In the Realm of the Midnight Gardener

The beastie ran up the path, slowing only occasionally to sniff and wheeze. Closer now, he could see the petals were edged with sharp needle thorns. Those looked painful and surely were meant for dealing with intruders. And by intruders, this meant him. It snuffled a bit more, then came charging, clearly having caught his scent. Domingo lurched back, stepping further back into the tall maize plants. Just as he backed into the safety of the maize, the beast charged at him and lunged, slashing with its claws. These shredded deep gouges in the thick maize stems. The thing was fast, and surveying the damage to the maize, strong. Had the thing gotten him, he’d have been short a couple of fingers, if not a hand or even an arm.

He pulled out the mattock, ready to strike when it charged. “Bring your ugly head a bit closer,” he snarled, getting a nasty hiss for a response.

It slashed again, and Domingo hauled back to swing the mattock. But trapped in the dense maize, he was unable to swing with any force. He was easy prey, trapped.

Yet, it didn’t rage into the field where he was crouched. The beast stuck to the trail. It paced madly on the clay path, side to side, desperate to get in for the kill, but refused to enter.

“What holds your leash,” Domingo said, and it slashed with two of its claws in response. The maize again rebuffed the blow, and the beast’s claws fell into the tilled soil of the field. Then Domingo saw it. As the claws touched the field’s earth, the stem legs instantly sprouted dozens of fresh roots, which burrowed down into the soil. The beast whined and yanked hard, wrenching the gripping roots from the soil. Gooey sap flew everywhere as it tore itself free. It quickly retreated to the safety of the clay path, sharpening its claws in the dusty ground.

Oho. Domingo smiled. He understood now. Whatever these pumpkin beasties were, they were clearly a terror to anything and everything in their path. If left unchecked, they would trample and crash through every centimetre of the grounds. What good is a beast to guard your grounds if every chance it gets it tears through your most precious crops? Here was the leash that bound them. Apparently, the clay trails alone were fair hunting grounds for the beasties. Leave the trails, touch the tilled soil, and the monsters seemed to return to the soil, rooting in place so they could cause no further harm to the fields and their crops. Domingo stood up, watching it pace from side to side. “Come on, boy,” he cooed, as to a dog. “Come on. You can get me.”

“Having fun?” old Juan Polino asked.

“Immense fun, thanks,” Domingo responded, waggling his foot closer to the beast, then yanking his leg back as it slashed. He and the old man laughed. He turned to the maize, and began pushing his way through, leaving his ugly nemesis trapped on the other side.

But in short order it was only Juan Polino who was laughing, as Domingo found the maize every bit an adversary as the beastie he’d just left. It was a strong, impliant crop, tall enough and closely packed enough to obscure everything but the sky above, the dirt below, and nothing else but the maize itself. He hadn’t space enough to use his knife to slash at the things, the military pick made useless for just the same reason.

He was trapped on every side, just barely squeezing through the tall stalks in each direction. It wasn’t long before he found himself completely turned around. “Bloody things!” he cursed, shoving hard against the stalks in front of him in frustration. He got a smack to the face for his troubles.

Time dragged on as he pushed and pummeled in that field. He glanced down and caught sight of his own clumsy footprints in the soil more than once. He’d doubled back the way he’d come! It was debilitating, those stalks blocking him on each side, pressing him in to stay trapped in their clutches. He found himself cursing the stupid plants, pointless as that was. “Let me through, you wretched things!” he yelled, pushing hard but finding no relief.

“Some duster.” Juan Polino giggled. “The great Domingo Ladrón trapped by stalks of maize. I’d give up and die, if I were you.”

“Shut your hole, you old fool,” he snapped. “I can do this.” He didn’t sound so sure. This was not working. At this rate, he’d end up living in this maize field. He needed out, and fast.

The maize grew most densely along the edges of the field, making his each attempt to finally escape impossible. He caught glimpses of the clay trail just beyond the thick clustering of stalks in front of him, but no matter how he shoved or prodded, the maize held him trapped. Battling the maize was clearly getting him nowhere. Time to change tack.

He crouched down, popped open one of the pockets on his satchel and retrieved two black-green seed pods, each about the size and thickness of a fat slug. Writher pods. He examined the black soil where the maize grew. “Trap me, eh?” he grumbled to himself. “Let’s see how you like this action.”

He examined the writher pods with a more exacting scrutiny. Each held six to ten seeds, at least. It would be more than enough. Domingo scooped away a few handfuls of wet soil, then pushed the pods in, perhaps a meter apart, pointed towards the trail. He then poured the soil back over them and stepped back. He placed a hand on the top of the soil. A warmth was rising from below, and then he felt a trembling, as of something wriggling beneath.

He watched as the writher pods did their work. He could see the soil where he’d inserted the pods begin to rise up in a snaking straight line, pushing the maize up out of the soil and aside as the writher pods burrowed ahead. Maize dropped away, opening an almost two-meter wide path for him to follow out.

The writher pods, in keeping with their name, were pushing forward, unearthing any plants in the soil where they passed, and depositing their seeds in a straight row as they went. Their plowing gave a hospitable soil for their seeds, and for Domingo, a safe meter-wide path across and out of this field.

The writher pods breached him an escape, and then Doming watched as they kept going, digging into the clay trail as well. It crumbled apart, breaking, rising up in long, tall piles of freshly burrowed soil. The trail was cut in half as the soil rose up.

At equal points across the furrow the pods left, little seedlings had taken root and were already rising out of the soil. In days, each would be grown to full maturity, releasing fresh pods of their own and spreading like a cancer over the fields. This was his gift to the Midnight Gardener. If the Midnight Gardener indeed dwelt here (and Domingo was starting to suspect it was so), he’d most likely make short work of these plant pests. But it was the thought that counted, after all.

Normally, the writher pods were used for their plants, which grew into sturdy, flexible poles with the strength of bamboo twice their thickness. He had almost not brought them, imagining no need for them. A lucky break he’d not followed that line of thought. His freedom secured, Domingo trod out of the maize field and kept to the two-meter wide path of moist soil, away from the clay trail.

The gourd beast leapt as if from nowhere, its claws slashing at him.

Domingo side-stepped, letting the claws slash at empty air, then came down with the handle of his mattock on the beast’s body, driving it straight downward. Four of its stem claws fell full into the soil, with only the rear claws still touching the clay path. The effect was instantaneous. The claws stuck immediately into the soil. To stop it from pulling free too quickly, Domingo put his boot on its body and pushed down hard, holding it steady.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he snarled, pushing down hard.

The beast thrashed and pulled, but it was trapped. He held it a moment longer, then, satisfied it was going nowhere, stepped away. He could see the roots coming from the stems, digging down into the earth.

He was feeling particularly pleased with himself, chuckling even, when the smirk was wiped off his face. Something was happening.

The beast began to howl. No, perhaps howl was the wrong word. A long, low, hissing screech came from the snapping flower, a sound partly of air squeaking from a balloon and of a blood-curdling scream. It was terrible to hear, but worse still was how the beast’s body had begun to convulse in what he assumed was a death throe. Oh if only it had been death. Why couldn’t it have been death? But no. It was never that easy.

Vines began to burst forth from the body, coiling about in the soil, twisting and squirming over one another, writhing over and clinging to anything nearby. Domingo had to shake off the sickening spell they cast on him and pulled free as several of the vines began wrapping around his legs. He dashed to the next field, then stopped and turned back to watch.

The vines, at least forty of them, had enveloped both their host and the writher pod plants within their grasp. He could still see the beast convulsing underneath them, but the tendrils so completely covered it that he could see no part of it. Then the vines began to bloat at their ends, swelling, distending, growing bulbous, and then finally...

“Oh come on,” Domingo said, mouth sagging.

“You had to stay and watch, didn’t you?” old Juan Polino said, shaking his head.

“You never have the sense to make tracks.”

The bulbous ends each began to split open, releasing a spray of white viscous fluid, gurgling the same stuff upon the soil. And rending forth from the burst growth was another of the gourd creatures, small and wrinkled in its infancy, but growing at a sickening pace. Domingo was barely able to dash in and bash two of the young ones to pulpy death before the others had grown too large to dispatch so easily. The third one he tried to kill slashed back at him, hissing, giving him a small gash on the shin for his efforts. Vines continued to burst forth from the convulsing pile, each following the same sickening transformation and birth as those before it. There were already twenty or more of the beasts clawing and hissing on each side of the furrowed trail.

“Run, jackass!” Juan Polino yelled, startling him from his reverie. “Or were you hoping to count them all?!”