Chapter 10

chapter ten Road trips are the worst Complaining about the road trip is all part of the classic road trip experience. You two are weird. I AM TRYING TO DRIVE. OK, we're starting to get a little moody. The cause of the present moodiness isn't, like, June monopolizing the radio or Quint hogging all of Dirk's legroom.

It's a bathroom issue—the issue being, it's now nearly impossible to stop to go to the bathroom. Thrull's influence is everywhere: vines slither, the air is foul, and sometimes we'll speed past a monster that emits that old distinct odor: the stench of evil. All that makes every stop more dangerous than the last... and every bathroom break typhoon-level treacherous. To help us brave on, I brought back my Feats of Apocalyptic Success—but updated! I call 'em— Feats of Apocalyptic (ROAD TRIP TOILET) Success It makes going to the bathroom a game. And games make us brave, so pretty soon we're all completing Feats right and left.

FEAT: Daredevil Go in total darkness. FEAT: Never Bashful Complete a bathroom break with a zombie in close proximity. FEAT: Toilet Seat Sweeper Lift ninety-nine rest stop toilet seats without finding anything awful.

I've only got, like, seven more toilet seats to lift when— scream But all the added danger means we're already on edge as we approach the next apocalyptic road trip attraction. Dirk and his dad had a pamphlet for every attraction they planned to see. He reads them aloud, getting us all jazzed up on the way to each one.

"Supposedly, this place houses the corpse of a mythical monster that was found in a nearby mine," Dirk starts telling us, once we're a mile away. "It's got, like, huge oval eyes and fingers the size of bread sticks and is all encased in a glass tomb or something!" The attraction sits on the side of an endless stretch of highway. There's no real town: just a single intersection, with a gas station, a diner, a general store, and our destination: the Entity on Interstate 8. But as we approach, it's clear that something's not right. "I'm not sure we should stop..." Quint says, slowing Big Mama to a halt in the middle of the highway. "Hate to say it," June says. "But I might agree." "Bah, c'mon," Dirk says, stepping out of the truck. "We can handle it!" But then we hear the noise: it's a spine- chilling slurping, gnawing, grinding.

"This all just feels... wrong," June says. "It's like the vines are eating this tiny town," I say in horrified disbelief. Dirk nods. He's coming around. "They're swallowing this whole place." "Turning it inside out," Quint notes. The town's only intersection is now a monstrous sinkhole—and that's the center of the monstrous vine infestation. Thousands of dripping tendrils snake out from its depths, writhing and wriggling. It reminds me of a biology class, where we learned about veins, and how they all carry blood to the heart. That's what this is like. Vines like veins, devouring the town, carrying raw material into the sinkhole.