Title: Weed
Author: Peter S. Drang
Genre: Science Fiction with Horror overtones
Length: 7100 words (Short Story)
Reading time: About 30 minutes

ONE

The trees felt dry even though it had rained only two days ago. One blue spruce in my ex’s front yard was fairly screaming dry, but they can be sissies sometimes. Sure, they stay green all winter, but I don’t ascribe any particular grit of will to that because they’re dormant and don’t feel the piercing mountain cold.

As I got out of my SUV and sauntered down the sidewalk, the sturdy red oak next to the driveway suffered in silence, exuding only the feeling I am strong and I have deep roots. Oaks liked to be thought of that way, especially a large, mature specimen like this.

I reached the front door and hesitated only a moment before knocking. The door swished open with an implosion of suctioning air, revealing Karrie’s sneer. She had cut her hair shorter; it was quite becoming.

“I’m here for Tommy,” I said.

Her jaw muscles tensed, winding up like a pitcher about to deliver a fastball. “Well, Richard, you can have him.”

I hadn’t expected this angle. “You’ve never taken anything out on Tommy before. Is there something I should know about?”

“You’ve never stolen him for a whole month.” Eddy currents of hatred swirled in the wake of each word. She turned towards the stairs and screamed, “Tommy! Richard’s here.”

“Oh, I see the problem,” I said, fighting to keep cool and just get the hell out of there. “You’re not angry about me taking Tommy, you’re angry because he wants to go with me.”

“You know everything, don’t you?”

Just then, Tommy stomped down the stairs, carrying a large duffel bag and suitcase. He avoided eye contact with Karrie. As if to prove me wrong, she grabbed him at the foot of the stairs and gave him a tight hug. “Now, be careful baby.” She strained up to reach his cheek with her lips, making the appellation “baby” seem almost comical. Her brow furrowed in a genuinely worried expression as he broke from her grasp.

Tommy just grunted, “Okay, Mom,” and shouldered past me with his gear in hand. They must have fought, perhaps even this morning.

As I turned she said, “Take care of my boy.” Her voice cracked. She must feel guilty. Good. I nodded and walked away.

A clump of grass that benefited by being near a leaky section of hose had the communal feeling, happy wet. Their child-like joy made me smile. This is about as sophisticated as it gets for sod.

* * * *

We didn’t speak much during the four-hour drive to my new mountain retreat. Well, it wasn’t really new. I had been there for almost four months, and the house had weathered at least half a century.

“How’s school going?” I asked, breaking a long silence.

“Fine.”

“Is your wrestling team doing well?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Got a girlfriend?”

He just rolled his eyes. I suppose this is the normal reaction from a fourteen-year-old boy.

“Is something bothering you, Tommy?”

He shook his head and leaned back into the bucket seat. I decided not to press him for the remainder of the drive. There would be ample time later, but I couldn’t help feel that there was more here than I understood.

Tommy feigned disinterest as we wound up the narrow mountain road. It lacked a guardrail, and the drop in some places was as much as a hundred feet. His attitude was like those stolid oaks who always pretend they’re not afraid of anything. A recent growth spurt had added several inches to his stature, and his build also suggested the tall strength of that species. His sandy hair was cut short around the ears but exploded into a mop on top in the latest teenage style. He struggled not to look out the window, then probably decided it might indicate some latent fear, so he’d casually glance down into the abyss and give a fake little yawn.

A few scruffy bushes clung to life in the craggy brown rocks along the mountain road. Their general attitude was one of triumph under adverse conditions; perhaps pride best described their mood, but without any implication of overt happiness. That reflected my mood as well; pride that I had a strapping son that I could finally spend some time with. But I wasn’t truly happy because of the over-all situation; this visit was temporary.

We came upon my retreat at last, pulled past the enigmatic junipers I had planted at the entrance to the long driveway, then continued around toward the house. I kept only a small yard, letting the woods surround the bulk of my property. Tommy seemed excited for the first time when he saw the little log cabin. It was a stark contrast to the fancy Manhattan apartment I had lived in the last few years before I quit my biotech firm. Several solar panels arrayed on the roof actually drove him to speak.

“Why do you need those?” he asked.

“No power lines up here,” I said. “You have to be careful about using too much electricity on cloudy days. There’s a battery shed around back. I’ll show you later.”

I took his suitcase and he grabbed the duffel bag. As we approached the front door, I noticed a flower sitting squarely in the center of my small, neatly-trimmed lawn. I set the suitcase down and walked over to take a look.

Weed, it said.

“Indeed,” I replied. Of course plants don’t carry on conversations; they simply spew out whatever emotion they currently feel. But I’d never heard any plant describe itself like this. Even crabgrass didn’t feel it was a weed but believed it was merely a superior form of grass. I knelt to take a closer look. It stood about as tall as a hand’s length, with tiny leaves that gave off a deep green shiny luster. A single bud at the top was exquisitely delicate and sported an orchid-like fluted structure. The petals were orange but with flecks of red and gold and fine black bands that reminded me of a tiger-stripe pattern.

Tommy walked over. “What’re you looking at?”

Weed, it said.

“It’s a weed,” I agreed. I had never asked Tommy whether he understood plants the way I did. I had some sense of it when I was Tommy’s age, but my years as a genetic botanist had honed the skill to its current level. Perhaps I would finally tell Tommy about it during his stay.

He knelt down beside me and took a closer look. “It’s a really cool flower, Dad, not a weed.” I was encouraged; this was his longest sentence so far.

“Yes, Tommy, it is really cool, but it’s still a weed. You see, ‘weed’ is defined as a plant that’s growing someplace where it shouldn’t. Because I don’t have a flower garden here in the middle of my lawn, it’s a weed.”

“So if you transplant it to your garden, it won’t be a weed anymore?”

“That’s right.” I moved my face a little closer to it, squinting in the twilight to admire its details.

Weed, it said.

“Gonna kill it?” Tommy asked.

“No, I want to look it up. It may be rare.”

We walked into the house and unpacked, then had a simple but hardy dinner consisting of hamburgers smothered with wild mushrooms and onions I had gathered in the woods.

“You sure the mushrooms aren’t poisonous?” Tommy asked before taking his first bite.

“I’m a famous botanist, remember?” I took a large mouthful overflowing with savory mushrooms. Of course, I had the added advantage that poisonous mushrooms have an entirely different attitude than edible ones. They’re positively boastful and just dare you to come eat them. The edible kind are just the opposite: shy and contrite, fearful whenever there’s ambient light. I can practically tell without looking at them. “You can wait to see if I die first if you like.”

He bravely took a bite.

After dinner, having not died, Tommy volunteered to clean up. He was a good kid in that respect. After failing to find a dishwasher, he washed the dishes by hand, a puzzled look on his face, but without complaint.

While he washed, I thumbed through my Unabridged Catalog of North American Flowering Plants in an attempt to look up my pretty interloper. But it was no use. I wondered if it could be a South American strain accidentally brought here by migratory birds. I had only a few small books with South American species, and none seemed to match, either. Even the Internet failed me.

We took it easy and watched a football game on TV before turning in.

TWO

I rose with the sun the next morning. The teenage curse of sleeping late infected Tommy with a vengeance. I let him rest as I whipped up a traditional breakfast of coffee, bacon, fried eggs, and buttered sourdough bread. The irresistible smell of sizzling bacon allowed his stomach to defeat Morpheus, a minor god being no match for Tommy’s appetite. He sat down at the table and became a blur of hand and mouth, consuming everything in reach.

I said, “Looks like it’s going to rain later today. We should take a hike this morning while it’s still dry.”

“Okay,” he managed between mouthfuls.

“Have any hiking boots?”

“Nope.”

“Well, your sneakers’ll have to do for today. We’ll go into town tomorrow and get you some good boots.”

We made a couple of sandwiches made from sourdough bread, leftover bacon I had rescued from Tommy’s devouring jaws, and some strips of boiled ham. We put everything in a small pouch.

The early mountain air and Tommy’s presence filled me with joy as we walked outside. I glanced out and noticed that Weed appeared larger. We both walked over to look. To my surprise, it was at least double its previous height, and several smaller stalks that hadn’t been there yesterday had sprouted out near its base.

Weed, it said.

Then an eerie feeling engulfed me. I looked to my left. About twenty feet away was another flower just like it, about the size this one had been yesterday. Beyond it, yet another. I turned right and picked out three more clumps. “Look, Tommy, there are more.” I pointed them out.

Because there were many of its kind in the vicinity, I was less worried about damaging this specimen. I picked up one of its leaves, turning it over to see the underside vein pattern more clearly. Immediately, a biting, burning pain attacked my fingers. I released the plant.

“This plant has stinging leaves!” I wiped my fingers on my shirt in a vain attempt to relieve the burning, which was increasing by the second. I looked at my fingertips. They were reddening and starting to swell. I noticed tiny needles embedded in them, shining in the morning light. “It must be some sort of stinging nettle. Don’t get near it.”

I jogged back into the house and ran cold water over the affected fingers. That brought some temporary relief, but the pain now traveled down to my wrist. I found a pair of tweezers and carefully removed the small needles.

I thought about this being an allergic reaction. Now, I am one of the least allergic people I know, which is a good thing considering all the time I spend around plants. To my knowledge, I was allergic to nothing, either ingested or airborne. Still, I felt my tongue swelling and perhaps my breathing becoming labored. I cursed myself for having no antihistamines in the medicine cabinet. I splashed some water on my face with my good hand, closed my eyes, and tried to relax. No, it was all psychological; the pain was only in my hand and wrist.

I walked outside, careful not to use the affected hand. Tommy still stood next to Weed. “Tommy, I think we’d better stay near the house for a while to see if this gets better.”

Tommy’s face displayed a look of concern when he saw my bloated fingers. “The little plant did that! You barely touched it!”

“I’m afraid so.”

Don’t touch, it said.

I looked at it curiously. “Now you tell me?”

“What?” Tommy said.

“Nothing, let’s go inside.”

* * * *

After half an hour of ice treatments, the pain and swelling were somewhat reduced.

“I’m sorry we’re getting off to such a boring start,” I said.

“It’s okay, Dad.”

“I think I’m all right now. Let’s take a short hike—I’d like to show you around my mountain.”

“You own the whole mountain?” He frowned and seemed troubled.

“Well, a big strip on this side, anyway. Land’s cheap when there’s no power and barely a road.” I found myself making excuses without knowing why.

I didn’t look at Weed as we passed by; I’d had enough of it. We traveled up one of the natural hiking paths south of the house. I wanted to take Tommy to the peak, but my injury made me hesitate to attempt a thousand-foot climb.

The grade on this particular path wasn’t very steep, but loose rock and dirt made it awkward for Tommy to navigate in his sneakers. He stopped and began bending a large branch from a maple tree. The tree became concerned.

“Don’t do that,” I said.

“I need a walking stick, Dad.”

“Take a dead branch, you’re hurting that maple.”

He looked defiant. “There’s plenty of maples up here.”

“Listen, son, I said don’t hurt that maple. How’d you like someone to pluck one of your arms off? There’re plenty of dead branches on the ground; go find one.”

He gave me a wary look, as if trying to decide if my injury had affected my mind. He walked a few yards into the woods and found a suitable branch. He continued to look at me the same way.

“Is something wrong?” I asked. “You’ve been giving me funny looks ever since I picked you up.”

His nostrils flared, and he stood silently for a moment. “Mom said you believe plants have feelings and that you’re nuts. Is it true?”

I hadn’t expected this. I had shared some of my thoughts with Karrie, many years before our divorce but had never told her the full extent of my abilities.

“Well, Tommy, science has shown that plants can communicate with one another, and may have some feelings.”

I couldn’t read his face. If only he were an oak, I’d know what he was thinking. He adjusted his new walking branch in his hands and pondered for a moment, then said, “How?”

“For example, injured tobacco plants release a chemical into the air that other tobacco plants can detect. When that happens, they begin to produce higher levels of antibiotics. So plants do communicate with one another. I’m not making this up, I can show you scientific papers published in major journals.”

His expression softened, but he still appeared troubled. “Okay, but that’s a lot different from them having feelings.”

“Is it such a long way from communication to feelings? Just because most people can’t pick up their cues, their language, that doesn’t mean they don’t have some sort of inner life, does it?”

Now he pounced like a coyote. “Most people? You understand their feelings? So what Mom says is true?”

I thought for a moment before answering. If Tommy took this information back to Karrie, could she use it against me in court? Maybe she could argue I was mentally unstable and curtail my unsupervised visits with Tommy. But I knew my lack of an answer might be just as damaging. Finally I decided that I should be honest with him regardless of the consequences.

“Tommy, look around you at these trees. They give so many hints as to how they feel. Look at how their leaves are turned. Take a deep breath and smell them. They smell different sometimes, very subtly. Look at how they move in the breeze. Sometimes they’re stiff, sometimes supple. Over the years, I’ve spent more time with plants than people, and I’ve learned to take in all these cues, sights, smells, movements, maybe even some things that I’m not aware of. Anyway, somehow my mind takes all this in and I just know what they’re thinking, how they’re feeling.”

He sighed. “So Mom was telling the truth,” he said sadly, looking down at the rocky trail.

“I guess so,” I said.

We continued up the path in silence for a long time, and I couldn’t help but notice his brooding. My hand throbbed relentlessly; the exertion wasn’t helpful. I led Tommy to a rocky outcropping several hundred feet from the top. From there, we could see out over the forested valley below. The highway that brought us here was but a thin black ribbon revealed sporadically through the distant trees. The skies darkened on the horizon.

I took a swig from one of the water bottles and handed the other to Tommy. He gulped down half, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

“Is something else on you mind, Tommy?”

He quickly looked at me then back at the view, saying nothing.

“Are you hungry? It’s about lunch time.”

He nodded. I looked around and found a nearby downed white birch with a good view of the majestic valley. We sat and I brought the sandwiches out of the pack. As I took my first bite, I felt an odd sensation, and suddenly it popped into my mind.

Weed, it said.

I looked around, and there it was: a clump of those odd little flowers growing not fifteen feet away from us. “Look, there’s another one of those stinging plants,” I said to Tommy, pointing.

He seemed frightened and stood up immediately, looking around to see if another might be near where we sat. “Those things give me the creeps.”

“They’re quite lovely as long as you don’t touch them.”

“What’s it thinking?” he asked. I knew a question along these lines might be forthcoming after my revelation back on the trail.

“It’s very odd, Tommy. It just says it’s a weed. The one back at the house told me not to touch it, but only after I’d been stung. But both feelings are very unusual.”

“Unusual?” He laughed. “Pretty funny, Dad.” But then his laughter ceased and he turned moody again.

“What’s the matter, son?”

He took a big bite, slowly chewed it, and swallowed. “If Mom was right about you and the plants, maybe she wasn’t making up the other stuff.”

“What other stuff?”

“She says you ripped her off, left her with nothing. She says you’re a no good SOB.”

“Tommy, there are two sides to every story. You’ve only heard her side of it. Do you want to hear mine?”

He nodded.

“I rose to the top technical ranks at my bio-engineering company. Because of my, uh, skills with plants, I coaxed many patentable products out of them. The company rewarded me with stock options that eventually became worth a great deal of money. Anyway, when we divorced, your mom got more than half of those options. It was a fair settlement.”

“Then why is she struggling for money all the time, and you’re over here buying a whole mountain?” His face reflected his disbelief.

The pain in my hand jabbed at me, but I ignored it and said, “Well, she exercised her options and sold off the stock immediately. It was a foolish thing to do—she paid almost half to taxes. She made some bad investments with what was left. During the market crash a few years ago she panicked and sold out at tremendous losses. I held onto my options. The company rode out the crash and recovered. She took me to court to try to get more out of me. They ruled in my favor.”

He showed no sign of either acceptance or rejection of my explanation, but simply kept eating.

“And what about the other woman?” he asked casually.

I sighed. Karrie had rehearsed him well. “It’s complicated, Tommy. Things between your mom and I decayed over the years. The roots rotted like this birch here. I did a foolish thing. She’s right about that part—it was all my fault. I’m sorry.”

“So she’s right about some things, and you’re right about others,” he said.

“The world is a complicated place, son.”

He sat in silence.

An ash tree standing beside us said, Rain very soon. Trees have an excellent sense of barometric pressure and can tell when a storm is about to hit. They subtly adjust their leaves, turning them to allow wind to better pass and help funnel rain toward their roots.

I turned to Tommy. “We’d better head back down; it’s going to rain.”

“The clouds are still far away,” he said.

“They can come up quickly.”

We washed down the last of the sandwiches and headed back down the trail. Within a few minutes, the wind picked up and black clouds smothered the sun.

We hiked faster, now realizing we’d be caught in the downpour. Tommy had trouble descending with his inadequate footwear.

I couldn’t help but notice several more clumps of the strange little flowers as we made our way down. I hadn’t seen them on the way up. Why? Had I been so unobservant as my mind focused on Tommy? Or perhaps the wind now exposed them by blowing aside loose underbrush? I didn’t want to think about another possibility.

The first few drops pelted us. They seemed huge, like rainfall I’d seen down in South America. Our path, previously dusty, became more treacherous by the minute, now slick with muddy patches. I grabbed out with my good hand at one point to steady myself, holding onto the limb of a sycamore.

Suddenly I sensed it.

Weed, it said.

There it sat, only inches away from my hand. It grew in the crook between the sycamore trunk and the branch to which I clung. It looked a little different from the others; it seemed more vine-like and about two feet long, with clinging tendrils, but the voluted flower was unmistakable.

I withdrew my hand quickly and called to Tommy, “Watch out what you grab onto! Those weeds are growing in the trees!”

Tommy was five or six paces below me on the trail, and he turned to hear me over the howling wind. As he did so, his footing gave way and he slid down the muddy trail on his right hip, furiously trying to grab onto something to break his fall. He continued for half a dozen yards until he came to a bend in the path. He slid straight into a thicket of bushes off to the side, then stopped.

I quickened my pace, screaming, “Don’t move! Don’t touch anything!” But I had to exercise caution on the treacherous surface; it wouldn’t help Tommy for me to fall into him.

He said, “I’m okay, Dad, just some scrapes and—”

I knew why he had stopped short. He wasn’t in my direct sight, but I sensed them all around us.

Weed, weed, weed, they said from every direction.

“Are you okay, Tommy!” I screamed having almost reached him. He was lying there in the underbrush, at least three sets of the tiger-colored buds within a few feet.

“I think so, but they’re all around me!”

“Don’t move! Wait for me!” The wind was so strong now that every tree rustled and crackled, their boughs creaking with each gust. The rain came down in a pinprick spray. One of the weeds stood only a foot from his head, with four more clumps to his left and several more to his right.

“Do you feel any burning?”

“No, just bruises.”

“I’m going to clear away the weeds to your left. Hold still.”

I picked up two branches about a foot long. With both hands, I used them as tweezers to pluck out the weeds, one by one. My bad hand throbbed, and pain sparked all along my arm.

Don’t touch, the first said as I plucked it. I am injured, yet my roots live, another said. I’d never seen a case of a plant this small having such a complex feeling.

“Tommy, you might be right on top of one. Your jacket might protect you but you have to move carefully. Slowly position each hand near your shoulders and put them down in a spot that is clear.” He complied. “Now do a sort of pushup and carefully roll over to your left side so I can see under you.”

He obeyed silently, and my fear was realized. Two clumps of the cursed weed were crushed under his jacket. He saw them and started to panic.

“Hold it! Don’t move around. The needles might work their way through your jacket. Give me your hand.” I reached toward him and took his hand in my good one. He pressed up from the ground using his knees. Several small green leaves stuck to the jacket, and I recognized the same stubby little shape and dark green coloration. “Let’s get that jacket off.”

I unzipped just enough to allow his head through, and we pulled it off from the shoulders. I hung it over a branch so we could retrieve it the next day, and we continued down the trail. Tommy shivered in the wind and rain, wearing only a T-shirt. Some bloody spots peppered his arms where rocks had abraded him during his fall, but it didn’t look too serious. I gave him my light jacket to wear. We locked arms and walked slowly down the path. He limped slightly from the bruises on his leg. It was the first time I’d been so physically close to my son since the divorce, and I felt somehow complete, despite the circumstances.

As we continued our descent, several of the weeds crossed right over the path, spread out in vine fashion. We stepped over them. Once or twice, we nearly lost balance again, but by holding onto each other we were able to find our footing and continue.

Finally, we made it to the bottom of the trail and onto the lawn, the house just twenty paces away. We both froze as we came into the opening from the woods.

Weed, they all said together.

They criss-crossed the driveway and the sidewalk. Some had grown several feet up the side of the house. The original one was some four feet tall, with clumps of new shoots spreading out in a heavy mass of green foliage.

Tommy just looked at me, his eyes wide with terror.

“Step down on them with the soles of your shoes. Walk carefully so you don’t fall. I’ll go first and get the door open. Kick your shoes off before coming in the house.”

He nodded. I unlaced my boots before starting out over the yard so I wouldn’t have to touch them again later. I picked my way over the lawn, stepping in a clear area wherever possible. I looked back; Tommy was a few paces behind. A couple of times I had to step on a weed. I picked spots with the least amount of foliage and made sure I crushed the leaves straight down so the needles wouldn’t get in my pants cuffs.

I have lost part of one vine, one of them said as I trampled on it.

I made it to the front door and unlocked the house. Tommy had fallen a little farther behind. Then I heard him scream.

“My ankle’s burning!”

“Just come on, we’ll wash it out.”

As he approached, I worked off one of my boots by prying its heel against the toe of the other boot. I flipped it to the side of the front porch, then stepped back inside the house. I scraped the heel of the other boot on the bottom of the doorjamb and flipped it over next to the other. Tommy limped up to the porch and quickly imitated me to remove his sneakers.

I ran into the house and grabbed my leather work gloves off the counter, then went back to the front door while putting them on. I told him to sit on the floor, and I pulled off his socks and pants. His right ankle was red and inflamed. I left his clothes there in a pile, took off the gloves, then helped him into the bathroom where we flushed the ankle in the bathtub with cold water. Tommy was clearly in a lot of pain but didn’t complain. I got my tweezers and a field magnifier and picked out about a dozen needles. His ankle was more swollen than my fingers had been earlier in the day. I gave him some pain killers and helped him change into dry clothes, then settled him on the couch. Outside the storm raged, with flashes of lighting and thunderous detonations punctuating the driving torrent.

* * * *

Now that Tommy was taken care of it was time to find out what I was dealing with. I tried to call Mich Greyson at my old company. We were good friends, and he knew a lot about exotic plants. Unfortunately, the storm didn’t allow the call to go through. My only service on this mountain was a cellular connection. I’d have to wait for the lightning to subside to get a clear signal.

I decided to analyze a sample myself, so I got a plastic bag and my long field tweezers. I stepped outside. In the hour since we’d made it back into the cabin I could swear the plants had taken over even more of the yard. One vine had crept up to the top step of the porch. Steadying myself against the strong gusts, I gingerly tweezed off a bud and a section of leaf.

Don’t touch, it said.

I bagged the samples, then went inside. I glanced at Tommy as I walked across the cabin to my study. He slept.

I had left my company on very good terms, and they had allowed me to purchase a high power microscope and an old-fashioned gene sequencer. They had arrived just the week before, and I hadn’t had a chance to do anything more than unpack them and set them up in my study.

I prepared a sample of the vine stem for the sequencer and started up the machine. It would take several hours to produce the sequences for the most important genes.

The sequencer hummed and gurgled, using enzymes to split up the plant’s DNA. Sequences of A, T, G, C spewed out on the monitor. While it labored, I put a slice of leaf under the binocular microscope to see how the needles were arranged. At one hundred magnification, they were shaped exactly like those of Urera baccifera horrida—the most toxic stinging plant known in the Panamanian rain forests—but twice as large and with bloated toxin-holding bulbs, much larger than necessary in any natural defensive system I could imagine.

As I cut a sample of a petal, the material in my plastic bag said, Weed dying. Needless to say, I didn’t feel the least bit sorry for it, although most plants didn’t really understand the concept of their own death. Many things troubled me about this plant’s unnatural attitude.

I zoomed in on the flower cells. They belonged to a fast-growing species of desert flower I had studied some years before. In some deserts, rainfall occurs only a few times per year. Plants there had evolved to grow from seeds to full adulthood in only a few days, then would produce seeds before the burning sun baked them into dust.

An indicator beep over on the sequencer’s monitor confirmed my fears. Four probable gene sequences had already been determined and matched with a database of known species. The problem was, the sequences of the four genes matched four entirely different plants from wildly different habitats.

During this time, the lightning had subsided to a few, far-away crackles. I called Mich again, and this time the connection went through. Not perfect, very fuzzy, and frequently interrupted by white noise, but his phone rang nonetheless.

“Hello?”

“Mich! It’s Richard.”

“How are you . . . bad . . . nection.”

“I know it’s a bad connection; this is an emergency.”

“What’s . . . problem?”

“Mich, listen carefully. There’s a plant in my yard. It has orange flowers with a tiger-stripe pattern. It has poisonous needles and it grows very quickly. Do you know what it is?”

The phone crackled and popped a few times, but I knew he’d heard me, because I made out a gasp from his end. “Get . . . now! Leave! Don’t . . . under any circu—”

The connection flared up in a burst of static and dropped out to nothing. I dialed again, but couldn’t get through. The lightning had intensified. It was futile to try again.

THREE

I heard a moan and ran out to the living room. “Tommy, you okay?”

As soon as I laid eyes on him, I knew that he wasn’t. He moaned softly, eyes closed, face sunset red. I felt his head; it burned with a raging fever. Pulling the blanket and bandages away from his leg, it had swollen to bursting, right up to the knee and had mottled with blue bruises.

We had to get to a hospital. My SUV was in the driveway. I looked out the back window; there didn’t appear to be as many plants growing in the back yard, but it would still be tricky. I rushed into my bedroom and found my hip boots and the ones I had bought for Tommy. They were meant as a surprise, a way for us to grow closer as we fished in the sparkling mountain streams. Now they might save us. I pulled mine on and went back out into the living room. I couldn’t totally awaken Tommy, but he opened his eyes. He moaned loudly as I struggled to get the boot onto his swollen leg. He remained in a semiconscious daze.

I helped him sit up. “Tommy, you have to walk! Walk Tommy—I’ll help you!”

His eyes fluttered open, then closed; he nodded. We hobbled over to the back door. I had to turn the knob with my bad hand, and the pain exploded as I gave it a quick pull. The wind slammed the door open, almost knocking us down.

Vines criss-crossed the slick flagstones that led from the back door to the driveway. I knew now what these weeds were. Mich’s immediate recognition, the gene sequences, and the microscope slides told me all I needed to know. This was a designer plant, man-made and using the most deadly alleles that nature had to offer, all combined in one terrible species. I could only guess, but it had to be a weapon, and there might be more I needed to know.

Mich had tried to warn me not to do something. What had he meant? Don’t something. He couldn’t have meant to say “Don’t touch it,” because I’d already told him it had poisonous needles; it’d be obvious that I shouldn’t touch it. What, then?

I labored to hold Tommy up. The hip boots only protected the lower parts of our bodies. If he fell into the vines—

One step at a time. The cold rain on his face seemed to roust him a bit. Every time his bad leg bore his weight, he gave another strained moan, and I felt his hand tighten around my shoulder. I tried to ignore the shooting pains in my arm. The SUV was only a dozen yards away now.

And then I saw it. Vines climbed all around the vehicle, and huge orange tiger-patterned flowers hung down near the windows. They were twice the size of the ones I’d seen in the front yard, and as the wind blew, I could see bright yellow wisps of pollen pouring out of them in huge amounts, more than any plant I’d ever seen of the same size, unnaturally large amounts—

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. “Tommy, you have to hold this over your nose and mouth. Don’t breathe the pollen, Tommy. Can you hear me?”

But he faded in and out. I could feel the blazing fever through his shirt. I tried to hold the handkerchief over his nose and mouth, tried to rush toward the car before he faded out again and fell into the vines, before anything else could go wrong. We struggled foot by foot, the wind tearing at our clothes, the lightning striking closer, almost on top of us.

We faced the passenger side of the SUV. The rear door had fewer vines on it than the front door, so I steered Tommy there. A flower as big as my hand hung halfway down the window. Now I was faced with the problem of how to open the door. My left arm supported Tommy while my injured right hand held the handkerchief over his nose and mouth in case the pollen was poisonous.

I had to do something—we were only a foot from the large flower. I held my breath, then shoved Tommy’s face down into my shoulder. I grabbed for the door handle with my bad hand and ripped it open. Before the wind could slam it shut again, I pushed with all my might, shoving Tommy across the back seat. I climbed in behind him, slammed the door closed, and made my way between the bucket seats and into the driver’s seat. I glanced back to make sure he was okay when, to my horror, I noticed that a flower had fallen through the door and now dangled inside right above the window.

Weed dying, the flower said.

In the front cab I noticed a Styrofoam cup with dredges of old coffee at the bottom. I removed the plastic lid, then leaned over into the back seat and carefully scooped up the flower, then replaced the lid as best I could. I tugged and the stem broke where it was crushed between the lid and cup.

I put the SUV in four-wheel drive and started down the mountain. The vines attached to the car ripped off easily, and in a few minutes the wind had swept most of them away.

I descended slowly. Mud had washed down off the mountain and onto the road, and large branches were everywhere. The wind jostled the SUV as if it were a toy—the lack of guardrails left no room for error.

After several minutes, Tommy began to stir in the back seat, actually pushing himself onto his side. “Dad …”

“We’re going to the hospital, Tommy. We’ll be there in half an hour.”

“I understand them.”

I glanced in the rearview mirror; his eyes were open.

“What’s that, son?”

“I understand what they’re saying. Maybe I always could.”

He seemed lucid. Perhaps the fever had broken? “Just rest now—”

“You didn’t understand them. That’s funny, huh? I got it, but you didn’t.”

“Understand what, son?”

“They weren’t talking about themselves. They were talking about us.”

“What do you mean, Tommy?”

“Weeds. Weeds are just things that don’t belong someplace. They weren’t describing themselves as weeds; they were calling us weeds. They felt that we didn’t belong. They had to kill us.”

I knew he was right. I’d known all along that there was something odd about how these plants felt. I’d never encountered a plant that wanted to actively kill me before, which was what they were designed to do, what they existed to do.

“I think you’re right. Tommy? Tommy!” I slowed to a stop and looked back at him; he was slumped over, unconscious. “Hang on, Tommy! It won’t be long now. Just hang on!”

I reached back to feel his head—no fever. His face was cool, far too cool.

I don’t know why, but I felt a sudden calmness. As if in a dream, I picked up the coffee cup holding the flower and peeled up the lid. It floated in the curdled coffee, and it felt serenely happy, as if its greatest goal had been realized. My hands began to tremble as I realized why.

Weed dead, it said.

* * * *

The sun shone brightly with strips of lacy clouds accenting the deep-blue mountain sky on the morning of Tommy’s funeral. Several weeping willows on a hillock overlooking his grave swayed in the gentle breeze. I couldn’t tell how they felt.

Karrie didn’t speak to me. We stood on opposite sides of the grave as they lowered the casket. Wreaths and flowers were everywhere. I hadn’t ordered any and tried not to look at them.

I had put the mountain property up for sale that very morning. Mich told me that the plants were engineered to die out after exactly three generations, which would only take three or four days. The company sent a team but found only wilted straw. Mich theorized that somehow, a seed had been spilled onto the equipment I’d received from the company. It probably blew into my front yard after I unpacked the equipment.

Mich couldn’t understand how the elaborate safety precautions had allowed for such an accident, but I knew instinctively what the truth was. These plants—whose only purpose was to kill—had found a way to escape, to fulfill their genetic destiny.

The official cause of death was “allergic reaction of unknown origin.” I wondered how they’d managed that. I wondered, too, if some of my own research had been used to create the monster that had taken my son.

There was no use suing the company. The government contract to engineer the plants was top secret—any lawsuit would be suppressed due to national security concerns. Bio-weapons had been banned, after all, and nobody was about to admit anything. The company offered me restitution through several layers of dummy corporations. I told them to give it all to Karrie.

I can’t understand plants now; I lost that when Tommy died. I don’t want to even look at a plant again. I’m moving back to the city—I don’t belong in the country anymore. I don’t feel I belong anywhere at all, and never will again.

I’m a weed.

[END]

Copyright © 2000 Vorpal Publishing Group.

This story was originally published in Challenging Destiny Magazine, December 2000 issue.