Growth

by Jeff Jacobson

  Their leather soles scraped concrete as they struggled down the aisle. The greenhouse was full of corn and nothing else. Most seemed to be healthy, mature stalks, bursting with nearly ripe ears of corn. The only thing that felt out of place was the abundance of cobwebs, glistening in the spinning red lights. Husks of caterpillars hung in the strands. The webs stretched everywhere, even across the walkway, and the two men had to plow through the intricate designs as they shuffled along.

  Bob Jr. didn’t think much of it. Fucking spiders. Nothing more. He was focused on the boat.

  And so he didn’t notice the movement along his arms, his back, his hair.

  “Where? Where!” Bob Jr. demanded. His tongue felt dry and thick, too big for his mouth. There was a tickle in the back of his throat.

  For the first time, Slade looked like he was about to panic. “They told us . . . it’s supposed to be around here.”

  Bob caught a glimpse of some dark insect, a spider of some kind, creeping through Slade’s silver hair. He ignored it and spun them in a circle. Webs encircled their bodies. “There’s nothing here. They lied to you, old man. They lied.”

  “There!” Slade shouted, his voice full of triumph. Bob Jr. followed his finger and saw a metal door, crusty with rust, sunk into the wall. There was no traditional door handle; instead, a two-foot iron pipe crossed the door, waist-high. A number pad enclosed in a greasy-looking plastic cover waited next to the door.

  Slade said, “It runs off a different system. It’s an older grid, not on the books anymore.”

  Bob Jr. decided that the old man was getting one chance to get the fucking code right. If the door didn’t open immediately, he was going to ditch the old fart and get out of this awful greenhouse. No doubt the alarms had drawn the fake lab tech with the automatic weapon. And there was no way in hell he was going to sit around and wait to get shot.

  Slade broke the seal on the plastic cover and hit six digits. He waited a moment, then pushed two more.

  A solid chunk came from behind the door.

  Bob Jr. wrenched the handle out of the locked position and slammed it down. They heard a dusty click inside the doorframe and glanced at each other.

  Bob Jr. swung the door out, opening it on a fire escape and the sky. He could smell salt water. Below, hungry waves lunged against the rocks. When he saw the black Zodiac tied and secure, bobbing around in a tidal pool at the bottom of the fire escape, he couldn’t help himself and blurted, “Sweet fuck.” He went back and slung Slade around his shoulders again. They left the greenhouse and started down the steep steel steps.

  Bob Jr. shook out his free arm and pulled webs out of his hair. They stuck and broke, leaving a tacky net across the left side of his head. He felt something crawl under his collar near his tie and slapped at it, feeling it pop, almost like a rotten pea. He spit again, just to get the taste of the spiderwebs out of his mouth.

  The engine started on the first pull. Bob Jr. crawled over Slade in the bow of the rigid inflatable boat, clearly something left over from Allagro’s military contract days. He ignored Slade’s protests and fished around in Slade’s pockets, finally pulling out the knife he’d seen at the conference table.

  It made a muted, dense click when he snapped the blade open. Bob Jr. liked that. He didn’t bother trying to untie the knots, and slashed the mooring ropes, then sat back next to the engine and steered the Zodiac straight into the eastern winds.

  The first wave blasted warm salt water around the bow, soaking Slade. The old man bounced and flopped as the boat smashed against the incoming waves. The ride settled out once they turned south into the deeper swells.

  The engine, a black outboard Bob Jr. figured must be military grade just like the boat itself, churned through the sea with a hushed whir. He could still hear the alarm back in the greenhouse. And something else, coming from way back beyond the buildings, something higher pitched, like some swarm of pissed-off Weed Eaters and lawnmowers.

  He cranked the throttle over as far as it would twist. The Zodiac dutifully soldiered up one swell after another. Bob Jr. coughed. His mouth was curiously dry, as if he’d taken five or six bong hits and was so stoned he wasn’t sure if he was sitting or standing. He scraped the top of his tongue against his top teeth and didn’t like the feel of the slime that now coated his teeth. He coughed again.

  An open knife didn’t belong in an inflatable boat, so he snicked it shut and handed it back to Slade. Slade was sitting up now, digging around in his nostril with his thumb. He closed one nostril and tried to blow out whatever was in his nose. A tiny spatter of blackened mucus landed on his knee.

  Bob Jr. coughed again and bent over between his knees, really hacking. He tried to swallow. Globs of wet clay seemed to be clogging his throat. “Hey. All that shit back there that Deemer told us, you don’t think he meant us or anything, right? I mean, we didn’t breathe in anything. We didn’t, right?”

  Slade didn’t answer. He closed his fist around the knife and pointed.

  Bob Jr. twisted and saw distant helicopters, looking like a dozen dark dragonflies rising over the island, incinerating everything below. Streaks of light leapt from the buzzing insects. When they struck the island, fire bloomed so bright it darkened the sky itself. He heard the immense crackling thunder a half-second faster than he felt the impact, a hot blast of wind that lifted his hair and dried his eyes.

  He thought he heard a dense, muted click behind him.

  If he hadn’t turned back to shield his face from the explosions, Slade would have been able to slit his throat. As it was, Bob Jr. had turned just enough to catch the old man’s movement and shot his hand out. The blade sliced through the outside of his palm, but then Bob Jr.’s hand had slipped past the knife and grabbed Slade’s bony wrist. He wrenched his fist over and Slade cried out, releasing the pocketknife.

  It bounced on the wooden floor of the boat.

  Bob Jr. let go of the throttle and snatched at the knife. The engine’s pitch dropped to a low murmur and the boat spun as he knocked the tiller sideways. Anger sparked and roared in his clogged head, and for a moment, rage obliterated everything. Still clutching Slade’s wrist, he wrenched the older man even farther off balance and drove the knife into his chest. The three-inch blade punctured the thin sternum with a sound like the snapping of a plastic fork.

  Slade tried to catch his breath. It hitched and snagged.

  Bob Jr. yanked the knife out, plunged it in again.

  Again.

  And again.

  When Bob Jr. finally stopped, the wooden floor was slick with blood. Slade’s chest was a shredded patchwork of blood, ripped fabric, and meat. The old man’s head was thrown back, dead eyes staring at the sky.

  Bob Jr. rose to his knees, gathering his bearings. The island was off to the right now, and the relentless waves were pushing them closer. He hit the throttle again, knowing that he had to keep moving, put some distance between him and the island.

  He coughed again. This time it felt like something ripped in the back of his throat, and he swallowed before he could stop himself. A thick lump the size of a peach pit, wet and smooth, slid down his esophagus. He couldn’t breathe through his nose.

  Soon as he hit land, he was gonna have to find some antibiotics or something.

  That brought him back to Slade’s body. He couldn’t exactly take the old man back with him. Bob Jr. left the engine for a moment and scrambled forward. He flopped Slade over, got hold of the back of his belt and collar, and slung him onto the side of the boat, then rolled him over.

  The corpse hung facedown in the swells, suspended in the sun-dappled greenish-blue water. For a second, Bob Jr. was afraid the old man might twitch and jerk his head out of the water, gasping for breath at the last moment. But he stayed down, legs drifting under him, arms splayed out. A thin haze of blood spread out slowly, clouding the water.

  Good. It would draw sharks and anything else in the deeps that wanted a free meal. No one would ever know. As far as anyone else wa
s concerned, Slade had died on the island.

  Bob Jr. almost lost his balance as the boat rolled over the crest of a large wave. He shook his head. He didn’t feel right. He looked back and saw that he was being driven back to the island again. Crawling back over to the engine, he cranked the throttle over again and headed in what he hoped was a southeasterly direction.

  His stomach heaved and he almost threw up. Strangely, it didn’t feel like he was seasick. Once the boat had moved away from the island, the ocean had been fairly calm, and besides, he had only been out there ten or fifteen minutes. This was something different, something connected to the goddamn head cold.

  Thinking about the heaviness in his head made it worse, somehow. He slumped over, feeling all of his strength evaporate, bleached out by the Caribbean sun. It was all he could do to hold on to the tiller and keep the throttle twisted. He tried to reassure himself. It made sense. After all the adrenaline and shock from the morning, he was bound to feel exhausted once all the excitement was over.

  He managed to turn his head to watch the island grow smaller and estimated it was at least a half mile behind him. The light from the flames was still plainly visible. He dropped his gaze to stare at his right hand, the one gripping the throttle.

  A fat gray spider had nestled in the soft webbing between the knuckles of his fore and middle fingers. It didn’t move. Bob Jr. wasn’t sure if it was dead or simply content to rest there, motionless. He went to flick it away with his left thumb. The abdomen sac wobbled, but it remained rooted to the spot. A dozen or so irregular legs uncurled from the center.

  Bob Jr. blinked and wondered what was wrong with him.

  He hoped he was hallucinating.

  Spiders didn’t have that many legs. And these legs looked . . . wrong, as if they weren’t spider legs at all. Some of them looked grotesquely disproportionate, as if they belonged on grasshoppers or crickets. Some were so tiny he didn’t even realize they were legs at all until he squinted and got closer.

  He wanted to whip his hand away, smash it against the side of the boat, drag it in the water and drown the damn bug, anything, but he didn’t want to let go of the throttle. If just one of those choppers saw him, he was as good as dead. Truth be told, he wasn’t sure if he could even move as fast as his panic wanted as it pleaded with his muscles.

  What if it was poisonous? All kinds of nasty, poisonous insects lived in the tropics all around the world, creeping and crawling through the jungles. No. He’d come too far to let some goddamn spider poison him. He gritted his teeth and squeezed the bulbous body between his left thumb and forefinger, intending to pull it gently away from his skin and fling it into the water.

  But as he applied just enough pressure to pick it up, the sac burst, dribbling a thick blackened soup over the back of his hand. The legs shivered furiously in mindless spasms. He pulled the body away from his skin, surprised that he couldn’t see any head.

  Then he saw the thin gray thread that trailed out of the center of the body and connected with the webbing between his fingers. He tugged gently and felt the gray tendril move under his skin.

  The sensation made him cough again, gagging this time. He clutched at his throat with his left hand and gave a wracking cough. Black mucus spattered across the blood on the bottom of the boat. The fingers on his right hand fluttered of their own accord and released the throttle. The boat slowed and drifted in the swells.

  Bob Jr. brought his hand closer to his face, willing his fingers to straighten, and watched in horror as they curled inward in an awkward fist instead, like some sick parody of a dead insect. They twitched and fluttered.

  He struggled to breath and slumped even lower. He wanted to cry. The feeling of not being able to control his own hand filled him with a shaking terror that even eclipsed his growing unease over the stupid head cold. Deep down, he suspected it had something to do with breathing the same air as Dr. Deemer, but he refused to even entertain that possibility.

  No. As soon as he could sit up, he was going to grab that throttle and get to dry land. He dimly realized his chin was wet; he’d been drooling. His ears felt like they had been stuffed with cotton. Everything was muffled, as if bass had been turned all the way up while everything else had been lowered on his headphones, the water lapping the rubber side of the boat, the distant droning of a helicopter, all sounding like he was inside an empty oil drum. He went to wipe the drool away and his hand came away coated in black, slimy spit.

  The faint buzzing of a helicopter grew louder until he could hear the distinct thumping of the spinning blades. He tried to sit up and look back to the island, but could only manage to twist his head and look up at the engine. That’s how he spotted a small black brick about the size of a satellite phone attached to the underside of the engine with a magnet.

  He found that his thoughts were swimming away from him like skittish minnows, but he managed to grab hold of one and dimly realized that the Zodiac had a GPS tracker, an unwelcome stowaway. Then it was gone, slipping through his grasp.

  He had forgotten all about the helicopter until its shadow covered the boat. Even then, he wasn’t sure if it was really there or not. Very little oxygen was reaching his lungs. He was more concerned with the uncomfortable feeling that something was growing from the back of his throat, stretching up along his back teeth and climbing up into his nasal passages.

  His thoughts grew slower and slower, drifting apart and settling like dead leaves sinking to the bottom of a pond. His last coherent image was a memory, of running across the vast lawn of home with his dog, while his mom hung laundry on the line over by the giant propane tank and his dad worked on one of the harvesters down in front of the largest barn and the sun burned over all the miles and miles of corn.

  Then the missiles struck and Bob Jr., along with his thoughts, and the boat, vaporized into nothing but heat and ash.

  CHAPTER 3

  When the dispatcher called with a simple 10-21, Chief Sandy Chisel was standing on the front porch of the Einhorn farmhouse, arms crossed to keep her hand away from her pistol, listening to a load of bullshit.

  Sandy clicked her radio and simply said, “Copy,” then looked back down at Kurt Einhorn as he leaned back in the rocking chair.

  “Don’t know how many times I hafta explain things to you people,” he said. “My wife, she’s clumsy. Happens all the time. Don’t see why you gotta come out here, wastin’ taxpayer money just cause the stupid bitch fell down the basement stairs.”

  Kurt was known in the law enforcement business as a frequent flyer. Every few months, the neighbors across the highway called 911 when Kurt beat his wife so bad they could hear her screaming. Sandy’s predecessor had warned her that arresting him and taking him to jail for the night wouldn’t do any good. Just made things worse for Ingrid, the wife. The old chief had tried it a few times, hauling Kurt down to the police station in town, but inevitably, Ingrid would show up the next day, bruised and moving slowly and stiffly. She’d explain it was all a mistake, that she’d hit her face on the fridge door or dropped a hot pan on her foot. Calls and visits from spousal abuse counselors were ignored. Eventually, most people just figured if she didn’t want out, then it was none of their business.

  Nearly seven months into the job, this was Sandy’s second visit as chief. She knew damn well the wife wouldn’t say anything. Still, she went through the motions, taking her time as she walked Ingrid down the porch steps to the cruiser where they stood for a while under the summer night sky, listening to the occasional lonesome cricket. She explained in a low voice that Ingrid would never have to see him again, all she had to do was say the word. Ingrid, a thin wisp of a woman with short, frazzled hair, hugged herself and shrugged, looking everywhere but at Sandy.

  After a while, Sandy gave up. It made her feel tense and irritable, like she’d been chewing on a ball of aluminum foil all day, but she knew damn well her words—her promises, attempts at shame, appeals for Ingrid’s health—none of it made a bit of difference. I
ngrid would suffer in silence until some night he’d hurt her bad enough to put her in the ground, or something would snap and she would up and leave. Then again, there was always that distant third possibility, and Sandy didn’t think she’d be the only one not shedding any tears if Ingrid up and killed the son of a bitch.

  Sandy led Ingrid back up to the porch. Kurt still sat in the rickety rocking chair and watched them with the sluggish, lidless eyes of a lizard. “Still waitin’ for that beer,” he told his wife. Ingrid didn’t say a word, but she moved fast. The screen door slapped its frame behind her.

  Kurt and Sandy regarded each other silently for a few long seconds. Moths beat against the bare bulb above. He reminded Sandy of a fat Gila monster, perched on a rock under the noon sun.

  “Go ahead.” When he smiled, his lips thinned and almost disappeared, revealing teeth the color of old tobacco. “Say something threatening. Tell me if she hurts herself again you’ll make me sorry. Come on. Get me all nervous.”

  Sandy managed a tight grin right back. She kept her tone flat. “Not much point, I suppose. Looks like you got it all worked out.”

  “Do you well to remember that. Day I let some nigger-loving cooze tell me my business is the day I take a dirt nap.”

  This time, a wild mirth lit up her eyes and Sandy gave Kurt a chilling, genuine smile. “That dirt nap can be arranged. Easier than you think. Do you well to remember that.” She headed back to the cruiser, hating the feeling that his eyes were following her ass and forced herself to walk slow, easy, unconcerned. Domestic disturbances were a cop’s bread and butter, but she hadn’t been on the job long enough to find that balance of shutting down her emotions but still caring enough to be an effective law enforcement officer.

  She started the cruiser and pinned Kurt to the front of his farmhouse with the high beams. He stared back and didn’t move. Sandy could see Ingrid watching from the kitchen window. The woman turned away from the window and left a blank rectangle of light.