Agency 13 # 15
Not Quite A Swamp Thing
Imagine a hulking mass of plant life sticking out the driver side of a rusted out pickup truck, using the vehicle to run down Sticks McLellan and Chase Storey, our intrepid investigators du jour. The planty monstrosity has an eerie flicker of madness in its ebon eyes, and its face is an impossible rictus of glee. It's waving one fist at our heroes and using the other to hold the wheel, merely adding to the distressing scene.
(That should do for a 'cover', shouldn't it?)
Notice: for those of you that are faint of heart, the following tale is not at all G-rated. It may include foul language, excessive violence, sexual innuendo, and other things that would get this story burned, were it in a printed form, by the more fanatical elements of every religion on earth. In other words, if these things offend you, you may want to stop reading now.
(That should do for a 'disclaimer', shouldn't it?)
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Mitchell York isn't what you would call an environmentalist by any means. He doesn't recycle cans or conserve water, and he definitely doesn't go easy on the central air. You can't really fault that, though, because people have their priorities, and after a long day's work as a nighttime closer at his local McDonalds, all Mitchell wants to do is sit in the air conditioning and drink a dozen or so beers.
As he put the key into the door of his Oldsmobile, he thought it was odd that there was still a truck sitting in his parking lot, though admittedly he wouldn't have noticed if the lights hadn't suddenly kicked on, the engine of the rusted out hulk revving up in a manic fury. Looking closely at the mechanical monstrosity, he quickly discovered the most unnerving thing about it - the truck was pointed right at him.
When the truck lurched forward with a disconcerting squeal of its tires, Mitchell tried to run away, but he simply wasn't fast enough; his ample frame, augmented by years of eating the profits, couldn't propel the man fast enough to evade the vehicle's apparent homicidal tendencies. Similarly, however, Mitchell's bulk did protect him from the sheer lethality of the impact, primarily by diffusing its' energy across his body.
"Argh!" Mitchell hit the ground hard, rolling to a stop approximately ten feet away from his car. However, his assailant wasn't done with him yet. The truck that struck him squealed to a stop, its brakes applied in a fashion that suggested that either somebody had a lead foot or was sort of learning how to drive as he went. His head turned away from the vehicle, Mitchell couldn't see his unknown foe until the man picked him up.
That's when Mitchell discovered that 'man' was a misnomer. The thing holding him up by the significant scruff of his neck was inhuman, being more plant than man, his head crowned by two feet of foliage, and his face contorted into a twisted mockery of mankind's trademark features. "Ha ha ha! Stupid, fat, polluting human! Did you think that the Earth itself wouldn't avenge its fate at your greasy, fast food dispensing hands?!"
With that, the apparent environmentalist monstrosity tossed Mitchell aside, believing he was dead. He then returned to his truck, purloined hours ago after a distinctly violent encounter with an alligator poacher. After relearning how to drive the vehicle, he drove it off to parts unknown. Well, sort of unknown; after all, George wasn't quite done with this town yet. No, not by a long shot!
***
"Have I told you how much I hate you?"
"Um, lemme think. Yeah, I think so. Like, maybe fifty times."
"Right. You stupid fool. I told you those fake FBI badges were a bad idea, but did you listen to me? No!" Chase looked at his partner and erstwhile girlfriend, and shrugged. She did have a point; after all, he never did consider the possibility that he'd actually run into the same two feds twice. And, as it turned out, they were more than a little bit angry about being tricked the first time he pulled that stunt.*
"Well, how was I to know that -" Chase tried to begin a half-hearted retort, but he was cut short by the sight of his two captors entering the cell block of this exceptionally rural Florida police station.
"Are we still fighting? Well, I hope the two of you get over it, 'cause you're gonna be stuck behind bars for a long, long time. Impersonating a federal officer is a serious offence, my friends. I can't wait to testify against you at your trial."
That was Jim Smitty, Federal Bureau of Investigation stooge number one. His partner, Sam Jurgensen, wasn't quite so smug about the capture of the Agency operatives, as he had doubts about what was going down. No matter what Jim said, he saw a hint of a plant-like person fleeing the scene of the most recent murder, and that made him believe Mitchell York's story - and that of the two Agency investigators - even more.
"C'mon, guys, you've got to let us go! There's a horrible creature out there killing people, and we have to stop it before it strikes again!" Jim looked at Chase with more than a little bit of smug disdain, and grabbed him by the tie through the cell's bars.
"I don't have to do anything, you jerk! You made us look like total chumps back in Colorado, and I've been looking for you ever since. This is my day, and I ain't listening to you!"
"But officer, we did help you catch those bank robbers, didn't we? And we didn't even try to hog the credit!" Jim let go of Chase's tie, causing him to drop to the cell floor.
"So? We didn't get said credit, punk - the Pueblo police did, all by their lonesome. We just looked like morons, being in the totally wrong town. Now shut up. I said I'm not listening to you." As Jim and his partner walked away, Sticks scowled.
"Don't worry, Chase. That thing'll take him and his little toady out in no time, and we'll be there to pick up the pieces - as usual." Walking over to the cell's window, Sticks watched as the two feds got into their unmarked black sedan and drove off, apparently following some lead or another. Once they were gone, she focused her ire and struck the lock on the cell holding her and her compatriot, shattering it with a precision blow.
As the local sheriff ran in to investigate, she then grabbed him by the throat, and swiped his still-holstered gun before he could even think about using it. "Nothing personal, officer, but we're out of time. That thing's going to kill everybody in this town, and you know it."
The sheriff looked at the duo and nodded. "Ayup. Them guv'ment types don't know what they're dealing with. I've never seen anything like them five bodies you two dug up.
"You might at least lock me up, so's I can say you hit me over the head and escaped. But you don't have to really hit me... I can fake that just fine." The two Agency operatives looked at each other in confusion, before the Sheriff freed himself of Sticks' choke hold and locked himself inside another cell. "I'm probably safest in here, anyhow. Besides, if anybody can stop this thing that's stalking my town, it's you two and you kooky toys.
"They're in the top drawer of my desk. Go on now, shoo!"
After the pair of investigators shared another stupefied glance at each other, they raced out of the cell block and seized their personal weaponry. Chase whirled his extending stun baton around a couple of times, still working on getting used to the Agency-produced device but nonetheless happier for having it. Meanwhile, Sticks collected her twin namesakes and, after clearing her thoughts, also nabbed the keys to their rental car.
"What was up with that?" As she hopped in the sedan and started it up, Sticks turned to Chase and just shrugged.
"Maybe it was a moment of serendipity, I don't know, but let's not waste it, already! Get IN!" Before Chase could even close the door, Sticks tore out of the police station parking lot like a bat out of Hell, on the lookout for a pair of FBI agents in dire peril. It didn't take too long, either.
Sticks drove a few blocks down the road, and identified the feds' car - or what was left of it, by guessing that it was the one that had been speared by a giant palm tree that had apparently shot straight through the concrete - and then the vehicle itself. People were running around in a panic, though since the town was so small, it was really just a gaggle of people that were effectively running away from the place altogether.
"This would seem to be the place, sweet cheeks!" Chase got out of the car and instinctively activated his telescoping Taser ™ staff, while Sticks herself concentrated on her personal weaponry and caused them to glow with an eerie, blue-white light. She then exited the rental sedan and nodded in the affirmative, looking for trouble all the while. It took her about four more seconds - though it wasn't the kind she was hoping for.
"What are you two doing here?! Drop 'em or I drop you!!" Agent Smitty trained his gun on Chase first, since his weaponry looked more impressive, which proved to be a serious error. That, of course, was because Sticks flung one of her fighting sticks at the man, disarming him and breaking at least one bone in his hand in the process.
"Clown. We don't have time for this! These people are in danger!! We're in danger!!!"
"You're more right than you know, meat."
As he looked on, Agent Smitty saw the look of sheer malice descend over Sticks McClellan's face, rippling her expression from one of raw anger to one of abject hatred. The difference is subtle indeed, but it was evident enough that it made Smitty shudder. Sticks then pivoted slowly, as though she were being rotated by an exterior force, to face the voice that was coming from Chase's direction - and wasn't coming from Chase himself.
And she definitely got an eye full of disdain right back at her. "Foolish human! You and your pitiful weaponry are useless, for you face the wrath of Mother Nature herself! I am the vengeance of the earth, forged by mystical means to bring humanity to its knees! Look at me and tremble, meat, for you face the Plantmaster!" Without hesitating, Sticks flung her other stick at the self-declared lord of botanical matters, striking him in the chest.
The stick passed clean through his torso and out the other side, the wound sealing up in seconds. "Ha! Stupid girl, I am not a plant masquerading in the shape of a man, or a man transformed into a plant-like monster. I am the elemental manifestation of plant life itself, and am thus comprised of all botanical life that has ever existed! Allow me to demonstrate for you just what that means, and know that you and your fellow apes are doomed!"
Before Sticks or Smitty could dodge the assault, they were bombarded by a seemingly endless string of vines strung from the Plantmaster's hands, vines that by themselves are rather weak - but when stacked together, they were more than enough to completely cocoon the two in a planty shell. This, then, the Plantmaster attached to the ground with more vines, which he allowed to grow together into one giant biomass.
"Let these vines draw your putrid animal flesh back into the earth, so that it may feed new generations of my brethren! And as it does so, know that I will be assembling a vast following of like-minded people, who I will turn against their own species, all to destroy humanity! Mu hu hah hah hah!" As the Agency operative and Federal agent squirmed in their planty cocoon, the Plantmaster stole the Agency 13 operatives' rental car and split.
That took thirty seconds, of course, since he still hadn't quite figured out how to drive a stick again, but he eventually managed it. The final fate he had planned for the hero and the Federal officer didn't happen, though, as he hadn't hit Chase quite as hard as he'd thought. Slowly returning to consciousness, Chase saw that the vines containing Sticks and Smitty were quickly drawing them underground, and as such, he acted fast.
Pulling his personal pen knife, he cut those holding Sticks, even though they made all kinds of squealy sounds when he did so. And, though he was inclined to leave Smitty to his doom, Chase couldn't live with the idea after ten seconds of watching him sink, and cut him loose as well. Before the FBI man could recover, however, Chase recovered his taser staff and leveled it before him, should he try any more legal action this night.
"Hey! Get that thing out of my face, already! I get the point - all of 'em... I'm not gonna try and bring you in anymore. Heck, since you saved my life, I'll call it even and forget all about you, okay?" After a few minutes, Smitty paused, and then continued. "Besides, if anybody's gonna help me even the score for poor Sam..." Smitty started crying for a minute or so, and then pulled himself together. "Monster..."
As the three investigators fully recovered from their wounds, thanks to the priestly powers of Sticks McClellan, they tried to think of some way to defeat their overwhelmingly powerful foe. "Chase, give the Agency a call with that annoying cellular phone of yours, and have 'em send us any backup they can spare right now. Have 'em meet us in Orlando, 'cause we need to go shopping... and we ain't gonna find what we need here."
* See Agency 13 #9.
***
Drop in next month as Chase, Sticks, and Agent Smitty are joined by the Post-Modern Girl in a hunt for the Plantmaster. Can they apprehend the monster before he cements his power base and really cuts loose on humanity? And, if that fails, what other targets might this environmental monstrosity gone wrong choose to assault? Come on back and check out 'Rise of the Plantmaster!' to see what our wacky madman does next!
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Agency 13 # 15 - Not Quite A Swamp Thing
Copyright 2000, 2005, 2012, 2023 Denny Hill 2
All rights reserved and so forth.
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