Growth

by Jeff Jacobson

  No one was around.

  Sandy went back to the cruiser. She turned in a long, slow circle under a darkening sky. It didn’t make any sense. Mrs. Kobritz had answered the phone maybe fifteen, twenty minutes ago. Her car was still in the driveway. She couldn’t be far.

  Sandy turned on the spinning red and blue lights at the top of the cruiser and hit the horn a few times. She thought about turning on the sirens, but it felt wrong. She thought of her son and wondered how long she should spend out at Mrs. Kobritz’s. She saw herself explaining the twenty-four-hour guideline if someone came into the police station and reported a missing person.

  Missing for twenty minutes didn’t exactly inspire panic.

  Still, there was no denying that, in her heart, she knew damn well something was wrong. Mrs. Kobritz wasn’t the type who tended to flee to Vegas on a whim. Mrs. Kobritz wasn’t someone who slipped away in the dead of night to escape child support payments.

  Mrs. Kobritz was someone who gave the closest neighbor a seven-page list of detailed instructions on how to water the flowers if she left on an overnight trip.

  And Mrs. Kobritz would never abandon her dog.

  Sandy hit the horn a few more times and kept the lights flashing. Nothing. No hearty welcomes. No invitations to join her for dinner. No shouts of recognition. Nothing. She decided she would take one more walk around the perimeter of the property and wound her way through the little orchard and garden, into the backyard.

  She saw something moving in the corn.

  Sandy tensed and waited. The corn rustled.

  She heard something wheezing. Puffing Bill came out of the rows, trying to sniff the air with his ruined nose. He saw her, momentarily forgot whatever had been on his mind, and bounded over to her with his own peculiar hopping gait, lost in a frenzy of dog happiness, his stump of a tail wriggling furiously.

  She didn’t realize she had been reaching for her sidearm until she unsnapped the holster and felt foolish.

  Sandy waited, hoping to see Mrs. Kobritz follow her dog up the back lawn. She never appeared. Puffing Bill banged his head into her knee, demanding affection. Sandy gave his head a quick, perfunctory pat. He settled onto his haunches, tucked his one leg across his chest, reared back, and looked up at her. Cocked his head, clearly not satisfied. When she didn’t respond, he gave up, disgusted, and took a leak near the roses in the backyard.

  It was so quiet she realized she could hear the dull rush of traffic on I-72 two miles away.

  She called out, “Mrs. Kobritz? Hello? Mrs. Kobritz?”

  Nothing. Not even crickets.

  Puffing Bill froze when he heard Sandy’s voice. He looked back to the corn and there was a suggestion of a distant rumble in his throat. He had remembered that something was wrong.

  She’d never seen the dog scared. She’d once seen him take a slow walk around one of the big rigs rumbling in the vacant lot next to the Korner Kafe, as if the dog had been sizing up the truck, looking for a weakness. Nothing scared him.

  She flicked her Maglite at the corn, swept it back and forth. The frantic movements of the light created lurching, fragmented shadows that leapt away at the flick of her wrist. She slowed the light at odd moments, trying to catch someone unaware. But her meager light could only illuminate five or six rows deep. Sandy knew that out there, out in the deep darkness, the fields went on for miles and miles, broken only by the occasional dirt track or highway. It was a vast, wild ocean, rolling on and on under a hazy bubble of stars.

  Sandy turned off the Maglite and left the backyard, going around to the front, wishing she hadn’t left the flashers going on the roof of the cruiser. The spinning red and blue lights gave Mrs. Kobritz’s front yard and driveway a tense, jittery feel, and even if nothing was wrong, she couldn’t help but feel the lights were making the situation worse.

  Puffing Bill joined her, sticking close. He remained at her side as she crossed the front lawn to the cruiser. His ears were up, and he kept his eyes moving.

  She opened the driver’s door and switched off the lights. Puffing Bill slipped past her and hopped nimbly into the front passenger seat. He put his one paw on the dashboard and swiveled his wide head, surveying everything from behind the windshield.

  “Great. Thanks.” She called the office on her cell, wanting to keep the news of her old babysitter quiet. “Liz. I need to report a missing person.” She went down the list, giving Mrs. Kobritz’s vitals, promising she’d find a picture soon, and told Liz to get the word out.

  Sandy didn’t want to, but she got in the car and went next door to ask the sheriff if he’d seen or heard from the Einhorns’ neighbor.

  CHAPTER 13

  Earlier, Sandy had missed Jerm entirely.

  He’d been pedaling up Highway 17, handgun tucked safely in the front of his shorts. He’d seen the headlights crest over the horizon a mile or so distant and knew he had a few minutes to slip into the corn and let the car pass. But the lights had disappeared, and he figured he’d missed them turning into a farm or home. He kept pedaling.

  His cousin had once told him that all cop cars had square headlights. It was like a law, or something. So Jerm kept an eye out for square-shaped headlights as he pedaled along the highway, past endless rows of corn. His lungs burned and his legs ached, but the cold, heavy metal of the pistol pressing into his belly gave him strength to keep going. He couldn’t wait to show it off at school tomorrow.

  When the cruiser came gliding out of the darkness of the highway with no lights and a nearly silent purring engine, Jerm damn near had a heart attack. If she’d had her headlights on, Sandy would have spotted him in an instant.

  Jerm saw a ditch and yanked his handlebars to the left. He bounced down an embankment into the nearly empty irrigation ditch, jumped off, and swiftly rolled his bike into the concrete culvert that ran under the highway.

  Above, he heard that crazy church lady yelling at somebody. At first he thought it might be him, but relaxed when he realized it was one of her kids.

  The water was ankle-deep, and in the stifling heat of an Illinois summer, Jerm barely felt the tepid water. He leaned his bike against the wall and moved deeper into the large pipe.

  Ten feet in, the light from the stars faded. Except for a flash of reflection on the surface of the water once in a while, the light had vanished. The air became palpable, as if it were a black, impenetrable liquid. The culvert was nearly four feet in diameter, and Jerm found he could move forward fairly quickly through the utter darkness, as long as he hunched over and kept his head down. He stopped when he thought he was halfway through the tunnel and froze, listening.

  The engine fluttered above and the cruiser sped away. Jerm grunted in relief.

  Something sloshed in the water down at the other end. The sound echoed down the closed space of the pipe and reverberated past Jerm.

  A shape broke the circle of light. It fluttered one moment, went still the next.

  He pulled out the cell phone he’d stolen from his brother, knowing full well that his brother had plucked it out of some tween’s backpack at the mall. He couldn’t make any calls, couldn’t even break the code to get into the phone, but when he turned it on, it gave off a soft glow, and he used that light to guide him farther down the tunnel.

  He got close enough to see that it was an old woman. She was turned away, huddled against the side of the cement pipe, knees drawn to her chest, skinny arms hugging herself. Frizzy, gray hair hung over her face.

  Jerm got closer.

  Recognized her as that old bitch, Mrs. Kobritz. She had some sort of growths popping out of the wrinkled skin around her mouth and nose; they looked like little torpedo-shaped mushrooms. When she turned her head and opened her mouth, she didn’t make a sound, but he could see even more of the mushroom things erupting out of the inside of her cheeks and across her tongue. One arm reached out for him. The fingers twitched, and she vomited a thick black paste over her distended stomach.

  He scrabbled backward, slipping in
the algae that coated the bottom of the tunnel. Strangely, he found it was hard to break eye contact. Her eyes pleaded with him. They seemed horribly aware of her situation, and she silently begged him for help, for relief, for something he could not understand.

  Jerm finally broke the contact and twisted around and looked back down the tunnel to his bike. His feet found purchase on the slime-covered concrete and propelled him down the pipe. His fingers clawed at the cement as he splashed along. He got close to his end and risked a look back.

  The shape of the woman was still there. She hadn’t moved. His heart slowed, and he found he could take a breath. He turned back, took a deep breath, and prepared to scurry the last ten feet to his bike.

  A new sound reached his ears, echoing and distorted as it spiraled down the pipe to him. It was soft and sinister. He aimed the phone back down the tunnel. After a few seconds, the light faded and he had to hit the button again to wake the phone up. At first, he couldn’t see anything. He whipped the phone back and forth, sending the shadows in the tunnel reeling and swaying like drunk yo-yos.

  He gradually realized the scattered movements along the curved walls of the concrete pipe were truly crawling toward him, and it wasn’t just the frantic sweeping of the faint light. The sudden knowledge made him drop the stolen phone, and he lunged for his bike with both hands. He pushed the bike backward out of the culvert. It toppled over sideways in the weeds. He clambered out, and even though his bike had fallen over, he felt triumph as he emerged from the darkness into the starlight.

  Then he felt something crawling up his calf.

  It was almost like a cluster of tiny cactuses moving across his skin, as dozens of the spindly creatures crawled up his legs. More dropped on him from the top of the culvert. They swarmed across his body, moving in snakelike motions, slithering up his legs, scurrying down through his hair, crawling under the collar of his Motör-head T-shirt, squirming underneath his cargo shorts.

  Thousands of insect legs overwhelmed Jerm, crawling across every inch of his flesh. He stumbled and fell forward, clawing at the centipede-looking things that crisscrossed his face. He rolled over, splashing through the wet weeds, kicking wildly. He staggered back up, ripping and grabbing them. He ignored his bike and simply started running.

  He could still feel them, though, as his feet slapped the pavement. Felt the smooth worms with stolen legs that had no head and no tail. Felt the tiny legs grip and latch his skin.

  He kept slapping and pulling them off as he ran off down the dark highway.

  TUESDAY, JULY 3rd

  CHAPTER 14

  Everybody wanted to see the urn but nobody knew whether to call it a funeral or memorial or service or wake or what. Sheriff Hoyt finally had to run out to Bob Morton’s farm and ask the farmer’s new best buddy, Cochran. Of course, who the hell that guy actually was was a whole other question. Cochran himself was awfully vague on the subject, but you didn’t have to be a goddamn rocket scientist to figure out that he was an Allagro company man, through and through.

  Cochran said the morning service was open to the public, and therefore was to be referred to as a memorial to Bob Morton Jr. It certainly was not to be called a funeral. Not under any circumstance today. Cochran was awfully particular about that. He made sure that everyone in earshot understood that that particular solemn event would certainly not be open to the gawking eyes of the public. Absolutely not. That would be a different ceremony entirely, an utterly private affair, between Bob Jr.’s parents, the local reverend, and Bob Jr.’s employers.

  Sheriff Hoyt relayed the information over the radio as he drove back through town, followed by Bob Morton’s black sedan, the car Bob used when dealing with the bank or going to church. Cochran drove. Another state trooper police escort brought up the rear as Sheriff Hoyt led the small procession through town.

  At least that obstinate chief and her dipshit deputy were stationed out on Main Street like he’d asked, directing traffic into the Stop ’n Save parking lot. He gave her a casual salute. She responded with an even more casual salute of her own and a mysterious half-smile as he rolled past. He couldn’t figure out what she was thinking. That bothered him.

  Sheriff Hoyt was a man who liked to know what everybody was thinking. In a place like Manchester County, it was pretty obvious damn near most of the time. If somebody was pissed, they didn’t hold back. Same thing if they were happy. There wasn’t a whole lot of psychology involved. Most everybody came out and said what was on their mind.

  But this new chief of Parker’s Mill, she wasn’t somebody who played along, made her thoughts obvious. He couldn’t figure her out. And wasn’t it just like a woman to make simple things complicated? Shit, he’d kept her involved, hadn’t he? He could’ve sent her out to keep on eye on speeders on 67 but since this little shindig was in her town, he’d thrown her a bone, kept her close to the action.

  That little smirk chewed the shit out of him.

  Last night hadn’t helped. As if it wasn’t bad enough that they couldn’t find the stupid Einhorn wife’s body, perky little Chief Chisel had to pop back up and ask if they’d seen the friggin’ neighbor. She knew damn well they hadn’t.

  That made it . . . He ticked the names off in his head. Seven goddamned missing persons in less than twenty-four hours.

  That kind of thing wasn’t good for paperwork.

  He’d worry about that later. This morning, at least he’d kept her clear of the memoriam or memorial or whatever the hell Cochran wanted to call it. He didn’t give a shit what she was thinking. She wouldn’t interfere with Bob Morton’s affairs, that much was guaranteed.

  Sandy was in the middle of Main Street trying to explain to Mrs. Perkins why this was not a good morning for shopping at the Stop ’n Save when Liz’s steady, calm voice came out of her radio.

  “Code ten-ten. Individual is calling from his cell phone. Says it is an emergency. Says he is being threatened with bodily harm. He is apparently unable to leave the vicinity of lower Access Road Fourteen. Requesting immediate assistance.”

  Mrs. Perkins didn’t give a damn about the call and said so. She was furious because she couldn’t find any parking in the parking lot. Incredulous, she had driven back out to Main Street, straight to Sandy to complain. “Are you telling me that I, a taxpaying figure in this community, cannot shop in peace at her own grocery store?”

  Mrs. Perkins was perhaps the fattest human being Sandy had ever seen in person. Sandy always saw the car in the drive-through lane at the fast food places around town. Mrs. Perkins was perhaps the target consumer of the town’s only export, the cheap, starchy corn combined with fructose for a sweet syrup that the industry added to anything they could. Maybe Mrs. Perkins was angry because she had eaten out her entire supply and needed more. Today. Now.

  Sandy said, “This’ll all clear out before noon. I can’t imagine you’ll starve to death by then,” and winced inwardly as soon as the words escaped.

  Mrs. Perkins rolled her eyes. Shook her chins. “You didn’t . . .” She lowered her voice. “I don’t know what kind of dirty shit you think you’re pulling here, you bitch, but you better believe you will be hearing about this later. Oh, so help me God. You will hear about this.” Mrs. Perkins stomped on the gas for a block and then had to jolt to a stop for the town stoplight.

  Sandy ignored her and got into her cruiser, clicking her radio. “Copy. This the place I think it is?”

  “’Fraid so. Want me to contact the county boys?”

  Liz got loud and jumped around a lot over things like the Rams’ football games and margarita hour at the bar at the Parker’s Mill Inn, but when it came to her job, she grew emotionless, stone-cold solid. Sandy could gauge the seriousness of the situation over how much feeling Liz removed from her voice. This time, she sounded like a damn robot.

  “Not right now. Let them take care of the situation at the church. Let me get a feel for the situation first.”

  “Ten-four.” The radio clicked off.

 
Sandy started the car, cranked up the lights and siren and tore off, heading west, toward the river. Access Road Fourteen was the location call for the Fitzgimmon farm. She shook her head. “Son of a bitch.”

  One damn thing after another today.

  Sheriff Hoyt turned right on Third Street and went south for a few blocks until they came to the First Baptist Church of Parker’s Mill.

  He’d put his best three men in charge of handling the media, and they’d corralled all the reporters and riffraff out on the southwest corner. He knew they wouldn’t screw up and answer the wrong questions because they simply didn’t know a damn thing. He slowly eased his cruiser through the knots of people and parked in the alley.

  Ordinarily, he would have had a field day clearing out all the onlookers from the middle of the streets, but Cochran had made sure that everybody involved truly understood the enormous significance of the occasion. When Cochran explained it to him, it made Sheriff Hoyt’s blood boil.

  The terrorists had killed nothing less than one of America’s very own farmers.

  And Sheriff Hoyt would not stand for that kind of shit. From providing a dignified atmosphere to honor dead Americans to whatever else was required, Sheriff Hoyt was a man who would get the job done. He was a man the country could count on.

  He removed his hat when he entered the church and took a seat near the back.

  That way, he could keep an eye on everybody.

  The reverend started things off with no surprises. “Ladies and gentlemen. Brothers and sisters. Let us be reflective in the presence of thine Lord and Savior.” Everybody had to straighten or shuffle into a different position for some reason before they became still and quiet.