Dirt Nap (A Marnie Baranuik “Between the Files” Story) (5 page)

Batten hurried to grab the nearest paramedic and shout something in his ear. Together, they grabbed a litter, ducking as one huge, rocky fist swooped and pounded the ground ten yards from them.

I needed to get the thing's attention. While I circled behind it, the stonecoat jutted its jaw out and swatted at the ground with its long arms; the aftershocks rattled my teeth and every piece of equipment in the vicinity.  

“Shivering shitbiscuits,” I whispered, creeping up on the boggle. I craned way, way up and summoned my woefully underpowered positivity. “No, this is good, it’s awesome. Who will deal with the big ol’ dirt monster? Me. I will. Totally. For realsies.”

This is the part where the Great White Shark of paranormal investigations comes to the rescue
, I told myself.
I hope it doesn't poop on me right now. I bet it really does shit bricks, and if it doesn't, I'm about to
. Everything else inside me screamed at me to chase the Jeep instead. I started blowing air into the condom, feeling like a birthday party clown, and the mental image that created tugged my lip up in the corner: Pervo the Clown making balloon animals out of condoms, the lubrication making me smack my tongue.
Probably, I should carry the ones without spermicide from now on,
I thought as it stung my chapped lips. I blew and blew until the latex strained at its limit. I got a nice, long sausage shape (that I refused to get excited about), tied it off, and held it high above my head. Making a fist with my right hand, one key sticking out between my knuckles as if I was walking through a dark parking lot alone, I drew in one last deep breath and plunged out from behind the boggle’s back and into the fray. I careened like a drunk gymnast between the stonecoat and the medics, deer-leaping willy-nilly and waving my balloon, whooping at the top of my lungs.

Out of the corner of one eye, I saw Batten stop in his tracks to watch me  and caught the flicker of horror cross his face, followed by the moment where he obviously thought
fuck it
and chose to trust me, the alarm falling away. He turned to bundle another paramedic and their charge to safety. The few miners who had still been confronting the boggle took Batten’s cue and gave up, bustling to help the paramedics instead. One of the ambulances began to slowly creep away, lights and siren off, barely crunching gravel, as if the driver knew instinctively he needed to be less noticeable than I was trying to make myself.

Waving my condom balloon, I raced back and forth in front of the boggle, bopping my party favor from side to side like an overly-excited girl on a sugar rush after a weird social gathering, the kinky kind I never get invited to. I wasn’t catching the stonecoat’s attention enough, and it wasn’t going to notice me at this height; the balloon only came up to its rocky kneecaps and it hadn’t even seen me yet. I used the key and jabbed at the balloon.

It didn’t pop. I tried again, and again, and again, because apparently condoms only break when you don’t want them to. One last stab and the condom exploded with an impressive
bang!
A weak spray of lube sprung into the air like a fireworks display or an old fountain splattering to life. I caught a misty splooge of lube square in the face and blinked rapidly, mouth forming a surprised O. I would have looked around to see if anyone had witnessed it, but the long-armed monster in front of me abruptly stopped moving.

The stonecoat quit its machine-like growling to squat in front of me, bringing its enormous face close enough to mine to blow the lube-glued bangs off my forehead. I froze in place, cramming my right eye shut so the spermicide in my eyebrow wouldn’t drip into it. The giant boggle sniffed me curiously and my ponytail nearly got sucked up its left nostril. After several huffs out, its big square head cocked to one side, as if it couldn’t quite work out what I was.

“Settle down, fart-breath,” I told it. “I’m on
your
side.” I was pretty sure I was its only advocate, here. The weight of that began to override some of my fear. The boggle didn’t know it, didn’t have the capacity to understand it, but it was face-to-face with the one person who wanted to watch it walk away from this uninjured.

The stonecoat stared me down with great, glaring yellow eyes, and lumbered forward one shuffling step that rattled the earth.

“Easy there, big fella. We’re both uneasy about this, let’s not get kooky with each other,” I crooned, showing him my best injured bird impression, still winking as spermicide dribbled onto my eyelid. I began limping away from him, displaying the bloody back of my knee and calf. “You are one big-ass boggle, aren’t you? Dark Lady, defend me.”

With a feline huff that reminded me of a male lion about to roar, it dropped its head and snuffled the ground to catch my scent.

I pursed my lips and blew sweet Juicy Fruit breath over my shoulder at it, hoping to keep its interest. “How the fuck is Hood going to play real estate agent to your stony, shambling ass?” I asked him conversationally, like we were both waiting for a train and I was offering him a little
tête-à-tête
to pass the time. I limped a few more steps in the opposite direction of the paramedics, while Batten helped load the last of the wounded into the ambulances and they started inching toward the ramp, and I made a series of unfortunate realizations.

How long does it take to round up beef carcasses by chopper? And when Hood finds a cozy hole to drop ‘em in, how’s he gonna let me know? My cell phone is over there in my fucking pants. Maybe I don’t even get reception down in this pit.
My brain hates me.
If that thing splatters me all over the place, I am going to haunt the fuck out of myself for being an idiot.

The boggle nodded, like it was agreeing with my remarkable lack of foresight, although it was more likely swallowing the saliva that the scent of my blood had stimulated. It took a lumbering swing at me, which I dove to avoid. My hard hat spun off my head and bounced away with a clang, gravel chunks bit my shoulders through my t-shirt, and small rocks poked me in the spine and butt. I hopped to my feet, anxious to end that unusual brand of agony
.

I wiped hair out of my face then pointed up at the boggle’s wide face. “Don’t do that. Rolling in this shit hurts. I’m not covered in stone armor like you are.”

The scientist in me noticed that wasn't entirely true as the boggle took another pounding swipe at me, scooping this time with one massive paw. I ducked, since I’m already pretty close to the ground, and caught a glimpse of dark pink, leathery skin covering its cupping palm. Putting some distance between us helped, as it didn’t stray from the warren. The boggle roared, showing its teeth, and then trailed off into a series of guttural grunts. I set my shoulders and faced it with my bare hands out, palms down, trying a different approach.

Focusing on the air under my palms, I called upon the warm draft of psi that awoke eagerly to do my bidding. The Blue Sense swelled like air bubbles rising from sand under water. For a moment, it stuttered when I reached out to direct it at the boggle; I had no idea if the creature was humanoid enough for me to sense its emotions with clairempathy, but it was worth a try. The jumble of primal fear and antagonism from the miners and paramedics had cleared, having followed them up out of the pit along with their relief, which trickled in from above and behind me. Batten was a null for my psychic gifts, and Le Pique's fury was a wandering thread against the background sensations. That left me and the stonecoat, and how
I
felt didn’t matter a lick right now.

 
Instinctive hostility, protectiveness
. It was only a whiff, and I couldn’t have sworn in a court of law that it was coming from the boggle and not Batten, but it was only for my knowledge, so it didn’t matter.

The hostility was obvious, and unhelpful. More importantly:
Protective of what? The den? Did boggles make permanent shelters? I shouldn't have spent so much time mooning over the hockey team that semester.

Batten strode carefully from behind a pile of broken scree on the far side of the boggle, waving a chunk of something that looked like an old exhaust pipe. The boggle didn’t notice him. He called over to me in a hushed shout that was utterly unlike his take-charge command voice, “It’s not following you. It’s claiming that one spot, standing ground.”

“It may have offspring in the biggest den, there.”

Batten nodded. “Is it a he or a she?”

“Does it matter?” I squinted at him. “Want me to do a junk check? I think these things are hermaphrodites, but I failed boggles, remember?” I gave the lumbering stonecoat a friendly wave, showing it the bloodstain in the armpit of my white shirt, taking a last hopeful limp away. "Hey there, tall, dark, and hermaphroditic. I’m wounded, follow me."

“It’s not interested.”

Must be a male, then
. “Story of my life.”

“You looked for its penis just now,” Batten accused.

“His what?” I asked with an innocent flutter of lashes.

“Guilty.”

“Super fucking guilty,” I agreed, “but for science! I didn’t see one, but I bet that clump of rocks there is covering testicles.”

“You wanna check the den for babies, or should I?”

“He’s not interested in my limping act, so he’s probably a Hedley. I’ll go. Don’t let him pummel you. Keep his attention.”

“Uh, how?” Batten asked.

“I dunno. Sing. Dance. Do that song from
The Muppet Show
. 'Hey, Yakima! Doot doo, do doo do! Hey, Yakima! Doot doo do doo!' Soft-shoe for the rock monster.” I smirked. “No? Fine. Wave your pipe around. That always keeps my attention.”

Batten scowled and jerked his chin at the holes in the granite face while he began to wave his metal club.

I made catcalls and whistled like a drunken bride-to-be at a Chippendale. “Woo, yeah baby, swing that thang.”

“Go,” Batten commanded, and smacked the ground with his pipe to make a noisy point. The stonecoat didn’t like his cheeky display one bit; he sniffed the air in front of Batten and let out an enraged bellow that caused Batten’s eyes and mouth to cram shut against the heat and stink. “Hurry, pervert.”

“You’re gonna miss me when I’m dead,” I promised. “Don’t put ‘young lady’ on my headstone, eh?”

“No one would believe the ‘lady’ part,” Batten said, backing away from the boggle and waggling his club in the air.

I crept around the stonecoat’s broad left side to pass behind him. I couldn’t resist a glance up at his posterior, and got exactly what I deserved: a patch of grey-brown hair pluming from his rocky ass crack, crusted with boggle doody. I thought,
Curiosity blinded the scientist
. And,
Minus one point and my appetite: Marnie.
And then
, Is this my life? Seriously?

The den was little more than a big stinky hole in the rock filled with dry manure, large animal bones, feathers, and a mound of red dirt cupping a pile of pebbles the size of a housecat, which blinked at me sleepily when I approached.

“Ooooo,” I cooed at it, “a pebblecoat.”

The baby boggle peeped at me and promptly projectile-vomited some white, viscous goo in my direction. I jumped back just in time to avoid the spit-up, and checked myself for stains before approaching again. “Who’s a cute widdle baby boggle? Yes you are, you are so,
so
cute. Your mommy-daddy is trying to kill me. Yes he is. You come with me. No biting,” I warned it, putting both bare hands near it experimentally. It didn’t seem the least bit anxious or unhappy or bite-y, so I slid my hands into the dirt heap to find its underneath, and scooped it up. The immature, shell-like clusters of the pebblecoat’s coat clicked as the stony integument shifted atop flesh. “
Noooooo
biting. Here we go, nice and easy. Let’s go move mommy-daddy to a new home, okay?”

Thudding outside made my Keds start to vibrate; stones and grit sifted down from overhead, and I hurried out of the den, wary of falling rocks. The stonecoat was, of course, not backing down from Batten’s aggressive swings of the exhaust pipe. Instead, he was stomping his feet like a sumo wrestler driving evil spirits from the ring. Baring his impressive teeth, the boggle lowered his skull as if to charge.

If I hadn’t gasped, the pebblecoat might not have startled in my hands and begun to wail. But that’s exactly what happened, and the stonecoat whipped around, setting his yellow-eyed focus back on me.

 I admit it; I panicked. At the time, my actions made perfect sense.

“Batten!” I shouted. “Go long!”

He didn’t question it, just turned and made space. He may have played center in hockey back in Michigan, but now he did a fairly good impression of a wide receiver. I heaved the pebblecoat like a football, and Batten leaped into the air, arms up, to perform a perfect snatch-and-tuck. For a squirmy bundle of rock and sinew, the pebblecoat was surprisingly aerodynamic, and eminently chuckable.

The boggle did not change course to follow its airborne offspring; either it hadn’t seen the throw, or was bent on destroying the small, frazzled human woman in sneakers and underpants who had dared touch the infant in the first place.

“Wah-ah! Go get your baby! I’m not your baby!” I screamed, turning to run like hell. “Why is he not getting the baby?”

I zigzagged, barely dodging a fist that hit the excavator; the impact rocked the thing off its base with a metal shriek.

“It’s your natural musk,” Batten called. “You’re catnip to monsters.”

“Boggle-nip! Fucking fantastic!” I yelled, bobbing and weaving, circling around to come back at Kill-Notch.

“Keep moving,” Batten said, clutching the pebblecoat to his belly. The baby monster began another long, shrill howl.

“Nothing could stop me!” I assured him, running flat-out like my life depended on it. Probably, it did.

The stonecoat finally noticed Kill-Notch cradling his baby and let out an infuriated bellow. The boggle altered course to intercept, his skid tossing a great wave of spitting gravel. I ducked, covering my head with my arms, and got pelted by rock shards.