The Vendeleer Brothers Book 4: The Plagued Forest
Chapter 2: Rancid Water

“So what exactly are you scanning for when you… scan things?” Roderick asked as he, Brian, and Jordyn followed Lori Evans up a circular staircase to the top of the town water tower.

“Well, ghosts emit this weird super charged electromagnetic field, which is why they show up on an emf tracker. But when I say supercharged, I mean more so than would be masked by any power plants nearby. That’s why my first emf tracker blew up on me back in Pinnacle Gulch.” Brian explained.

“Spirits on the other hand, are made up of something completely different that I’ve been calling ‘Spirit Matter’. It’s kind of like a version of a carbon based life form, but the carbon has been altered somehow, and the molecules shift around and are a bit unstable.

People with powers are in a weird place, because they’ve somehow stabilized that altered carbon within themselves, which makes them slightly magnetic. So even though it’s still spirit matter, it won’t show up on my scanners the same way.”

“Brian, for someone so childish and immature, you sure are heckin smart.” Jordyn commented.

“Thank you?”

At that moment, they reached the top of the winding stairs, and Lori brought out a ring of keys.

“Now be extra careful not to touch any water.” she told them, opening the door. Immediately, they all plugged their noses in disgust. Inside of the top of the tower, it smelled like a skunk had died. The walkway that hugged the side of the walls was covered in that sticky clear liquid, and there was a strange type of plant floating on top of the water, which was a greenish tint.

“How did all of this stuff even get in here?” Jordyn gagged. “And why hasn’t anyone cleaned this up?”

“That’s the thing, it has been cleaned.” Lori told them, shifting her large circular glasses. “But within twelve hours, it was back to this, even when we shut off the water source.”

“So I take that’s why you had Joey and Ian go check out the river…” Roderick mentioned, carefully squatting down to get a better look at the water. Brian got down too, put on some gloves, and slowly took a little sample of the water, the clear liquid, and the plant.

“I can’t wait to look at these through a microscope!” he said a little too cheerfully. Roderick snickered, and Jordyn rolled her eyes.

Ian and Joey stood amongst the bushes on the side of the river, looking down at the slow moving water. A strange plant floated along the top, and by the way the water moved, it seemed a bit… mucousy.

“That’s got to be one of the slowest moving rivers I’ve ever seen.” Ian commented, wrinkling his nose up at the smell and looking over the bank carefully.

“That’s no longer just water, I can tell you that much. Just look at how the river is moving. There’s… something else in there.” Joey said.

“Do you think it’s that clear stuff we saw?”

“Possibly.”

Ian and Jordyn took in the scene, and Ian took a few pictures to show the others. Then, he put it on video wo they could show them how thick and slow the water moved. While he was taking the video, Joey suddenly turned, put on high alert. Ian looked over to her cautiously, still filming.

“What is it? He asked. Joey narrowed her eyes at a little spot of water that was bubbling.

“I thought I saw something…” she said quietly. No sooner had she said that, then something splashed and slithered into the bushes on the other side of the river.

“Probably a river snake or something.” Ian laughed nervously. Joey looked off into the bushes.

“I don’t think so. I mean, don’t you smell that? I think everything in this river has died. I have a feeling that whatever it was we just saw has to do with all of this somehow.”

Ian looked over to her, and then sighed, knowing that Joey’s feelings were more than just “feelings”.

“Do you want to follow it?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that…”

So as they were now in agreement, the two of them followed the river until they found a little bridge to cross over. Then they made their way back down to the bushes that whatever it was had slithered into. Down in the dirt, it could have been the track of a snake, for it was the right shape, but from what they were seeing, it hadn’t moved like a snake. It had been dragged back completely straight and into the swampy water a few feet away.

It was also huge.

“Any more feelings?” Ian asked hopefully, taking some more pictures. Joey stared at the strange tracks in the dirt and mud, and then shook her head with a sigh.

“No. Unfortunately. Let’s go back and meet up with the others.”

Ian nodded, wanting to get away from this potentially dangerous water as fast as possible. As they started to make their way back over the bridge, they stopped when they heard something.

Off in the swamp, echoing through the trees and vines, was a far off, inhuman screech. Ian and Joey both swallowed, and then hurried to meet back up with the others.