IN THE GREEN

                IN THE GREEN

The light was pale green and pulsing from the 2 foot larvae at his feet.

"Should we move it?" Clem asked, spitting his tobacco inches from it's side.

"I don't know what the hell to do with it", I said and that scares me to death.

"Ain't shit to be scared of" said Clem. He reached down and with a heave, lifted the thing up to his left shoulder.

  A quiet crackle and spark  jumped to his forehead, and he went down like a load of bricks. His face immediately began to slough off like a butter sculpture in a microwave. "Oh God", I heard myself scream as I tried to turn and run!

A tendril shot outwards from the pod towards me. If not for me slipping and lurching to the left, I'd have been history.

Clem was now just a green pulsing jelly blob. The whip-like appendage missed me, but hit a discarded plastic pop bottle . It stuck to it and with a horrible ear piercing scream, immediately withdrew back into the pod.

  I had my chance. I stumbled up the small incline and jumped into my jeep. Spinning my tires and kicking up dirt, I sped up the hill to Morgan's Overlook.
When I arrived, I was greeted with a multitude of new horrors. There were literally hundreds of green strobing entities, everywhere I looked. My stomach sank and I began to shake.
  "Hell, I'm no hero" I heard myself say. "What do I do now?"

I had to snap out of it and do something. I looked around and noticed that the Fairfield place was free of the infestation. I started up Old Betsy and sped off again, keeping a mental map of the town at the edge of my field of vision.

I pulled into Mike and Lisa Fairfield's drive and beeped my horn incessantly. Their lights came on, their dog started barking and barking and then the front door slowly cracked open.
It was Mike with Lisa huddled behind him, holding their only daughter Judy.

"What the hell is going on?", he said staring at me with angry eyes.

  I quickly explained and his look changed from anger, to disbelief, then to fear. Lisa, held Judy as she began whimpering quietly.

  "Snap out of it!", I yelled. There's no time for any of this. We have a weapon against them.

"What weapon ?". "How can we defeat something that dissolves us on contact?", Mike asked.

"PLASTIC!", I said,repeating what I had seen in the gully with Clem.

Mike began to slowly calm, and was ready for rational thought now.
"So you're saying that when the plastic hit that pod like thing it was hurt?"

"Exactly", I said. "It was like us touching a red hot element on the stove". "Let's start getting prepped for battle"!

"Lisa", Mike said. Collect garbage bags, shower curtains, plastic rain coats, table cloths and anything else plastic you can find. "I'll be out in the barn with Bill, taking the windshields off our ski-doos and collecting those swimming goggles".

It felt great to have a battle plan. but defence albeit a good offence, would not destroy the vermin that were out to destroy our world. Plastic...plastic... plastic. I kept running it through my head. We needed to attack. Attack or die, wasn't that the saying?

I remembered seeing replica guns in toy magazines that shoot plastic bullets, and others that shot plastic disks. We definitely needed some of them, now! .Jefferson's department store in Clarence was just 5 miles down the main township highway, but my mental map started flashing great warning signs as the road was infested with pockets of vermin.

Mike, I said. We need to make my jeep into a plastic tank, because we have to get to Clarence for weapons.

"Hell" he said, there ain't no gun shop in Clarence!

  Did you forget everything I told you so far?, I reiterated.  Plastic hurts them, and that's what we're getting in town at Jefferson's toy shop!

  "So we're starting a Coleco Cavalry", he laughingly remarked. 

"You betcha", I said. "Silicone silver bullets to slay us some nasties!"

The jeep looked like a patch work quilt, made up of a myriad of colours and textures of plastic.  Both Mike and I looked much the same, and were more than ready for battle.

We had built a small bunker of plastic for Lisa and Judy in the upstairs shower enclosure, where we knew they would be safe until our return. Lisa had both her land line and cell phones, neither of which were affected yet by the parasites.

  Off we went careening around the green glowing indentations, occasionally hearing the beautiful screams of the monsters who tried to contact our vehicle.

"It seems to be a working", stated Mike. "Yeah", I said "but we ain't killing em are we?"

  We finally arrived at the department store. The town was deathly quiet and unnervingly still. I wondered if everyone was dead. We smashed in the front display window and ignoring the clangour of the alarm proceeded, flashlights in bulky saran wrapped hands towards the toy section.
  "Paint guns", mike yelled! Always wanted one of those he said, as he grabbed one from the shelf. Brain storm!, I said. "They shoot plastic balls of paint, correct?

"Damn straight", said Mike.

We gathered up about10 of them, and about 10,000 paint balls, 30 plastic firing guns and shuffled back to the jeep.
  "Hold it right there!" Sheriff Harris said, a glint of light reflecting off of his 357 Magnum.
  "Joshua", I said. "It's me, Bill... You've got to listen to us".

  Within minutes we had another ally in our battle against seemingly invisible forces, but we had to try. Three against an army. Outnumbered 100 to 1 when we went off to fight a battle God only new if we could win.

We wrapped up the sheriff, and together we marched down main street to meet the very first of our adversaries. Paint guns in hand, hearts pounding, sweating profusely and looking like the marshmallow man from Ghost busters we slowly marched our way towards a future of unknown possibilities.

  We approached the first glowing mass, which very well might have been a close friend or relative to any one of us.
"First honour goes to Bill", the sheriff said. 

We stood there side by side, as I raised my paint gun. I had picked the one with the fluorescent orange pellets and green paint inside, sort of an inside joke. I fired directly into the larvae at least 10 times.

Smoke ,screams and writhing as darkness oozed from the wounds. Within moments it was still, and the glow faded out.

  It was going to work! Life was possible now. We marched forward. We would look for survivors later. We had a long night ahead of us, and we weren't going to stop until everyone was safe!

  Suddenly, Mikes cell rang. It was Lisa, sobbing as Judy wailed in the background.

"They're coming up the stairs", she cried.

  We turned to jump in the jeep, but Joshua paused. Being the man he was, he declined stating, " I have a responsibility to my constituents, as he turned and walked away.

  The last we saw of him was his outline against the vermilion of yet another alien entity as as we sped back to Mikes loved ones,panic gripping our hearts.

  As we neared his house, we saw that it had been covered completely with a greenish sheen.  Mike had been shooting paint balls into every mass that we passed, and it seemed that the creatures were concentrating their attack on his home in retaliation.

I slammed on the brakes and with two paint guns each and armed with an arsenal of paint balls, we ran unerringly towards his home. The pellets shot out in a steady blur, as we ran towards the house. Smoke everywhere, screams bordering
on the insane, we charged in.

  They were everywhere in the house. We ran and ran and shot and shot for what seemed liked hours, but we eventually saved Mikes loved ones....

  Sitting here, days later on Morgan's Overlook there is no glow anywhere.
Sheriff Harris did survive, and rounded up hundreds who had also survived the invasion. This horrific event had brought us all a lot closer to God and to each other.

One thing could now be said for our little county after the dust settled.........
It sure was Colourful!