Chapter 8. The Creeping Plain
As they reached the large black rock, the scene around the children changed. Instead of miles of bare brown earth the ground was covered with plants. These plants had wilted and were very sad looking indeed. A twisting path wound around the plants and the children slowly made their way along.
‘My feet hurt,’ complained Paul, looking hopefully at Mark. Mark and Sharon ignored him.
‘My feet hurt,’ he shouted.
‘Be quiet,’ said Mark crossly. ‘Our feet hurt too. You will have to walk on your own, I am not going to carry you.’
‘He’s only little, Mark,’ said Sharon soothingly.
‘Well then, you can carry him if you want to,’ snarled Mark.
Mark was worried. According to Aylwin’s instructions they were supposed to be going to a forest, but he could not see one anywhere.
Sharon was also worried.
‘Shouldn’t there be a forest by now?’ she asked Mark.
‘I can’t see anything like a forest, but this is such a strange place, who knows what we will find next. Far off things usually seem to be closer than they look.’
They trudged along the dirt track, their feet sending up small puffs of dust as they went. There was nothing to be seen but withered plants, stretching for miles in every direction.
‘I feel as if we are walking on the spot,’ grumbled Mark. ‘We don’t seem to be getting anywhere.’
Sharon grabbed his arm.
‘I thought I saw that plant move,’ she gasped.
‘Plants always move,’ Mark reassured her. ‘They get blown by the wind.’ He faltered into silence as he realised that there was no wind. The hot sun beat down from a cloudless sky.
‘You must be imagining things,’ he said, after gazing around him at the drooping plants.
Sharon was sure she wasn’t imagining things. She kept seeing the plants move out of the corners of her eyes, but when she turned and looked at them they looked as dead as before.
Paul noticed the plants moving as well.
‘I’m scared,’ he whispered, grabbing at Sharon’s hand.
They walked a few paces further. Now Mark saw it too. The plants were moving as the children passed, waving their leaves and rustling in a menacing manner.
‘What are they doing?’ whimpered Paul. ‘I don’t like it.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mark. ‘Keep on walking.’ He increased his pace until Sharon and Paul were nearly running to keep up.
‘They are making a lot of noise now. Maybe they are talking to each other,’ Paul suggested. Mark and Sharon looked at each other in horror. Plants that moved were bad enough but plants that talked!
‘Mark, wait, my shoe is coming off,’ wailed Sharon. Mark stopped and waited as Sharon retied her shoelaces. Paul walked over to a group of plants and prodded them with his foot before racing back to Sharon’s side. The plants moved restlessly.
‘Hey plants, what do you want?’ called Paul, who was feeling braver now he was holding Sharon’s hand again. The plants stopped moving immediately.
‘They heard me,’ he said triumphantly. Mark decided it was time he said something.
‘We won’t hurt you,’ he began but Paul interrupted him.
‘Who’s afraid of a lot of silly old plants anyway?’
The rustling grew louder as the plants thrashed about wildly. The children huddled in a group.
‘What did you go and say that for?’ Mark hissed at Paul. ‘Now look what you’ve done.’
As the children gazed in terror, the plants wrenched their roots from the ground and lurched towards the children. There was a steady ‘thunk ,thunk’ as the roots, encased in clods of earth marched towards them. It was like watching a moving carpet. As the closest plants approached the children they sent out long twining tendrils that waved threateningly in the air.
‘Help,’ shrieked Sharon as a vine twisted tightly around her ankle. Mark lunged to help her but found he was caught fast. A long snake-like shoot crept around his knees and clasped them tightly.
Paul screamed as writhing tendril whipped around him, pinning his arms to his sides,
‘Do something,’ Sharon pleaded as she felt the vines climbing higher around her legs.
Mark looked desperately around.
‘If only there was a large stick within reach, I could bash the plants away,’ he thought, but all he could see was a creeping mass of withered vegetation.
He thrust his hands into his pockets and felt the shape of the plastic torch he had won at the fair. He grasped it in his hand and started to hit out wildly at the plants. The plants tightened their grip. Mark could see Paul turning pale with fright and Sharon was whimpering in pain. In sheer desperation Mark turned the torch on and shone it at the plants,
‘Go away, leave us alone,’ he screamed. Much to his surprise the plants immediately shrank away as if they were afraid. Keeping close together, the children stumbled down the path between the plants, Mark waving the torch in front of him.
‘I can’t understand it,’ said Mark worriedly. ‘Plants like light – in fact they usually grow towards it. Why should they be afraid of it?’
‘Ooh,’ said Sharon excitedly, ‘do you think whatever has been killing them has been shining things at them?’
‘That’s a good point,’ conceded Mark. ‘Light by itself would be unlikely to hurt them, but if the light went with something else they would be afraid of it.’
‘Like big trucks,’ suggested Paul. ‘The headlights would shine while the trucks ran over them. That would make them afraid.’
‘Hardly,’ said Mark scathingly. ‘There are no cars or trucks here, or even roads. If there were, we could ride instead of all this walking we’ve had to do.’
‘He’s right Paul,’ said Sharon. Her feet were sore and her legs ached.
The path opened out into a stretch of long grass. This was not as frightening to walk through but the long strands tickled their knees and the pollen made Paul sneeze.
‘Look there’s the forest,’ cried Mark in relief as a large plantation of trees stretched before them.
‘It wasn’t there a moment ago,’ said Sharon in a puzzled voice.
‘Well it’s here now and we have to go through it so we might as well get on with it,’ answered Mark. He did not want to stop and rest, as he knew how hard it would be for them all to start walking again once they had stopped.
‘There can’t be much further to go now,’ he said trying to be cheerful, as he led the others through a gap in the trees in front of them.