Monstrosity by Curran Tim

Author:Curran, Tim [Curran, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severed Press
Published: 2017-03-04T16:00:00+00:00

69

Around noon, they took a break beneath a huge mulberry tree and ate some canned food and brewed some coffee to take the chill out. Nobody was in the best of spirits. They were dog-tired and irritable, but making a concerted effort not to pick at one another.

Frank stared out in the rain, thinking of his kids, as he always thought of his kids, and missing his dead wife. He tried twice to engage Ruby in conversation, but it was like chatting with a stump. He gave up finally. Maribel gave him a questioning look, implying that she had no idea what was going on with Ruby either.

Mick, who was usually chatty, was tight-lipped. Now and again, he would look at Frank in a most ornery way.

Finally, Frank said, “Say what’s on your mind. Get it out.”

“Well, now that you mention it, I’m kind of wondering if you have any idea where we’re going,” he said. “I’m starting to get the feeling we’re lost and getting loster, if that’s a word.”

“It’s not,” Ruby said and said no more .

Frank understood. “We’re not lost. Trust me. Cutting through the woods is the shortest route to the highway on foot. I told you all this wouldn’t be easy.”

“Well, it’s just that we don’t seem to be getting anywhere.”

Frank had to bite his tongue. What he wanted to say was, I invited none of you. I could have done this all by myself in half the fucking time. You think I like playing boy scout leader to you people, you’re wrong. But he didn’t say that. He decided diplomacy was the best way. “I told you it would be tough. If you can’t take it, we can cut back to the road. I’ll put it up to the vote. Whatever you guys want.”

“We’ll continue on this way,” Maribel said. “And I won’t hear any more about it. And you quit being a bitter little cocksprite, Mick.”

“Shit,” he said.

Cocksprite? Frank didn’t know what that was, but he liked it. It was right up there with “weasel-dick” and “monkey-skull.”

“Ruby?” Frank said. “You get a voice in this.”

He didn’t think she was going to respond, but finally, she licked her lips and said, “I’m tired. I’m beaten, that’s all. I just want to go home. I want to sleep in a warm bed. I feel so…dirty.”

“When we reach Montpalk, there’ll be beds,” Maribel assured her.

Frank agreed silently.

He didn’t know about beds, but he had the most awful feeling that there was going to be something in Montpalk. Something bad.

Mick was poking around in the dirt with a stick. Intrigued, he grabbed a tuft of grass and pulled it up. Where its roots should have been, there were fine white fibers that were shiny and waxy like corn silk. “See? Now that’s what we’re dealing with here, people. The Food and all this damn rain, this humidity…it’s making these funguses grow. They’re going to get into everything. Even us.”

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