Goat Weed

CW: Blood, gore, body horror

               Colton Madden checked the backyard camera for the eleventh time before lunch. The weed was still there. He enlarged the image until individual blades of grass dissolved into green pixels. The plant stood beside the western fence, maybe eight inches tall, its thin stem covered in narrow leaves and dozens of tiny hooked spikes. “Motherfucker.”

               His coworker glanced over the partition. “What?”

               “Nothing.”

               Colton locked his phone. It was not nothing. He had pulled that fucking plant before leaving for work. Not clipped it. Not sprayed it. Pulled it. Colton remembered the spikes catching his work glove. One had punched through the fabric and buried itself in the pad of his thumb. He had cursed, yanked his hand away, then grabbed the plant closer to the ground. He remembered feeling the root release from the Wyoming soil. He had shaken off the dirt and dropped it into the garbage can.

               He checked the hole. Empty. Now goat weed stood in precisely the same place. Colton reopened the camera. Still there. Thirty seconds later, he checked again.

               Colton had been born in Louisiana but spent most of his life in Texas. He knew weeds. He knew how quickly southern vegetation could reclaim anything people neglected. He had seen vines swallow fences and grass split concrete. Wyoming had been different. That was part of why he liked it. The oil-and-gas job paid better than anything he had done in Texas, and the landscape appealed to him. Open country. Long horizons. Fewer people.

               His house sat near the edge of town, where subdivisions surrendered to prairie, and Colton maintained the property obsessively. Especially the lawn. Goat weed had appeared near the fence in May. One plant. Colton pulled it. A week later, there were three. He sprayed them. Five appeared. He bought stronger herbicide. By June, he was walking the perimeter every morning before work. That was when the checking started. It did not feel compulsive. It felt responsible.

               Coffee.

               Shower.

               Teeth.

               Boots.

               Goat weed.

               Work.

               Except lately he had begun checking twice. Then three times. He would pull out of the driveway and wonder whether he had missed one behind the shed. At work, he checked the cameras. At night, he stood at the kitchen window with a flashlight. Melisa, his ex-wife back in Texas, would have called it obsessive. Colton called it winning. Plants were not complicated. You killed them until they stopped coming back.

               At 5:37pm, Colton parked in the driveway and walked directly around the house. The plant was there. Same narrow leaves. Same ugly clusters of spikes. Same fucking place. This time Colton put on leather gloves. He grabbed the stem. “Got you.” He pulled. The root came free with surprising resistance. It was longer than he expected. Much longer. Six inches. A foot. Two feet. The pale root slid from the ground like a cord being drawn through a wall. “What the fuck?”

               He wrapped it around his hand and pulled harder. The root snapped. Something beneath the soil recoiled. Colton froze. He had felt it. Not imagined it. The root had jerked backward. He crouched and pushed two fingers into the hole. Nothing. “Bullshit.” He carried the plant toward the garbage can, then stopped. Throwing it away suddenly seemed insufficient. Instead, he walked into the garage, dropped it onto the concrete, and crushed it beneath his boot. The spikes flattened. Several caught in the rubber tread. He twisted his boot until the stem became a wet green smear. “Come back from that.”

               At 2:14am, Colton woke. He did not know why. The house was silent. He reached for his phone. 2:14am. He opened the security app. Front porch. Driveway. Side gate. Backyard. Garage. Colton stopped breathing. The crushed plant was gone. The green smear remained. No plant. He sat upright. “Who’s there?”

               Silence.

               He felt stupid immediately. Who exactly was going to answer? He checked the doors and windows.

               Locked.

               Garage.

               Closed.

               He returned to bed but did not sleep. At 3:08am, he checked again.

               3:41am.

               4:17am.

               5:02am.

               At 5:26am, 20 minutes before his alarm, Colton gave up. He showered, dressed, made coffee, and stepped outside. There were six goat weeds beside the fence. He dropped his coffee.

               Colton called in late. He drove to the hardware store and bought herbicide, vegetation killer, a shovel, rock salt, vinegar, and thicker gloves. By 9:00am, the western edge of his lawn looked chemically assaulted. He dug every plant out. Even through the new gloves, the spikes hurt. They found seams and gaps, catching his wrists whenever he reached down. One went through the glove near his index finger. By the time he finished, both forearms were dotted with blood. Then he kept digging. Six inches beneath the surface, he found roots. At 12 inches, more. At 18, he found something that made him stop.

               A thick white mass ran horizontally beneath his lawn. It was almost as thick as his wrist. There was no way those tiny plants had produced it. Colton stabbed it with the shovel. Milky fluid sprayed from the cut. The root contracted. Colton fell backward. “No way.”

               The severed ends writhed. Not quickly. Not dramatically. But unmistakably. The buried root flexed like injured muscle. Anger overwhelmed fear. Colton raised the shovel. “Fuck you.” He chopped again.

               And again.

               He kept swinging until the root became pulp. Then he poured vegetation killer into the hole. For several seconds, nothing happened. Then the ground moved. A ripple passed beneath the grass toward the house. Ten feet. Twenty. Thirty. It disappeared beneath the foundation.

               For three days, nothing grew. Colton relaxed. On the fourth morning, he stepped into the garage barefoot and screamed. Something had pierced his heel. He jerked his leg up. A goat weed spike protruded from his skin. “Fuck!” He pulled it free. The spike was nearly half an inch long. A bead of blood swelled from the puncture. A plant protruded through the expansion joint in the concrete. “That’s impossible.”

               He sprayed it until liquid pooled around the stem. That evening, two appeared beside the water heater. The next morning there were seven. Colton installed another camera and aimed it directly at the garage floor. At work, he checked constantly.

               9:03am.

               9:11am.

               9:19am.

               9:24am.

               At 10:06am, his supervisor stopped beside his desk. “You planning on doing anything today?”

               “I am doing something.”

               “You’re staring at your phone.”

               “Something’s getting into my house.”

               “Call an exterminator.”

               “It’s not an animal.” His supervisor waited. Colton realized how that sounded. “I’ll put it away.”

               At 11:31am, Colton checked again. The plant had moved. At 11:13am, it had been directly beneath the camera. Now it was several inches closer to the interior door. He opened the recording. At 11:26am, the stem bent. The plant lowered itself until almost horizontal. Its exposed roots emerged from the crack one by one. They stretched across the concrete. Contracted. The plant moved half an inch. Then again. It was crawling. Toward the door. Colton replayed the footage. On the fourth viewing, he noticed something worse. After each movement, the stem lifted toward the camera. It knew it was being watched. Colton stood so abruptly his chair rolled backward.

               His supervisor looked over. “Colton?”

               He grabbed his keys. “I have to go.”

               He bought gasoline on the way home. Colton found 12 plants in the garage. They formed a rough line toward the interior door. He ripped them out. The spikes tore through his gloves. One embedded beneath his thumbnail. Colton screamed, ripped off the glove, and pulled it free with his teeth. Blood filled the edge of the nail. He poured gasoline into the crack, then stepped outside. Even angry, he was not stupid enough to ignite gasoline inside his house. The yard could burn. He poured a line along the western fence. He struck a match. Fire raced across the dead grass. For one glorious minute, Colton felt victorious.

               Then the screaming began.

               He staggered backward. It came from underground. A high, thin shriek rose from beneath the burning soil. The lawn trembled beneath his boots. Goat weed erupted from the earth. Not grew. Erupted. Hundreds of spiked stems punched through the grass. One brushed his calf. Three spikes punctured his jeans. Colton screamed and stumbled away. The fire department arrived seven minutes later. By then he had extinguished most of the flames. One firefighter stared at the ruined lawn. “Trying to kill weeds?”

               Colton looked around. They were gone. Every one of them. “Yeah.”

               The firefighter laughed. “Looks like you won.”

               Colton said nothing. He knew better.

               That night, something scratched inside the wall.

               Scratch.

               Pause.

               Scratch.

               Colton walked into the hallway and pressed his ear against the drywall. Something moved behind it. Not a mouse. The sound was too slow. A dragging noise traveled downward and stopped beside an electrical outlet. A green tendril emerged through the socket. Colton fell backward. Its surface bristled with tiny spikes. He grabbed it. The plant wrapped around his finger. A dozen spikes entered his skin at once. He screamed. The vine tightened. More spikes sank into his knuckles. He yanked free, leaving several embedded in his flesh. Blood ran down his hand. The tendril vanished. Then every outlet in the hallway began sprouting thorns.

               Colton did not go to work the next day. He tore open the wall. Roots filled it. They twisted around wiring and insulation, pale strands packed so densely that sections pulsed when he touched them. He cut them. They bled white. He sprayed them. They recoiled. Kitchen wall. Roots. Laundry room. Roots. Bedroom. Roots. By afternoon, Colton had exposed nearly half the interior framing. He called a landscaping company. The man who arrived inspected the yard. “You said goat weed?”

               “That’s what it looks like.”

               “Where?”

               “Inside.” Colton led him into the house. The walls were empty. No roots. No thorns. Only torn insulation and drywall. “They were right fucking there.”

               The landscaper looked at him carefully. “You doing okay, man?”

               “You think I did this for fun?”

               “I think maybe you should get some sleep.”

               “Get the fuck out.”

               After the landscaper left, Colton checked the backyard camera. One goat weed stood beside the fence. He looked through the kitchen window. Nothing.

               Phone.

               Plant.

               Window.

               Nothing.

               Colton walked outside. The patch was empty. He looked at his phone while standing where the camera showed the weed. On-screen, the plant stood directly beside his right boot. Colton dropped the phone.

               He stopped sleeping. Every time he closed his eyes, he imagined roots entering the house. He checked the cameras. The walls. Beneath the bed. His shoes. The shower drain. The toilet. The vents. Then everything again. Sometimes the plants appeared only on camera. Sometimes he found burrs inside his sock, under his pillow, or in his jacket pocket. On the third sleepless night, Colton felt something beneath his thumbnail. A thin green filament protruded from underneath the nail. “No fucking way.”

               He grabbed tweezers. The filament was slippery. He pulled. Pain shot through his thumb. The strand kept coming.

               One inch.

               Two.

               Three.

               Colton screamed. He pulled harder. Something tore inside his hand. Blood welled beneath the nail. The strand snapped. Colton threw it into the sink. It moved. He turned on the garbage disposal and ran the blades until the motor smelled hot. Then he checked himself. Other hand. Nothing. Feet. Nothing. Mouth. Nothing. He lifted his shirt. Nothing. He laughed. A small, desperate sound. “It’s probably nothing.”

               Something moved beneath the skin of his abdomen. Colton stopped laughing. A line traveled slowly from his ribs toward his navel. He pressed both hands against it. The movement stopped. Then something sharp pushed outward. His skin tented. A thorn broke through beside his belly button. Then another. Then six.

               Colton screamed until his throat tore. He grabbed one spike and pulled. A green strand followed. The pain dropped him to his knees. Warm blood ran down his stomach. Colton crawled to the kitchen and grabbed a knife. He cut it. The severed end disappeared into his abdomen. “No. No, no, no.”

               His stomach moved. Several bulges traveled beneath the skin. He could feel roots inside him. How they entered did not matter. He staggered toward the front door. He needed a hospital. He opened it. Goat weed covered the porch. Thousands of hooked spikes crowded together, forming a wall of thorns.

               He slammed the door. The HVAC kicked on. Burrs blasted from the vents. Colton covered his face. They filled the air like shrapnel. Several caught in his hair. One struck his cheek. Another lodged in his lower lip. Colton ripped them free. The house creaked.

               Not settling.

               Contracting.

               Roots burst through drywall. Spiked vines wrapped around furniture. The refrigerator tipped. Cabinet doors tore from hinges. Colton ran. A vine caught his ankle. The spikes sank through his sock. He hit the floor, his chin splitting against the hardwood. He kicked free and crawled toward the bedroom. The hallway narrowed as roots pushed through both walls. “You want the fucking house?” His voice broke. “Take it!”

               The roots stopped. Silence. Then a vine slid around his wrist. Another wrapped his ankle. Another crossed his chest. Colton understood. The house was not what it wanted.

               Colton had spent months treating the plant as an invader. Something that did not belong. Something occupying his property without permission.

               Pull it.

               Poison it.

               Burn it.

               Destroy the roots.

               Do whatever was necessary until it stopped coming back. Now, pinned to his own floor, Colton understood the lesson he had taught it. He was the invasive species. The first vine tightened around his chest. Its spikes penetrated his shirt. Dozens entered his skin simultaneously. Colton screamed. A second vine wrapped his thigh. Then another his other leg. Each contraction drove the spikes deeper. His back arched. “Please.”

               The plants did not care.

               Why would they?

               Colton had never cared when they were the ones being torn apart. More vines emerged. One coiled around his forearm. Another crossed his stomach. One wrapped his neck without tightening, holding his head still. Colton thrashed. That made it worse. Every movement drove the spikes deeper. His clothes darkened with blood. Then the plants began growing through him. A thorn entered the wound beneath his thumbnail. Another pierced his eyelid. Colton squeezed his eyes shut. Spikes punched into his cheeks.

               His shoulders.

               His palms.

               The soles of his feet.

               His scalp.

               His lips.

               His back.

               There were too many points of pain to distinguish anymore. Hundreds. Colton screamed until a vine crossed his mouth and its spikes buried themselves through both lips. His scream became a wet moan. The roots tightened. Every thorn advanced. Blood ran along the vines and dripped onto the floor. His abdomen swelled as roots moved beneath his skin, branching through him. Then new spikes began emerging from the inside. One broke through his forearm. Another through his thigh. Three pushed outward beneath his ribs. Colton's eyes widened. The plant was not merely stabbing him.

               It was growing through him.

               A spike emerged from his cheek. Another pierced through the back of his hand. Two split the skin along his chest. A cluster pushed through his back. His body became a lattice of flesh, roots, and thorns. Colton stopped fighting. His chest rose once. Twice. A final ring of spikes drove inward around his throat. His body convulsed. Then went still. The goat weed held him upright for several minutes after he died.

               Slowly, almost carefully, the vines lowered him onto the ruined floor. By morning, hundreds of spikes protruded from Colton Madden's body. He looked less like a man who had been attacked by a plant than something the earth had decided to grow.

               Colton did not report to work Monday. By Wednesday, police performed a welfare check. His truck was in the driveway. His phone lay on the kitchen floor. They found Colton in the hallway. His body was covered in puncture wounds. Hundreds crossed nearly every exposed surface. Several passed completely through his hands and cheeks.

               There were no plants.

               No roots.

               No vines.

               Not a single thorn remained in his body. The coroner could not explain the pattern. Investigators found the backyard nearly destroyed. Large sections had been poisoned, excavated, or burned. The house sat vacant through winter. Wyoming snow buried the yard. Temperatures fell below zero. Everything froze.

               In April, a real-estate agent arrived to evaluate the property. She photographed the damaged hallway, stained floor, and exposed studs. Then she heard something inside the wall.

               Scratch.

               Pause.

               Scratch.

               She leaned closer. “Who’s there?” Something tapped from the other side. A thorn pushed through a crack in the drywall. Then another. She left without finishing the inspection. By May, goat weed covered the backyard. The largest patch appeared directly outside the hallway where Colton Madden had died. The plants there were dense, healthy, and covered with unusually long spikes. A neighbor complained that someone needed to deal with the weeds before they spread.

               Eventually, a maintenance contractor arrived carrying a sprayer. At the hallway wall, he stopped. The goat weed was unlike anything he had seen. He crouched and wrapped one gloved hand around the largest plant. A spike punched straight through the leather and entered his palm. “Son of a bitch.”

               He jerked his hand away. A bright bead of blood formed on the glove. The contractor stared at the plant. Then reached for the sprayer.

               Deep beneath the Wyoming soil, something moved toward him.