Issue 2:
Old Growth
Whistling and cutting two boys pushed single file through a mismatched, verdant forest. Bushes, trees, and flowers from every region in the world grew freely here. Even at only thirteen the boys recognized this to be impossible due to the climate of the countryside. Swinging a three foot long machete the leader noticed an exotic purple and red flower he'd seen before in a nature documentary from school on the Amazon rain forest. It grew next to an ordinary maple tree found next to any suburban school bus stop. With his hands free the following boy snapped pictures with his cellphone although reception was too poor to post anything. He also carried a book on rare and special flowers he borrowed from his mother's bookshelf. Within the glossy pages he counted species after species growing in wild abandon.
A think patch of Cannas flowers sported fat, yellow petals splashed with red droplets that almost looked like blood splatter patterns. Next to them he saw a few long flowers that made him pause. Colorado Columbines stood displaying purple petals surrounding a second set of cup shaped white petals. Skimming the book's description he read these flowers only grew around 14,000 feet above sea level. Further down the path Parachute flowers extended a long stamen looking chute with a bulb on the end. The bulb sprouted thick white hair that made it look like a spiked mace. The deeper they trekked the stranger the plants became. One had a leathery looking hood shaped like the sunscreen on an old fashioned baby carriage. When they passed he stopped to look and its opening yawned revealing a pattern of jagged colors mimicking teeth. It looked like the mouth of a sand monster on an alien desert planet while the smell like rotting flesh almost knocked them off their feet. He flipped page after page until finally discovering it was a Pelican flower.
From that point on the book became useless. Extraterrestrial tentacles in the form of fuzzy vines parted their hair as they passed beneath. Neon fungi grown as high as their knees lined their path. Trees grew crooked out of the sides of other trees. The follower reached out to brush the tips of purple dandelions that retracted their leaves shyly like a blushing maiden. They were Mimosa Pudica. Near the base of a mangrove tree a family of worm monsters opened wide displaying their dangerous mouths. Someone once named these Hydnora Africana and their outsides were coated in white looked like brick red, reptilian scales. Breaking through a particularly vicious sticker bush the boys stopped amid a sunlit clearing. Rows of flowers large and small spattered the ground in a jumbled rainbow. In the middle stood a lone, weeping willow whose branches brushed the ground softly petting the grass in an easy wind.
"Dude, I'm freaking out. Something's not natural about this. None of it was here last year. How'd it grow so fast?" the follower asked.
"I've never been this far, but we gotta check out that tree. It seems different from everything else." The leader pushed on. As he parted the thin branches like beaded curtains, the boy peered into the shady underside of the wide trunked willow. A bed of neon green moss covered the ground up to the base of the tree. Thick dark vines stretched out across the floor and up the trunk. Dumbstruck the boys stood slack jawed as they watched a pile of those vines twisting and writing. Slowly a smooth, slender leg slid up and out of the tangle. The toenails were well trimmed painted a pale pink, and the pile blinked at them.
Without a doubt the last straw the boys turned screaming and ran back the way they'd come. Eventually escaping through the overgrowth they stumbled into Ms. Walker's back acre. It was a typical, overgrown grass yard ending in a field of soybeans. Behind them the forest followed a straight path along Ms. Walker's property line encroaching well into the wide expanse of farmland. The line of trees met up perfectly with the small, brown house owned by the weird lady. Earlier the boys scouted the other side only to find it exactly the same.
To their horror the bush seemed to part, and the lady herself stepped out in front of them. She wore light blue jeans and a cream cotton top. Her fire engine red hair spilled its curls over her shoulders and far down her back. Her green eyes seemed brighter than any human eyes should. The boy with the phone fell on his butt while his partner carrying the machete froze.
"Hi boys. Were you on a jungle safari?" Pam asked innocently.
"No, we just wanted to make sure everything was ok back there," the leader claimed.
"Everything is fine but I wanted to warn you about going through there. There are things in my garden that aren't as nice as me," she warned. At her feet two thick roots burst from the ground and lifted themselves up to the leader's eye level. Gingerly they took the machete from his hand, wrapped around each end, and snapped it like a twig. Next they slithered to the boy on the ground picking his cell phone from the grass. The tip of one root tapped the screen here and there while the other held it steady. After a moment it tossed the phone back in the boy's lap. He grabbed it up examining the screen.
"Did that tree just delete my photos?" he asked in shock. Incredulously the boy stared at his friend.
"It updated my apps," he continued.
"Well he's a good tree. So large and yet still thoughtful," Pam responded. The boys looked at her, and she smiled.
"I dare you to tell them," she whispered. Before she could say another word, they were gone so she laughed. On the back of her porch Gert Walker sat in her plastic lawn chair. She raised a hand to Pam who walked toward her across the yard.
"How are you, Gertie?" Pam asked louder than she normally would.
"Oh I suppose I'm alright. My foot's been acting up again something awful," the widow complained, "Was that the boys up the street? You know I don't see good."
"Yeah they were passing through."
"They know better'n that. I'll say something to Marsha," Gert offered.
"No don't get them in trouble. I doubt they'll be back."
"Pammie, did you see how awful my flowers look in the boxes out front? With my foot I haven't gotten around to seeing to them."
"I'll take a look," Pam promised.
"Thank you dear. You sure can grow 'em but between you and me, you can't weed worth a shit." Pam laughed at that.
"I guess I can't bear to part with any of them," she countered.
"Mmm hmm," Gert agreed in a tone that clearly communicated she disagreed, "Sometimes I think a woman needs someone around to push her into doing a bit of landscaping here and there. You could certainly stand to lose that creepy, little man that comes by to see you."
"Who, Otis? He's just a friend of mine from Gotham is all. He's harmless."
"I seen plenty of men, handsome men, come calling for you earlier on," the old woman reminded.
"Sometimes I think I do too much weeding," Pam sighed.
"Well you always need to make room for something new to grow," Gert stated.
When Pam bought the house six months ago the yards were mostly maintained by Forever Green landscaping company. Once a week their trucks would roll in pulling trailers carrying riding mowers and knock the grass low. Soon they had to come in twice a week as the grass seemed to grow faster each time it was mowed. By the time the company mowed every other day they were forced to admit they couldn't keep the terms of their contracts. When the neighbors received their refunds from Forever Green, they seemed to accept defeat and some even found a certain beauty to the headed grass and colorful wildflowers. However one old man on the corner refused to be denied.
Sixty five if he was a day Mr. Winters mowed his lawn every day for a week after Forever Green quit. Sweating and panting he pushed that old, smoking mower back and forth until Pam feared he'd die at it. She discovered from Gertie along with others that Mr. Winter's partner, Glen had recently passed away after he retired from teaching as a history professor at Gotham University. Mr. Winter was a bit of a cleaner and liked to keep things tidy everyone agreed. They feared this yard business could be enough to cause him to snap. Before directly creating her own arch nemesis Pam slipped into his yard late after all the lights on the street were out and coaxed the grass coaching it into the required pattern.
The next morning Mr. Winter found to his delight the grass had not grown back fully. Although again heading and full of flowers it was now half the height of his neighbor's, and the grass stood at a uniform height giving the illusion it had recently been mowed. After a week of not working outside he dropped his mower off in the junk pile for the trash collectors. Even the farmer Rick Tooley welcomed her despite her garden overtaking his land.
"I don't know what's going on," he told her, "but I've never had a crop like I'm pulling this year. Everything is growing a whole lot better since you moved in, miss. If'n you don't mind me saying everything's been a whole lot prettier as well. I know better than to question a good thing that comes from nature." Pam decided she very much liked Rick despite all expectations to the contrary. They agreed the garden, in polite terms though it was for all intents and purposes a forest now, grew any further they would price the land out for her. People here seemed so much nicer and more accommodating than the city. Perhaps it wasn't the people were different instead that they had more space to be alone, to themselves.
Pam drank in the quiet while she watched the cool, purple sunset through her kitchen window. Setting the last rinsed glass on the counter to dry she remembered the constant noise of the city. When the phone rang her spell broke and she accepted a collect call from Otis Flanagan, also known as the Ratcatcher, who was at the bus station looking for a ride. She took the small, old pickup ten miles into town to pick him up. They stopped for groceries, and Pam cooked a vegetable pot roast for him. He ate three bowls and took a shower while she threw his filthy clothes in the washer. She laid a new pair from the tractor supply store on the guest bed.
"We gonna watch our show tonight?" he asked drying his raggedy hair in the kitchen.
"Can't. I dumped the cable since I never watch it," Pam confessed.
"What? How am I supposed to know if Brad picks Emily or Katie?" Otis demanded. A short gangly man with a large nose and uneven teeth, he sat in a chair and two rats hopped on the table squeaking at each other and him. They stood on the table waving their little paws at him. Pam nodded at him.
"Wendy and Wynona, you can go outside," Otis began, and the rats squeaked in unanimous triumph, "But there is to be no eating anything that hasn't dropped on its own and absolutely no digging. I mean it Wendy." The two sisters hopped from table to chair to floor and pushed open the screen door Pam never bothered to lock. The rat on Otis's shoulder stood from its sleepy crouch and opened his eyes. Realizing he was in the kitchen he thumped on to the table.
"Hello Oscar," Pam greeted as the rat rolled on his back gazing up at her with sad eyes. She scratched his enormous, round belly, and he had to roll quite a few times before making it right side up. He squeaked expectantly.
"I don't know," Pam responded moving to the cupboard, "I'm not sure I have much of anything in here." She opened a cabinet and removed a jar unscrewing it.
"All I have is this half jar of peanut butter," she said smiling. Oscar's eyes doubled in size. She set the jar on the table, and he tackled it jamming half his wide frame into it. They rolled off the table onto the floor.
"You're ruining his diet, Pam," Otis complained.
"It's his cheat day," she excused. Oscar gave a muffled squeak in agreement from the floor.
Later that evening they walked in her forest. Otis's girls played chase around them, but Oscar had remained glued to his jar back in the kitchen. The plants seemed to breathe, and the surrounding color green became close to a smell. Pam and Otis chatted about nothing until they reached the flower clearing, and he grew quiet.
"There's actually a reason I came," he finally began, "I'm not sure it's safe for you here. This place is beautiful but it attracts a certain attention. Back in Gotham people have been going missing, real cloak and dagger shit. Words been they've hit some capes too."
"Who hits criminals and capes?" Pam wondered. They sat in quiet gazing up at the stars and moon for a time. When they finally decided to head in a commotion could be heard. Gert was yelling from her porch, but they couldn't make out her words. Men shouted from all sides, and Pam could feel them out there along the edges of the forest. Otis grabbed her arm.
"Oh god, they followed me," he whispered. A chopper could be heard far off in the distance. Streaks of orange light splashed and covered the trees from every side. Pam fell to her knees screaming as each petal, leaf, and branch called out to her in pain and fear. The feeling paralyzed her as Otis attempted to pick her up. Fire spread as tall as the trees coming in from every direction. She raised her head enough to see a squad of men entering the clearing. There were five wearing Forever Green jumpsuits with gas masks and modified rifles. The rats tugged at Otis's feet, but he swept them behind him.
"Get back and stay with Pam, girls," he instructed. Quicker than she expected, Otis dashed across the clearing on all fours and tackled the leader. The two on either side of him shot Otis with something that sparked and dropped him on his face. The troops moved to her, but she couldn't fight back because the plants weren't listening. They were screaming.
In front of her the rats shot out attacking the nearest man's ankle. He brought a boot down on Wendy's back crushing her spine. Wynona dodge another stomp and escaped into the underbrush. Pam felt something sting at her side and fell the other way. She could see Otis still on his stomach yelling drowned out by the crackling flames. Fire and smoke poured and swirled around the clearing. Otis raised a shaking hand towards her as Wynona tugged furiously at his shirt collar. The light and wind from the chopper came down from above, and a bag wrapped tight over Pam's head. A metal collar snapped around her neck. She grasped the ground making fists in the dirt. Reaching out praying for any help from nature her hands felt something hard in her grasp. It was smooth and rounded on the bottom while the top was rough and capped. It was an acorn. Here in the breathtaking beauty of natural evolution turned to spoiled ash at the hands of careless men, Pamela received nature's blessing in a simple and new beginning.