The Vendeleer Brothers Book 4: The Plagued Forest

Roderick’s dreams were all over the place. Holly had turned evil and broken up with him, and started dating Brian. Ian was dating Kishnu and had decided to only eat pizza, and Roderick was trapped in vines the entire time, unable to move, his eyes glazed over and milky, plants growing out of his mouth.

When he woke up, he found himself in a cold sweat. Most everyone was still asleep, but there was a small group of people who were up, including Jordyn, Joey, Lori Evans, that old guy from the library, and the off duty cop.

On their walk over to the auditorium, they had learned that the old guy was named Louis, and several people in town respected him. He had even been thinking of running for public office. The off duty cop was named Wanda, and with the Sheriff and Deputy both missing and possibly in comas, she was in charge for the time being.

The group of them were all talking in hushed voices, and Roderick made his way over to them curiously.

“What are you guys talking about?” Roderick asked quietly so as not to wake the other townspeople. Jordyn turned to him.

“We’re talking about how to take down this creature in the swamp. Maybe if it’s dead, things can start going back to normal. Lori here also thinks that if she is able to get some of it’s poison or whatever it is, she can get someone to make an antidote for the coma patients.”

Roderick nodded, ready to take down this stupid creature that had made both his best friend and his brother sick.

“How do you propose we take this thing down?” he asked, feeling pumped and determined.

“Well, I can get us some guns.” Wanda told them. “That’ll at least get us a head start.”

“I think we should also load up on things like weed killer.” Louis reasoned. “It does seem to be a plant after all.”

“And we know that it’s somewhere along that boardwalk.” Jordyn told them. “That’s where most sightings of it have been, and that’s where we were attacked. I’m sure that if we went in there, we’d come across it easily.”

“Maybe we should bring fire with us somehow as well.” Roderick told them. “Most things like that would burn right?”

They all paused when they heard something large hit the roof above them. Jordyn and Wanda immediately whipped out their guns. They all stood there and listened to the bumps and scratches up above them.

“For some reason, I don’t think those are just vines…” Joey cautioned. Jordyn and Wanda kept their guns aimed and pointed at where the sounds were coming from, and then found themselves at the auditorium window.

CRASH!!

Suddenly, a creature burst through the window, glass flying everywhere. It could have been a large bird, but the eyes were glazed over, and there were vines growing out of its body. It looked like it should have been roadkil, some of its organs exposed and hanging there, but the plant had taken over its body, and it screeched at them. The people still asleep started to wake up from the noise, and then a moment later, several flying creatures were coming through the window.

“EVERYONE TO THE CAFETERIA!!!” Louis yelled, pulling some people up off the floor. Wanda and Jordyn shot into the air, bringing a couple of them down, but there were just so many. They were both soon out of ammunition.

Roderick ran with everyone else towards the cafeteria, covering his face and head as plant bats and birds clawed at him. He eyed a baseball bat in an open gym closet, and ran to it. Then he started swinging it, hitting the avian creatures left and right. He was suddenly reminded of that time he and Ian had been fighting zombies with Ian and Brian back in Spectreville. It made him feel sad and angry. With a furious yell, instead of fleeing to the cafeteria with the others, he started to attack the creatures even more ferociously.

“Roderick! What are you doing?!” Joey yelled over all the noise. Roderick ignored her and just kept swinging, ignoring the scratches he was getting on his arms and face.

“Hell yeah Roderick!!” Jordyn yelled, grabbing another bat and swinging with him.

As the two of them kept swinging, a few more people started to take courage, finding their own weapons and fighting back. The creatures swirled around their heads like an angry beehive, but the angry townspeople swung without mercy until, after several minutes, all of them had either fled, or wer lying dead at their feet.

Roderick stood there panting, covered in scratches and feeling adrenaline rush through his veins. They had actually won the battle. And if they could beat this onset of creatures, it meant they could beat the main one lurking in the swamp. Despite everything, he found himself grinning, and he raised his bat up into the air with a victorious cry. Jordyn followed suit, and soon, everyone was doing it, feeling a bit more hopeful at their chances for victory.

After finding what they could from the gymnasium in which they could defend themselves, the group of survivors huddled together and ventured out into the silent vine infested town. The idea was to pick up things for fire, weed killer, and guns, and then to make their way over to the boardwalk.

It was a lot easier said than done.

The vines were starting to turn the town into a type of swamp in and of itself. Trees were starting to grow out of cars and buildings, and they had to watch their step to avoid the pools of water that were forming. Roderick didn’t care about all of that though. All he could think about was destroying this creatures and saving Ian and Brian.

For a moment he thought of Holly, and how maybe he could talk to her again, but as he figured, there was no cell service. There was never any cell service when it came to things like this. That’s how it always happened in the movies anyway.

They got to the plant store without an incident and loaded up on weed killer and other things like whackers and hoes. Roderick grabbed himself an axe. They were also able to load up on lighter fluid and other flammables from a nearby store without incident, but as they started to make their way to the police headquarters, it was apparent that it was going to be impossible with the amount of water and vines in their way.

“I mean, this stuff should be good enough right?” Jordyn said a little hesitantly, holding onto a weed wacker. “We were able to take down those other creatures without guns.”

Roderick could tell that she was saying this to make herself feel better. After all, Jordyn really liked her guns.

“It looks like we don’t have any other choice…” Louis said grimly, shouldering a backpack with cases of lighter fluid. The others nodded, and the group started to make their way down to the park to face this creature head on. Roderick had a little flashback of him and Ian as kids, wandering for the woods and pretending to be detectives looking for a dead body.

Man they had been weird kids…

The memory pushed him forward despite the stings of his previous fight, and as they got closer and closer to the boardwalk, the mist and fog around them became thicker and thicker. The vines grew bigger, and they started to walk on them to avoid the water that was overflowing from the swamp.

“There’s the boardwalk!” Jordyn yelled out, pointing. The group made their way eagerly to it, out for blood, when they came to a lurching stop at something blocking their way.

It was a deer, but more like the deer that had been described in the interview that Ian and Roderick had with that one guy hunting with his buddy. The zombie plant deer slowly turned its head to them, one of its eyeballs hanging out of its socket. Roderick held on tighter to the axe he was holding, not even waiting for the thing to attack. He swung, wedging the weapon into the side of the creature. In response, it bit down hard on his arm, vines coming from its mouth and wrapping around him. Roderick struggled as Jordyn and Louis attacked the creature and Joey helped free him.

Jordyn swung her weed whacker at the head, which then came off and fell into the water.

They stood there panting for a moment at their first real encounter.

“Let’s go.” Jordyn said quietly, stepping over the dead deer and onto the boardwalk. Roderick looked down at this arm, alarmed to see that moss was mixed in with the blood in his wound. He decided to ignore it for now and just focus on killing this beast that was causing all of this chaos.

Along the boardwalk, they came across a couple more things that tried to attack them, from large thick vines, to other creatures, they were able to prevail against them. However, they found themselves at another obstacle when the boardwalk came to a dead end.

“What now?” someone from the group asked. Roderick looked around. This couldn’t be the end of their journey! They had to kill this creature and save everyone!

“Would you look at that?” Wanda murmured, pointing. Roderick turned to see that there was a dry path off of the boardwalk, surrounded by vines, but leading deeper into the woods.

“It’s almost like its… inviting us to come to it…” Joey shuddered. Roderick was the first to jump off the boardwalk and onto the path.

“Well I’ll accept its invitation.” he said gruffly. “Let’s go kill this thing.”

The others followed him onto the silent, foggy, path, heading deeper into the swamp. Nothing came after them as they walked, and Roderick fought back the fear that was threatening to creep up on him. He thought of Brian and Ian instead, and how they needed him to be strong.

They eventually came to a large clearing surrounded by tall trees. In the center, lay a heaping mass of sludge and vines. Roderick squeezed his axe. This was it… This had to be it. From the sludge, a type of face appeared, its eyes dark sockets and its mouth elongated in what could have been a silent scream. Two abnormally long arms pushed their way out of the sludge and dug into the earth around it. Roderick wasn’t about to wait for this thing to attack them. He reared the axe up over his head and started to run at it with a cry of rage. He felt the axe thunk into the face of the creature, and the people with him descended on it as well, hacking into it, spraying it with weed killer, and lighting it on fire in places. The beast gave a pitiful screech and then became limp.

Roderick smiled, thinking they had won for a moment, but then started to think differently as his axe sunk into the sludge. The face slowly looked up at him, and then screeched. The screech sent a blast of wind through the clearing, putting out the fires and knocking everyone back. Roderick looked up just as a large vine shot out of the creatures mouth and pinned him against a tree. Thorny vines came out of the creatures eyes and wrapped around his arms and throat. He struggled desperately, watching as the group of survivors were being taken down by the vines like it was nothing.

He watched Jordyn being dragged down into the swamp, Luis was pulled into the sludge, and Joey disappeared into the vines above them. Tears burned his eyes as a vine forced its way into his mouth.

What had they been thinking??

They had come straight to the beast that had been here for centuries and thought they could beat it with some fire and weed killer?! Roderick had been so blinded by the need to help his brother that he hadn’t been thinking straight. He choked, the vine burrowing its way down deep inside of him. He could feel his vision blurring… Everything was going gray…

He continued to try and struggle, but at this point, he could only twitch. He couldn’t even scream at the burning sensation in his chest now, or the fact that he couldn’t breath. His skin felt like he was being poked with needles, and he was vaguely aware that there were mushrooms growing out of him.

We lost… he thought in despair, giving into the plants and the vines before losing consciousness.

We lost…