CREEPERS

by Bryan Dunn

  “Miss.”

  “Gas, please. Fill it up.” She reached over and pawed the map off the passenger seat, then turned back to the mechanic and said, “Oh, and I could use some directions.”

  “So, what’ll it be? The good stuff or near beer?”

  “Excuse me…”

  The mechanic laughed. “Premium or regular?”

  “Regular,” Laura said, catching on. “Regular unleaded.”

  The mechanic nodded, then walked back and began filling the Honda’s tank.

  “I’m looking for the road to Furnace Valley,” Laura said, leaning out the window and pointing to the map. “But it doesn’t seem to be on here.”

  “Nope. It wouldn’t be.”

  The mechanic locked the handle on the pump so it would keep filling and moved up next to Laura. “That’s the way folks like it around here. Anon… Anonymm…”

  “Anonymous,” Laura said, helping him out.

  “Bingo,” the mechanic nodded. He reached out, took the map, then held it right up to his eyes. “Let’s see now… Yeah, it’s about fifty miles south. He lowered the map, then pointed to a section, holding his finger right above it. “Directly off this road here.”

  Laura took the map and then traced along the road with her fingertip.

  “As I remember, that turnoff is marked by a wooden sign,” the mechanic said, watching Laura follow the squiggly line.

  “Think I’ll be able to find it?” Laura looked up at him, a little concern creeping into her voice.

  “Well, it’s a bit like picking pepper out of fly shit… ah, fly dirt. Sorry, ma’am.” Then he added, “But you shouldn’t have no trouble.”

  The mechanic moved to the rear of the car, removed the hose, and returned it to the pump with a metallic clank.

  “Sounds like it might be tricky to find.”

  “Normally, I’d say you were right.” He tightened the Honda’s gas cap, wiped his hands on the front of his shirt, and then stepped up to Laura’s window. “But yesterday, about this time, a trucker wandered in here on foot. Said he got his rig stuck right close to that turnoff.”

  “He got stuck?”

  “Yep. Said he fell asleep. Drove clear off the road.” The mechanic shook his head and then rubbed his neck. “Just look for an eighteen-wheeler—a tanker, the man said—sitting right out in the sand. That’ll be your turn.”

  The mechanic removed his glasses and pinched the bridge, making sure the tape was still sticking. “This business you got in Furnace Valley—it really necessary?”

  “What do you mean?” she said, caught off guard by the mechanic’s question.

  “I mean a pretty girl like you, traveling all by herself, shouldn’t be taking no off-road trips.”

  “I can handle myself okay,” Laura said, on the verge of getting defensive.

  “Never said you couldn’t,” the mechanic said, slipping on his glasses, his eyes morphing into two giant blue marbles. “Only the roads out here got teeth. Make one wrong move, or lose your concentration for even a second—and you could rip the belly out of a little puddle jumper like this.”

  “It gets too bad, I’ll turn around.”

  “It’s one lane over Furnace Mountain. The only part that’s paved is the top and then down into the valley a ways, and then the county ran out of money. The rest is dirt—sand and gravel mostly.”

  “I’ll be fine, Laura said. This guy was starting to give her the creeps.

  “Won’t argue.”

  “How much for the gas?”

  “Thirty-five bucks. Can you believe that?”

  Laura pulled some bills out of her purse. A twenty, a ten, and a couple of fives. Good, she had exact change.

  As she turned to hand him the money, something about the guy’s face struck her. “You know, you look familiar. It’s like we’ve met before. No wait, I know what it is—you look like someone famous.”

  “I get that a lot,” He laughed. “Just have one of those faces. Photogenic was how one customer put it. But I ain’t no movie star or nothing. I’m just no one from nowhere. All I got is this wide spot in the road.”

  Unconvinced, Laura kept staring at him. Then she shrugged and laughed and started the engine. “Well, thanks for the help.” Laura waved, and as she pulled onto the road, the mechanic called out:

  “Good luck, missy.”

  And then it struck her. The guy was a dead ringer for Stephen King.

  Chapter 12

  Sam finished transferring twelve hundred gallons of pure artesian water to Fletcher’s pond. It had made a big difference, almost filling the reservoir to the top. He coiled the heavy hose he’d use to fill the pond—and, not wanting to stop the truck and take a chance of it not starting again—he was about to hail the main house and let Doc know he had been by with the water, when Fletcher appeared on the porch and called out to him instead.

  “Sam!” He looked flushed and excited. Darwin was perched on his shoulder, and he held a bottle of scotch in his right hand.

  “Hey, Doc!” Sam hooked a thumb at the pond. “Just finished pumping your water.” Fletcher didn’t seem to be paying attention. It was like he hadn’t heard a word. And why was he drinking? It was barely past noon.

  “Sam…” Fletcher waved for him to come to the house. “I’ve got to show you something.” Sam motioned to the truck and was about to explain how he had to leave it running and couldn’t come—but something about the tone of his voice, and the look on his face, made him realize he had no choice.

  * * *

  Darwin exploded into a series of loud squawks as Sam followed Fletcher into the lab and over to a sturdy workbench.

  “ A little early for that, isn’t Doc?” Sam said, pointing to the scotch.

  Fletcher looked affectionately at the bottle of Macallan single malt, then placed it on the bench and gave it a loving pat.

  “I’ve done it, Sam. I’ve created the perfect plant. The ultimate groundcover. The Fletcher Creeper. Never has to be watered. Can be planted anywhere.”

  “The Fletcher what?” Sam asked, looking a little confused.

  “The Fletcher Creeper. It’s a creeper vine. Just engineered. It’s an entirely new creation!”

  “Really… Well, that’s a catchy little name you’ve picked for it.”

  “I thought so,” Fletcher said, laughing and flashing a broad smile. “It’s the ultimate drought-tolerant plant.” He gave Sam a playful swat on the shoulder, then asked, “Do you know what this means for people living in dry, non-arable lands?”

  “Ivy in every pot?” Sam shot back with a straight face.

  “Life where none was possible,” Fletcher said, ignoring Sam’s flip comment. “Wastelands made fertile. Marching dunes held back. Watersheds where none existed. Rich topsoil… fooling Mother Nature herself.”

  “Marching dunes, eh? Hmm… sounds like a real hardy little plant you’ve got there.”

  “Hardy isn’t the half of it.” Fletcher motioned for Sam to follow him. “See for yourself.”

  Chapter 13

  They stood in front of a workbench looking at a small planter filled with potting soil. Fletcher picked up a graduated beaker, placed his thumb over the end of the glass pipe that was sitting inside, removed it, and held it over the planter. He lifted his thumb. Three drops fell from the tip of the siphon, moistening the soil below.

  The results were breathtaking.

  As the first drop made contact with the soil, there was an astounding transformation. The barren planter instantly turned bright green with a fuzzy layer of new growth. A few seconds after that, shoots emerged. And moments later, the entire planter was filled with six-inch blades of grass!

  Sam just stared, awestruck, not saying anything.

  And then, just as quickly as the new growth appeared, it began to wither and die.

  “Isn’t that fantastic? Isn’t that the most fantastic thing you’ve ever seen?” Fletcher’s eyes twinkled with delight as he held up the beaker of clear fluid. “Gu
ess what this is?”

  “Rogaine?”

  “Ordinary tap water! Just three drops—and pow! Isn’t it fantastic?”

  “Yeah, really great, Doc.” Sam patted him on the back. “But I don’t think there’s going to be a huge demand for lawns that grow a foot a day and then immediately die.”

  “No, no, no—you’re missing the point, my boy.” Fletcher returned the beaker to the bench. “This was just a stepping stone. See, I rewired the biology of this ordinary fescue—sort of hotwired its genetic code.”

  Fletcher walked over to where he’d left the scotch, grabbed the bottle, poured two fingers into a glass, and held it out to Sam.

  “You want a drink?”

  “No thanks, Doc. I don’t want any of this to start making sense.”

  Fletcher shrugged, took a gulp of scotch, then pointed toward the now completely brown planter. “Anyway, as it turned out, fescue was the wrong choice. Couldn’t tolerate the hyper-growth. I began experimenting with all types of grains and grasses, and came up with nothing.”

  Fletcher took another belt of scotch, emptying the glass.

  “Then I had a breakthrough. I found a particularly resilient subtropical vine that proved the perfect choice. Nature had left its genetic backdoor wide open. Reengineering its genetic code proved a snap.”

  He grabbed the scotch, poured another slug, then held the bottle out, offering it to Sam. “18-year-old stuff. Sure you don’t want some?”

  Sam held up a hand. “No thanks, Doc, I’m good.”

  Fletcher plunked the bottle down and moved to a sink. Then he retrieved a creeper vine clipping and held it out to Sam. “Here…”

  Sam took the clipping, eyeing it with skepticism.

  “A Fletcher Creeper. Plant it out at your place. It’ll be a test.”

  “A test?”

  “Oh, just one thing—and this is important—don’t plant it near a steady source of water. It grows like a weed. Could be a real dickens to get rid of. The biology of this thing is still in its infancy. It seems to be mutating, evolving on its own.”

  “You sure about this? You sure we should be messing around with it?” Sam asked, turning the vine over in his hand. “Planting it around… fooling Mother Nature?”

  “Yes. Positive. Not a problem. Don’t worry. If you think about it, we’re living in the middle of a giant sterile lab.” He swept a hand through the air. “Basically, this place is just one big hotel lobby ashtray. Besides, I was down at Nguyen’s Place. Gave clippings to everyone. The whole town is in on the fun.”

  Sam held the clipping up to his eyes, examining the stalk and scaly-looking leaves. “It’s covered with little thorns.”

  “Yes, I’m painfully aware of that,” Fletcher said, glancing down at his sore fingertips. “It’s something I plan to breed out of the vine. Fletcher Creeper 2.0 won’t have them.”

  Sam gave him a direct look, then said, “Hmm… just like my dates, huh?”

  Fletcher suddenly remembered. “Your dates! Any luck with the last batch of grafts?”

  “Full of seeds,” Sam said with a frown.

  “Well... no one’s perfect.”

  “What?”

  “Just kidding,” Fletcher laughed. “Just kidding, my boy.”

  “Well, I hope so…” Sam said, caught off guard by Fletcher’s breezy tone. Doc had promised he could do it.

  “Don’t worry, son…” He reached over, giving Sam a fatherly pat on the back. “Next week I’ll have a new set of grafts ready to go. Trust me, we’ll solve this.”

  Darwin swooped over and landed on Fletcher’s shoulder, nibbling and nudging his ear. Fletcher reached up and scratched Darwin’s neck, then moved to the bench, grabbed the scotch, raised the bottle and said, “Now, how about that drink?”

  Chapter 14

  Even with both windows down, Laura felt like she was about to melt from the heat. She watched through the windshield as heat waves bent and distorted the blacktop like a funhouse mirror.

  She had left the gas station over an hour ago, and still no sign of anything that looked like the Furnace Valley turnoff. She glanced over at the map, lifted it, dropped it back on the seat. Useless.

  Where was that sign?

  Where was that truck?!

  And then she saw the eighteen-wheeler out the right side of her windshield, the midday sun flashing off its massive stainless steel tank. Two minutes later, she pulled to a stop alongside it.

  It was just like the mechanic said—stuck in the sand. Really stuck. About twenty yards off the road and mired up to its axles in loose sand. It was a perfectly straight section of highway. The driver must’ve been telling the truth when he said he fell asleep.

  It was going to take a crane to get it back on the road.

  There was a brightly painted logo on the side of the tank—green and yellow—and the company name looked like it started with the letter R, but from Laura’s angle, she couldn’t quite read it.

  Up ahead on her left, just past where the truck went off the road, was a pocked and sandblasted sign. She strained forward and could just make out the words:

  Furnace Valley 20 Miles, Summer Population 16, Winter Population 150, No Outlet.

  At the bottom of the sign an arrow pointed to a lonely-looking dirt road that wound up and disappeared over a small rise, then appeared again as it wound up the face of Furnace Mountain.

  Laura pulled the Civic forward until she was even with the sign and then stopped. She stared at the turnoff, letting her eyes trace along the uneven dirt road. More of a Jeep trail than a road, she thought.

  Did she really want to do this?

  * * *

  A loud crunching filled the Honda’s cabin as she swung onto the dirt road. Everything inside the car instantly began to rattle and shake.

  She maneuvered the Civic up the small rise—and just as she crested the hill, she had to slam on her brakes and swerve, narrowly missing a fallen stand of cactus. The Honda skidded, but she managed to keep all four tires on the road. When the dust settled, another sign came into view, nailed to a slanting fencepost:

  CAUTION—SUBSTANDARD ROAD

  Laura shook her head as she read the sign and said to herself, Ya think?

  Chapter 15

  With Darwin on his shoulder and the bottle of scotch clutched in his hand, Fletcher stepped off the porch. As he walked to the pond, he broke into a favorite childhood rhyme:

  “There was a crooked man and he walked a crooked mile,

  He found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile,

  He bought a crooked cat which caught a crooked mouse,

  And they all lived together in a little crooked house.”

  He finished the rhyme and laughed at himself for remembering it. Darwin called out with an approving squawk.

  “You like that one, Darwin? Maybe I’ll have to add a new line about a little crooked bird with a little crooked squawk.” Fletcher looked up at Darwin. “What do you think about that?”

  Darwin answered with another squawk.

  Fletcher stepped up to the reservoir, placed the bottle at the edge, and called to Darwin, “How about a little birdbath?”

  Darwin knew the drill. With a series of squawks, he leapt into the air and landed on top of the nearby nursery, keeping a safe distance from the water—and Fletcher’s bath hour.

  Fletcher placed a foot on top of a valve handle. Then, using it as a step, he boosted himself up. Just as he was about to drop into the pond, his foot skidded across the spoke wheel, cracking the valve open.

  A moment later, at the base of the pond, water began to trickle out of a drainpipe.

  Fletcher regained his footing, threw a leg up and over the side and splashed into the water, not bothering to remove his T-shirt, shorts, or even his tennis shoes.

  Chapter 16

  The Cadillac Escalade smashed through the wooden gate, reducing it to kindling, and sent the no trespassing sign wobbling through the air like a misshapen Frisbee.

&n
bsp; The front of Frankie Desouza’s SUV had been outfitted with one of those cowcatchers—a matrix of heavy metal tubes bolted to the front bumper. Made smashing through things a breeze.

  Frankie had even coughed up the extra dough to have the thing chromed, telling the dealer, “Of course I want it chromed. It’s a Cadillac, for Christ’s sake.”

  The only reason Frankie even thought to get a cowcatcher was the deer he slammed into seven months ago while making a speed run to Los Angeles. It happened last year on a hot summer night, no traffic, when Frankie was really pushing it to get to the coast.

  He was going over ninety when he hit the deer. Big fucking mule deer was how Frankie told it. Caught the thing right in the chest. Dumb fucking animal, just standing there, not moving.

  The impact was so violent that it severed the fully grown buck’s head, driving its eight-point rack right through the Escalade’s hood. Frankie was shaken up but unhurt. The airbag saving the scumbag from smashing his face into the steering wheel.

  When Frankie staggered out of his car, he knew he’d hit a deer but hadn’t got a good look at exactly how big it was. When he saw the buck’s head sticking out from his car’s hood, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  Some fucking hood ornament.

  Frankie began to laugh. Wait till Sonny and Tony and Big Jackie D get a load of this. It was a great big belly laugh that echoed through the desert night. What stupid fucking luck. “Fucking matchsticks,” Frankie said, glancing in the side mirror at the smashed gate.

  “Didn’t feel a thing,” Frankie’s driver laughed.

  “The guy’s loaded. Millions in the bank—and he puts up a balsawood gate.”

  “Yeah,” the driver said. “What a cheapskate.”

  “With that kind of money, you think the guy would’ve done something nice in wrought iron. Something ornamental.”