"The Haunted Trailer"
"The Haunted Trailer"
(A Trom Girl/Unicorn team-up)
3/28/2007
I.
"Wasn't that the other guy who did that thing the one time?"
Coming to a stop at the red light, Megan Salenger blinked after hearing that sentence from her teammate. "....Wait, what?"
Finishing off the last Dorito and folding up the bag into a neat little rectangle, Ashley did not explain but simply waited for an answer. For once, the tiny platinum-blonde was not dressed all in white. She was wearing light blue jeans and crewneck shirt, with a dark blue windbreaker that had a single white stripe running down the outside of each sleeve. "You know," she said, "whatsisname? The voodoo guy?"
Megan tried to keep one eye on the traffic light while turning to look at her partner. Slightly older at twenty-eight and a few inches taller, the Trom Girl was wearing a one-piece jumpsuit of tough dark material, fitted with numerous small pouches and pockets. She had an inquisitive foxlike face under tousled short black hair. At the moment, that face was frowning in bafflement.
"Are you possibly referring to Samuel Watesa?" she said, just as the car behind her honked its horn impatiently. The light had changed. Megan pulled her Jeep Cherokee forward and continued down the street.
"Yeah, the creepy guy." Unicorn tucked her Dorito bag away in a pocket of her windbreaker. "What about him?"
"What about him? Ashley, you were the one who brought him up."
"Huh? Wait, let's start over. This conversation took a wrong turn somewhere." The Unicorn was barely over five feet tall and not quite a hundred pounds in weight. She gave Megan a look of extreme patience on her angelic delicate-featured face. "We were talking about this Mystery Trailer right?"
"Yes." The Trom Girl kept checking street signs as she drove. They were getting into the outskirts of the town of Bellmawr, deep in southern New Jersey and she was not familiar with this area. When she saw the sign for East Browning Road, she hit her turn signal and swung right. "Last night, Sable got a call from two of our observers in this area. The notorious Mystery Trailer had appeared on their property and they wanted her to come investigate. Sable sent us to investigate."
"That's what I was asking about. This Mystery Trailer thing. That Watesa guy told us once about something similar. Him and his Voodoo stories of New Orleans, he makes my hair stand up when he gets talking."
"I must have missed that meeting," said Megan. "I have never met the Medfords. They were Midnight War observers for Jeremy before our Second Team was formed. When they spoke with Sable, they said they had returned from a two-week vacation out West to find this unexplained trailer parked in their yard."
"Yeah? There has to be more to it than that."
"It is one of the more obscure bits of folklore from Midnight War, but similar trailers and mobile homes have been reported appearing inexplicably for a day or two, then vanishing again. Usually, there are a few missing persons reported in the locale. The Medfords know this. As soon as they came home, their neighbor asked them to look for their dog... a German Shepherd who had not come home the day before."
"Ooooh, creepy," said Ashley. "I love it. Hey, check out the number on that mailbox. This is it."
Megan pulled her cherry red Jeep up a gravel driveway that led to a huge yard with trees on either side. Ahead of them stood a surprisingly small one-story house with white plank walls and a shingled roof. Next to the front door was a sign '11 THE MEDFORDS.' The Trom Girl stopped some distance away and studied the scene warily.
"This is the address Sable gave us, all right," Ashley volunteered. "The home of Denny and Louise Medford, no kids, three cats. Let's roll, buddy." As she spoke, the blonde reached into the back seat and fetched a cylinder three feet long, sheathed in a white leather case. "Got my Unicorn horn, I can tackle anything from a warlock to a Skinwalker."
"I have always admired your enthusiasm," said Megan. She was doing a quick check of all the equipment stowed in her jumpsuit. From a magnetic plate on her belt, the Trom Girl held up a flat metal device and clicked a cartridge into a slot along its side.
"Whatcha packing there?" asked Unicorn. "Thermal beam? Neural shock?"
"I have chosen the photon ram. I am adjusting the intensity to medium and the impact point at three feet." She seemed satisfied and opened the driver door to vault lightly out.
Hopping out on her own side of the Jeep, Ashley slung the Unicorn horn across her shoulders, its tapered end pointing down. She was fully a standard Human with no supernormal powers of her own; it was the horn's ability to nullify gralic force that had qualified her for membership in the Kenneth Dred Foundation. With barely restrained zeal, Ashley took off at a trot across the lawn toward the house.
Following closely, Megan Salenger smiled. Despite her upbringing as a Human orphan raised by the emotionless Trom, she often let her expressionless poker face slip. If the scientists of that Race had intended to mold her into a cold intellect running on pure logic, they had failed. Her romance with Archie McAlister had proven that.
Behind the house, parked in the center of the back yard, sat a chrome and red trailer with tinted windows. A man and a woman in their late thirties were standing next to it, pacing nervously and staring at the vehicle. Both had similar lanky builds and dark red curly hair, making it likely they were related.
As they heard the KDF members approach, both spun and hurried to meet them. The woman yelled, "Oh thank God! You must be the two investigators that Sable said she was sending. At last you're here."
"We've been debating calling the police and the fire department," added the man. "Denny's went in there a half hour ago and he was talking to us on his cell phone but he stopped saying anything a few minutes ago."
"We have to get in there!" the woman shouted. "Right now!"
"It's going to be all right," Unicorn said, taking the woman by both arms. "Try to calm down. Megs, what do you think?"
"This is a Flagstaff model," the Trom Girl answered. "I estimate a length of thirty-three feet and six inches, with an unladen weight of nine thousand and one hundred pounds. You notice there are no tracks in the earth showing how this object was brought here. Yet the soil is damp and soft. That is puzzling."
"Never mind that now!" yelled the redheaded woman. "What about Denny?"
Ashley Whitaker had been peering through the almost opaque window which ran half the length of the trailer. "I can't see anything. Cover me, Megan, I'm going in."
"That door is locked," the Medford woman said. "Don't you think we've tried it?!"
Undeterred, Unicorn gripped the handle of the passenger side door and gave it a good tug. It opened immediately. Out tumbled a white-haired man who fell trembling violently to the grass.
II.
Instinctively, Ashley slammed the door shut again and braced her back against with her sneakers digging into the lawn. Whatever might be inside that trailer, she intended to keep it in there. At the same time, Megan dropped to her knees next to the shaking
form.
Louise Medford also fell to embrace the man. "Oh God, oh God, Denny, what HAPPENED to you in there?"
The Trom Girl had unclipped her Link from her belt and was taking quick sensor readings. "Heartbeat is rapid but regular," she said. "Blood pressure is elevated. He is not going into shock. If he remains still, I believe his vitals will stabilize quickly."
"Look at him!" Louise said as she broke out into tears. "Can't you see? His hair was black an hour ago. Now it's white as cotton."
Megan Salenger continued to examine the man, whose trembling had begun to ease. "I do not think that is possible. Human hair does not change color in that manner, no matter what trauma he must have endured."
"Are you blind? Look at him. His hair turned white!"
"I am more concerned with the condition of his feet," the Trom Girl She pointed out that Denny Medford's shoes and socks had vapor curling around them and both items had been eaten partially away. Blood seeped through the corroded material.
"First aid kit," Unicorn announced as she took off at a full gallop across the lawn to where the Jeep was parking.
Standing over the three people clustered on the ground, the redheaded man spoke for the first time. "Come on, sis, time to call for an ambulance. I'm getting 911 right now."
"Please wait a second," Megan advised with quiet authority. As Ashley came sprinting back with a metal first aid kit the size of a briefcase, the Trom Girl took it and set to work, first snapping on a pair of blue latex gloves.
As they watched her gently cut away Denny's ruined shoes and socks with a pair of shears, then apply salve and wrap sterile gauze around the injured feet, both of the redheads calmed down.
"Are you a paramedic or something?" Louise asked finally.
'I am certified as an EMT in this state," Megan said. 'This man was exposed to some caustic substance. He has second degree chemical burns up to his ankles. Blood work will be needed to determine if there is any toxicity."
The Trom Girl yanked off the gloves, turning them inside out, and stuck them in one of her many pockets. 'His pain is subsiding. i don't think he is in any serious danger according to the information I have at this time." She rose to her feet and placed the kit to one side.
"What the hell is in there anyway?" demanded Unicorn. Her normally flippant voice had shifted to a pugnacious tone. "C'mon, Megan, let's bust in and get some answers."
"Yes." The Trom Girl took her beam projector and made a few adjustments. "I an setting this to maximum intensity. Ashley, I assume you are wearing the flexible armor under your clothes?"
"Absolutely. Umm, but of course it does stop at the wrists and ankles, you know."
"My boots have an inner lining of the armor," Megan said. "I will go first."
"Well, okay... I'm impulsive but I'm not stupid." Unicorn adjusted the horn strapped across her back and unsnapped the fasteners so that she could draw the ancient talisman easily. "I do have one of the anesthetic dart guns holstered under my jacket but frankly I don't think it's gonna be too useful."
"We are not sure what we are dealing with here. Sir, I think you may call for an ambulance now. By the time it arrives, my teammate and I hopefully will have resolved what threat this trailer poses."
Still and her husband on the ground, Louise said, "You're not going in there?"
"It's our duty," Megan answered simply. She joined Ashley by the passenger door and they both took deep steadying breaths.
In a shaky voice, Denny Medford surprised everyone by saying, "Be careful...."
As she approached, she saw the door that had remained open. Megan stepped up the three steel steps leading inside. Ashley was right behind her. As the little blonde turned to give a reassuring wave to the civilians, the door slammed shut by itself on her.
III.
Only the faintest hint of daylight managed to penetrate the nearly opaque windows. As soon as they were locked inside, Megan thumbed a button on the high military collar of her jumpsuit. Two tiny bulbs on that collar blazed with brilliant light set to meet five feet in front of her. She turned back and forth in a slow semi-circle.
"This is... unexpected," she said mildly.
There were no cabinets or benches or built-in toilet. Nothing that might be reasonably be expected to be inside a trailer was in evidence. Instead, the floor and floors consisted of a soft pink material that felt resilient under their feet. Everything glistened moistly and threads of goo dripped down from the ceiling.
In one corner were an assortment of blackened, partially dissolved bones. A dog skeleton was most evident, but some of those bones appeared to be human ribs or jaws. The heavy stench of decay was unpleasant and overwhelming.
The Trom Girl still held up her beam projector as if expected assault. "My first conjecture is that this is not a technically crafted vehicle," she announced with a calmness that was remarkable under the circumstances. "This substance appears to be organic. I will take readings."
Next to her, Ashley had slid the three-foot ivory length of the Unicorn horn out of its sheath. She hefted it defensively, the sharp pointed end aimed out at anything that might approach her. "I wish I was as calm and scientific as you are...."
Megan did not answer. She had unclipped the Link from its place on her belt and was studying the images and figures that flashed across its screen. "Hmm. The readings are uncertain. There is potent gralic force here that is interfering with the sensors, Ashley."
"It's a Gardinel!" yelped the Unicorn abruptly. She pressed up against her teammate for reassurance. "My mom saw one once. In North Carolina, I think, back when she was the first Unicorn."
"I do not know that word 'gardinel.'" The Trom Girl kept trying to make adjustments on her Link while also remaining vigilant.
"Like a Venus Fly-Trap but bigger. They used to appear as small cabins deep in the woods. Hikers or hunters would go in to get out of the rain or snow and then 'gulp!,' it was all over."
"Ashley, are you saying this object intends to eat us?!"
"Look at those bones, Megs. That's the German Shepherd that the neighbor said was missing. We're inside a huge stomach. Oww, my feet are starting to sting." The blonde raised one foot and held it up with her free hand.
As Megan turned to bring the beams from her collar to bear, they both saw vapor rising from Unicorn's sneaker. The rubber sole was peeling loose. "We're gonna be a meal for this monster," Ashley said.
"We are indeed in danger," Megan Salenger agreed. She extended her right arm and triggered the beam projector. The pale narrow shaft of a photon ram stream exploded with startling violence against the wall opposite them. The oozing pink substance ballooned back from the impact but did not break open. As the beam clicked off, the interior bounced back to its original shape.
"It's protected by the gralic charge you detected," Ashley squeaked. "Ack. My feet are burning! We gotta get out of here."
She raised the ancient horn overhead.
"No, wait..." Megan began.
"With this horn I remove thy power!" the blonde shouted in a clear commanding voice. Ensorcelled ages ago by the Eldarin, that talisman dissipated any gralic energy in the area. In the past, it had made harmless everything from sorcerers to Kulan demons.
Now, in an instant, the Unicorn horn nullified the Gardinel's force. The walls and ceiling collapsed into a wet thick mush that fell upon the two women with stunning impact. They were knocked down flat by the suffocating weight.
Choking and gagging, covered with a thick layer of stinging acidic fluid, they struggled to get their noses and mouths cleared. Megan spit out a clump of pink goo she had inadvertently almost swallowed and dry heaved for a moment.
Seeing the Medfords watching in stupefied horror, Unicorn yelled, "Get this crap off us! Buckets of water, anything!"
Louise ran full-tilt to the house, twisted the valve set in the house's outer wall and hurried back dragging a green garden hose. She started rinsing off the two KDF members. As they caught their breath, Megan and Ashley began wiping at themselves to help the process. Behind them, the rancid mass that had been a Gardinel spread out and seeped into the ground. Grass would not grow on that area for many years.
"Ugh, we smell like vomit," Unicorn grumbled. "Look at my clothes. Ruined. Big holes eaten right into the fabric. And I just bought this windbreaker...." She cleaned the horn with special care, obviously relieved that it had not been harmed. "Hey, Megan, looks like at least your hair didn't turn white from the experience. Hard to tell with me of course, har har."
Getting up on hands and knees, still wiping off her jumpsuit under the stream of water, the Trom Girl saw Denny sitting up nearby and watching the process with great interest. "What happened to that ambulance?" she asked.
"Oh, we didn't call for it," he answered. "My skin smarts but I really wanted to see what was going to happen. I guess I'll ask my wife to drive me to the ER."
Louise Medford snorted in exasperation. "Not that I have any idea what we're going to tell them. What kind of explanation are we going to give?!"
12/25/2017
(A Trom Girl/Unicorn team-up)
3/28/2007
I.
"Wasn't that the other guy who did that thing the one time?"
Coming to a stop at the red light, Megan Salenger blinked after hearing that sentence from her teammate. "....Wait, what?"
Finishing off the last Dorito and folding up the bag into a neat little rectangle, Ashley did not explain but simply waited for an answer. For once, the tiny platinum-blonde was not dressed all in white. She was wearing light blue jeans and crewneck shirt, with a dark blue windbreaker that had a single white stripe running down the outside of each sleeve. "You know," she said, "whatsisname? The voodoo guy?"
Megan tried to keep one eye on the traffic light while turning to look at her partner. Slightly older at twenty-eight and a few inches taller, the Trom Girl was wearing a one-piece jumpsuit of tough dark material, fitted with numerous small pouches and pockets. She had an inquisitive foxlike face under tousled short black hair. At the moment, that face was frowning in bafflement.
"Are you possibly referring to Samuel Watesa?" she said, just as the car behind her honked its horn impatiently. The light had changed. Megan pulled her Jeep Cherokee forward and continued down the street.
"Yeah, the creepy guy." Unicorn tucked her Dorito bag away in a pocket of her windbreaker. "What about him?"
"What about him? Ashley, you were the one who brought him up."
"Huh? Wait, let's start over. This conversation took a wrong turn somewhere." The Unicorn was barely over five feet tall and not quite a hundred pounds in weight. She gave Megan a look of extreme patience on her angelic delicate-featured face. "We were talking about this Mystery Trailer right?"
"Yes." The Trom Girl kept checking street signs as she drove. They were getting into the outskirts of the town of Bellmawr, deep in southern New Jersey and she was not familiar with this area. When she saw the sign for East Browning Road, she hit her turn signal and swung right. "Last night, Sable got a call from two of our observers in this area. The notorious Mystery Trailer had appeared on their property and they wanted her to come investigate. Sable sent us to investigate."
"That's what I was asking about. This Mystery Trailer thing. That Watesa guy told us once about something similar. Him and his Voodoo stories of New Orleans, he makes my hair stand up when he gets talking."
"I must have missed that meeting," said Megan. "I have never met the Medfords. They were Midnight War observers for Jeremy before our Second Team was formed. When they spoke with Sable, they said they had returned from a two-week vacation out West to find this unexplained trailer parked in their yard."
"Yeah? There has to be more to it than that."
"It is one of the more obscure bits of folklore from Midnight War, but similar trailers and mobile homes have been reported appearing inexplicably for a day or two, then vanishing again. Usually, there are a few missing persons reported in the locale. The Medfords know this. As soon as they came home, their neighbor asked them to look for their dog... a German Shepherd who had not come home the day before."
"Ooooh, creepy," said Ashley. "I love it. Hey, check out the number on that mailbox. This is it."
Megan pulled her cherry red Jeep up a gravel driveway that led to a huge yard with trees on either side. Ahead of them stood a surprisingly small one-story house with white plank walls and a shingled roof. Next to the front door was a sign '11 THE MEDFORDS.' The Trom Girl stopped some distance away and studied the scene warily.
"This is the address Sable gave us, all right," Ashley volunteered. "The home of Denny and Louise Medford, no kids, three cats. Let's roll, buddy." As she spoke, the blonde reached into the back seat and fetched a cylinder three feet long, sheathed in a white leather case. "Got my Unicorn horn, I can tackle anything from a warlock to a Skinwalker."
"I have always admired your enthusiasm," said Megan. She was doing a quick check of all the equipment stowed in her jumpsuit. From a magnetic plate on her belt, the Trom Girl held up a flat metal device and clicked a cartridge into a slot along its side.
"Whatcha packing there?" asked Unicorn. "Thermal beam? Neural shock?"
"I have chosen the photon ram. I am adjusting the intensity to medium and the impact point at three feet." She seemed satisfied and opened the driver door to vault lightly out.
Hopping out on her own side of the Jeep, Ashley slung the Unicorn horn across her shoulders, its tapered end pointing down. She was fully a standard Human with no supernormal powers of her own; it was the horn's ability to nullify gralic force that had qualified her for membership in the Kenneth Dred Foundation. With barely restrained zeal, Ashley took off at a trot across the lawn toward the house.
Following closely, Megan Salenger smiled. Despite her upbringing as a Human orphan raised by the emotionless Trom, she often let her expressionless poker face slip. If the scientists of that Race had intended to mold her into a cold intellect running on pure logic, they had failed. Her romance with Archie McAlister had proven that.
Behind the house, parked in the center of the back yard, sat a chrome and red trailer with tinted windows. A man and a woman in their late thirties were standing next to it, pacing nervously and staring at the vehicle. Both had similar lanky builds and dark red curly hair, making it likely they were related.
As they heard the KDF members approach, both spun and hurried to meet them. The woman yelled, "Oh thank God! You must be the two investigators that Sable said she was sending. At last you're here."
"We've been debating calling the police and the fire department," added the man. "Denny's went in there a half hour ago and he was talking to us on his cell phone but he stopped saying anything a few minutes ago."
"We have to get in there!" the woman shouted. "Right now!"
"It's going to be all right," Unicorn said, taking the woman by both arms. "Try to calm down. Megs, what do you think?"
"This is a Flagstaff model," the Trom Girl answered. "I estimate a length of thirty-three feet and six inches, with an unladen weight of nine thousand and one hundred pounds. You notice there are no tracks in the earth showing how this object was brought here. Yet the soil is damp and soft. That is puzzling."
"Never mind that now!" yelled the redheaded woman. "What about Denny?"
Ashley Whitaker had been peering through the almost opaque window which ran half the length of the trailer. "I can't see anything. Cover me, Megan, I'm going in."
"That door is locked," the Medford woman said. "Don't you think we've tried it?!"
Undeterred, Unicorn gripped the handle of the passenger side door and gave it a good tug. It opened immediately. Out tumbled a white-haired man who fell trembling violently to the grass.
II.
Instinctively, Ashley slammed the door shut again and braced her back against with her sneakers digging into the lawn. Whatever might be inside that trailer, she intended to keep it in there. At the same time, Megan dropped to her knees next to the shaking
form.
Louise Medford also fell to embrace the man. "Oh God, oh God, Denny, what HAPPENED to you in there?"
The Trom Girl had unclipped her Link from her belt and was taking quick sensor readings. "Heartbeat is rapid but regular," she said. "Blood pressure is elevated. He is not going into shock. If he remains still, I believe his vitals will stabilize quickly."
"Look at him!" Louise said as she broke out into tears. "Can't you see? His hair was black an hour ago. Now it's white as cotton."
Megan Salenger continued to examine the man, whose trembling had begun to ease. "I do not think that is possible. Human hair does not change color in that manner, no matter what trauma he must have endured."
"Are you blind? Look at him. His hair turned white!"
"I am more concerned with the condition of his feet," the Trom Girl She pointed out that Denny Medford's shoes and socks had vapor curling around them and both items had been eaten partially away. Blood seeped through the corroded material.
"First aid kit," Unicorn announced as she took off at a full gallop across the lawn to where the Jeep was parking.
Standing over the three people clustered on the ground, the redheaded man spoke for the first time. "Come on, sis, time to call for an ambulance. I'm getting 911 right now."
"Please wait a second," Megan advised with quiet authority. As Ashley came sprinting back with a metal first aid kit the size of a briefcase, the Trom Girl took it and set to work, first snapping on a pair of blue latex gloves.
As they watched her gently cut away Denny's ruined shoes and socks with a pair of shears, then apply salve and wrap sterile gauze around the injured feet, both of the redheads calmed down.
"Are you a paramedic or something?" Louise asked finally.
'I am certified as an EMT in this state," Megan said. 'This man was exposed to some caustic substance. He has second degree chemical burns up to his ankles. Blood work will be needed to determine if there is any toxicity."
The Trom Girl yanked off the gloves, turning them inside out, and stuck them in one of her many pockets. 'His pain is subsiding. i don't think he is in any serious danger according to the information I have at this time." She rose to her feet and placed the kit to one side.
"What the hell is in there anyway?" demanded Unicorn. Her normally flippant voice had shifted to a pugnacious tone. "C'mon, Megan, let's bust in and get some answers."
"Yes." The Trom Girl took her beam projector and made a few adjustments. "I an setting this to maximum intensity. Ashley, I assume you are wearing the flexible armor under your clothes?"
"Absolutely. Umm, but of course it does stop at the wrists and ankles, you know."
"My boots have an inner lining of the armor," Megan said. "I will go first."
"Well, okay... I'm impulsive but I'm not stupid." Unicorn adjusted the horn strapped across her back and unsnapped the fasteners so that she could draw the ancient talisman easily. "I do have one of the anesthetic dart guns holstered under my jacket but frankly I don't think it's gonna be too useful."
"We are not sure what we are dealing with here. Sir, I think you may call for an ambulance now. By the time it arrives, my teammate and I hopefully will have resolved what threat this trailer poses."
Still and her husband on the ground, Louise said, "You're not going in there?"
"It's our duty," Megan answered simply. She joined Ashley by the passenger door and they both took deep steadying breaths.
In a shaky voice, Denny Medford surprised everyone by saying, "Be careful...."
As she approached, she saw the door that had remained open. Megan stepped up the three steel steps leading inside. Ashley was right behind her. As the little blonde turned to give a reassuring wave to the civilians, the door slammed shut by itself on her.
III.
Only the faintest hint of daylight managed to penetrate the nearly opaque windows. As soon as they were locked inside, Megan thumbed a button on the high military collar of her jumpsuit. Two tiny bulbs on that collar blazed with brilliant light set to meet five feet in front of her. She turned back and forth in a slow semi-circle.
"This is... unexpected," she said mildly.
There were no cabinets or benches or built-in toilet. Nothing that might be reasonably be expected to be inside a trailer was in evidence. Instead, the floor and floors consisted of a soft pink material that felt resilient under their feet. Everything glistened moistly and threads of goo dripped down from the ceiling.
In one corner were an assortment of blackened, partially dissolved bones. A dog skeleton was most evident, but some of those bones appeared to be human ribs or jaws. The heavy stench of decay was unpleasant and overwhelming.
The Trom Girl still held up her beam projector as if expected assault. "My first conjecture is that this is not a technically crafted vehicle," she announced with a calmness that was remarkable under the circumstances. "This substance appears to be organic. I will take readings."
Next to her, Ashley had slid the three-foot ivory length of the Unicorn horn out of its sheath. She hefted it defensively, the sharp pointed end aimed out at anything that might approach her. "I wish I was as calm and scientific as you are...."
Megan did not answer. She had unclipped the Link from its place on her belt and was studying the images and figures that flashed across its screen. "Hmm. The readings are uncertain. There is potent gralic force here that is interfering with the sensors, Ashley."
"It's a Gardinel!" yelped the Unicorn abruptly. She pressed up against her teammate for reassurance. "My mom saw one once. In North Carolina, I think, back when she was the first Unicorn."
"I do not know that word 'gardinel.'" The Trom Girl kept trying to make adjustments on her Link while also remaining vigilant.
"Like a Venus Fly-Trap but bigger. They used to appear as small cabins deep in the woods. Hikers or hunters would go in to get out of the rain or snow and then 'gulp!,' it was all over."
"Ashley, are you saying this object intends to eat us?!"
"Look at those bones, Megs. That's the German Shepherd that the neighbor said was missing. We're inside a huge stomach. Oww, my feet are starting to sting." The blonde raised one foot and held it up with her free hand.
As Megan turned to bring the beams from her collar to bear, they both saw vapor rising from Unicorn's sneaker. The rubber sole was peeling loose. "We're gonna be a meal for this monster," Ashley said.
"We are indeed in danger," Megan Salenger agreed. She extended her right arm and triggered the beam projector. The pale narrow shaft of a photon ram stream exploded with startling violence against the wall opposite them. The oozing pink substance ballooned back from the impact but did not break open. As the beam clicked off, the interior bounced back to its original shape.
"It's protected by the gralic charge you detected," Ashley squeaked. "Ack. My feet are burning! We gotta get out of here."
She raised the ancient horn overhead.
"No, wait..." Megan began.
"With this horn I remove thy power!" the blonde shouted in a clear commanding voice. Ensorcelled ages ago by the Eldarin, that talisman dissipated any gralic energy in the area. In the past, it had made harmless everything from sorcerers to Kulan demons.
Now, in an instant, the Unicorn horn nullified the Gardinel's force. The walls and ceiling collapsed into a wet thick mush that fell upon the two women with stunning impact. They were knocked down flat by the suffocating weight.
Choking and gagging, covered with a thick layer of stinging acidic fluid, they struggled to get their noses and mouths cleared. Megan spit out a clump of pink goo she had inadvertently almost swallowed and dry heaved for a moment.
Seeing the Medfords watching in stupefied horror, Unicorn yelled, "Get this crap off us! Buckets of water, anything!"
Louise ran full-tilt to the house, twisted the valve set in the house's outer wall and hurried back dragging a green garden hose. She started rinsing off the two KDF members. As they caught their breath, Megan and Ashley began wiping at themselves to help the process. Behind them, the rancid mass that had been a Gardinel spread out and seeped into the ground. Grass would not grow on that area for many years.
"Ugh, we smell like vomit," Unicorn grumbled. "Look at my clothes. Ruined. Big holes eaten right into the fabric. And I just bought this windbreaker...." She cleaned the horn with special care, obviously relieved that it had not been harmed. "Hey, Megan, looks like at least your hair didn't turn white from the experience. Hard to tell with me of course, har har."
Getting up on hands and knees, still wiping off her jumpsuit under the stream of water, the Trom Girl saw Denny sitting up nearby and watching the process with great interest. "What happened to that ambulance?" she asked.
"Oh, we didn't call for it," he answered. "My skin smarts but I really wanted to see what was going to happen. I guess I'll ask my wife to drive me to the ER."
Louise Medford snorted in exasperation. "Not that I have any idea what we're going to tell them. What kind of explanation are we going to give?!"
12/25/2017