Creepers Chapter 5

Chapter 5
An Unexpected Call

Vanessa managed to pry Stephan’s hands from her hips and shoo him out the door, then the phone rang. Though it was late, after midnight, she was relieved to hear it.
Suspicious, Stephan cracked the door, poked his over groomed head back in. “Wonder who that is?”
Vanessa fibbed, “Probably my brother out west, Keven always forgets about the time change. Gotta go. Bye.” She gave him a peck on the lips, shut the door, dashed to the kitchen and snatched the phone up on its fifth ring. Apprehensive: she too wondered who was calling this late. “Hello?”
A male voice, inquired, “Miss. Fullbright?”
“Yes.”
“This is John Martin . . . I’m the Lieutenant Governor. Sorry to call so late. Mr. Drummond your supervisor gave me your home number, he was unable to . . .”
Vanessa began to suspect an elaborate prank or worse. Mr. Drummond, her boss, was very much the bureaucrat and unlikely to give out her number or anyone in the middle of the night. “What’s this about? I don’t think Mr. . . .”
“This sounds crazy but an enormous plant has sprung up in Immokalee. The Sheriff down there put in a call to the Highway Patrol a couple of hours ago, said some type of ivy had grown across Sandy Pines Road, out by Leigh Acres. A local resident apparently drove his car into the stuff and was killed . . . not by the collision – but by the plant.”
“That’s hard to believe. There is no such ivy that could . . . why are you calling me?”
“We need a botanist to go down there and identify this thing and figure out how to get rid of it. Apparently, it produces pollen that’s poison. Several people have had severe reactions to it.”
Vanessa said, “Can’t this wait till morning, when it’s light?”
“No, it’s spreading too fast. Sheriff Musser said he watched the stuff grow. Said it was like a time-elapsed nature film. You ever heard of a plant that you could watch grow?”
“No I haven’t. Look Mr.?”
”Martin.”
“Mr. Martin, I’d like to help you, I really would but I don’t even know where Sandy Pines Road is and . . .”
“I’ll send a car over to pick you up. Can you be ready in twenty minutes?”
Vanessa was beginning to wish she’d let Stephan hang around awhile longer. “Who’s going to pick me up?”
“Highway Patrol, that okay?”
“Well . . . okay” She said, feeling a little relieved that a police officer was coming to fetch her and not some stranger. She hung up the phone and wondered, what could grow so fast? Someone must be exaggerating.
She dug her acquisition bag from the hall closet and did a quick inventory. The bag was a light backpack she had used while working on her Masters, inside were specimen bags (she used plain zip-lock freezer bags) a pair of pruning shears, gloves, tape, a water bottle, several snap-cap plastic bottles, some trail-mix and a few tampons. She got her video camera from the top shelf and zipped it into the top compartment.
Vanessa propped the pack against the wall by the front door then went back to her bedroom to search the closet for her windbreaker, as she plucked it from a bent hanger she heard a firm rap at the front door. In a hurry she threw open the door, then could only stare gap-mouthed up at the big man on her porch. He looked like he’d been mauled.
He smiled through his scratched face, “Miss Fullbright?” His voice had the resonance and timbre of an opera singer but was rounded with tenderness.
“Yes.”
Nobility sparkled in his sapphire eyes. His smile put her at ease enough to ask, “What happened to you?”
Calvin brushed his linebacker sized chest and corn flake sized fluffs of pollen floated away in a gentle breeze. “Sorry, I must look . . . I made the mistake of hiking into this thicket . . . or jungle that sprung up over night.
Vanessa closed her mouth and smiled. “I was expecting the Highway Patrol. The man on the phone said . . .”
“Yes I know, they sent me because I’m the one that found it. I’m Sheriff Musser.” He extended his hand, an unusual thing for a cop to do, she thought. Three of his fingers covered her hand. He opened the door for her. “Are you ready?”
Vanessa picked up her pack and slung it to her shoulder and stepped out onto the porch, hesitated a moment then followed the big man down to his truck. “My God what’s that?” She stared at the severed, hand-sized pad attached to the side of his Expedition. There were deep scratches in the white paint and the tires looked like someone had tried to slash them.
Seeing her look of concern, he said, “The plant did that. It grew fifteen feet in as many minutes, crept up and attached itself to my door.”
The pad had digits that resembled a tree frog’s toes. Vanessa tried to pry one off to collect but could not. She got sticky resin all over her fingers in the effort.
“You want that?”
Vanessa stood perplexed, wiping the gunk from her hands with a blue bandana. “Yes, I need samples.” Her hands began to itch and burn. “This sap must contain a poisonous glycoside . . . it’s making me itch.”
“Yea, I know.” Calvin held up his huge hands: they were covered with rows of small blisters. He reached into his pocket, unfolded a five-inch buck knife and managed to pry the plant’s appendage from the door for her. Some paint came with it, leaving a circle of bare metal. “Damn, I just got this truck two months ago, now look at it.”
Vanessa held open an extra large freezer bag and Sheriff Musser dropped the sample in, her hands bobbed under its weight. Then he opened the door for her and she climbed in. As they drove, she quizzed him about what he had seen but she refused to speculate on what it was - because she didn’t have a clue.
Calvin was exhausted, needed a shower and itched from head to toe. The last thing he felt like doing was driving back down Sandy Pines Road to confront that monstrous tangle of thorns, but when the Lieutenant Governor and a good friend asks you a favor . . .
The weather had cleared and the road was void of cars. A quarter mile before he reached the site where Beauford was killed the road began to close in on them as if they were driving into a foliage covered bridge.
Vanessa stopped scratching her hands long enough to roll down the window. “Ouoo, that smell, how long has it been here?”
Calvin’s eyes began to itch again. He sneezed. “I have no idea. I literally ran into the stuff a few hours ago. It wasn’t here yesterday. I can tell you that. What do you think it is?”
A sudden gust of wind caused blossoms to float down around like the like the severed heads of spirits.
Vanessa gasped. “Look at the size of those blossoms! Stop. I have to collect one.”
Calvin slowed the Expedition to a stop, put it in park and waited while Vanessa hopped out chased down one of the white blossoms and stuffed it into a plastic bag. She climbed back in and plopped the sack between them.
Calvin crinkled his nose. “It stinks.”
Kim agreed, “It reminds me of a fruit I saw in South America. There banned on cruise ships and in hotels. I can’t recall their name but they have the same, sickly sweet smell. How much further?”
“It’s about a quarter mile.” Calvin sneezed and his whole body quaked.
“Bless you.”
“Thanks” He dabbed his nose with clean white handkerchief, what ever this stuff is, I’m allergic to it. Why isn’t it bothering you?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never had an allergic reaction to anything. My hands have stopped itching, guess I’m getting desensitized to it. You okay?”
Calvin blew his nose. “I’ll be fine once I get home, take a hot shower and get some rest. I really suffer during allergy season. That’s one of the reasons I moved to Florida, my doctor said I’d be better off in a humid climate. Up till now he was right.”
Vanessa felt sorry for him she reached over and patted his arm. “Well as soon as we finish we’ll get you some Contact or Sudafed.”
Calvin blushed at her concern. Here he was out in the middle of the night with a beautiful woman and all he could think about was buying some allergy pills and going to bed, alone. I’m getting old, he thought.
They drove passed a copse bound up in creepers. Calvin slowed as he approached the area where he had found Beauford. The road was stripped with runners. Their roots were sunk into the shoulder of the road, anchored in cracks and potholes. The big off-road tires made a loud thumpity-thump-thump as they ran over them. Ahead it looked like it was snowing enormous flakes. All they could see was a solid wave of foliage and the blowing blizzard of pollen.
Calvin turned to Vanessa. “Well, now what?”
“I need to get a few clippings, a leaf, another snip of tendril, a piece of root would be good too and a bag of that pollen.”
“Okay, but hurry, I don’t want to get trapped out here. You need any help?” He sneezed, too late to fish out his handkerchief.
“No you better stay here, any further contact is only going to aggravate your allergies.” She popped open her door and bounded down the road skipping over taught runners strung like barbed wire.
Tense and tired, Calvin watched her work. She pulled on a pair of latex gloves, swept up a pile of pollen, scooped it into a bag and sealed it. Using her pruning shears she snipped a two-foot length off one of the runners, coiled it up and popped it into another bag. She stowed her samples in her pack and cautiously she moved deeper into the foliage.
Five minutes in Vanessa had her eye on a leaf that would cover the Sheriff’s back. She reached up between thorns, pulled down the leaf and tried to snip it off but the stem was too tough to cut. With one hand bending the leaf, she tucked the shears in her back pocket and turned around forgetting how far she had wandered. “Sheriff, do you have a saw?” She tugged harder on the leaf trying to break it off. “I can’t seem to cut through this damn thing.” A thin creeper released by her tugging unfurled with the smooth action of a fly-line and looped around her waist. It snagged her jeans with dozens of red hooked thorns. “Damn.” As she released the kite sized leaf and tried to free herself another creeper coiled around her legs. It was thin but she could not break it, she pulled the shears from her back pocket and reached around to snip the vine from her waist, but she hooked her wrist in an overhanging loop and the pruning shears slipped from her grasp. “Damn it!
Calvin had been digging through his center consol searching for a pack of tissues when he heard Vanessa’s scream. He leaped out of the truck and plowed into the thicket. He found her standing tiptoed, coiled in vines from neck to ankle. He ran towards her and stopped. A tree-sized segment of the plant lay at her feet. It was spiked with foot long thorns, if Vanessa tripped or fell. . . . The more she struggled the more entangled she became other runners had sprung from the pavement and snagged her legs. Thorns pricked her side, making her flinch and loose her balance. Vanessa didn’t see the dagger sized thorns until she was falling face forward onto them. Instinctively she tried to protect herself with her hands but both were tangled. She clamped her eyes shut as the point of the largest thorn pierced the tender skin of her left breast. She heard the sound of ripping cloth. Her head pitched to one side an inch from a foot long thorn, then she felt herself being lifted.
Calvin had reached Vanessa just as she lost her balance, tipped forward and fell. He’d just managed to snatch a fistful of yellow windbreaker. She was still in the firm grasp of the plant So he held her under one arm like a child, retrieved her pruning shears and clipped the creepers tentacles from her body. Vanessa kept her eyes clamped shut, the sound of the shears cutting through the tendrils sounded like he was clipping off fingers one at a time.
Calvin carried her back to the side of his truck where he pulled the remaining pieces of plant from her waist and legs. Her jeans where spotted with blood where thorns had punctured her skin. “Are you alright?”
Vanessa unzipped her windbreaker, unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse and looked down at the wound on her breast. She was bleeding but it was minor. “Yea, I think so . . . thanks.”
“Oh here.” Calvin handed her the shears. “I guess this one will have to do.” She bent over and picked up a clipped runner. “I’ve seen enough Sheriff. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Calvin climbed into the Expedition. Vanessa unpacked her video camera and began filming the botanical oddity that had almost taken her life. Then the Sheriff turned around and drove away as fast as he dared, praying that his tires thumpity-thump-thumping over the thorn spiked runners that crisscrossed the pavement wouldn’t blow out.