The slugs have attacked the town hall and the colonists of Dale Cannon. Rystole and Bert have fled to the office in hopes of using the gun against the slugs again.
If you missed last weeks installment, want to share with friends, or just reread old chapters you can find the table of contents at: https://stepintotheroad.com/slugs-of-dale-cannon-table-of-contents/
The gun was in pieces on Bert’s workbench. A few probes were hooked up to it their wires trailing into a monitor. It was hard for Rystole to tell what were tools and what belonged in the contraption.
Bert looked as frazzled as Rystole. He clutched at words to explain himself. Rystole gathered enough to understand this was part of the process of sending the designs back to the Central System.
Rystole checked the hallway as his friend rushed to reassemble the gun. A dozen Slugs had begun to head down the hallway from both directions and soon there wouldn’t be any way to escape short of breaking the small windows on the workshop’s exterior wall.
It was a better plan than dying but they’d catch hell from Grisham for not fleeing when they had the chance and damaging town property in the process. Rystole began searching the room for materials that could be used against the slugs.
A weapon wouldn’t be useful. He’d seen firsthand that any kind of physical damage was useless. Bert was repairing the only thing they knew of that could harm them.
The room was filled with dismantled technology but none of it was farm equipment so Rystole was out of his element.
“Why do you think they’re attacking town hall right now?” he asked Bert.
Bert was too focused on the repairs to respond.
“They could be attacking because we are all here in one place,” Rystole continued. “But we’ve been meeting like this every week since we settled the colony.”
“It’s the slug we killed,” Bert said dismissively. “Grisham was right. we antagonized them.”
Rystole didn’t love the idea of Grisham being right. Mostly because it meant that waiting for the Central System’s minister to arrive was the best move. And that felt like the slowest.
“How would they know it’s us? Shouldn’t there be other predators on Dale Cannon?”
“Try this,” Bert said, shoving the gun into Rystole’s hand.
Rystole peeked his head out the door and saw the slugs advancing, with even more behind them. There were at least two dozen now. More than he’d seen at any given time. More than he’d ever heard appear in any attack.
The slugs didn’t quite fill the width of the hallway. But walking through it without touching one would be harder than avoiding buff manure in the herd’s pasture.
Rystole aimed at the closest one and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened.
He pulled the trigger and held it, remembering that on his first hunt, the gun took some time to take effect.
The slugs grew closer. The gun was having no effect. Rystole ducked back into the lab.
“No good,” he said, giving the gun back to Bert.
Rystole’s eyes began to dart around the room looking for something to put over the air gap under the door. It was the most effective protection according to Grisham’s reports in previous town hall meetings.
Rystole spotted a flimsy box on one of the shelves and dumped out the contents.
“What are you doing?” Bert shouted. “That could have been expensive!”
Rystole ripped the box open laying it flat against the door and the floor. “Do you have tape?”
“Second toolbox, three drawers down,” he said, his face still buried in the gun.
“Not there,” Rystole said, starting a drawer full of hammers. He grabbed one with a large metal head just in case he needed to break a window.
“Sorry, third from the right, second from the left.”
Rystole pulled the drawer open and found every kind of tape he could imagine. He grabbed the cargo tape and began to tape the ripped box to the door.
“Here. Try this,” Bert said.
“Is it going to work this time?” Rystole asked as he grabbed the gun.
“I could test it but that’d take time.”
Rystole poked his head and arm out the door. The slugs were just over a meter from the door. He pointed the gun and held the trigger down. The light brown rings on the back of a slug made a familiar wave pattern.
Then the wave pattern stopped. The slug started crawling towards him again and he retreated back into the workshop.
“Nothing?” Bert said with a worried look on his face.
“Nothing useful.”
Rystole tapped the box to the floor closing the gap. He ran tape around the edges unsure of how thin of a gap the slugs needed.
The box covering the door’s gap rustled. The tape strained to hold onto the door but didn’t quite break free.
This pattern repeated slowly dying down in frequency but neither Rystole nor his friend wanted to venture out of the safe lab.
So boys waited for what felt like forever. Every single sound from the creak of pipes, to the settling of junk, startled them.
Bert continued to work on the gun but even Rystole could tell the work was unfocused and chaotic.
An unusual sound startled them. Rystole realized it was people talking in the hallway.
There was some shouting of coordination but Rystole couldn’t make out what was being said. Then a loud crashing sound rang out.
It startled both of them. But not as much as the knock on the door that followed.
“Rye, Bert, are y’all in here?” It was the voice of Rystole’s father.
Rystole pushed the door open, ripping the tape off the floor, almost hitting his father in the face.
Rystole let out his breath and hadn’t even noticed he was holding in and hugged his father. A half dozen people, mostly ranchers, were in the hallway. Bert found his mother and hugged her, glad to be alive.
“What the hell were you thinking?” his father asked after they finished their embrace. “I was worried sick. When we didn’t find your body in the auditorium I couldn’t even begin to imagine what had happened.”
Rystole noticed a large plastic box in the middle of the hallway and some of the group gathered around it arguing about what to do next.
“What’s in the box?” Rystole asked.
“A slug,” his father said.
Rystole wasn’t sure if he was serious or not but looking at his face he realized he was.
“We caught one?” Rystole asked.
“More of we kept it from being able to do anyone else harm,” his father said. “When we came down the hall it was just crawling in a circle like a tractor missing a wheel.”
“When I poked my head out there was a whole army of them,” Rystole said. “I blocked the door like we’re supposed to but I still thought they’d get in.”
“Well it seems like they decided to leave,” his father said. “We tried to attack them but it wasn’t much use, eventually we just retreated to a house and blocked the gaps of the doors and windows. We watched through the windows and saw them leave, then came to find out what had happened.”
Rystole noticed Speaker Grisham round the corner. He hadn’t originally been in the group that caught the slug but did come out now that the risk had been neutralized.
The Speaker addressed the boys and their families. “I’m glad neither of you were hurt but you should have evacuated like the rest of the town. What possessed you to hide in an office?”
Bert stayed silent. Not eager to explain himself. So Rystole spoke up.
“We have the gun here, we wanted to test it, but it wasn’t working.” He then put two and two together and was about to add something but the speaker cut him off.
“This is the most preposterous thing I’ve heard. You hunt one down as a fluke and think you’re a Central System commando. We’re just lucky you’re okay. Dr. Yu is running out of beds in his infirmary with this last attack.
“Bert you have a very clever head on your shoulders and the Central System needs a copy of your plans as soon as possible. And Rystole,” Grisham looked at his father as he said, “I can’t imagine how your family would fare without you. We can’t afford for either of you or anyone else, to be incapacitated.”
Everyone around Rystole apologized to the speaker and when the man seemed content he said, “Now, curfew is going to set in soon. If you need a place to stay we are putting together a safe house in one of the empty houses inside the town walls. I understand if you don’t want to travel back to the farm tonight with those beasts out there.”
The last thing that Rystole wanted to do after Grisham’s scolding was participate in his curfew. Unfortunately, his father agreed to take the speaker up on his offer of the spare house.
It was the right thing to do for the family as a whole, and the town would likely need the extra hands in the morning.
Thanks for reading! The next chapter will be posted here in a week. But Patrons are already reading it today! If you want to get early access to the next chapter, my eBooks, and even signed copies of my books consider supporting Step Into The Road through Patreon.
Stay in the Loop
I regularly publish new short stories and updates about my work(s) in progress.
If you're interested in keeping up to date, join dozens of other fans who receive updates whenever I release a new story by signing up here!
