Chapter Forty

Sticks and Stones

The English county of Wiltshire was normally quaint and serene. Thousands of tourists traversed its roads, but most of them were polite and simply in search of a photo op. You see, the county of Wiltshire is home to Stonehenge, one of the world’s most famous landmarks—earthen ditches built around large, oddly stacked slabs of stone sticking up from the green countryside. Yes, normally it was quite a nice place to visit, and certainly the sort of place you would want to bring your camera.

But things weren’t normal.

The Dearth had been showing up all over North America. He had moved through the soil at lightning speed, capturing any dark, dead souls long buried there. He had also reached above the soil in over a thousand places, pulling unsuspecting animals or people down into the earth.

He had shown up in Portsmouth, Maine, at a petting zoo. Children were simply petting and playing when thousands of thin, dark strings had shot up and dragged every last animal down into the soil.

The Dearth was enjoying the freedom and the seemingly limitless amount of soil in Reality. He had pushed under the Atlantic Ocean, and bits of him had begun to show up all over Europe.

The world was scared to death.

In Wiltshire County, not far from Stonehenge, the first signs of darkness had just appeared. A farmer was moving his sheep out of a pasture and into a barn with a solid floor when all of a sudden the ground began to rumble and crack. Innumerable tentacles flashed upward, wrapping themselves around the sheep and farmer.

Currently dozens of police cars were racing to the scene, not having any idea what they could actually do to stop the phenomenon.

“Do we shoot it?” one officer asked as they drove. He was sitting in the back of a white van filled with six other police officers.

“They say bullets go right through,” the lead officer said.

“Tie it up?” another questioned.

“I don’t think that’ll work; it’s just a bunch of black strings.”

“So why are we racing there?” a third one asked. “This is mental. Maybe we should be racing home to our families.”

“I agree,” another officer said. “The world is a mess. What good can—”

The police officers’ complaining was temporarily halted. And two of the officers swore—which of course is wrong even though when someone swears with an English accent it never sounds quite as bad.

The driver slammed on the brakes. There before them, rising out of the green countryside, was what looked like a black, bubbling mountain. It looked almost as if someone had struck oil and now it was shooting out of the earth. Except for the fact that this blackness had a face and arms and was moving forward.

“I never,” one of the officers whispered.

The rest began to pray or chatter.

The Dearth pulled himself up, standing two hundred feet out of the soil. The bottom of him rippled and flowed into the ground while his top half bubbled and popped. His head was gigantic and round, with bits of earth all over it. On his face were two deep pits for eyes and a large, gaping mouth. Long gone was the quaint little friendly Englishman. The true Dearth was alive and huge.

The Dearth opened his mouth and screamed.

Millions of tiny stones and bits of earth flew out from around him. A helicopter half a mile away fell from the sky.

“Turn around,” one of the police officers yelled. “Get us out of here.”

“But we’ve got to stop it,” another more valiant officer said.

“How?” six officers screamed in unison.

The Dearth shuffled toward Stonehenge and picked up one of the massive rocks with his long, sticky right arm. He heaved the rock, and it blasted into one of the police cars, sending it flying hundreds of feet.

“Get out of here,” those in the van yelled.

The Dearth grabbed another stone and threw it into a small house, obliterating the two-hundred-year-old structure and creating a crater in the ground.

The sound of jets approaching from the south grew louder and louder. Then, almost magically, the planes appeared, firing at the Dearth. The Dearth just stood there absorbing every shot that hit him. The jets circled back and fired heavily at the Dearth again. Once more the Dearth just stood there absorbing their shots.

As the planes were circling around for a third time, the Dearth began to swell and expand. Then, just as the jets reached him, the Dearth expelled every shot that had been fired into him. The sky was filled with shrapnel flying in all directions. Two jets exploded and a third flew into the ground.

Some of the police officers were actually crying now.

The Dearth roared, and any trees within a mile in front of him were stripped of their leaves. The black monster picked up another piece of Stonehenge and threw it toward the police van. It missed, but the vibration from the stone hitting the ground caused the van to jump three feet before settling back down on the road.

“Get us out of here!” one police officer yelled.

The van raced down the street with its siren blaring as stone after stone smacked down next to it. The driver swerved and dodged as best he could, believing the next one would destroy them completely.

A stone came down two hundred feet in front of them on the road, creating a huge divot in the earth. The van swerved and drove out over the countryside.

“This isn’t good,” one of the police officers said, sweating.

More jets arrived on the scene, and through the rear windows of the van the officers could see the Dearth sinking back into the earth.

“How do we beat that?” one cried.

“I’m not sure we can,” another replied.

The van sped as quickly as it could away from the action.