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Ainōryoku Sentai Nightmærangers #49
🕑 Added 2022-06-19 00:00:03 +0000 UTCThe Nightmares That Came To Manila, Part 7
Tammy heard a new roar echo through the night below her as the drones carrying her and Blue, as well as the drone Yellow had left in Magenta's house started cackling in a mildly disturbing manner. "Uh, Yellow?"
"Busy," was the terse reply. "Get ready, you're almost there."
Tammy was mildly concerned, but she'd seen Yellow like this before, when they'd going after the bees together in Tagaytay: aggressive and disturbingly berserker-like as she tore at every monster done in her way. They'd worked well together then as Yellow tanked and drew agro from the increasingly larger bees, while she'd stealthed towards the main hive, burrowing underground from root to root until she'd been in a position to try and get at the queen. It had turned out well in the end, and Yellow had forgiven her for nearly eating them when she'd suggested they try to share the bee…
She forced herself to focus on what was to come, wishing she could shake her head. She didn't like this. Their plans had needed to be abandoned before they could even be implemented, and she got the feeling that was going to be a pattern.
The American Embassy passed by below them, the latter guarded by Marines and tanks, and then Rizal Park and Intramuros, before finally flying over the Port Area. Tammy felt a sickening squirming in the heart she currently didn't have as she saw car-size growths of mushrooms just sprouting from the roads, walls, roofs, and random piles of garbage and debris. Around them, people were milling about at random, moving stiffly and jerkily as they cried out in pain and fear. Despite moving like badly controlled puppets, they moved as one, shuffling outward in a wave from Baseco and through the port area.
Tammy remembered the news reports from months ago, of people in a part of Metro Manila she'd never heard of waking up with strange mushrooms growing on their bodies, filling up the local clinics and eventually the nearby hospitals. She'd listened to it on the news in the morning before she and her cousin had left home to do some groceries, since Manang Zenny was taking her vacation to visit her family. By evening, increasingly sensational reports about more and more people with mushrooms growing on them was being passed around in text messages, on social media, even on the radio. She'd actually turned on the TV again to find out what the fuss was about, and watched talking heads being interviewed about fungal infections, about how they were still trying to identify what sort of mushroom it was since there were thousands of species of mushroom in the world, of how it might be an invasive species from South America or Japan.
Two days later, the news were reporting about people had been infected into living dead mushroom zombies, of the fact corpses were moving and seemingly animated by the mushrooms growing on them, of how studying the fungus was difficult because it grew so virulently, of how the research team from UP have already had people get infected even through their protective gear. No one actually, officially used the word 'zombies', even if that was how people referred to them online and over the radio. They were 'fungal hosts' or 'fungal carriers'. At worst, the news referred to 'infected' or 'afflicted', as if the people still alive and in ceaseless agony from having parasites dominating them simply needed some antibiotics or a topical cream.
Further days had been like something out of a movie as Tammy and Willie stayed at home, watching the news and fielding calls from their parents about what was happening and whether they were all right. There were semi-disjointed warnings to pack emergency bags in case they needed to run, to be ready to get out of the city in case this somehow spread.
Tammy remembered they had been filled with fear, of how she'd barely kept it together for the sake of her cousin, of how she'd passed on information she knew to everyone on her contacts, even those that had been, in hindsight, completely false. Ah, those had been innocent days, when no one had yet realized what more there was to come.
Nowadays, it was just the new normal. Everyone went to school and work and lived their lines, while passing around notices of monster sightings and senators tried to convince themselves that the military bio-hazard cordon around Baseco could be stepped down because it was an unnecessary expense and that the situation was stable and would no longer be a problem…
Grimly, Tammy separated another drone so that she could have an aerial view, tentacles taking the drone as it grew and turned black, covered in photoreceptive faux eyes. "Blue, you ready?" she called down to her cousin.
"Yes, Green."
"Magenta, where are you?"
"Already on the ground! I'm at the Bridge near Baseco!" he replied through the drone at his house. "I'm blocking the way so they can't get to the other side!"
"Shh, not so loud, kuya" Ryan shushed. "Everyone's already asleep."
"Oh, sorry," Magenta said.
"Yellow, can you do anything?"
"Busy," Yellow said tersely. "Keeping people away, preventing victims." A roar echoed from the distance. How the hell could she still hear that? "Could kill them, put them out of their misery, but corpses would still be controlled."
"Don't," Green said sharply.
"Could maybe get the mushrooms out of them, but need time, too busy. Not now. Can't do everything."
Tammy winced at the reminder. "Sorry. All right, we'll deal with this while you deal with that."
"Concentrate on saving uninfected. Prevention easier than cure. Ready to drop?"
"Ready—" was all Tammy managed to say before she was in freefall, the ground suddenly coming closer and closer towards her. She had a moment of instinctive panic before the lack of feeling of movement because she hadn't made her balance organs yet reminded her that she wasn't falling as a soft, squishy meat bag, she was falling as a hard ball of wood. She'd just reminded herself to calm down before she slammed into the ground, bouncing up ten feet before she hit the ground again and started to roll. About thirty feet away, she saw Blue slam into the ground and shatter into pieces, had to remind herself her cousin was fine, that she'd get back up from that…
Tammy began growing her body, the round, coconut-like form she had elongating, then narrowing to create a distinct head and torso as limbs grew out from her like stalks of bamboo. It was familiar now as she grew arms, legs, feet, hands and fingers. Lace-like petals grew at her wrists and neck. When she had enough of a body formed, Tammy pushed herself up to her feet as she looked around. Blue had already reformed, her body tall and glass-like. They were on a wide road, the now-familiar sight of abandoned jeepneys, pedicabs, and fallen bikes and motorcycles littering the ground and crashed into walls. There were also large cargo trucks, some overturned with their large steel cargo containers fallen on the street, others with their doors open as if the drivers had simply stepped out. Street lights burned brightly, save for where a truck had crashed into one, and she dimly recognized the area from a field trip when she'd been in elementary school.
There were bodies here too. Fallen bodies, skin no longer wet, clothes only damp instead of soaked,
There was no one else in her immediate line of sight, though she could distantly hear screams of pain and agony, of people screaming to God, begging for help or simply asking for the pain to stop. She could see the bridge spanning over a later stretch of the Pasig River as it met the sea, saw the roil of movements of those infected. While many crowded over the bridge, some here heading towards them
"We're on the ground," Tammy said through her drone. "I don't see anyone, but I can hear them coming closer." She felt for the plants in the area. There were always plants around, either weeds that people were just too lazy to uproot, blades of grass too stubborn to die wedged between cracks in cement. Here she was lucky. There was a golf course on the other side of the wall, and the sidewalks as well as the island in the middle of the street had trees growing at intervals, with less planned plants taking advantage of the unoccupied areas of soil. "Blue, remember the plan. Find the living ones, and get them into the water—" no, the water was too far away, wasn't it? —"or at least isolate them to keep them safe. The rest, we keep contained."'
"Yes, Green," Blue said.
Tammy fell into the familiar rhythm, giving her cousin detailed instructions that she made up on the spot. Willy needed to know exactly what she had to do, because sometimes she wouldn't do anything else. "Don't hurt them. Be gentle, like I showed you. If you do get them into water, make sure to keep their head above water. Oh, and make sure they're warm so that they don't get hypothermia. Warm, but not boiling hot. It has to be like a hot shower. I'll help you with it after I get done making sure the dead ones can't keep moving. Remember, get all the living ones. You can feel it if they're alive, right?"
"Yes, Green."
"And the ones who are alive are…?"
"The ones with feelings coming from them."
Tammy nodded. "Also, if they're talking or screaming, breathing or bleeding, they're probably alive. Don't attack them, they can't really hurt you. If you're not sure, talk to them, and if you get some kind of response, then they're probably alive, so keep them safe—"
Movement ahead of her, shapes moving out of shadows under the trees into the streetlights…
"Sorry, what was that?" Magenta said. "You said something strange…"
Ah, right. She'd never explained that, had she? "Later!"
They came silently, from her perspective. Their bodies moved stiffly, as if they were babies that didn't know how to balance, or puppets with tangled, knotted strings. Pale mushrooms with dark blotches grew on their exposed skin, semi-circular, horizontal growths like she'd seen in some trees, making her shiver as she imagined them growing on her both ways. In the shadows, between the lights and under the trees, the mushrooms seemed to glow slightly, a toy-like, glow-in-the-dark green that could almost have been a trick of the light. The mushrooms grew from people's eyes, nostrils, ears and even their mouth, pushing out from between their lips. There were even some that seemed to be growing from people's armpits. Some were dressed in military fatigues, others in loose shirts and shorts, in business casual wear, in what looked like the uniforms of security guards. Some were children.
Thin white filaments like spider webs grew over the rest of their skin, on their clothes, in their hair, strands of it waking loose in the wind, giving them a strangely hazy—Tammy refused to think 'ghostly'—outline. They didn't walk with arms outstretched or mouths gaping open, though some had red stains of dried blood around where the mushrooms grew. Some of the blood trickled around the growing mushrooms, dripping down with every jerky movement. The blood…
There were people among them still alive. She'd known that. Seeing them with her own eyes instead of simply hearing about them from the news was a different matter. They bled, muscles shivering and shaking from either cold or pain. Some were dangerously emaciated, and she could see strange bulges and clumps outlined under their skin. Their mouths moved, and though she could hear their screams, their cries…
The horde stumbled forward, and when they encountered a dead body in their path, parts of the horde would cluster over them, legs collapsing like dropped puppets in a lazy parody of kneeling as the mushrooms on their body pulsed. Tammy saw white filaments begin to spread from spots on the fallen bodies, saw them start to twitch…
Twitching all the way, the previously unmoving corpse clumsily tried to move as the ones around it that had given it this parody of life clumsily rose and continued on. The walls on either side of the wide road was channeling the horde towards where Tammy and Willy were standing, but it wouldn't last. Behind the two of them was a rotunda intersection, one path leading further down to the Baywalk, one leading down to the port area, and the third leading deeper into the rest of Manila…
More and more of them appeared, moving like badly articulated toys a child was making walk, and Tammy involuntarily took a step back as they approached. No, no, don't be afraid! They couldn't hurt her. She was there to help them, to… to save the city from them. She forced herself to stand tall, and almost opened a slit on her face so she could talk before she remembered the mycelia growing over her. She wanted to reassure them, to tell them that it would all be all right, that they were there to help…
Behind her, her dear, sweet, special cousin, unburdened by such sentimentality, simply flooded the ground with water, liquid exploding violently from her icy skin and onto the ground, and sent a wave towards the zombies heading towards them without hesitation. The water parted around Tammy, sweeping forward and pushing fallen bikes aside as the water rushed forward, drowning the road again as it slammed into the legs of the horde. It barely seemed to hinder them even momentarily as they continued to stumble through the water running over the road.
Then the water froze.
The horde stumbled as their feet were either encased in ice or lost traction as said feet came down, the stiff puppet-like movements of their limbs no letting them recover their footing as legs were split open by the inexorable demands of gravity. Only some of the living managed to maintain their balance, the ones who looked like they had only freshly been tainted, only to fall as whatever eldritch force possessed their bodies forced them to continue moving to step forward.
Right. Do something now, be crippled by the moral ambiguity of her violent actions later.
Some plants were naturally fast growing. Kudzu was infamous for it. All around her, she felt the plants, the trees in the parking lots over the wall, in the islands between the roads, in the golf course and historical tourist trap to their right. They were full of water after the day's rain, but that didn't matter. She reached out to them, into them, claimed them as part of her. She could feel carbohydrates slowly being metabolized, felt leaves taking in precious, life-giving carbon dioxide and expelling waste oxygen…
She made them grow.
The trees shuddered for a moment, like the breath before the dive… and then slender, vine-like branches burst from their trunks, exploding and unfurling as the branches slammed into the hordes. Tammy wasn't Yellow. She wasn't some horrendously unfair super-multitasker. All she could do was control what was in front of her, barely able to spare a sliver of her attention on her drone in case the others talked to it to let her know something.
The branches reached out, far more supple than they should be, and began entangling around anything they touched that wasn't another branch. They wrapped around heads, limbs, cracked windshields, posts, and other trees like vines seeking support, as she vastly accelerated their grown, her power letting them generate mass ex nihilo. Entwined branches hardened, thickened, and sprouted more branches, holding the struggling bodies in their grip. Those she had caught struggled against her bonds, stiff arms clumsily grappling at her encircling branches as the mushrooms growing on them pulsed and rippled.
Tammy felt her branches coming under attack, somethingboring through the outer layer of protective bark, forcing its way down to the softer underlying structure where xylem and phloem circulated nutrients, felt those nutrients being stolen as growths of pulsing, plate-like mushrooms began to grown on the branches she controlled. She fought back the way she knew how, growing her branches from the inside, creating more mass to push out the damaged parts, branches growing thicker as a result as she fought the infection that tried to weaken her structure even as she tried to keep from growing inward, tried to keep her growing branches from strangling the very people she was trying to save as the grew thicker.
In front of those she'd entangled, more branches grew. They found the cracks along the ground and grew roots, digging downward to anchor themselves as they spread in a long across the road. Those branches began to thicken, weaving a wall in the across the road to block the way of the horde as the trees and grass growing on either side of the rode grew explosively. To her right, over the wall and high fence netting separating it from the rode, the grasses growing on the grounds of the Intramuros golf course change, their slim, decorative blades thickening into wide, hollow stalks, pressing together in a mass that increased the height of the wall, keeping the horde from scaling those walls to escape containment.
Compared to the floodwall she'd already made that night, this was nothing as she created a new barrier to keep the horde in.
It wouldn't last. She knew it wouldn't. No walls held back a zombie horde forever. Already the horde was pushing into the ones she had entangled in front of the wall, pressing them against the barrier. Some were being covered in protective barriers of ice, Blue following her orders and isolating those still alive from those only moving. She did the same, wrapping them in protective loops of branches that were less likely to break from applied pressure or give them hypothermia. When she did that, Blue let the ice melt away, marking other members of the horde as alive even as they began to slowly amass against her barrier.
She thickened the barrier, the branches growing from within, fusing to each other, roots digging deeper as they anchored the whole structure. A second layer began to grow to reinforce the wall as she increased its height, making the barrier curve over the horde to try and make scaling it by climbing over each other harder. Already she felt more and more points of attack on her wall, the strange fungus animating the horde digging into her wood, trying to consume it from the inside, to weaken her wall, or possibly just spreading from instinct.
Tammy grew more eye splotches on the trunks, on the leaves, and on the branches so she could see what she was doing, so she could direct more slim branches to entangle around over the of the heard, keeping them immobile, yet as she did more and more pressed against those she had trapped.
Was it unleaderly to wish that Sanny killed and ate Laking Kamay quickly so she'd be here to help take care of this? Because she really wished the other woman was here to help them with this. Hopefully she was having better luck with Laking Kamay, because Tammy got the feeling that things were going to get worse. She had no idea what more to do beyond keeping the horde trapped and trying to separate out the ones still alive for Yellow to try and heal later!
Above her, the sky brightened.
