PART TWO

The boys looked around. They were in a field of high brown grass that gently moved in the hot breeze. Short gnarled trees and strange looking plants jutted out of the ground in ghastly poses.

In the distance, they could see ragged hills with white tops laying out streamers of wind-driven snow.

“You think we’re close to the house?” Kyle asked. “Or close to the store? I could totally use a candy bar right now”

“I don’t know,” answered Max. “I don’t see any houses. Anywhere.”

“Look!” Kyle said. “That mountain over there looks like Floyd Hill! I mean, it kind of looks like it. Way taller though.”

“And what’s up with these plants?” Max asked pointing down at the ground. “They smell even worse than your fried soda.”

“Seriously,” Kyle said. “They smell like dead animals or something.”

The terrible smell filled the air around them. The plants were dark purple in color, with streaks of sickly green flaming up the sides of the main leaves.

Growing in between the purple plants, were things that looked like mushrooms. They had a vivid coloring of red, yellow, violet, and orange.

The breeze had stopped, and as the sun beat down on the boys, the smell started getting worse. Kyle started to feel sick from the smell.

“Blech!” he said. “Makes me wanna throw up!” He stepped on one of the mushroom things under his feet, and it squirted out a thick black liquid.

The liquid that oozed out of the plant smelled even worse.

Another mushroom plant made a squishing sound. Then the mushroom began to move. It's stem began to split open as vines of purple and green leaves suddenly sprouted out.

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One of the vines darted out and wrapped around Kyle's foot.

“Max!” He screamed out. “It’s got me. Get this thing off of me!”

As Max ran over to his friend, the ground erupted into a scarlet writhing mass, as all the plants started to grab at the boys. Max and Kyle started to run toward the pod, but it was like trying to run in thick mud.

A rough thick, sawlike edge of one of the leaves struck Max a glancing blow on the shoulder, and he was knocked down into the mess of fungi. A long, writhing, bright-red thing, like a nightmare fishing worm, lashed out above him, curled back and wrapped around his neck in a strangling grip.

“Kyle!” he tried to shout. “Help!”

Kyle untangled his foot from one of the vines, grabbed Max’s shoulder, and started to pull him away from the hateful plants. The tentacle which held Kyle began to straighten out. Stretching as if it had been made of rubber.

Max grabbed a fist-sized rock from the ground and started smacking at the tentacle vine as the boys backed away from the writhing pile. A moment later, both boys were out of reach of a dozen more plants which were shooting after them.

Max sat up and rubbed his neck, it felt stiff and sore.

“Dude, that was close,” said Kyle, standing up and looking at his friend.

“Yeah, not cool. We were almost eaten by vegetables.”

“Vegetables should give me a break,” Kyle said. “I don’t eat vegetables, why should they be trying to eat me?”

“Look at the one that grabbed my neck!” Max pointed at the plant, which seemed to have grown a couple of feet higher. “It’s changing!”

The “death shroom” (as they decided to name the plant) had not closed its outer sheath, and its inner hideousness stood fully exposed to the sun. Straight up from the center sprang a sort of slimy, blue-black stalk, growing some twenty-five feet above the ground in a wide plume of green fronds.

Surrounding the stalk was a dense, intertwined mass of long, scarlet tentacles, like the one which had nearly choked Max to death. Kyle shuddered and looked away, feeling very sick and disgusted.

“It looks mad,” said Max. “Almost like it’s in pain. It’s turning like it can see us. Do you think it has eyes? Whoa! It's turning orange now!”

Kyle looked again. Max was right. The wriggling scarlet mass was rapidly changing to orange, and from orange it faded to a sickly yellow. It started wriggling more and more feebly.

The outstretched sheath-leaves lifted themselves spasmodically two or three times, then wilted limply, falling down to the ground.

In five minutes, the plant was totally still. The death shroom was dead.

“Maybe it died of aggravation,” said Kyle smiling. “That’s what you get, plant! You can’t touch this. We too fast!” He laughed and started doing a ridiculous dance. “You think we should grab a couple of leaves so we can show everybody at school?”

Before Max could answer, the biggest cat they had ever seen stepped out of the grass. It wasn’t just any cat, though.

It was a sabertoothed tiger!