Wicked Seeds

by Cameron Sword

  “How much do I owe you?”

  The shopkeeper just glared back at him, all eyes and gaping mouth but no speech. He couldn’t believe what he’d just witnessed.

  “Two bananas, a pair of bottled waters, one pack of cigarettes.” Nathan continued, itemizing.

  “Uh… nineteen fifty-seven.”

  “How much?”

  “Just take whatever you want.”

  “No, no, I just want to make sure you have it right. Nineteen fifty-seven?”

  “Yes.”

  “How much are the bananas?”

  “Four dollars.”

  “What?”

  “For the pair.”

  “You’re selling bananas for two dollars apiece? How much are the waters?”

  “Two ninety-nine… Each.”

  “Two ninety-nine for twelve ounces of water.”

  “Look, I just work here, I don’t set the prices. We’re one of only a handful of stores around for miles, supply and demand. Please don’t hurt me.”

  Nathan shook his head before finding a twenty-dollar bill and handing it over – and yes, he waited for the change. Meanwhile, behind him, while this entire conversation had been unfolding, Olive had been panicking, desperately kicking weapons away from bad guys who were squirming around on the floor trying to reach for them.

  Nathan calmly retrieved his duffel bag and dug into Kent’s jacket pocket for the SUV’s keys before crossing for the exit, glancing back over his shoulder at Olive.

  “You coming?”

  Olive quickly joined him and they drove off.

  The shopkeeper tried to make a run for it a moment later, but Kent regained his senses in time to grab him by an ankle and pull him to the ground next to him.

  “Your car keys. Now!”

  Nathan gobbled down the remains of his banana, pointing out the remaining one to Olive as he drove along.

  “I can’t vouch for the pedigree of that banana, but I bought it for you. Eat.”

  “Eat? Are you kidding me? Eat? Look at me, I just got shot at, I can’t stop shaking. Who are you? What the hell is going on?”

  “I’m going to drive you home. Tell your mother I’m sorry about her plane, I’ll cover the cost of replacing it.”

  “No, no, no. You’re coming in, you’re telling her.”

  BAM! The SUV’s rear window suddenly shattered. Nathan consulted his rearview mirror to find the 1969 Camaro SS rapidly approaching, Munda and Clarke clumsily hanging out side windows, shooting wildly.

  “Drive off-road!” Olive yelled in a panic.

  Nathan scanned the surroundings. Drive off-road? Where? There was nothing but brush and trees on either side of the asphalt.

  A bullet suddenly took out the passenger side mirror. Olive, terrified, forced the issue, reaching out and cranking the steering wheel, sending the SUV careening into the brush upending bushes and saplings. Out of control. And suddenly…

  Whoosh! They were airborne, descending thirty feet into a swollen, raging river. The SUV split the water headfirst.

  Up above, Kent and his men arrived on foot moments later, peering down just in time to see the SUV disappearing under the current.

  Nathan helped an exhausted Olive onto a muddy shore, the seething torrent drowning out their voices.

  “Are you all right?” Nathan yelled out, concerned.

  “Don’t touch me. Just! Don’t! Fucking! Touch me!”

  “It was your idea to drive off-road.”

  Olive collapsed onto her back, gulping air, exhausted. Nathan zipped open his duffel bag, sifting through its contents, finding a wet thumb drive, wondering if it was damaged. Hope not. He zipped the bag closed.

  “We need to keep moving.” Nathan said.

  “No. I’m done. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “They’ll be combing the area soon. We can’t stay here.”

  “I’ve got nothing to hide because I’ve got nothing to do with this. Whatever this is. I’m innocent.”

  “That’s not going to work. They won’t believe you. They’ll hurt you.”

  “Go away. Leave me alone.”

  “Fine. Suit yourself.”

  Nathan disappeared, reappearing a few seconds later.

  “Look, I’m sorry I got you into this mess. I’ll explain everything, I owe you that much. But not here. We’re dead if we stay here.”

  “Are you still around? Go. Away. I never want to see you again.”

  Nathan left without saying another word. Olive sat up after a not-so-brief moment, finding herself alone – and frightened because she thought she heard something off in the near distance, up river. Voices. She sprang to her feet, calling out after Nathan.

  “Hey! Hey, wait up!”

  Kent, Munda, Jenkins, Clarke, Roger, Alphonse, and Colin. Everyone was here in Colin’s study, the first four, bruised and bloodied.

  “We found fresh footprints along a muddy bank. They survived.” Kent said, eyes downcast, studying his shoes, embarrassed.

  “Four armed men. He took out four armed men.” Colin stated, not asking.

  “He must be some sort of karate expert or something.” Kent offered as a legitimate excuse.

  “Akido mostly. Some Kung Fu. Bastardized versions, both of them. He’s self-taught.” Roger detailed, quite matter-of-factly.

  Everyone regarded him, looking for more. What? How did he know? Roger supplemented his proclamation.

  “I did some online research and came up with a picture of Dr. Cribbs and Adam West, the actor who portrayed Batman in the original TV series, posted on Dr. Cribbs’ sister’s Facebook account. It’s still active… her account. Anyway, she included a story about how thrilled Dr. Cribbs was to have met his childhood idol.”

  Roger paused for a moment as if that explained everything. When everyone’s expressions told him that it didn’t, he elaborated.

  “From everything I could piece together, Dr. Cribbs grew up as an undernourished nerdy kid in several tough neighborhoods. His parents were poor and were often forced out of their rented dwellings due to eviction. He was picked on a lot, especially after school, at every school, and he attended plenty where he was often bullied and assaulted by multiple kids. He educated himself about the frailties of the human body and taught himself how best to attack those areas – in the type of way that wouldn’t take too much time or effort – in the interest of self-preservation, obviously, but also because of Batman, the original TV series. In his era, school let out at 3:30 p.m. Dr. Cribbs often lived at least thirty minutes away from home and Batman aired at 4:00 p.m. He had a small time window, if any, for fighting so any roughhousing after school needed to be quick, which meant he needed to be decisively treacherous.”

  Colin responded to Roger’s commentary by glancing about the room and over both of his shoulders as if he were expecting to find hidden cameras somewhere.

  “What is this? Am I getting punk’d over here?”

  “Just relaying information… Dr. Cribbs is the type of individual who doesn’t just set his mind on learning about a subject. He becomes an expert at it. Even while growing up. I can relate to that.” Roger offered as closing statement.

  Colin found Alphonse, zero flexibility in his voice.

  “I understand we’ve uncovered an address for the owner of that plane.”

  “Yes, we’ve just confirmed it.”

  “Then why are you still here?”

  Alphonse exited along with Kent and the others. And suddenly, it was only Colin and Roger.

  “Tell me something, Roger. How do you explain photographs of Earth taken from space, proving it to be round? Or how about light emanating from galaxies billions of light years away?”

  “Why are you so obsessed with my religious beliefs?”

  “I consider you to be a highly intelligent person, yet here you are believing the Earth is not round but rather shaped like a dome, and the universe is somewhere between six and ten thousand years old. Can you appreciate my confusion?”
r />   “I’ll be working on final arguments in my office if you need anything.”

  The campfire glowed under a canopy of roaring stars. In the far distance, wind-tossed and muted, coyotes howled in protest of an approaching rainstorm.

  Olive sat by the fire in an effort to get warm and dry, rummaging through the contents of Nathan’s duffel bag along the way, coming up with a motel room key, identifying the motel. She made a mental note to store that info into long-term memory. Just in case.

  She also found his wallet and probed through it, digging out a picture of Nathan and Kate in happier days. Nathan emerged from the darkness, carrying an armful of fresh timber.

  “Do you mind not going through my things, please.”

  “Just corroborating your story.”

  “Which parts are you having trouble with?”

  “Are you related to Kate Cribbs?”

  “She was my sister.”

  “Really? Wow. What was she like?”

  “Pain in the butt. Like you.”

  “I loved her in ‘Crustacean’. ‘Red Colony’ too.”

  “You watch B movies?”

  “I watch every movie.”

  Of course she does, Nathan thought. He dropped the timber into the fire and lay down, stretching out.

  “What’re you doing?” Olive asked.

  “Going to sleep. I’m exhausted.”

  “Come on, a few more minutes. That was some sort of unreal day today, let’s chat more about it.”

  “Good night.”

  Nathan turned away from her. Olive sighed, stretching out herself, gazing up at the sky.

  “My mother plants genetically engineered crops. I’ve always pointed out how creepy and sterile her fields are. So unnatural. No bugs, no birds, nothing. And now here you are, a molecular biologist, telling me how fields like hers are probably responsible for killing honeybees and how the corn she grows is probably contributing to childhood diabetes. I feel so vindicated.”

  Nathan responded with a protracted exhale, turning away from her even further, adjusting into a more comfortable sleeping position. Olive believed he was still listening.

  “My father did things right. Organic all the way. No herbicides or pesticides ever. Drove my mother raving mad because the farm barely turned a profit some years. I’m pretty sure she thinks I blame her for his death. I don’t. I mean, not anymore, it was an accident. Bad luck, really. In order to save money, my mother bought cow manure for a fraction of the usual price one season. Our farm used a ton of it so it was a pretty significant savings. Anyway, it turned out the seller didn’t adequately process the manure so it came with all kinds of nasty pathogens. Every worker got sick. My father had a compromised immune system at the time. E. coli and listeriosis killed him. He was gone in less than forty-eight hours.”

  Nathan replied with a light snore that quickly heightened into a noise resembling shifting gears without a clutch… finally settling into a bizarre idle.

  Olive couldn’t believe he had fallen asleep so soundly, and so quickly. She reached for her smart phone, which at least had spotty coverage now because they were closer to civilization. She thought about calling her mother for a moment because she found several missed calls from her, but decided against it. What would she tell her, how would she explain things? Best to do it in person, she thought. Her mother had not left any voice messages, which meant she was probably more angry than worried. Olive surfed the web instead.

  It was only a matter of a few minutes before she started chuckling and calling out to Nathan.

  “Seriously? Are you kidding me? Hey. Hey!”

  Nathan kept on snoring so she tossed a rock at him.

  “What the…” Nathan asked, waking up, completely groggy.

  “I just Googled your sister and found her Facebook profile. Here you are with Adam West. You really learned how to fight because of Batman reruns?”

  “I didn’t realize they were reruns at the time.”

  Olive broke out laughing. What a fabulous story.

  “Good night.” Nathan said, turning away again.

  “Wait. Come on. Give me some fighting tips.”

  He didn’t respond so Olive threw another rock at him.

  “Would you stop that, please?”

  “Come on, just a couple and I’ll leave you alone. How do I best Pow and Whap someone?”

  “Upward thrust to the throat with an open palm. If you have an opportunity to stomp on a foot, put some weight behind it.”

  Olive considered that advice for a moment because it sounded like real advice.

  “A foot?”

  “Thirty-three joints, one hundred and seven ligaments, nineteen muscles and tendons… can’t remember how many bones. A lot can go wrong down there. Good night.”

  And as Nathan resettled into a different sleeping position, a thought popped into his mind.

  “Batman series was shot in the late sixties. Huge drug culture era. I wonder if Adam West ever smoked pot back then.” Nathan wondered aloud.

  “I doubt it. Burt Ward maybe. Certainly not Alan Napier.”

  “Who?”

  “Alfred. Guy who played the butler.”

  Nathan answered by raising one of his manscaped eyebrows, impressed. Of course she would know the real name of every actor who’s ever lived.

  “Good night.” Nathan voiced, he hoped for the last time.

  “Tell me something. How’d you know that guy wasn’t going to shoot me back there?”

  “Get some sleep.”

  “How’d you know?”

  And because his response was taking entirely too long…

  “Oh my God, you didn’t.”

  “Shut up and get some sleep.”

  A first of many swollen raindrops fell onto Olive’s face, startling her awake. It was now early morning and she was alone. Nathan had picked up and left.

  It suddenly dawned on her why, the previous evening, he made sure to let her know where they were exactly, and how best to find her mother’s farm. It also dawned on her that now that he felt she was safe, he wasn’t going to continue putting her in further danger. But she still muttered curses at him under her breath for leaving her out there alone. And for leaving it up to her to explain things to her mom.

  Due to the intense experiences they’d been through, they both failed to consider the likelihood that the plane’s wreckage would be scrutinized and its owner identified.

  It was raining hard now. Olive walked along a dirt road, rehearsing what to tell her mother, and how best to tell her, as she envisioned a packed suitcase waiting for her on the porch. This was almost certainly not going to end well.

  She finally caught a glimpse of her mother’s farm – which came into view in the distance as she crested a ridge – and gasped when she realized what was happening.

  Outside the barn, Alphonse was forcing Waltona into his SUV. Olive started running as the SUV drove away.

  When she finally arrived, out of breath and several minutes later, she peeked into the barn as lightening flashed, and saw a note tucked under one of her Gremlin’s wiper blades. Let’s Trade was written on it. It dawned on her, finally, that her mother’s plane had been traced back to the farm.

  It also dawned on Olive that her mother had been calling but leaving no voicemails, at least over some of her most recent attempts, because she was forced to do so as she was being held. The message under the Gremlin’s wiper blades was meant for Olive. The people holding her mother now knew who Olive was, and they must’ve believed she was working with Nathan.

  She took the note, panicked, unsure of what to do next. She thought about calling the police but sprinted into her house instead, rummaging through one of the kitchen drawers, coming up with her mother’s pistol.

  The rain had long ago stopped. Lidia sat alone at a picnic table finishing her lunch as she pored over trial-related documents. By the time she looked up, Nathan was sitting across from her, offering her a piece of gum.

  “
Spearmint.”

  “No thanks.”

  “You have something against fresh breath?”

  “You know, you look like a nice guy, so I’ll offer you this. Come up with a better pickup line. The first word out of my mouth was no.”

  “Noted. But I can smell the faint odor of tuna on your breath from here. In case you weren’t aware.”

  “Get lost, bud.”

  He put the gum away, coming up with a folder and sliding it across the table at her.

  “Because your court case isn’t going so well.”

  She looked down at it for a moment, exchanging glances with him before finally taking it, giving the contents a quick perusal. Hard copies of what he managed to retrieve from the thumb drive.

  “What is this? Lidia asked.

  “My name is Dr. Nathan Cribbs. Half of what’s there is unauthorized rogue research. A few years old, but it’s genuine. The other half details official Sonanfield Reed research that’s been taking place ever since, in an effort to cover up and discredit the rogue investigations. Copies of authentic internal documents. It’s all pretty damning and self-explanatory.”

  Lidia held his eyes for a moment, sizing him up as she polished her eyeglasses. This guy lied as smoothly as any campaign spokesperson, she thought.

  “Cribbs. You mean that scientist who was murdered along with his famous sister…”

  “You know what’s truly fascinating? All this time, I didn’t realize my sister was all that famous.”

  “Got any I.D.?”

  “Google me. There’s bound to be an image or two.”

  Lidia did just that, cross-referencing images on her smart phone with the man sitting across from her. Hmm. He was Dr. Nathan Cribbs.

  “Your eyebrows are much less pronounced.” Lidia noted.

  “I invested in a grooming kit.”

  She set her phone down, taking the materials, looking them over again, a little more thoroughly this time, but it was a lot to take in and she had plenty of questions.