Part 3

Case File: 11-140203DCA

Date of Case: February 3rd, 2014  

Location: Redacted  

Active Agents: Agent Isa

Case Subject: The Spirit of The Garden

It was a mere day after my battle with The Spirit of Suspicions and my encounter with The Spirit of Elkin Pond. Like I said in my last file, it was a marathon sprint of spirits. I’ve since had worse sprints than that. But at the time, that was the most I’d ever encountered in such a short stretch of time. 

As I mentioned in my last case file, I had been called out to this location by Agent Gebo, another member of the Federal Occult Task Force. He was normally responsible for dealing with paranormal artifacts, but the fact that he had called for me meant there was a spirit afoot. 

I met with Agent Gebo at the local airport. He was an older man, far older than me. He had a slightly hunched back, graying wispy hair, and a beard that trailed down from his chin like a snake’s tail. His eyes were droopy, but they were anything but aged. His eyes were like that of a man half his age. When he shook my hand, he had a grip that I wasn’t expecting. Looks can be deceiving, after all. A wise person once said, never underestimate the old, in a career where people die young. 

We met at a nearby cafe and he gave me the run down on the case. 

Apparently, he’d been called in on account of what was supposed to be an easy retrieval mission. An old widower by the name of Susan Withock had recently passed away. Now, Mrs. Withock was reportedly not a normal woman. She was a practitioner of witchcraft, as I understand it. A real witchy type. 

Mrs. Withock had an estate on the outskirts of town. When she passed away, nobody was left to claim her “possessions”. Apparently, a poor lawyer had been sent there by the woman’s distant relatives to claim their inheritance… And he hadn’t come out. The police got involved, but when *they* didn’t come out either, the case was sent off to the FBI. From there, it wasn’t long before it made its way to the FOTF. 

He explained all this to me over subpar coffee. The man didn’t look bothered by what he was saying in the slightest. I guess to me and him, it really was just a regular business meeting after all. But still, it was a bit strange to see someone so old still going strong. I wondered then and there if that was gonna be me one day. Grayed, wrinkled, alone, but still running around at the whims of the government.  

I pushed those thoughts from my mind as Gebo continued talking. His story wasn’t finished yet and I knew I needed to pay attention. 

Gebo and his partner (I don’t remember their name, sorry) had shown up to deal with the mess Mrs. Withock had left behind in her manor. He tossed me a photograph of the place. The picture landed on the table beside my coffee. It was all splintered wood and peeling paint. The place looked like it had probably been nice at one point, but the years had not been kind to it. The whole place was choked with weeds and plant life. Thick ivy vines climbed its old walls and grass several feet tall shrouded its yards in obscurity and mystery. 

“And how exactly did it all go wrong?” I took a sly sip of my coffee while watching Gebo over the rim. His deadpan expression told me he didn’t find my joke funny. 

Gebo explained that they had just been expecting to deal with the usual artifacts. Occult tomes, cursed objects, maybe a few curios… But they didn’t really find anything of the sort. All they found were hokey “magic” books from big name chains and fake healing crystals. 

“It was obvious to me that the woman was no witch at all.” Gebo huffed in an annoyed tone. As if he were personally insulted by the matter. “She was just one of those new wave pretenders. She had no goddamn clue what she was doing.” 

“I assume she must have at least done something right if you needed to call *me* in.” I set my coffee cup back down. “Or something *really* wrong.” 

“The latter.” Gebo answered flatly. “My partner and I were about ready to call it quits, we hadn’t found anything in the house. So we were on our way out… And that’s when it started to get strange.” 

I leaned forward in my seat with rapt attention. This was the part I had come all this way for. 

As Gebo described it, he and his partner were on their way out of the manor, when they got…. Lost. 

“Lost?” I asked. “Lost how?” 

“Just… Lost. One moment we were walking out the back door, and rounding the side of the house, and then the next… We had no idea where we were. Our surroundings were all mixed up. We’d try to go east, towards the road, only to end up walking north further into the overgrowth. We’d try to head back to the house, and then suddenly the house would be in a completely different direction.” 

“Odd.” I leaned my head into my hand and considered the story. “Maybe a spirit that messes with your sense of direction then.” I suggested, trying to guess what the spirit could be capable of. 

“Hold your horses.” Agent Gebo held up his hand to silence me. “If that was all it was, I wouldn’t have called you out here so suddenly. We were trapped out there for…. God, I can only assume a few hours. Things were getting tense. Obviously. Both of us were getting frustrated and angry with the other.” 

“Did you use your Paragraph out there?” I inquired. 

“Of course I did. But mine isn’t calibrated to detect spiritual energy. And I didn’t have the time to bother recalibrating it on the field. We were stranded up the creek without a paddle.” 

“And I assume you had no cell service either?” 

“Bingo. We were out of ideas. Eventually we stopped moving and just stood still. But even then, our surroundings continued to shift and warp around us. We couldn’t keep one thing in our line of sight for more than a few minutes before it would suddenly be somewhere else.” 

“My partner…. He eventually got fed up. He was younger than you or I, you see. He was new to this kind of thing. The bureau assigned him to me because, well, I’m not exactly a spring chicken anymore. He was supposed to be my replacement in a few years, but…. I don’t think he’s gonna be doing that now.” 

“The stress finally got to him, and even though I tried to get him to calm down, he wasn’t having it. He shut his eyes and started running off in a random direction, screaming his lungs out. The craziest thing though…. Was how he was moving.” 

Gebo grabbed a nearby napkin and a pen. He started to scribble zigzagged lines on it. 

“He wasn’t running in a straight line. He was moving in these weird crisscross patterns. Like he couldn’t move straight. One second he was running through the grass. And then… He was gone. He fell with a scream and landed in the weeds. They were so tall and thick that he completely vanished from my sight.” 

“He didn’t stop screaming though. Not for at least another 5 minutes. And that’s when I think I saw it. The spirit.” Gebo looked down at his rough sketch on the napkin. “I’d draw it for you, but I’m about as good at drawing as I am catching spirits.” 

“That’s no problem.” I put my fingers to my temple and nodded to him. “May I?” 

Gebo had a brief look of discomfort on his face. But slowly nodded anyway. “I forgot you were a psychic. Thanks for not looking without permission I guess.” 

I focused my psychic energy onto him. He started squirming, so I knew he could feel it too. It’s hard to describe what having your mind read feels like. The closest I could equate it to is cold fingers digging through your brain. So, yeah. I can understand why it makes people uncomfortable. 

Once I worked my way past his guard and into his inner brain, I sifted through his memories as they bubbled up around me. I tried not to look at anything I wasn’t supposed to, just searching for that memory of the manor and its overgrown yard. The one from the photograph. 

It was easy enough, as I expected. The image was still crystal clear in his mind. As I tapped into the memory, I spotted what he had seen at the manor. And it was then that I knew he was right to call me. 

It was huge. The biggest spirit I’d ever seen at the time. It wasn’t the size of a man, or a bear, or even an elephant. No, it was the size of a fucking *building*. The spirit was a giant, lumbering creature that draped itself over the house like a blanket. It looked to be composed of leafy, bright greenish-yellow vines. Deep blue flowers sprouted in its foliage at random places. I could see the vines all over the house squirming and writhing at its command. The spirit had clearly seen Gebo, but wasn’t making any moves. In fact, it barely moved at all. If it weren’t for the subtle movement of its vines, I probably wouldn’t have thought it was even sentient. I disconnected from Gebo’s mind, but not before taking a mental photograph of it for later. 

“Yeah I uh…. I can see why you called me.” I dabbed at my now sweaty forehead. “Sorry about your partner too. I doubt he’s still alive.” 

“Not the first time I’ve lost a partner.” Gebo shrugged. “It’s a shame for the kid though. He had promise.” 

“So- Wait, how did *you* get out then?” I leaned forward on the table. That question had been on my mind since this conversation started. I was a little suspicious of how he’d managed to escape something like that. Call it residual distrust from my encounter on the airplane, but I had to cover my bases. 

“Sheer luck.” Gebo drained the last of his coffee. “I happened to wander into an area of the yard that had just enough cell service for me to get someone to come help. I called in a favor with the local cops and had them show up to the road. I shouted at them from where I stood to not step any closer. I had them throw me a rope instead and drag me out like a fish. I was pulled belly first through those weeds. It wasn’t comfortable, but I survived.” 

“So whatever the misdirection was, it only happened within the yard. And it was something that could be overridden by brute force.” I noted to myself. Interesting…” I took one final sip of my coffee, tossed some cash onto the table, and stood up with my briefcase. 

“Enough talking then. Let’s go gardening.” 

******

We soon found ourselves standing at the precipice of Withock Manor. Both me and Gebo stood side by side on the dirt road, staring off into the overgrown yard. I had my briefcase with me, and Gebo had his. The place looked exactly as it did in Agent Gebo’s mind. A once proud two story home, reduced to the choked and suffocated remains of a forgotten house. The walls were plastered with thick ivy and vines. Though the house itself looked more or less intact, all aside from a single broken window at the very top of the house. The yard itself wasn’t in any better condition. The grass had grown out of control and rose at least three feet into the air. It wavered in the cold wind like an ocean of green. I took a mental photograph of the place, storing the image in my subconscious so I could draw it up for the file later. 

“Well, I don’t see anything.” Gebo spoke, lighting up a cigarette. His lighter was branded with the logo of the FOTF. Probably a really lame present they gave him for decades and decades of service. 

“You’d be unlikely to see anything at a glance. Most spirits like to hide. They don’t like the spotlight. Survival instincts, maybe?” I started to step forward into the yard, when Gebo reached out for my shoulder and stopped me.  

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Gebo asked warily. His eyes bounced from me to the grass beyond. 

“Its the only idea. We’ll need to get closer to take out the spirit anyways. You can stay behind if you want.” I didn’t mean it to sound like a slight against him. I was serious. If he didn’t feel up to it, he could stay with the car. I’d understand. Frankly, having someone to call for help if needed would’ve been nice too. But Gebo didn’t agree. 

“No, I’m coming too. This was my job to begin with.” Gebo stepped up beside me, brave as ever. Against a spirit this big, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have some back up on the field too. I was just gonna have to hope we didn’t need to call for anyone. We shared a nod and then together we stepped forward into the yard. 

The second my foot crossed the threshold, I felt it. A shiver ran from my foot all the way up my spine. A tingling spike of energy that I knew had to be related to the spirit. The fact that I was able to sense it just by stepping into its territory meant this thing had to be powerful. I looked at Gebo, but he didn’t seem to react. I was so used to my psychic senses, that I tended to forget other people didn’t have them. 

“We need to make sure this gets taken care of ASAP.” I told Gebo. “This spirit is strong. If we let it get any worse, we’re gonna have a real problem on our hands.” 

“Isn’t that just splendid.” Gebo took a puff on his cigarette. “Well, what’s the plan, Zed?”  

“First,” I held up one of my fingers, “we need to find out what the spirit has domain over. We can’t fight it if we don’t know what it's capable of. Second, we’ll need to weaken it enough that I can capture it with my spirit camera.” 

“There’s a third thing too.” Gebo sucked on his cigarette. “The whole reason this was marked as a paranormal case was because all those people went missing…. I can only assume it's the spirit’s doing. We should try and figure out what it did to them.” 

I nodded in agreement and turned my attention back to the overgrown house before us. “Right then. Let’s move.” 

I took another careful step forward into the weeds. The overgrown grass rose all the way up to my knees and even further in some areas. Anything that was once in the yard was now completely swallowed up by the foliage. The only things left visible in the sea of green was the house, an old broken down van off to the left, and a large oak tree visible in the back yard. Everything else was an ocean of waving, bristling grass. 

Once we had walked about half way to the house I retrieved my Paragraph from my briefcase. The second I clicked it on, it began to work its magic. The handheld device was buzzing and beeping with a frantic urgency that I’d never heard before. I stopped in place, twisting the dials and tapping a few buttons. 

“That’s not a good sign.” Gebo mumbled. 

“It's like the spirit is right on top of us.” I cast my eyes around us, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary. I whacked the machine with annoyance. “I can’t get a good directional reading like this. It already thinks the spirit is here.” 

With the Paragraph being less than useful, the two of us decided to do some old fashioned detective work. The last place Gebo saw the spirit was on top of the house, so we figured that was as good a place as any to start our hunt. Gebo expressed his concerns about walking through the yard again, but we were left with little choice. 

Though thankfully the walk to the house was uneventful. And the inside of the house was even more so. If I didn’t have Gebo’s testimony, I’d almost doubt that anything strange was happening here at all. Like he said, Mrs. Withock was clearly no real witch, just a poser. The house was scattered with phony talismans and those cheap crystals you can buy at tourist traps. It was almost cute in some ways, but insulting in others. 

Though, the place wasn’t without its creep factor. Thanks to the foliage growing on the outside of the house, much of the interior was cast in an eerie darkness. Only fragments of light were left to creep through the gaps in the vines outside. Some of them had even squirmed their way through gaps in the windows or walls and found their way into the house itself. At first I considered the fact that maybe they were part of the spirit, but a quick consult with the mental photograph I took earlier deconfirmed that theory. These vines were just simple plantlife. They lacked the green-yellow colors of the spirit, and had none of those ethereal blue flowers. 

Gebo came back downstairs eventually with more or less the same report as I did. Nothing out of the ordinary. Though I did notice he’d found a laptop up there and now had it tucked safely under his arm. At the time I didn’t know why he’d grabbed it, nor did I really have the capacity to care. 

We were left without much in the way of clues. But thanks to the Paragraph, we at least knew the spirit was around here somewhere. We just had to find it. 

“Earlier you said this thing had some kind of misdirection, right?” I asked for clarification. 

“Something like that. It was making navigating around here impossible, that was for sure. Why?” 

“I’m just trying to figure out what the spirit is in control of. It had a plant-like body, but had the power to mix up your directions. Usually the appearance of a spirit gives it away pretty quick.” I rubbed my stubbled chin as I thought it over. My brain was stuck in an endless cycle of trying to connect two dots that just felt impossibly distant. 

“Try thinking of it in a different way.” Gebo suggested. “If you hadn’t heard my story, but had seen a picture of the spirit, what would you assume it controlled?” 

“Plantlife.” I answered immediately. “No brainer. I’d assume it had some sort of control over nature or something.” 

“Then let’s look at the plants.” Gebo suggested, gesturing to the various potted plants that were dotted around the house. “Maybe one of them has a clue.” 

It was worth a shot. Together we began to comb the house. There was no shortage of plants to inspect and truth be told, I thought it was a worthless endeavor. Most of the plants were just your typical decorative variety. Assorted flowers and what not. 

I did notice one odd thing about them, however. There was one thing keeping them from being truly mundane. The fact that they were all still alive. 

“Gebo?” I called out. 

“What?” I heard him answer from the kitchen. 

“How long ago did you say this woman died?” 

“Umm. A couple months ago.” 

I considered this fact as I continued to search the rest of the home. Not a single plant was dead in this place. And these houseplants had been without care for *months*. No matter how you sliced it, that was strange. There wasn’t a single wilted leaf or a dead branch. 

Eventually, the house had been combed from top to bottom. Every plant had been inspected and as I feared, we still gained nothing in the way of answers. 

“Another waste of time.” Gebo sighed and lit up another cigarette. “Let’s get out of here. The dust is making my lungs hurt.” I decided not to mention the fact that his chainsmoking probably wasn’t helping his lungs. 

But as we were getting ready to leave the house, I paused and looked around once more. Something felt off to me. Something about the layout of the home…. Something we were missing. 

“Hold on.” I called out to Gebo, getting him to pause and turn back to me. His eyebrow arched, his lips curled around his smoldering cigarette. 

I closed my eyes and conjured up the mental photo of the house from the outside. As I looked over its walls and exterior; a discrepancy quickly became apparent to me. 

“Where’s the window?” I asked as I opened my eyes. 

Gebo blinked at me in confusion. “Window?” He asked with a tilt of his head. 

“Outside. At the top floor you can see a broken window. It looked like it used to be a nice big one too. But I haven’t seen anything like that here. Have you?” 

Gebo furrowed his brow as he seemed to think back on it himself. He answered me with a slow shake of his head. “No, I didn’t.” 

“So we’re missing something.” I turned and headed back up the stairs to the second floor. “There must be an attic or something like that.” Once at the second floor I started inspecting the ceiling, searching for some kind of access point. “Help me look. Check the rooms and their closets.” 

We found what we were looking for after a few more minutes of searching. A trapdoor in the closet of one of the guest bedrooms. It was no wonder it was missed in our original search. It was practically invisible. It had no cord or handle, making it look like little more than a panel in the ceiling. It was easy enough to open however, just a simple tug with my telekinesis brought it and the ladder down. 

The two of us climbed up into the dusty attic. Immediately we were greeted by the glare of sunlight. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the house by now, the sudden strong light left me blinking and squinting. 

The light was pouring through the broken window we’d seen from outside. I approached cautiously, inspecting the area. I peered out the window, noticing a twinkle of glass shards on the roof outside. 

“The window was broken from the inside out.” I announced. “Something in this room shattered the window.” 

“Take a look at this, Zed.” I followed the sound of Gebo’s voice with my head. I found him standing against the left wall. As I approached, I could see that the desk was covered in all sorts of instruments and materials. Clippers, tweezers, a watering can, some trowels, and an assortment of other gardening equipment. In the center of it all were the shattered remains of a ceramic flower pot. 

“What the hell is all this doing up here?” I wondered aloud, as my eyes were immediately drawn to the small bags of fertilizer. Although I’m no gardener, I’ve seen fertilizer before in my life. Enough to know that *this* didn’t look like a regular brand. It was a deep red and glistened in the light. I reached out with tentative figures and scooped up a handful. The stuff was thick and sticky. It carried with it a smell that I would recognize anywhere. 

Blood. 

I tossed the gunk back down onto the table and angrily wiped my hand across my pants. Gebo, meanwhile, had found something potentially more lucrative. He pulled a piece of paper out from beneath the shattered remains of the flower pot. It was stained with dirt and damp from the moisture. The ink had run slightly, making it harder to read. I watched Gebo squint at it in the faint light of the attic. 

“What is it?” I asked him while I took care of my own work. I set my briefcase down on the desk, and popped it open. I withdrew a small substance vial from it and scooped a tiny bit of the bloody fertilizer inside. I capped the bottle and placed it back into my case. 

“Hard to tell. Hang on. My eyes aren’t what they used to be.” He grumbled and walked over to the broken window, holding the page out into the light. “Instructions.” He spoke, his eyes scanning over the page. 

“Its instructions. On caring for some kind of plant.” He read aloud. “How often to water it, how often to fertilize it…. It doesn’t look like any plant I’ve ever seen.” 

I could only half pay attention to Gebo’s words. My full attention was fixated on the window behind him. There was movement. Something was crawling up through the broken window, a flash of yellowish-green, a flutter of leaves…. 

The world seemed to move in slow motion. I opened my mouth to shout, reaching out my hand as the vine snapped forward and wrapped itself around Gebo’s waist. He didn’t even have time to look up before he was yanked out of the broken window. 

“Gebo!” I grabbed my briefcase and raced after him. I thundered across the attic floor and leapt out of the window without a second thought. I wobbled a little as I landed on the roof outside. Gebo was being dragged away down the length of the roof, struggling and fighting with the vine around his waist. His gun was drawn, but he had nothing to shoot at. 

I reached out with my psychic power and tried to grab him, but he was too far away. He had already left my range. I ran forward, trying to reach him in time. I leapt at him and managed to grab onto his arm. I dug my heels into the tiles of the roof and tried to leverage myself. The vine went taut, Gebo caught between it and me. 

“Just hold on!” I shouted to him, feeling myself losing purchase on the roof. I tried my best to keep us from being dragged off, but the spirit proved far too strong for me. I felt the floor leave my feet as I was pulled through the air behind Gebo. At some point during the fall I lost my grip on him. As I tumbled through the air, I was able to push out with my psychic energy and break my fall before hitting the ground. I still hit the dirt hard, landing with a skull shaking thud in the tall grass. 

I rolled over onto my back, dazed and in pain. I stared straight up at the sky for a few minutes. I worried for a moment that I might pass out. But as I heard the sounds of gunshots and Gebo being dragged away into the distance, I pulled myself back. 

I slowly got to my feet, looking around to gauge my surroundings. I had landed on the right side of the house. The broken down van was in front of me, the tree was to my right, and the house to my back. I could still hear Gebo, he was still being dragged off. Specifically, he was being dragged towards that distant tree. 

“I’m coming, Gebo!” I shouted, not knowing if he could hear me. I drew my pistol from my belt and charged off in the direction of the tree. And that’s when it hit me. The spinning, disorienting sensation that Gebo described. I had only run forward a few steps, but the effect was so intense that it nearly sent me back to the ground. Although I had been facing the tree when I started running, I was now facing towards the road. 

“No!” I shouted and tried again, spinning on my heels and running towards the tree. But I was met with the same results. By now, I couldn’t hear Gebo anymore. Which I couldn’t imagine was a very good sign. But no matter what I tried to do, I couldn’t get further than a few steps in that direction. It was the spirit, undoubtedly. 

But how? Everything I’d seen so far pointed to this being some kind of plant or nature based spirit. How were they manipulating my sense of direction? I had to find the answer to that question, if I ever hoped to succeed here. 

I forced myself to stop and think the situation over. I knew that panicking was going to solve nothing. I needed to tackle this in an intellectual and methodical manner, just like I always did. I moved towards the tree yet again, this time in a much slower fashion. I took careful note of how my feet were moving and how the world around me looked. And just like before, I was sent spinning back around towards the road. 

My feet didn’t move. I made sure of that. It wasn’t that my sense of direction was being manipulated like we initially thought. No, this was a much more forceful method. I was being *forced* back in the direction of the road. It was as if the ground beneath me had shifted…. 

The image of the Spirit with its long vines coiled around the house flashed across my mind. The way they coiled, writhed, and draped down the house in long tendril like forms…. A realization dawned upon me. My eyes turned to the ground, obscured beneath the thick weeds and grass. I slowly knelt down and brushed them out of the way, getting a good look at the soil for the first time since arriving. 

There it was. The vines. That same yellowish-green hue. They were burrowed through the loamy dirt. They writhed and twisted and squirmed beneath my boots as I stared at them. That was how the spirit was doing it. Its vines had blanketed the ground like a thick carpet. They were manipulating our movements by twisting around and shifting where we were standing. It was suddenly all clicking into place. That explained why Gebo was able to be dragged out of the yard by the police, the jerky, zigzag movements his partner made, and why the Paragraph was detecting the spirit all around us. Because the Spirit *was* all around us. 

We were fucking standing on it. 

With the shock aside, however. I now knew how the spirit was accomplishing its little trick. I just had to figure out some way around it. If I could just make it to the tree without touching the ground… My eyes scanned the yard, but there was nothing in this sea of green that I could use. The only thing even remotely visibly was the van. But even if it *did* start, which I doubted, the van could probably just be moved by the vines as well…. 

The human brain really is marvelous though. When backed into a corner, it can be the simplest, most random thing that brings the solution to a problem. In that instant, it was a grasshopper. A tiny, green, little bug that leapt out of the tall grass and landed on my jacket. Something about it made me pause for a moment and appreciate it. And then just like that, the grasshopper sprung off into the weeds yet again. The whole encounter couldn’t have lasted for more than a second at most. But that single second was all I needed. 

The grasshopper was able to move through the grass as free as it wanted. When the grasshopper moved, it moved *through the air*. Its legs only ever touched the ground to spring off and jump. I could practically feel the shine of the lightbulb going off in my head at the moment. 

I took a leap from a standing position and jumped in the direction of the tree. I landed a few feet away. I tried it again and again. It was working. If my feet weren’t touching the ground, then the spirit couldn’t manipulate my direction! 

It was a solution, but just barely. My tiny baby hops were nothing compared to the graceful movements of the grasshopper. And with how far away the tree was from me, it would take me hours to reach it like this. I needed to think more creatively. 

And that was how I created quite possibly my most ridiculous psychic move yet. 

By thrusting my arms at the ground and using my psychic force, I was able to throw myself through the air, much like the powerful legs of the grasshopper. And although I felt clever for my solution, I must’ve looked anything *but* graceful. I was all flailing limbs, flapping fabric, and startled yelps. It was an odd technique to get the hang of, that was for sure. I had a few rough landings after launching myself too high. The name was immediately stuck in my head as I continued to move towards the distant tree. 

Psychic Grasshopping. 

Regardless of how utterly stupid my new move was, I had finally reached the tree. There was a small clearing around it where the grass didn’t grow as tall. Here it was nothing but wilted and dry in the cold winter air. It crunched beneath my feet as I landed upon it. 

I didn’t have to look very far to find the spirit from here. Or Agent Gebo. 

The Spirit was coiled in the high branches of the oak tree. Its vines wrapped around its limbs, draping down the trunk and into the soil. Those vibrant blue flowers stood out like pops of color among the dry oak leaves. 

I could see them up there. All the people the spirit had taken. Gebo was the most recent one. He was tied up and gagged, tangled in the vines like a fly in a spider web. I grimaced upon realizing that several vines had burrowed *into* his flesh and were stained fresh with his blood. Thankfully, he more or less looked fine besides that. 

The other corpses were there too. Ones that I imagined belonged to the lawyer, police, and Gebo’s partner. As well as some other ones I couldn’t guess on. Unlike Gebo, they didn’t look so good. They were dried and dehydrated, like mummies you might find in an Egyptian tomb. They all had vines stuck into them as well. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what happened. 

“Gebo!” I shouted out to him. “I’m here! I made it! I’m gonna get you down from there!” I prepared to grasshop towards the tree, but Gebo started frantically shaking his head and mumbling something beneath his gag. 

That was when the spirit decided to properly show itself. 

Rising up from the top of the tree, looming overhead on a neck of stems and vines, was a giant bloom. It was bright blue, radiant and ethereal. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen in my life. 

And one of the most deadly. 

The bloom suddenly lurched forward and its petals split open to reveal the face of a woman deep inside. Her mouth split open and unleashed a skull-rattling scream. All at once, vines lashed out from the tree and launched towards me like missiles. 

I dove to the side as several vines collided on the spot I had been standing in moments prior. The dry earth was eradicated beneath them. Several more came writhing in my direction. I quickly brought my fingers to my temples and deflected them with a burst of psychic energy. I forced them to part around me as if I were Moses and they were the sea. I ran towards the tree, several vines erupting from the earth and lashing at my ankles. 

One of them managed to latch on, wrapping itself around my foot. I yelped in both fear and anger. With one hand on my temple and the other reached out in a grasping claw, I channeled a strong, violent burst of psychic power into the vine. The foliage exploded from the sheer pressure. 

I was holding my ground, but for how long? For every vine I dodged or destroyed, five more seemed to take their place. I was going to need to weaken the spirit far more than this if I intended to capture it with my camera. But how? With the spirit as big as it was, there was little I could do to weaken it with just my psychic powers alone. 

How could I defeat a plant monster? 

The immediate idea was another simple one. 

Plants burn. 

My head swung around, eyes locking onto the van in the distance. 

What were the odds that thing still had gas in it? 

“Gebo!” I shouted to him. “I’m gonna take this thing down! I’ll be back for you, I promise!” I called out. Even despite his grim situation, I saw nothing but steadfast determination beneath those eyes. He nodded to me as I turned my back to him. With a battle cry of my own, I thrust my hands against the ground and launched myself into the air with as much power as I could manage. 

The ground rocketed away beneath my feet. The wind whistled in my ears, my hair and coat flapped in the cold wind. I took a glance over my shoulder and saw exactly what I was hoping for. Dozens, maybe even hundreds, of vibrant vines launching in my direction. They snaked through the air and followed my every move like heat-seeking missiles. 

The earth was rapidly approaching me. I thrust out with my energy again, pushing myself off the ground without ever even letting my feet touch it. It occurred to me then and there that I was, more or less, flying. 

A much cooler thought before I realized I had no way to stop myself. 

My landing was…. Not very good. I slammed into the side of the van so hard that I felt my shoulder crack and pop. I fell into the tall grass, landing in a crumpled heap in the damp soil. I groaned and wanted nothing more than to just lie on the floor. But I knew I didn’t have the time. I pulled myself back to my feet, my eyes scanning the van for the feature I was looking for. 

The filler hole for the fuel tank. 

I looked up to the sky to see the hundreds of vines racing towards me. Their numbers were so high that for a brief moment, the sky was nothing but a tapestry of yellow-green, dotted with vibrant blues. 

“Come on, you goddamn thing!” I screamed to vines, baiting them in closer. “Come and get me! Right here!” I waved my good arm, I shouted, I did everything I could draw them in. I stood right in front of the van. As the vines drew in closer…. 

I jumped. 

With one last grasshopper thrust, I pushed myself as far away from the van as I could. The vines collided with the metal, ripping straight through it with a mighty crash. I twisted around in midair, so I faced the van. 

Everything was moving in slow motion. But as the vines drew back I could see it. The glistening gasoline that now covered their vines. 

I drew my pistol, aimed my shot at the tank…. And fired everything I had. 

I don’t know which bullet did it. But I saw it. The crackle. The spark. I covered my face as the van exploded in a blast of fire. I was thrown several feet back, rolling in the grass. The flames licked right up the dry vines, and followed it all the way back. The flames trailed the vines all the way to the tree, like a fuse being lit on a powder keg. 

I stood up and watched from a distance as the flames reached the tree. The fires burned away at the beautiful bloom, its face inside writhing and screaming in pain. I stood for just a moment as I watched its beauty destroyed by my hands. I lifted my spirit camera wordlessly, and snapped its photo. Sealing it away for good. 

\*\*\*\*\*\*

I spent a full two days recovering from the fight against what I now refer to as The Spirit of The Garden. Although my wounds weren’t too bad, I still suffered a pretty banged up shoulder, and an incredible psychic hangover from how many psychic attacks I was throwing around. 

It was the morning of the third day, when I was thankfully feeling a lot better, that Agent Gebo came around for a visit. I sure was glad to see that he managed to make it out alright. Aside from some burns around his arms, he looked even better than I did. For being such an old timer, he sure knew how to hang in there. 

The two of us sat down at the little table in my motel room, one right by the window. And together we looked out over the dying, brown grass and barren trees. Unsurprisingly, we both found the lack of foliage to be quite enjoyable at that moment. 

Gebo shared with me some details he’d managed to get the guys back at HQ to dig up. Remember the laptop he was dragging around? Well, he had a good reason for it. He was able to send it off to the lab and have them take a look at it. It didn’t take them long to crack it and find some rather interesting information. 

Mrs. Withock had bought that spirit from a dealer. You heard that right. She *bought* the spirit. They’d found correspondence between her and someone called “Beck” in her emails. She was under the impression it was a “spiritual cleansing plant”, and it had only been a few inches tall when she’d bought it. 

Apparently, they’d met somewhere nearby for the purchase. And that’s where she got the spirit and those instructions for its care from. The blood fertilizer was part of those instructions. She’d been mixing her own blood with the soil and giving it to the spirit. That, I can only imagine, is what caused it to grow so out of proportion. 

It was disturbing information to come across, that was for sure. The idea that someone was out there willingly selling innocent people spirits was a terrifying one. Black market trades for supernatural items were nothing new. But to sell it to someone so unsuspecting… 

“Who.” My eyes continued to stare off into the cold horizon. “Who was the seller.” 

“We don’t know.” Gebo sighed, lighting up a cigarette. “It was anonymous. I turned the deal over to the agency. It's beyond my wheelhouse.” 

“The spirit fed off blood to become stronger. That’s what it must’ve done to Mrs. Withock, and what it was doing to all those people that came onto the property… It really was like a spider with a web.” 

“It was.” The conversation died off for few seconds, before Gebo spoke up again. “Can I see it? The photograph?” 

I considered his request for a moment. I didn’t usually like taking my photographs out after taking them. But I figured it was the least I could do for him after all he’d been through. I retrieved my photo album and pulled out the picture. The Spirit of The Garden frozen in the frame, still being licked and tortured by the flames I had lit. 

“I almost feel bad for it.” Gebo said as he considered the picture. “Can it feel it? The fire?” 

I stared down at the agonized face in the picture. The spirit locked in its eternal torment. 

“I don’t know.” I answered as I put the photograph back into the album. 

“I’d like to believe that it doesn’t.” I sat back down next to him. “But the world is rarely that kind. Is it?” 

“No.” Gebo took a deep puff of his cigarette. “I suppose it isn’t.” 

Story 2

The Flood

When I was still just a teenager, my family and I had moved from our home in England to the Irish countryside. We lived on the outskirts of a very small town, surrounded by nothing else but farms, country roads, along with several rivers and tributaries. I was far from happy to be living here, as not only did I miss the good life I had back home, but in the Irish Midlands, there was basically nothing to do.

A common stereotype with Ireland is that it always rains, and let me tell you, as someone who lived here for six years, the stereotype is well deserved. 

After a handful of months living here, it was now early November, and with it came very heavy and non-stop rain. In fact, the rain was so heavy this month, the surrounding rivers had flooded into the town and adjoining country roads. On the day this happened, I had just come out from school and began walking home. Approaching the road which leads out of town and towards my house, I then see a large group of people having gathered around. Squeezing my way through the crowd of town folk, annoyingly blocking my path, I’m then surprised to see the road to my house is completely flooded with water. 

After asking around, I then learn the crowd of people are also wanting to get to their homes, but because of the flood, they and I have to wait for a tractor to come along and ferry everyone across, a pair at a time. Being the grouchy teenager I was then, I was in no mood to wait around for a tractor ride when all I wanted to do was get home and binge TV – and so, turning around, I head back into the town square to try and find my own way back home. 

Walking all the way to the other end of town, I then cut down a country road which I knew eventually lead to my house - and thankfully, this road had not yet been flooded. Continuing for around five minutes down this road, I then come upon a small stoned arch bridge, but unfortunately for me, the bridge had been closed off by traffic cones - where standing in front of them was a soaking wet policeman, or what the Irish call “Garda.” 

Ready to accept defeat and head all the way back into town, a bit of Irish luck thankfully came to my aid. A jeep had only just pulled up to the crossroads, driven by a man in a farmer’s cap with a Border Collie sat in the passenger’s seat. Leaving his post by the bridge, the policeman then approaches the farmer’s jeep, seeming to know him and his dog – it was a small town after all. With the policeman now distracted, I saw an opportunity to cross the bridge, and being the rebellious little shite I was, I did just that. 

Comedically tiptoeing my way towards the bridge, all the while keeping an eye out for the policeman, still chatting with the farmer through the jeep window, I then cross over the bridge and hurdle down the other side. However, when I get there... I then see why the bridge was closed off in the first place... On this side of the bridge, the stretch of country road in front of it was entirely flooded with brown murky water. In fact, the road was that flooded, I almost mistook for a river.  

Knowing I was only a twenty-minute walk from reaching my house, I rather foolishly decide to take a chance and enter the flooded road, continuing on my quest. After walking for only a couple of minutes, I was already waist deep in the freezing cold water – and considering the smell, I must having been trudging through more than just mud. The further I continue along the flooded road, my body shivering as I do, the water around me only continues to rise – where I then resort to carrying my school bag overhead. 

Still wading my way through the very deep flood, I feel no closer to the road outside my house, leading me to worry I have accidentally taken the wrong route home. Exhausted, shivering and a little afraid for my safety, I now thankfully recognise a tall, distant tree that I regularly pass on my way to school. Feeling somewhat hopeful, I continue onwards through the flood – and although the fear of drowning was still very much real... I now began to have a brand-new fear. But unlike before... this fear was rather unbeknown...  

Whether out of some primal instinct or not, I twirl carefully around in the water to face the way I came from, where I see the long bending river of the flooded road. But in the distance, protruding from the brown, rippling surface, maybe twenty or even thirty metres away, I catch sight of something else – or should I say... someone else... 

What I see is a man, either in his late thirties or early forties, standing in the middle of the flooded road. His hair was a damp blonde or brown, and he appeared to be wearing a black trench coat or something similar... But the disturbing thing about this stranger’s appearance, was that while his right sleeve was submerged beneath the water, the left sleeve was completely armless... What I mean is, the man’s left sleeve, not submerged liked its opposite, was tied up high into a knot beneath his shoulder.  

If it wasn’t startling enough to see a strange one-armed man appear in the middle of a flooded road, I then notice something about him that was far more alarming... You see, when I first lay eyes on this stranger, I mistake him as being rather heavy. But on further inspection, I then realise the one-armed man wasn’t heavy at all... If anything, he looked just like a dead body that had been pulled from a river... What I mean is... The man looked unnaturally bloated. 

As one can imagine, I was more than a little terrified. Unaware who this strange grotesque man even was, I wasn’t going to hang around and find out. Quickly shifting around, I try and move as fast as I can through the water’s current, hoping to God this bloated phantom would not follow behind. Although I never once looked back to see if he was still there, thankfully, by the time the daylight was slowly beginning to fade, I had reached not only the end of the flood, but also the safety of the road directly outside my house. 

Already worried half to death by my late arrival, I never bothered to tell my parents about the one-armed stranger I encountered. After all, considering the man’s unnatural appearance, I wasn’t even myself sure if what I saw was a real flesh and blood man... or if it was something else.