Villainy, Viciousness, and Vegetables (part 2)

“That doesn’t even make sense!” Maria snapped, looking down and crouching over on the small board bridge. A few of the potatoes below looked up and screeched in delight, seeing food so easily paralyzed above. They began to jump and pile up on each other, trying to reach her tiny teeth, champing. Maria started to step across the bridge, but the sudden fear of falling hit her, removing the confident balance she had before.

“Don’t look down,” I began to coach, but she looked up angrily and cut me off.

“You really aren’t helping right now!”

I stepped out towards the bridge. Maria extended her hand, but it was about five feet too short.

The potatoes below rallied at a foul botanical bellow from the big hairy alpha potatoes into orderly lines. Each line ran, in turn, into the far wall, shaking the kitchen floor ever so slightly. The board jiggled, and Maria stopped trying to grab my hand. She instead opted for holding onto the board and crawling forward. I stepped out onto the jiggling board towards her as another round of phytologic pummelers knocked the end of the board on the other side closer to the edge. If they could shake it enough, it would drop off into the area below, affording them a ramp to get up.

I stepped out farther, and Tom grabbed my other hand as I approached Maria, and she crawled towards me. As I caught her hand, the board began to jerk violently. Then, the whole board dropped into the room below, and swarms began to ascend after us. I pulled on Maria as she slid down, digging her bare feet into the wood to aid me. Tom pulled on both of us and with a mighty heave, we pulled her up, which knocked us all three to the floor. In a quick moment of genius, Tom kicked the piece of the board still on our side, sending it down to the enclosure below.

We lay there for a minute, trying to catch our breath. Tom chuckled briefly, sighing in relief. Then, a tiny scrabble foot clawed into the fresh new boards Tom and I  had just put up. Then another claw. Taloned feet gouged the wood along the gap, and little warty hairy heads and tiny piercing eyes. The eyes gave one the sense that they were blind but could see your inner thoughts. Then the big hairy alpha potato launched himself up, landing feet away from us. With a screech-like howl of epic proportions, he called his troops to follow.

I scrambled up, “I feel like we are all about to wish we could run faster.”

Then, the horde was upon us, and for the next few seconds, they were all a blur in my memory. Tom somehow got us all moving down the hall, and the next thing I knew, I was following Maria, racing after him. The army of potatoes behind us scrabbled across the slick floor, trying and inevitably failing to gain purchase. Instead of tripping and losing ground, they rolled up into tight little spheres and barreled off the walls like rubber balls, gaining on us quickly.

I’ve never been a good runner, and so I began to lag behind. That is until I felt wire-thin teeth nip the edge of my pant leg. I yelped and found a reserve of energy from somewhere. It is amazing how something chasing you gives you the strength to keep running. I leaped forward on the next turn and kicked off the wall to keep up my speed as we reached the final stretch before the door that led away. Unfortunately, the little monsters followed my lead and bounced around worse than ever.

Up ahead, Tom tore the door to the square rooms open and ran in, beckoning us to hurry. Maria was right behind him. I somehow had fallen behind again. Tom yelled at me, but I didn’t pay attention. I Just hurdled through the door and crashed to the thin carpet floor.

There were three loud crashes: Tom slamming the door. Me, landing on the thin, slippery carpet and sliding across the room into the door on the other side. And, of course, the loud smack as the horticultural horrors barraged the door.

I got up to my hands and knees, then sat down vigorously, rubbing my head. Maria paced back and forth, muttering, and Tom was casting about for something to barricade the door with. It seemed like this room was off. I always got confused in here, but now I could swear that there were fewer books on the wall, and the floor seemed to sway under me briefly, but that was probably an effect of hitting my head.

“Hey Maria,” I began, but she gave me a silencing look.

“I’m trying to concentrate!” she said, leaning against the wall and focusing on the door.

I waited a few moments, “uh, Tom? Maria? Shouldn’t we be….”

Maria turned and looked at me, her voice echoing eerily in my mind, “Will you please stop blathering!”

I remained quietly rubbing my head until Tom gave up, and Maria took a long-held breath. We both looked expectantly at Maria as the door shook and shivered.

“Well, that isn’t going to work.”

“What isn’t?” I asked.

She got up, walking back and forth, “I tried to alter their group consciences.”

“Their what?”

She shook her head violently, waving her hand vaguely, “It is just a name I gave to a phenomenon I’ve observed. If enough people are all focused on one thing (a mob mentality is what I’ve heard it referred to as), then I can alter that thing they are focused on and turn it to another path easier than I could change all of their individual minds at once.”

Tom whistled, “Well, remind me never to lead a riot near your house.”

Maria smirked. She seemed the kind of kid to enjoy exerting a sense of superiority over older kids like me and Tom.

The door groaned ominously. I got to my feet quickly, “We should keep moving. Go someplace else.”

Tom hit the door a few times, “All these doors are solid wood and rock hard.”

The handle shook back and forth, and the nob twisted. I backed up, throwing open the opposite door that led to the center room in the grid I mentioned earlier, “the handles, though, are much weaker!”

  Maria caught on and bolted into the next room just as the door burst open, and Tom sprinted towards me.

We made it into the room that was the center square in the nine-room grid. Maria sprinted forward and opened the next door. I followed, glancing behind as Tom attempted to slam the door on them. Each one of these rooms, even the ones in the corner, had four doors, but the ones not touching any room opened up to just a closet of about an inch deep… so completely useless. I always imagined the extra doors were to make all the rooms look the same. Tom pressed hard, but they began to leak through. Unimaginably, it seemed there were twice the number now. Finally, Tom gave up sprinting to where we waited at the other door and slamming that one. I took a deep breath, then crossed to the door that led to the staircase and out of these confusing cubes. I raced up the steps, but yet again, to my annoyance, both Tom and Maria passed me.

There were two quick bursts as they forced the doors open, and the potatoes swarmed upward. Confused as to how they could have gotten through that fast, I glanced down only to see nearly quadruple the number of potatoes from the beginning.

Maria shot back a thought to me, unwilling to waste her breath while running, “Is it just me? Or is there more of them?”

“There’s more!” I shouted, “Definitely.”

“Maybe they are biting normal potatoes and turning them rouge as they go!” Tom wheezed as we reached the top and rounded into a new hallway, “You know the curse of the werewolf?”

“We do not have this many potatoes in the house!” Maria called behind her. We rounded through two more rooms, with unfortunately no doors. The host was right on our heels, and my poor running skills were paying off in making me floral fodder.

“Where are we going?” I asked, sprinting faster as a warty weed bit at my heel.

Tom ran backward a stretch, shrugging. Maria called over her shoulder, answering me, “The tower door should keep them out!”

The tower door was just ahead. I lagged further, my breath coming in rasps. Maria made it to the door, opened it, and yelled for us to follow. I turned back and glanced at all the hordes of more potatoes screeching for my blood, and as I did, a more daring of the potatoes lept forward and clamped down hard on the toe of my shoe.

Bursts of pain shot up my nerves, and I tripped forward heavily. Tom grabbed me, pulling me up to my feet. I shouted in pain, trying to use my foot, but it was no good. Tom dragged me forward just as they caught up, and we hobbled forward. In no time, they were upon us. Tom kicked the runners away, heaving me up as I limped and tripped.

Another one leaped up at my leg. Tom knocked that one off, then slung me over his shoulder, sprinting for the door.

We made it with only a second to spare, and Maria slammed the heavy door shut with a resounding boom. Tom let go of me, trying (familiarly) to find something to prop up the door. Again, I fell to the floor, nursing my toe. To my horror, I saw the grubby glutton chewing away contentedly at my shoe and growling the while. In a shout of pain and anger, I ripped the thing off of my bleeding bitten toes and hurled it across the room, where it speared itself on the pointy railing of the steps.

“That thing nearly ripped my toes off!” I shouted, looking at my bleeding foot. Maria and Tom weren’t paying attention. They were busy staring at the potato, which had split in half and twitched on the floor.

I scooted closer, cradling my foot. Each half shuddered with a near life of its own. Then, in a flash, the halves each grew into a full potato.

“That’s how they are getting more!” I shouted in surprise, “That explains everything!”

“I don’t get how that explains anything!” Tom yelled, delivering a heavy blow with his foot to the potato running at him. Tom next leaped into the air, landing squarely on top of the mealy menace, flattening it into a pulp. Maria shoved the one grabbing at her backward. I lurched forward, trying to intercept it. Observing Tom, Maria copied him and leaped over me and squashed it.

The tiny fleshy bits as soft as a boiled potato didn’t reform. Tom panted, holding onto his knees, “So they were… cutting each other in half?”

I shrugged, “that is what I would assume.”

Maria tapped her chin, “starfish will purposely cut themselves in half to produce more starfish… not as fast as this. I think maybe it is related to the fact that if you cut a potato into bits around each seed piece, it will grow from that.”

Tom stood again, “either way, I want to know what we can do to stop these guys.”

I pulled out a handkerchief and wrapped it around my toes. “Well, if we can wait until morning, they will probably leave. That is how it works with werewolves.”

“But how will we survive that long?” Maria gestured at the door, which was shaking and thumping.

We thought a moment before Maria came up with something.

“The roof!” Maria shouted, “I have a rope in my room that leads up out of the window onto the main piece of the roof.”

I nodded, getting to my feet with Tom’s help, “did your dad know about that?”

Maria shook her head, “Well, actually, no… but it is safe.”

The door creaked ominous. Tom looked at it, “This isn’t a flimsy kind of handle or door. I think we will be fine…”

The sounds all stopped, and what was likely the alpha-potato growled deeply. The chittering and screeching were gone as something took hold of the doorknob and turned. The other two were already running, but I stood transfixed, looking at the flood of potatoes pouring into the room.

I snapped out of the trance and followed the other two up the steps, limping slightly. The potatoes were having a hard time following. With their tiny claws, they couldn’t climb the steps and follow. Yet by sheer numbers, they overcame the obstacle and piled on each other in a one-thousand-potato-flood. In moments, we were at the top of the tower and quickly came into Maria’s room. It was an odd place, but then again, she was a telepath, so I shouldn’t expect it to be normal. There was a canopy bed with curtains on one side next to a writing desk and some kind of work table covered in little metal scraps and… inventions. It looked like Maria was following after her dad. A jumble of objects hung from the ceiling, globes of fused metal rings and string spheres suspending glass beads. It made for a sort of ‘mystic’ feel to the place.

Coming to my senses, I tried to shut the door, but it wouldn’t stay closed.

“What is wrong with this thing?” I complained.

“It’s been broken for a while!” she told me, running to the window and throwing it open, “this is our only hope, not another useless door.”

“Yeah, Eric,” Tom gasped, “your uncle needs to invest in better anti-potato security.”

I followed Maria to the window as she shouted in frustration, “The rope snapped in the storm earlier! I knew it was getting weak!”

“Now what?” I asked in a panic as the sound of the potato flood increased.

Maria ran over to a chest in the corner and pulled out a new length of rope. “I can try to catch this thing on the projection just up there,” she said, tied a loop in the rope, and ran to the window. But you guys will need to hold them off for me.”

Tom grabbed two pokers from the fireplace on the opposite side of the room from the bed. He tossed one up into the air. I caught it on the pointy end with my left hand, then flipped it up into my right hand right side up. Before I could have time to brag about my accomplishment, the first of the potatoes raced into the room, mouths gnashing and screeching.

I swept my poker down like a golf club and sent the bits of a potato flying, then separated the next into thirds with the point. Tom used his poker like a skewer, jabbing down on one potato after another, lining them up like a shishkabob before launching them off the edge to the balcony. We quickly cleared the balcony and were fighting our way down the stairs. We finished off the forerunners, but the main horde was coming, so many we couldn’t withstand them.

“Maria!” I shouted up, “How is it going?”

I could tell I wasn’t, “It isn’t working!”

The world seemed to pause in that moment of horror. There was no escape. I turned to Tom and said, “I have this sudden ridiculous urge to go down in a blaze of glory.”

Tom nodded, “Absolutely.”

I thought hard in Maria’s direction, hoping she was picking up on my thoughts, “Keep working, we’ll keep them at bay.”

Tom and I crossed ‘blades’, and then, with a shout of rage and power, we ran down the stairs hitting potatoes left and right. Smashing, spearing, and stabbing our way to the spud squad below. It was something worthy of an action movie. The world seemed in slo-mo with hair whipping and legs pumping. Our enemy screeching, and swords glinting. I could almost hear the heroic vocalizing.

We were a few paces from the main hoard. I could see the hideous alpha potato riding his subjects like the crest of a wave. I raised my poker, and Maria interrupted me.

“I have an idea!” she shouted mentally at both of us.

I thought back an answer, “Did you get the rope?”

“No, but I have a better idea! I can stop them with my mind.”

We began to spear the potatoes around us, only moments away from the final conflict. I couldn’t hear Tom’s thoughts, but I could guess he was having a similar conversation. I thought at her vigorously while stabbing, “Just continue with the plan! That didn’t work last time.”

“But I know what to do,” she pleaded, “trust me!”

I paused as time once again seemed to freeze. Did I trust her? She had concealed her identity from me and failed on this plan before. She was my cousin, though, and if I couldn’t trust her, then I was just as abandoned and alone as I had felt before, and I didn’t want to abandon her either.

I booked it back up the stairs, calling for Tom, who reluctantly complied. When we arrived in her room, she was waiting for us.

“What is the plan?” I asked, “We are both with you.”

Her face seemed to glow, and she smiled for the first time since I had seen her. She spoke in my head quietly, “Thank you,” then, out loud, she explained her plan to us, “It might seem weird, but the more minds in a group conscience, the easier it is to manipulate. Factor that in with the fact that they are even more fixated on eating us, and I now know that their minds are like duplicates of each other, and I think I can control them.

I nodded, “that makes sense. That is, as much as is possible for a non-telepath. What do you need from us.”

“I need your help. I can sort of use your mental energy to supplement my own,” Maria said, taking a breath in, “are you ready?”

“Sure,” Tom said, cracking his knuckles.

The sounds grew louder, and then up from the steps and through the door came the mass of evil, vile, and villainous vegetables pouring in, in a malevolent mass.

“Now!” Maria shouted, grabbing hold of our hands. At that moment, the world seemed to tilt and spin like a ship on the seas. It was like I was standing sideways. The creatures before us morphed into something resembling a face, almost. Hissing and spitting, it threw itself against the shimmering barrier between us. Static energy crackled from everywhere, and my perception began to blur. As I lost consciousness, I heard her say, “Go! And never return!”

• • • • •

I awoke lying on the floor amongst the dirt and powdered glass. I got up coughing. The inside of my head felt rubbed raw. Someone was calling my name.

“Eric! Eric!”

I blinked, and the world came into focus. Tom stooped over me, shaking my shoulder, “Thank goodness, I thought you would never wake up.”

I glanced at the graying dawn in the distance, “what time is it?”

“Probably close to four in the morning, but listen, we have to hurry up and get out of here before your uncle gets back!”

I shook my head, “why?”

Maria answered me from the shadows sitting on her bed, “because he would be angry if he found out you knew about my mental abilities. And he would never believe the story about the potatoes.”

I resisted, “he is a reasonable guy. He will know we aren’t lying!”

Again, Maria shook her head. “No, he won’t. He will just think I was creating illusions in your minds!”

I was steadfast in my opinion, “and the doors?”

Now Tom had something to knock my idea down, “No, I checked actually, and the only thing broken is the door knobs downstairs, and they more of just gave out. The big one at the tower base was opened, not broken. And really, an army of tiny monsters is the least likely explanation.”

“Fine, we show him the ones that ‘gave out’ he will believe us then!”

Tom spoke up again, almost bitterly, “Trust me, I know from experience that people will do anything to avoid believing what they don’t understand. What do you think people said when I told them a big foot chased me through the woods?”

I shook my head, “I don’t like this.”

Maria joined our conversation, “It has to happen Eric, whether you like it or not.”

I stepped forward and put my hands on Maria’s shoulders, “Then I’ll wait, but I’m going to find proof, and I’m going to make sure you leave this tower.”

She shook her head, raising it to look at me, “It won’t work.”

“Then I’ll make it work,” I said, “but no matter what happens, I’m here for you because we are family.”

I got up. Tom motioned for me to follow him, “I hate to break up your conversation, but we have to get out of here!”

I followed him quickly down the stairs after he said goodbye to Maria. We crossed the bottom of her tower as the sun barely hit the horizon. I stumbled on something, and picking it up, I found it was a big fat potato. I tossed it to Tom. He caught it, examined it briefly, and dropped it with a yelp.

“How?” he asked me, “I thought Maria banished them!”

I picked it up, “It is probably just an ordinary potato. It isn’t exactly day, and it already looks normal. And she sent all the living ones away.”

“Then how did a potato get up here?”

“I don’t know.”

Tom crossed his arms and stopped in the hallway just before our doors. “Fine, if it is a real and normal potato, leave it in your room overnight on a full moon.”

I glanced at the potato, looked at Tom, and threw it out the window.