Something in the Water Pt. 17

A car approached. Roy spotted Patrick in the passenger seat with that stupid investigator woman driving. Roy jumped into some bushes before they spotted him and watched them pull up to David's house. He chuckled. This should be interesting. The new Cro-Magnon David wasn't going to be so helpful or friendly to Patrick and his stupid games.

Roy watched them exit the car and walk up to the house. He focused mostly on the broad. She seemed to be busting out of a dress that barely contained her. Had Patrick, the sly dog, knocked her up? Roy could see the faint swell of her belly. Well, if so, too bad Roy wouldn't get the chance. But as Roy watched her, he thought maybe he ought to move her up on the list of conquests. She was pretty, and regal, and he wanted nothing more than to turn her into an animal and take her away from the bespectacled dummy next to her.

The door opened, but Roy couldn't see into the house from his angle. So, he continued to focus on the investigator's ass. After a while, the pair of them talked animatedly with someone inside. Then, hanging their heads, they walked back to the car and drove away.

When they were long gone, Roy marched back to David's house. He opened the door and let himself right in.

"What are you doing here?" Linda trembled with nervous energy at the sight of that horrible boy. She stood in the kitchen, preparing dinner. David sat at the kitchen table, with a big glass of milk before him.

"What did they want, Davey?" Roy pulled up a chair and sat down, ignoring Linda.

"David Riles!" David said with enthusiasm.

"Patrick. What did Patrick want to talk to you about?" Roy said very slowly.

"Lake!" David picked up his glass and drank his milk, spilling much of it down his chin and onto his shirt.

"Ugh. You're impossible." Roy turned and looked at Linda. "What did they want, Mrs. Riles?"

"They were talking crazy." Linda turned her spatula in a mixing bowl. Some flour spilled out and covered her apron in fine dust. She didn't look over at Roy.

"Spit it out." Roy's voice rose, and his patience faded.

Linda told him what they'd said in a hushed voice.

"They think they can turn everything back to normal? But electrifying the lake?" Roy thought things over. Linda started to say something, but he shushed her. "We're going to borrow your car, Mrs. Riles. Come on Davey-boy, let's go."

"You're going to help them? Will this make David better again?" Linda rushed to get her car keys. It was all so ludicrous, but everything was insane now.

"We'll see, Mrs. Riles." Roy took the keys from her and pushed his imbecile of a friend toward the door. "We'll see."

~~

The numbers looked good. Axcix glanced over the latest data. Offspring were gestating rapidly, showing the expected range of dimorphic variances. She gurgled to herself in her underwater home. The Creators would be very pleased with her when they received her reports some several centuries from now.

She didn't pay the slightest attention to the activity spikes springing up all around Portsmith. Why should she bother? She had her sentinels in the water, and others out roaming the land. They would take care of any behavior from the dominant species antithetical to her goals.

~~

The entire Lannit family, minus Fred who was still at work, followed Donna out to her car.

"Is this dangerous, Pat?" Susy squeezed her son's hand. She had just agreed to help him remove some sort of animal from Lake Ipuza Ikpi. His friends, apparently, did not want to help.

"I told you, Mom, it's super dangerous. But it isn't a two-person job." He looked over and caught the look of anxiety in his mother's eyes. "But don't worry, Donna's been through way worse. She'll know what to do."

The group clambered into the car. Donna, still barefoot, got behind the wheel. This was no occasion for heels. Patrick sat in the passenger seat. The three Lannit women piled onto the back seat.

"Is it true you've seen strange things ... before?" Susy put her hand on Donna's shoulder as the automobile purred to life.

"I have." Donna reached up and patted Susy's hand. They had really left their rivalry behind. "There was a vampire once that preyed on young housewives. Mark and I had a close shave there. We didn't kill the wretch, but we did send him on his way much worse for wear. And then there was the shapeshifter who --" Donna stopped abruptly as a car skidded to a halt perpendicular to them just inches from her front bumper.

Patrick leaned his head out the window. "Roy, what the hell?" Somehow, Roy and David had stolen Linda's car for a joyride. "Get out of the way, you idiot."

Roy slowly rolled down the window. Everyone waited.

"I'm the idiot?" Roy narrowed his eyes at his erstwhile friend. He looked over the contents of the other car. Stupid Patrick was taking his whole family with him on his mission. His eyebrow twitched as he thought over whether Patrick might actually succeed. "You want to end this? The best thing that happened to any man ever, and you want to throw it all away? Let's go into your house and talk." Roy began bouncing in his seat and moving his arms around inside the car, trying to break a sweat.

"David told you?" Bemused, Patrick looked over at his tall friend who had the most moronic smile on his face. "About the Lake?" He looked over at Donna and whispered to her, "Go around them. They're both crazy."

"Maybe I should talk to him. Roy always liked me." Sally leaned her head into the front seat with a hopeful look.

Patrick shuddered. It was true, Roy had had a crush on Sally for a long time. Patrick was revolted thinking about what present day Roy would do to her if he ever got her cornered. "No thanks, Sally. We'll need your help at the lake."

"Okay." Sally reclined back and leaned against her sister. She was still buzzed from what they'd done earlier in the day. All the apocalyptic revelations and angry, fat teenagers couldn't kill her buzz.

"Hold on everyone." Donna put the car in reverse and the wheels screeched on the pavement as their car lurched backward. The gears groaned a protest as she quickly switched to first and darted her car around Roy's auto. She could clearly hear shrieking rubber as Roy gave chase. She checked the mirror. Sure enough, the boys weren't far behind. "I mean it now, everyone hold on to something." Donna accelerated, and took a sharp turn.

Patrick grabbed the door. The women in back held each other. Sally somehow wound up with a handful of boob on either side, but since her mother and sister didn't complain, she kept her hands where they were.

Several blocks down the street, a patrol of three army jeeps slowly cruised down main street. Lieutenant Abby Kerns was behind the wheel of the last vehicle. There had been a number of disappearances from their rank lately, so they were to travel only in large groups going forward. Two to each jeep in this case. The imposter Kerns moved liquidly under its pressed khaki uniform as it wondered how to bring about more disappearances. Two cars zipped by in the opposite direction, clearly one giving chase to the other.

"Lieutenant ... erns." Captain Millbank's voice came over the static that plagued their radios in that little town. The fake Abby could see the captain's lead vehicle swing around to give chase. "... ollow ... and bring ... for questioning."

"Perfect." Abby purred. It swung its jeep around to follow the other two and floored the accelerator.

"What?" Lieutenant Ellen Mosley's face went white and she clutched at a handhold above her head.

"I said, we could use a distraction." Abby's right hand slipped off the steering wheel, its fingers lengthening.

"I don't understand. I ..." Ellen paused. It felt like there was a snake brushing against her leg. She couldn't take her eyes away from the road as it sped past them, but when the thing nudged between her thighs, she looked down. "Eeeeeiiiiiiiiiii," Ellen screamed in horror. Her partner's arm had stretched like rubber along the floorboard, and it was now reaching up under her skirt. She could barely process what she was seeing. "What's happening ... what's happening ..." Despite her training as a specialist ready to confront the new Red menace in Portsmith, Ellen could tell she was hyperventilating. "Get it off mmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee." The thing had pushed through her nylons and found her pussy. Her fingers dug into the handhold. Seconds before her grip had been out of terror, but now it was purely out of pleasure. As the town raced past outside the window, Ellen had her first orgasm on the deformed arm of Lieutenant Kerns.

In the lead car, Patrick craned his neck to see behind them. "There are three jeeps behind Roy and Dave. Wait." There was a sound of great wrenching metal behind them. "Only two jeeps. One of them just hit a tree."

"We wanted to sneak up on the thing in the lake. This isn't sneaking." Donna let Patrick fill her in on the happenings behind them. She couldn't spare a glance in the mirror. They had just turned onto the road out to the lake, and it was a narrow, winding piece of construction. It would be very easy for her to join that jeep in becoming one with a tree.

"No, you're right." Patrick tried to give his mother a reassuring smile as he looked over her head at another jeep running off the road. This one hit a stone wall and burst into flames. It was clear that the remaining jeep had just run the other two off the road. He hadn't the foggiest idea why any of this was happening. "Should we ... I don't know, do this later?"

"Sorry, lovebird." Donna felt quite at home in the thick of things. But it was odd not to have Mark by her side. "I don't think we'll get another bite at this apple. Not with your friends back there in on the plan. And the Army right behind. We'll have to do this now."

"Mom, you still with me?" Patrick wasn't sure how to keep everyone focused.

Susy put on her most stern demeanor, like she'd just caught one of her children in the liquor cabinet. "Whatever caused all this will be sorry to have met the Lannits."

"Sally? Adeline?" Patrick looked to his sisters.

Sally winked at him.

Adeline tried to smile, but wasn't convincing. Only a few days ago she'd been looking for a husband in college. In the last few hours, she had lost her virginity to her brother, made out with her sister, and watched her mom have sex. And now she was careening down a road in a car driven by her brother's much older, married girlfriend. Being chased by the Army and Patrick's somehow evil friends. And the goal was to kill a meteor that landed in their lake. She felt she might throw up.

"That's my girls." Patrick turned back to Donna and adjusted his glasses. "So, Roy's not that far back and the jeep is right behind him." He gazed at her calm resolve and was reminded what a force this woman was. It was awe inspiring that she'd chosen him. "What's the plan now?"

"Well, I was hoping your mother and sisters might be available to help us cut the line and get it in the water." Donna turned things over in her mind. "But that's not going to work. If I can get us enough distance from our pursuers, maybe we could use a bit of misdirection. You and me stay, and your family draws the others away. What do you think?" She chanced a quick look at Patrick, and was relieved to see that he seemed to be taking this all well. And he wasn't breaking out in a cold sweat. The last thing she needed right now was for lust to melt her otherwise sharp mind.

"Sure. Whatever you say." Patrick nodded and leaned into the door as they took a sharp curve. He could just see the blue-green of the lake through the trees to their left now. They were getting close.

"Hold on." Dona turned next to the familiar parking lot and careened down the rough, dirt road that ran around the lake. She nearly banged her head on the ceiling when they hit their first big bump. She looked in the mirror to see both cars follow. She had to put some distance between them.

~~

Axcix suddenly turned from her meditation on the data inflow. Her proximity sensors flashed at her. She hadn't bothered with much in the way of defensive mechanisms. The local population was too crude to offer any kind of threat. Her sentinels were enough. But something was happening out there. And what little defenses she had would soon be put to the test.

Much to her surprise, Axcix realized that the creature Smith was among those moving rapidly around her body of water. What was it up to? What where those members of the dominant species up to? With curiosity, she launched a drone to get a better view. If nothing else, this moment should render some remarkable data.