Because what Harry saw next was an empty alley.
Drats! Where could he have gone, there’s nowhere around here to hide.
There were a few locked doors. An almost empty dumpster. And a drainpipe that was dripping, but too rickety to climb. Harry almost went back inside to see if he could find any clues back in the shop. But the drip, drip, drip of the drainpipe distracted him.
It hasn’t rained in weeks, he thought to himself taking a closer look. That’s when he saw it. A slight fuzzy brown growth starting at the bottom of pipe and growing up inside past where he could see.
“Excuse me sir, can I help you?”
Harry practically jumped out of his curdoroy suit. “Christ on a cracker,” he said, “you scared me.”
“I’m sorry sir, I just saw you out here, err, looking around so I figured you may need a hand.”
Harry took another look at the guy. He looked to be in his 20s, and was wearing a t-shirt with paint on it and a ratty baseball cap that said Lewis Construction.
“Well, yes, maybe you can help. I’m looking for a man that works at the Rusty Grain Co, the shop right here. He’s tall and has black hair. You wouldn’t happen to know him, would you?”
“Yes, sir, I do. I work at this carpentry shop right here and have run into Mr. Rob quite a few times. Strange fella, always seems to be focused on work, barely has a word to spare, but I never had any troubles with him.”
“Mr. Rob?”
“Yessir. So what are you looking for him for anyway? He’s not in trouble or anything like that, is he?”
“No, not exactly. I just have an, erm, something to give him.”
“Well, I hope you find him then.”
When the coast was clear, Harry let himself back inside the Rusty Grain Co. to take a look around. He couldn’t find much. Some receipts that didn’t seem important. A figurine of a dog and a sheep standing together. And a book of poetry by Ovid.
He was almost ready to leave when he decided to take another look at one of the bags of grain. On it was written: Rye Guy Farms and an address. As he scribbled down the address his phone started ringing.
“Hello, Harry on the line.”
“Harry, this is George. Come to the lab right away. I have something I need to show you.”
Harry sped to the lab, not even bothering to try and turn off the reggae that was blaring the whole way.
When he stepped into the lab, George was in his white labcoat, swirling a red liquids in a beaker.
“Good, you’re just in time. I’ve been doing some experiements and, well, what I’ve found is rather surprising.”
Harry fake puffed his empty pipe as if in a gesture for George to go on.
“It was easy to confirm this was a form of wheat rust, but there were some pecularities in the genetic makeup that had me scratching my head. I had to call a friend who’s a professor at the University of Georgia who specializes in studying crop diseases, and he pointed me in the right direction. Long story short, what you gave me is a mutated form of ergot.”
“Ergot?”
“It’s a type of fungus that infects wheat, rye, and other grains. But this one is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It almost seems… ancient in a way. Like a devolved form. I also get the uncanny feeling when I put it under the microscope that it knows I’m watching. I filmed it on camera and it almost seems to act differently when I’m away. I sent it to my professor friend for further analysis, but that will take quite some time.”
“Intelligent ergot? So what you’re saying is that my theory that fungi stole her vase may be correct?”
George looked up from his beaker. “Well, Harry, I should really learn to stop doubting you.”
“So if you were this intelligent fungi, where would you find yourself on a day like today?”
George figured he’d humor him. “Well, ergot needs living grain to survive. It likes wheat, but loves rye. If there are any rye fields around here, that’s where I’d begin to look.”
“I know just the place,” Harry said, spinning on his heels and heading out the door.
“Harry, one more thing,” George yelled after him. “Ergot causes painful tremors and hallucinations, be careful out there!”
Unfortunately, Harry was down the hall and out the door and didn’t hear a thing George said. As Harry drove down the highway he tried to reason with his radio.
“Look, Radio, I know we haven’t always gotten along, but I need your cooperation here. I really need to think. Can you please turn that down.”
Harry had learned shortly after getting the car that the radio had a transistor part made only in Jamaica. And as such, the radio considered itself Jamaican and liked listening only to reggae. And while Harry enjoyed reggae from time to time, he was much more of a jazz guy himself. Radio must’ve sensed the desperation in his voice because a rendition of Nardis by Bill Evans Trio started playing.
When Harry arrived at the rye field the sun was setting and the gate leading in was unlocked. He turned off the car lights and drove a little further before getting out. He crouched in the field and walked until, in the dimming light, he saw a dark-haired figure standing in the field.
The head looked towards him, Harry ducked down further
“You think I can’t see you, human? I only ran from you at the shop because that is your world. Now you’re in mine.”
Human? Harry thought, standing up and walking the rest of the way there. “Hi, there, Rob-igus, is it? I was just hoping to talk a mom—” Harry stopped dead in his tracks. In the setting sun he saw that Robigus had his arms out, dark purple having grown all over his body and spreading out tendrils to the rye field around him.
“So, you know my true name, but still, this surprises you?”
“Well, it does look a bit odd, I must say. But… what are you?”
“Let’s just say I come from very far away. Somewhere you humans haven’t yet learned to understand. I came here to give you knowledge. But your ancestors turned me away. They were afraid of me. What I knew. They called me evil and wished me away. Do you know what it’s like? To be locked in a vase for thousands of years with a mind like mine.”
“Locked in the vase? So you didn’t break in… you escaped?”
“Now you’re figuring it out.”
“Then what about Mr. Rob? The grain store? Why were you there?”
“It’s simple, I needed to eat. I’ve worked up quite the appetite in the last few thousand years. And now that I’m nourished, it’s time to show you what I can really do.”
“Wait!” Harry yelled as the purple came off the rye and turned their tentacles towards him. When one struck him a burning pain course from that spot. More and more latched on. He wasn’t just in agony, he was seeing visions.
Twisted bodies, demons, flying beasts. Fires burned in both his body and his mind.
In his painful delirium Harry just managed to squeak out, “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Because it’s in my nature, Mr. Detective. Because I can.”
“I thought you were supposed to protect people, protect their crops from diseases?” He said twisting on the ground, trying to resist clawing his eyes out with his fingers.
“Protect? No, I never protected anything from disease. For how clever you think you are, you misunderstand, human. I am the disease.”
Harry’s body racked and twisted. He looked up from the ground and everything appeared to be in flames. His vision grew staticky and faint. The last thing he saw before everything get black was a truck driving through the fields towards him.
He drifted in and out of concsiouness seeing clouds, then an angel swooping down on him, then a bright white light.
***
Harry awoke in a bed. What a dream, he thought. He opened his eyes and a bright flurescent light shone down into his retinas. There was a nurse standing next to him taking his pulse.
“Oh good, you’re up. I’ll get the doctor.”
A few minutes later she was back with man in his 60’s with silver hair and a fluffy beard.
“Detective Hughes, it’s good to see you up. You probably don’t rememer me, but you spoke with me when you were here investigating the Chicken Finger bandit?”
Harry thought back to when he solved a case where a nurse was stealing medication and leaving chicken fingers from the cafeteria in their place.
“Ah, yes, good to see you,” Harry managed to blurt out. “But why am I here doc?”
“You don’t remember? Ahh, you were found in a field with ergot poisoning. No one is sure how you got it so bad, but don’t worry, we got you cleaned up.”
“Well, then I really should be go—”
The doctor tried to protest but Harry was trying to stand up and the world went dark again.
A little later he woke up and George was sitting beside him on the only chair in the room.
“He’s awake,” George said.
“Am I still dreaming?” Harry replied.
“No, you’re awake. And you’re talking to the guy who saved your sorry ass.”
George went on to explain to him how he’d done more analysis on the sample and found some pecularities he couldn’t ignore. The ergot seemed to have human DNA in it. And he tried calling Harry but he hadn’t picked up his phone. So he looked up the closest rye grain field and headed straight there.
“The crazy thing is, Harry, you were right. Robigus was real.”
Harry looked puzzled.
“You don’t remember, you were writhing in pain at his feet when I got there. You were yelling about ghosts and demons I was scared for you.”
Harry remembered the burning, the visions. He could almost feel the fungus touching his skin again. Then he saw the truck. “You ran the bastard over?”
George smiled.
“You killed a god.”
George held his finger up to his lips in a shush.
The next day they let Harry out of the hospital and George drove him to the Javelin down at the rye fields. Harry said, “I owe you one,” and they parted ways.
Harry got in the car. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to leave you for 2 days. I was in the hospital.” He turned the car on and Flamenco Sketches came on. He put it in drive and drove to the nearest music store.
When he got back into the car, Radio noticed he had a small brown bag. He took out a cassette tape, put it in, and pressed play.
Max Romeo came through the speakers singing loud and clear. Harry rode down the street singing right alongside him.
I’m gonna put ot an iron shirt and chase the devil out of Earth…