CREEPERS Chapter 14
Chapter 14
The Creepers
Thunder split the silence as another storm brewed to the east waking Roundtree from sleep as deep as death. He was alive but his mind had been possessed. In a few hours that he has been unconscious his body had rapidly mutated. Deep inside his mind a sliver of his soul survived imprisoned by a primeval intelligence. He was left with only an abstract, dreamlike sense of self. His thoughts and actions had been taken over by a parasitic plant driven by self-preservation, propagation and the destruction of its one and only predator: mankind.
Like the coils of a python the creeper crushed his will as it it converted each cell in his body into a microscopic factory, beginning with the ribosome, than the nucleolus and every strand of DNA in his body, chloroplasts were added to capture energy from sunlight and fluid-filled vacuole that stored compounds. Within hours the mutation was complete. Communication with surrounding cells was now possible through cytoplasmic connections known as plasmodesmata. Roundtree tried to stand but he lost consciousness again. A few minutes later his serpent green eyes fluttered open to a new world, one in which he was irrevocably tethered.
The plant exploited inherited memories. Once, long ago, his ancestors had inhabited an unspoiled, unpolluted world. Then the Europeans arrived and for centuries did everything they could to wipe them out. In an instant, that had changed, suddenly he possessed strength, knowledge. It was his turn to have the power to destroy his ancestors’ enemies. It was his turn for his tribe to dominate the Earth and the planet herself was his ally.
Genetic memories were read from his DNA: the slaughter of his ancestors, the destruction of their culture and the hatred they’d felt for the European invaders. These memories were tapped by the creeper and used to fuel a necessary rage needed to control Roundtree and send him willingly into battle on their behalf.
Suddenly all Roundtree could think about was spilling the blood of his enemies, he lusted for battle. He wanted to sink his bare feet into soil drenched in their blood, wiggle his toes in sand soaked with it and savor the metallic tang of blood on his tongue.
It didn’t take long for the sliver of soul bound within his mind to flicker and go out, extinguishing a once proud and honorable man, all that was left was the fearless warrior that he had been though many lifetimes.
His wounds had healed but his human emotions were muted. In less than two hours he had morphed into another species. Somewhere his soul still existing within another dimension mourned.
He had no choice but to accept the new, botanically based life-form that the plant and his mind controlled. It had a lineage predating all other life on earth. Plants sunk their roots into the toxic soup of an earth nearly void of life billions of years ago and now their time to reclaim the Earth had come.
Sap coursed though Roundtree’s veins like pea soup, made of cells that contained strands of DNA that had survived on the planet when conditions were hostile to all other life, surviving for billions of years, giving birth to every species of plant that ever germinated, pollinated, sprouted, grew then withered and died or gave nourishment to countless species over eons, a life-force that eventually spawned fish, reptiles, dinosaurs, mammals and mankind. Nothing except its cousin bacteria had existed longer or had more influence on the planet. Now something new had evolved, a life-form perfectly adapted to a polluted world, resurrected inadvertently by the human enemy, born of weeds, toxins, pollution and the wanton destruction of the planet.
Roundtree gazed up into the glorious canopy, thick with vines that looked like twisted green girders armed with hooked thorns and smiled. They were there, he sensed their presence, detected their woody scent, as his eyes adjusted he could see them camouflaged in the shadows, watching, waiting to be summoned. Like sloths they clung to the creepers, with hooked claws. With a mighty baritone, Roundtree bellowed. “Listen well. I command you, no one else!” Climb down and kneel before your King. With leafy ears they heard and obeyed. Soon the canopy was filled with Creeps. Many still slick with afterbirth they plodded forth on unsteady legs.
Roundtree climbed up into a loop of vine the size of a sewer pipe. His body was still adjusting to the transmutation, his internal organs stabilized but his strength had yet to plateau. He stood, reveling in his new found potency. His botanical muscles bulged with power and his brain buzzed with information and insight. He clearly saw the lineage of his species. He could visualize the first germination taking place on the shores of a toxic lake. He understood his enemy too because their genes were mixed with his. Soon they would suffer the pent up wrath from their ages of abuse of the Earth and the species that made her their home.
Roundtree and his army of Creepers’ mission was clear: rid the Earth of a pestilence that began 20,000 years ago when mankind acquired technology from the Gods.
He was a warrior for the creeper and in his mind, Protector of the Planet. His ancestors believed that the earth was a living, breathing divine being. It had survived meteor strikes collisions with asteroids and close encounters with comets that caused climate changes, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Earth had given birth to billions of species that swam, crawled, flew, walked or simply floated passively in primordial seas. And she had destroyed 99.9% of them. In her long life only one creature had acquired the power to destroy her and all of her creations: Humans.
Roundtree felt his flesh graft to the bark of the massive creeper as he leaned against, he drew nourishment and downloaded information: every leaf, vine, thorn, and blossom was a docking station for him that could blast data into his brain. He sensed his enemies, as he spoke. He knew that the humans would not realize until it was too late that the jungle they sought to destroy had eyes to see, ears to hear and worse a brilliant mind that plotted their destruction.
Roundtree knew they were going to try and destroy them. But he felt no fear, fear was an emotion purged from his mind forever.
He reached his hands to the sky and shouted. His voice had the depth and timbre of a God. “Come to me my fruit of the vine.”
The branches and vines above began to shake with life, huge leaves rustled as more and more creepers descended like cumbersome apes. Roundtree saw the faces of the dead in their eyes, the faces of murderers, rapists and terrorists, executed and buried without prayer, ceremony or tears. The creeper had absorbed their decaying bodies and used their DNA to resurrect pieces of their evil minds and produced a bountiful crop, a fearless, mindless army of non-humans. He saw half a dozen that resembled Carl Jarvis wandering with aimless looks of bewilderment on their olive faces. Jarvis had been executed last month for the gruesome killing of a family for their grocery money: eighty-two dollars.
Roundtree clapped his hands and suddenly hundreds of beings bearing the faces of the dead fell to their knees before him. The dead had not only risen but multiplied. He remembered a prophecy about the dead digging out of their graves in the days before Armageddon.
His voice rang out with authority. “Arise and salute your master!
The Creepers rose to their feet, thrust their clawed fists into the air and grunted their first word. “Blood, Blood! Blood! Blood!”
Roundtree’s voice thundered. “Silence! Follow me and you shale have buckets of it, an endless supply. The humans are nothing more than walking bags of blood. You will feast on them and grow stronger! You will destroy them. You will absorb them, and I will enslave them!”
The creepers, chanted in unison, “Kill, Kill! Kill!”
Roundtree pumped his fist into the air. “Yes!” He knew there were hundreds of creepers spread across the state making their way to him. His army would swell with each sunrise.
They were part of a grand, cosmic scheme: a new species created to purify the earth. They would prepare the planet for an explosion life that had not been seen for millions of years.
As had happened many times, over billions of years, Earth was cleansing herself. She was going to wipe out mankind before he destroyed her. There was no malice in her actions, no anger to be felt. The evil of Roundtree’s troops was not planned. It was a chemical reaction to their deeds. The evil about to be unleashed was man made. God had nothing to do with it. Mankind was about to destroy himself with a planted assassin, perfectly adapted, grown by men for the task at hand. The creepers were not an evolutionary fluke. They were a conditioned response to the violation of Earth.
