.

Martin got into the driver’s seat one last time. Did he need
anything from the truck? The XM radio? Rick’s luggage? The Garmin GPS? The last
five years of his life? No more road lay ahead for the Screwmobile, only pipes
and conduits leading into a labyrinth of tanks and immense machines—hopefully
the engine room, the central plant, or something equally vital.

Martin put the key in the ignition and turned it over. The
Screwmobile’s engine roared to life. He pushed himself out of the cab and right
into Jeffrey.

“Going somewhere, Screw Man?” Jeffrey drew Martin close with
several unforgiving tentacles. His torso had been wrapped with a swath of
blue-gray bandage, but pink goo oozed from the gaps. Was the knife still
inside, cutting Jeffrey deeper with every movement? “I’d hate for you to miss
what I’m going to do to your planet.”

Martin stifled a cry of pain when Jeffrey jammed the staple
gun against his temple. He didn’t want Cheryl coming back for any reason.

“I never got the chance to thank you for the recipe,” said
Jeffrey, his usual smarm sounding a bit strained. The tentacles tightened, and
Martin groaned. “It’s a bit nasty though, isn’t it?” Keep talking, Martin
thought. He resisted the urge to check down the tunnel and give away Cheryl and
Lee’s escape. “Secondhand cigarette smoke. Incredible. We never even considered
it. But it’s blindingly obvious now that I think about it. We’ll call it
‘natural flavors’ on the packaging, of course.”