Growth

by Jeff Jacobson

  The Whistle Stop was way down on Highway 67 but was located just inside the town by a technicality, a strange quirk in the city limits. Chicago had its O’Hare Airport, and Parker’s Mill had its Whistle Stop. When it was built, the owner had bribed the town council to stretch the border of Parker’s Mill so it just barely included the roadhouse. During prohibition, it was easier and cheaper to pay off the town rather than the county sheriff. Subsequent town councils had condemned the corruption, but they weren’t stupid. Prohibition or not, the Whistle Stop brought in a lot of money as taxes or fines or special levies or whatever they wanted to call it.

  The city limits had never been altered since.

  It was Saturday night, and the place was packed. Sandy pulled in and parked right in front, one of the perks of being chief. She got out and spent a moment trying to decide if she should wear the hat or not. In the end, she decided it couldn’t hurt. At twenty-six years old, she stood only five foot, three inches, and weighed maybe 110 pounds. She was going to need all the help she could get.

  She settled the hat on her head and squared her equipment, checking everything with a light touch. She now used a Glock Model 22, with fifteen .40 caliber rounds. These days, it didn’t seem right to carry a pistol that she’d used to kill a man, her being a peace officer and all. The Glock was locked and loaded, safety on. Radio on her right shoulder. Flashlight behind her pistol, next to the Mace. Two full clips heavy on her left hip. And a special new surprise tucked away behind the clips, riding lightly against her left butt cheek.

  Godawful crappy modern country music spilled out from inside. The music was shit, loud as always, but the crowd noise was low. For a bar like this on a Saturday night, the place should have been roaring. Sandy made one last scan of the parking lot, looking for the father’s truck. As far as she knew, the only person to own a vehicle in that family was the father, Purcell. She couldn’t see it; either they parked around back or they had found a different car.

  The front two doors were open. The bouncer was gone.

  The song ended, and in the brief silence, Sandy could only hear some murmuring and faint laughter. Sandy went inside and immediately stepped sideways, slinking back against the wall. She didn’t want to linger in the open backlight of the doorway.

  The Whistle Stop smelled of sweat and stale beer. It was built like a barn, or maybe a church. The middle was open, with a high ceiling. Long bars on both sides were chock-full of female bartenders in tight denim shorts and western shirts unbuttoned down to the centers of their chests. There was a stage up front, for when they could get live music. It wasn’t often. A digital jukebox served as backup. It was right up front, and pulled even more attention to the empty stage, which gaped like a missing tooth. And even that didn’t work right half the time, so the management just threw in seven CDs on shuffle. Most were country hits, of course, your Garth Brooks, your Rascal Flatts, your Shania Twain, your Toby Keith. And once in a while, just to keep everybody happy, they’d include an actual rock and roll album.

  The next song kicked in. Heavy-duty guitars. The oldest brother, Edgar, sat alone on the stage, bouncing his head slightly to the only noncountry music recognizable down to the bone of every man, woman, and child inside that building. Power chords that struck a vibration throughout the entire universe. Sandy always gave a silent thanks whenever she heard something from the obligatory soundtrack to bars around the world, AC/DC’s Back in Black.

  Most everybody else was clustered along the two bars, waiting for the situation to be sorted out. Nobody moved around a whole lot, except for the youngest brother. Axel Hillstrom Fitzgimmon. He was nineteen, a mean, arrogant little punk. Technically, he was underage and shouldn’t have been even allowed inside the Whistle Stop. He lived in a shack with Edgar they’d built themselves up the hill from their father’s house. Axel worked for an auto-repair garage in town, getting paid to carry heavy shit around all day and drive the tow truck once in a while. Tonight, he was putting on a show, having himself one hell of a good time all over the dance floor that stretched from the stage almost to the front door. He’d chased everyone off the dance floor by treating it as his own private mosh pit and jumped around as if the floor had an electric current.

  She couldn’t see Charlie.

  Fredriquo Guiterrez, the bouncer, better known as Freddy G, was over by the bar, holding a bloody bar rag against his mouth. Freddy G was over forty, balding hair pulled back into a ponytail, still finding work as a bouncer thanks to genetics. Stories floated around town that he had once lifted two full-grown men by their belts and thrown them in the mud. Nobody knew if it was true or not, but he was nearly seven feet tall with a football lineman’s gut and arms.

  He knew she was here, but wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  Charlie was the worry. Back from some sand country, full of pep, ready to rock and roll right along with the music. He was always deliberately vague about his deployment, and wanted folks to believe he was involved in some hardcore Black Ops, Company-style CIA-type shit.

  She made herself a target. Stepped onto the dance floor.

  Axel kept on flailing around. Edgar ignored her and bobbed his shaved head in stuttering, jerking movements along with the beat. He was the shy brother, and except for a nervous tic that made him giggle uncontrollably whenever he touched a firearm, she ignored him. Her presence had been noticed by the rest of the bar, though, and everybody else whispered and nodded. The minimal crowd noise faded away, until only the music filled the roadhouse.

  Sandy knew the Fitzgimmon brothers couldn’t have made Freddy G bleed without being sneaky, so she was more than ready when Charlie tried to slip his forearm around her neck. She dropped her chin into her chest and stomped down with her boot, crushing his toes. His left forearm slipped off her forehead while his right fumbled for her handgun and couldn’t unsnap the leather.

  She brought her right elbow back and caught him in the solar plexus. Air chuffed out of his lungs, whistling past her right ear. Her left hand found the second holster on her left hip and whipped out the Taser X26P, a handy little compact plastic fuck you.

  From there, it was simply a matter of twisting out of his grasp and squeezing the trigger. Two vicious barbs, each connected to the weapon with coiled wire, jumped out and dug themselves deep into Charlie’s abdomen like fishing lures out for vengeance. Over 13,000 volts sparked through him, effectively shutting down any kind of control Charlie had hoped to exert over his own body. He involuntarily groaned, twitching like a cattle prod had been shoved up his ass.

  Axel was already rushing at her. Sandy grabbed her canister of Mace clipped to her belt with her right hand and brought it up, blasting him directly in the face. To Axel’s credit, he didn’t slow down. He just couldn’t see anything anymore.

  Sandy sidestepped his pinwheeling arms and let him crash into his brother. The two of them went down like two trees in a monsoon. Her hand went to her third and last weapon, the Glock. She gave Edgar a meaningful look.

  He sat still on the stage. His head wasn’t bouncing anymore.

  Sandy left the Glock in its holster, replaced the cartridge in the Taser, and turned back to the younger brothers.

  Axel kept trying to stand up, but couldn’t find his balance with his eyes screwed tight, as clear mucus gushed out his nose and filled his bottom lip, his entire face the color of homemade hot sauce. He crawled away, managed to find his feet, and struck out in a random direction until he banged against the front doorframe and staggered outside.

  The charge only lasted five seconds, and Charlie regained control. He sat up and glared at her. “You fucking—”

  Sandy wasn’t in the mood and shot him again with the Taser.

  Charlie writhed on the dance floor for another five long seconds. At the end of it, he went limp. Sandy knelt among the Anti-Felon Identification confetti that had sprayed out of the Taser when it had been fired. She gathered all four wires and snipped them off with a Leatherman. Keeping his shoulder pinned down, she use
d her right hand to rip the barbs out of his torso with as much of a ninety-degree angle as she could manage.

  She decided he could live without the sterilizing swabs and Band-Aids and stood, using her boot to roll Charlie over onto his stomach. He groaned. She ignored this and crossed his hands in the small of his back. She snapped plastic zip ties around his wrists and left him facedown on the dance floor. She decided to leave Axel for now and pointed at Edgar. “You. Facedown on the floor. Fingers laced on the back of your neck. Now.”

  “I didn’t do nothing,” Edgar said. “You got no right.”

  “I’ll give your lawyer a call later. At the moment, I will cuff you one way or another. You can either climb into my vehicle under your own power or I will be forced to persuade you. The choice is entirely yours.”

  Edgar didn’t like it, but he got on the floor and interlaced his fingers at the back of his head. He glared sideways up at the bar patrons as Sandy handcuffed him. “Fuck all y’all. Buncha bitches and pussies.” She left him facedown on the floor. He continued to yell at everybody as Sandy went out the front. “Bitches and pussies. Fuck you. Fuck all of you. I know who you are.”

  Sandy found Axel punching her squad car. She kicked his legs out from under him and put him on the asphalt. He tried to push off the ground but Sandy jammed her knee deep in the center of his back to remind him to be still. She wrenched his arms back and zip tied his wrists as if she’d just roped a calf in a rodeo.

  Folks spilled out of the doorway to watch.

  Sandy threw Axel in the back of the cruiser and went back inside. She found Freddy G standing over Charlie, giving serious thought to stomping on Charlie’s head. Edgar was still cussing at anybody in his line of sight. Charlie was smart enough to stay quiet and pretend to be nearly unconscious.

  Sandy looked up at Freddy G. “What’s the damage?”

  He peeled back his bloody lips in a grimace. One of his top incisors was gone. “Keeping it in a shot glass over there,” he explained.

  “I’m no dentist,” Sandy said. “But crushing his skull won’t grow you a new tooth.”

  “It’d make me happy,” Freddy G said.

  Sandy couldn’t argue with that.

  Edgar rolled over and saw the bouncer looming over them like Paul Bunyan. “Hey man, this is your job, ain’t it? What you get paid for. You gonna whine like a bitch all night?”

  Sandy stepped in front of Freddy G and helped Edgar to his feet. “Let’s get you to the car before any accidents happen.”

  Freddy G shook a pudgy finger at Edgar. “Y’all are not welcome in here anymore. I see you in here again, I’ll put you in the fucking hospital.”

  Edgar started to say something back, but Sandy gave his arms a swift, savage tug straight up, torqueing the hell out of his shoulders. He gave a squeal of pain and they were out the door.

  Edgar went in the backseat with Axel. Charlie took longer, mostly because he couldn’t walk on his own worth a damn. Sandy tipped her hat at Freddy G, who was settling back into his spot on a bar stool outside the front door. He spit blood into the parking lot and didn’t wave back.

  When the phone rang, the Mortons had just finished dinner. Belinda was in the kitchen, washing up, and Bob was settling into his chair with the paper and the remote.

  Belinda knew better than to answer. Even though it was almost always for her, she would wait until her husband picked up the cordless phone they kept between his chair and the couch, and if it was for her, she would wait for him to call her name before she picked up the handset in the kitchen.

  Bob said, “Hello?”

  The voice on the other end was no one he had heard before. “Mr. Morton?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Mr. Morton, this is Paul Cochran. I am the acting Vice President of Affairs for Allagro and I am afraid that it is my duty to call with unfortunate news.” Cochran waited a moment, giving Bob a moment to ask the obvious question.

  Bob said, “What are you talking about?”

  A sad, heavy sigh. “I wish I could be there in person to tell you. However, certain safety protocols are preventing any of us to travel at the moment. I will be there shortly. Tomorrow night at the latest.”

  Bob repeated, “What are you talking about?”

  “At approximately eleven-thirty a.m. local time, our Caribbean facility was targeted by an extremist environmental terrorist organization. Everyone on the island was killed, including your son.” The voice softened. “My deepest sympathies.”

  Bob felt as if he was tipping forward into an impossible abyss and almost dropped the phone.

  Cochran seemed to sense this and waited for a moment before resuming. “Of course, we will do everything within our power to find those responsible and bring them to justice. Your son was a valued member of the Allagro team. I hope that the knowledge that your son died defending his deepest beliefs makes this burden easier to bear.”

  Bob did not know what to say. His involuntary Midwestern compulsion for politeness kicked in and he mumbled something like, “Thank you for letting us know.”

  “Our thoughts and prayers are with you at this difficult time. As I said, I will be flying out at the earliest possible window . . . and I will be accompanying your son’s remains. This information, at the moment at least, is still classified. I trust that it will remain so until Allagro is able to present the facts at a press conference tomorrow. Please, for the sake of your son, and the company he had devoted his life to, please do not speak to anyone from the media until I am there to assist you.”

  “Of course not,” Bob said. His voice, his living room, everything, seemed very far away.

  “I will be in touch shortly. If you need anything, call your son’s office. They will put you in contact with me. I know this is terrible news, but your son would want all of us to remain strong and hunt down those responsible. Again, please do not speak about this with anyone. Can I count on your cooperation?” Cochran asked.

  Bob managed a noise that sounded almost like a “Yes.”

  Cochran said, “I will see you soon,” and the line went dead.

  Bob let the phone fall in his lap, working at piecing together what he had just heard. The only thing he knew for certain was that his son was dead. Why he believed the man on the other end of the phone, he couldn’t say. He believed the news nonetheless. His son was dead. He pushed his way past the questioning eyes of Belinda and stumbled out the back door, heading for his truck. He needed some time to process this, and he’d be damned if he was going to cry in front of his wife.

  Now, surrounded by his son’s corn, he finally succumbed completely to the anguish that had been struggling to explode since he dropped the phone. He screamed at the night sky. His howls echoed up and down the rows of corn that his son had promised would change everything. He could still hear Bob Jr.’s voice, saying, “Dad, trust me, these seeds, they’re gonna revolutionize how the world farms. This corn, it’s special. Really special. Get it in the ground. You’ll see.”

  Bob believed that genetically modified seeds would save the world. He believed this even more than he believed in his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And both were absolute truths. God had given Man the tools to feed himself. This was a fact.

  Bob had no doubts. None.

  Genetically modified seeds would save us all.

  So Bob couldn’t get his son’s seeds in the ground fast enough. He’d watched the corn as it grew, nurtured it, handling everything personally, from the irrigation duties to spreading fertilizer. Getting close to being ripe, it didn’t look any different from the regular corn he knew. Same ears. Same leaves. Same stalks. Kernels near bursting with a deep neon yellow.

  Maybe that was the point. Maybe there was no difference. And right now, he didn’t know, he didn’t understand, and he didn’t care. His son was dead. He rocked back and forth, until toppling over, face on the ground, dirt spilling into his open mouth. He sobbed. Gasped. He grabbed at the soil, let it run through his fingers.

/>   He was not aware that when he sucked in yet one more gust of air to scream into the dirt, he inhaled a small number of microscopic fungus spores, which stuck to every wet surface they encountered. The inside of his mouth. His throat. His lungs.

  They went to work, sending tiny, hairlike filaments deep into the tissue.

  And started to grow.

  When Bob’s outpouring of agony had passed, when he could regain control, when he could gather all the strings of his pain and pull them even closer for a while, he swallowed, spit out some of the soil that had found its way into his mouth, and went back to his truck to drive back home and tell his wife their son was dead.

  CHAPTER 5

  “He pukes back there, both of you are cleaning it up,” Sandy told Edgar and Charlie.

  Axel had been trying to get the Mace out of his nose and throat the whole ride into town while Sandy followed Highway 100 north as it wound along the Mississippi River. He’d been using his T-shirt as a snot rag, and for a while it looked like he had everything under control, but the guttural retching sounds he made while trying to take a deep breath worried everybody in the car.

  Edgar and Charlie hated Sandy and being stuck in the backseat with a vomiting Axel made it worse. Charlie was still pretending to be dazed and confused from the Taser, but Edgar was taking out his anger on his youngest brother. “You fucking puke in here, Axe, I’m gonna kick the living shit out of you. Swear to fucking Christ.”

  Axel didn’t act like he’d heard anything. He sat in the center, leaning over, one arm flat out against the clear, bulletproof partition, eyes screwed tight.

  Sandy pulled to a stop at Parker’s Mill’s only stoplight, at the intersection of Highway 100 and Main Street. At this time of night, the intersection was utterly empty.

  Located fifty miles east of Springfield, Parker’s Mill had around a thousand citizens. Not too many of them were Bible-thumping evangelists like the Johnsons; they were mostly decent folks who sometimes got out of line. Some were more prone to finding trouble than others.