“They’re a shield!” Mildred shouted.
“Probably thinks we won’t kill our own kind,” Ryan said without emotion. “Mistake three. By the looks of things, they’re already dead. Jak, fire.”
Angling the big vented barrel forward, the teenager cut loose with the side-mounted .50-caliber machine gun, the heavy slugs from the Remington tearing the people into shreds. Their bodies jerked about madly, red blood splattering the leafy walls in a grisly spray.
They could see that the filaments of the ivy reached everywhere inside the prisoners, extruding from every pore, every opening.
“By the Three Kennedys,” Doc gasped.
“Not prisoners,” Dean spit, pumping the Mossberg. “Puppets.”
“Find her,” Ryan commanded over the external PA system. There was a tone in his voice none of them had ever heard before. “Find her!”
Ryan’s hands were white on the steering wheel as he put more fuel onto the writhing plants, scorching a path through the unholy puppets.
Grabbing the last of the empty gas cans, J.B. and Doc were close behind as Dean took off. Ryan stared after them, as he sent a fresh spray from the flamethrower across the ceiling of the dock as a protective umbrella. As the burning liquid flowed onto the cocoons, the pods burst open, spilling out desiccated bodies dried of every possible nutrient fluid. They blazed like seasoned cordwood.
As the three friends passed the crumpled puppets, the headlights of Leviathan grew faint, but the conflagration gave them ample light to see. Warily, they proceeded deeper into the lush hell of the store. Abundant plants covered the floor, walls and ceiling, dainty reddish flowers decorating the thick growth. Broaching the parted curtain, they tossed more cans ahead of them and continued. The ivy whipped away.
Reaching the interior, they could see there was no second or third level to the building; the floors had been removed and a great hole reached upward to the glass skylight. Below was a slanted pit in the floor. Without hesitation, they scrambled down the incline.
“Roof and cellar,” Doc noted, his sword slashing as steadily as a harvest reaper. “No sign of her clothes,” J.B. said, which was neither good or bad. It meant she was still alive, or they weren’t near her yet.
Dean said nothing; keeping careful count of his shells. Once he got past the halfway mark, he would have to decide to keep going, or retreat. Neither sounded good.
The three walked on into the leafy hell. Bones crunched underfoot, many of them fresh. More than once, vines tried to close off their avenue of escape, or drop from overhead. But the friends expected those ploys and their combined firepower blasted apart the killer plants. And the fuel cans kept a series of clear spots free from any leafy entanglements. Escape wasn’t a problem yet.
“It’s aware we’re here,” J.B. said, resetting the glasses on his nose.
Grunting with the effort, Doc tossed a fuel can ahead of them. It landed a few yards away on a pile of leaves, which quickly became bare floor.
“That is it,” he said, drawing the LeMat. “End of the line.”
J.B. glanced behind them, the faint headlights of the distant Leviathan and the burning plants giving off an unearthly illumination. Demonic shadows danced on the ivy, adding to the malevolent ambience.
“Hate to say this,” J.B. observed, “but if we can’t see, we can’t fight.”
“A little ways more,” Dean insisted, stepping around a lump of equipment that resembled a U.S. Army portable flamethrower, the pressurized tanks broken and smashed to junk. They weren’t the first in here.
“To the last can,” J.B. said, straining to see in the dim light. His imagination was running wild, seeing attacks from every direction. And the heat!
“Yes,” Doc wheezed, coughing from the smoke. “No farther.”
More cocoons were found, time reducing them to only tatters of fibrous material. Inside one was the rusting remains of what resembled military power armor, a skeleton grinning behind the Kevlar faceplate.
“Ivy did that?” J.B. whispered, shocked.
Dean whirled. “No!” he shouted, firing twice.
Black bugs boiled out of the foliage, scuttling along the walls and ceilings, insects as big as a loaf of bread, and each wiggling on the end of a pulsatmg green vine.