Bill's Bermuda Grass

(note: for the interactive version in which You get to make up the story, click here --->"Bermuda Grass" 

Chapter 1: Out of the Ordinary

Bill lived in regular city, complete with a regular skyline, behind which a regular suburbs squatted on the outskirts. His neighborhood was normal in most respects, which is why he chose to live there on the corner of St. Augustine and Rye streets. The houses were lined up rather unspectacularly, block after block, street after street as far as the eye could see. People parked their cars in the garages, walked their dogs at dusk, watered their lawns at night and went to sleep in their little beds right after the Conan O'Brien Show... Okay. Carson. I mean Letterman, or Leno or whoever he is.

On the weekends they invited each other over for barbecue, did their yardwork or went to the movies. There was nothing that seemed out of the ordinary about any of their lives, which was exactly why Bill moved in to the house on the corner of St. Augustine and Rye. He had only been living there for a few months when everything began to change.

Bill took great pride in his yard and spent most weekends fertilizing or mowing or trimming or mulching so his lawn would always look its best. Sometimes he even declined invitations to barbecues in order to finish pruning or raking or whatever other yardwork he had chosen for himself. One Monday morning after a weekend of yard chores, he woke up and started to go about getting ready for work and noticed that it seemed unusually dark in the house, so he went to the bedroom window to look out. Pulling back the curtains, a puzzling look pinched up his forehead. Something dark, green and grassy was against the outside of the window reaching nearly all the way to the frame.

"Huh?" he said aloud. " What in suburbia is that?"

He looked across the room to the other window and went over and pulled the curtains back. Again, there was something on the outside blocking his view into the yard. Something dark and grassy-looking.

"Something is not right." he said quickly dressing. He muttered to himself while he was washing his face and brushing his teeth. He stared into the bathroom mirror quizically, as if trying to find the answer there, all the while wondering what could possibly be in front of his windows. When he was completely dressed, washed and brushed, he went directly to the front door, turned back the deadbolt, and pulled it opened. Bill stood still in complete disbelief as he looked out into the yard, his mouth hanging open, eyes wide. The grass in the entire front yard was towering at least 4 feet above his head, waving lightly in the morning breeze. It reached halfway up the side of the house, layed itself against the windows, swallowed up the sidewalk completely, and .... spilled up onto the porch.

The shrubs which used to frame the edges of the house nicely, as they marched in a low perfect line from porch to corner, had grown to three times their size and produced a thick bramble that tangled with the freshly grown grasses of the yard.

" Amazing..." he said slowly, "What have I been feeding this stuff?"

Bill stepped off the porch and pushed the swaying grasses from the path of the sidewalk, wondering if he was dreaming. He slapped himself square in the forehead, closed his eyes and opened them again, but the grass was still there, crazily waving in the air like a massive grain field. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Out in the street and on the sidewalks, Bill's new yard was attracting attention. The neighbors were coming out of their houses and gawking. Some of them were coming over to have a better look, but noone was getting too close. In fact, the sidewalk directly in front of Bill's lot was covered over by the grass and nobody was walking on it. They were gathering in small groups and talking in hushed tones when with a great rustle of grass and foliage, Bill half stumbled and popped out onto the street.

Bill neighbors were not about to let something like this go by unnoticed. In this quiet little neigborhood, there was no excuse for Bill not keeping up with his yardwork. And although they'd seen him out in the yard working lately, they of course, refused to believe that this had happened overnight. They figured, maybe somehow, this must have slipped past them unnoticed until now. Bill's neighbor, Rusty, decided to press the point.

" Bill, you're looking a little haggard. Rough night?" asked Rusty. He came over a little closer, and said quietly, " Bill you know these people around here aren't going to put up with this untidy yard you got going on, right?" He was twisting a piece of wire around a nail for some reason.

Bill looked at him dead in the eye. " Yeah I know Rusty. But look here, this is not my doing. I'm as shocked as the rest of you."

Rusty drew down the corners of his mouth while he considered this. " Shocked. Yeah. Sometime we can surprise even ourselves, I guess. But you'll have to snap out of it and get back to business. If you let your yard go, these people will run ya' right out of town. They're like animals ya' know. Very righteous about their yards. Look around Bill. Ain't they beautiful? " He motioned to the other nearby lawns, perfectly manicured, not a blade out of place, sparkling in the morning air.

He thinks I've fallen into a depression, thought Bill, that I've taken to laying on the couch all day doing nothing! Like I've lost my mind! Some of the other neighbors were frowning at Bill, too.....and whispering about him, he was sure.

Bill tried to explain to the neighbors that this ten foot tall grass just happened overnight. Just grew right up out of the ground by its own free will! They looked at him with blank expressions. Sure Bill, whatever, he could almost hear them thinking. He could see by the look in their eyes that he was losing them. This guy expects us to believe that his grew ten feet overnight?!

In the end all he could do was promise them that he would take care of it. Embarrassed, he quickly went back inside his house. He decided to call his friend Betty. Betty was his neighbor that lived sort of behind him. Her yard was the most lavishly landscaped in the whole neighborhood. Anyone that knew Betty, knew she meant business when it came to gardening. She really, truly had what people call a green thumb. Bill took the opportunity to solicit her help.

"Help me Betty." he said pitifully into the phone. " If anyone can get me out of this, you can.."

"Bill why don't you just cut the grass?" she asked. She was sitting in her kitchen, pouring plant fertilizer into a little row of ten tiny plastic pots filled with dirt. She carefully measured just the right amount into a tablespoon and poured it in each one.

" Betty, " Bill said desperately, "this grass grew overnight...."

"Uhmm hmmm." Betty said, absorbed in her work. She double checked the active ingredients in the fertilizer before continuing.

"Betty?" Bill repeated himself, "Did you hear me? It grew overnight!"

"I heard you Bill." Betty said frowning slightly.

" You don't believe me either."

"Bill. It's not that I don't believe you. But overnight? Come on."

" Never mind then, Betty. I'll figure something out."

"Hang on there, Bill." Betty took off her glasses, frowned and set down her plastic pots and her fertilizer bag. "Why don't I come over and have a closer look?"

"Sure it's not too much trouble?" Bill brightened up a bit. "I know you're probably getting ready for the garden show this month....it could wait..."

Betty checked her watch and said, "Not a problem, Bill. I'll be right over."

"Thanks. Bye"

(wanna add you own chapter? There's an interactive version of this story that you can play around with. Try "Bermuda Grass" )


Chapter 2 : Life of Its Own

Betty showed up at his door a few minutes later. She was a happy looking middle aged woman, who wore jeans and a baggy sweatshirt. Her round, pink face was framed with some crazy, blonde hair that didn't seem to know what it wanted to do. Her face was lined with the sun, and there was dirt under her fingernails. Bill smiled and offerred her a lemonade when he saw her. Betty was such a nice lady, and so smart when it came to gardening and such. He was sure she would know what to do.

"Yeah, I know what to do all right," she was saying, "... you need to go out there and cut that grass down, Bill. Simple as that."

Bill shut his eyes tight and then reopened them.
"Yeah, Betty., I know that!. But how do you think it happened? What if it happens again?"

Betty studied Bill for a moment and twirled the ice cubes in her lemonade before answering. She was not all too sure what could have happened. But she knew she wasn't living in the Twilight Zone or anything, and she hadn't really been paying attention to see if Bill was keeping up with his yardwork or not over the last few weeks. She might have thought it was entirely possible that Bill had just let his yard go to hell. But she just said, "I have no idea how it happened, Bill. But as your friend, just let me say. Cut the grass, Bill. Cut the grass. If you don't, the Neighborhood Association is gonna send Junior out here to cut it for you. You'll have to pay him, you know....." Bill was not happy at that thought.

"This grass did this on its own, Betty! What if it happens again? I wouldn't just make this up, you know!"

Betty closed her eyes, took Bill's shoulders in both hands and said, "Cut the damn grass, Bill." Then she gave him a bright smile and finished her lemonade.

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Bill kept his riding lawnmower in the shed in the backyard, along with his other gardening and lawn care implements. It was your standard aluminum shed, with a small shelf on one wall that he used to store his various seeds, fertilizers, and other small items.

The grass in the back was just as tall as in the front, and he had to fight his way through it to find the shed, which was all but buried in the thick, choking grass. He slid the door opened and ducked inside, sliding onto the riding mower and firing it up. It roared to life and he put it in gear and lurched out into the yard. Immediately, the thick grass became entangled on the blades and choked the engine dead. He started it up and tried again, but each time he would only get a few feet before the engine died in the tangled mat of grass. So Bill went back into the shed, determined to finish the job, and came out with a long curved scythe. With this, he began hacking at the grass, knocking it down in clumps with long, sweeping strokes. Then he would start the mower up again and go back over the same area. He repeated this pattern all morning long, and into the afternoon, until finally he had cut all the grass back down to normal height.

Sweating and leaning on his rake in the front yard, he looked around him. The sun was just about touching the tops of the trees as it headed toward sunset a few hours away. It was casting a sort of golden glow on the piles of cut grass, and glinting off the shiny plastic of the bags of grass which were piled up all over the yard. His neighbor to the right, Rusty, came over and helped him bag the rest of the grass and stack them carefully by the street for the city to pick up in the morning. Then Rusty brought out a couple of root beers and started asking questions.

" Ok Bill. How about it? How'd you get your grass to grow so crazy like that?" Bill squinted up at him. He had given it some thought during the day, while he cut and bagged all that grass. Eighty-seven bags of cut grass. He swiped sweat out of his eyes with the back of a hand.

" I really don't know." Bill said shaking his head. " I haven't done anything different than what I normally do. I water it at the same time every day, fertilize it with the same fertilizer I've always used, and mulch it the same way I always have. I haven't changed a thing!"

Rusty looked at Bill and shrugged his huge shoulders. " Go figure." he said. "My brother Junior, ya know...he says that the Club lets him do whatever he wants to with the golf course. They give the green light to use whatever kinds of fertilizers and mulches he wants to. You've seen the course ain'tcha Bill? Not a blade of grass out of place anywhere. And bee-lieve me, Bill, he's tried some crazy stuff to get those greens just perfect. One time he had to stay up all night fixing a mistake he made. Don't tell anyone but the grass on the whole back nine was an ugly purple color for about 6 hours....and smelled like rotting meat, too." He looked left, then right and leaned in towards Bill. "....it was an experiment with a weed killer that went horribly bad...but he fixed it and noone was any the wiser...But your bermuda problem....go figure." he shrugged his shoulders and raised an eyebrow.

" Yeah..." said Bill. " Go figure." They said goodnight and went back into their houses.

Around midnight, the neighborhood was still and quiet and a quick breeze was rustling the white plastic trash bags that Bill had stored his grass clippings in. The bags sat together rather unimportantly and without event until a group of neighborhood dogs came down the street, wandering from side to side, checking out the trash cans in front of each house until they came to Bill's house. They stopped and nosed the bags, sniffing and snorting, sometimes even sneezing. They continued, slowly at first, then with more enthusiasm they began whining and pawing at the bags until they had split them open, one by one.

Throughout the night, the wind picked up Bill's clippings and scattered them around the street, into his own yard and his neighbors yards, and into the gutters and culverts. By the time the sun peeked over the tops of the trees the next morning, the wind had dispersed Bill's grass clippings throughout the entire neighborhood and beyond.

Bill slept soundly that night, oblivious to the dogs tearing open his bags of grass, and unaware that the wind had deposited his clippings in all the other neighbors yards and beyond. He woke up feeling rejuvenated, peeked out the window and enjoyed the regular view of his yard and the neighborhood as it had always been. No ten foot tall fields of grass waving madly at him as had been the case yestereday.

He smiled and breathed a sigh of relief and went about his morning routine glad to have that whole thing behind him. For all he knew he could have dreamed the whole thing.

He went outside just as the trash truck was pulling away from his house. He waved a greeting but the driver just shot him a displeased look and drove on to the next house. Bill hadn't noticed that the driver had just spent the last 30 minutes chasing plastic bags all around the neighborhood. Bill sat down on his front steps and made a mental list of some chores he would have to do that day in town. He finished his list and his coffee and backed his car out of the driveway and headed into town. When he came back......

Bill drove up to the house and parked his car in the garage. He got out and entered the house through the garage and went inside. His message light was blinking on the answering machine in the kitchen, so he punched the button. His neighbor Betty's voice filled the room. "Hi Bill, it's Betty. I forgot to mention to you that I need my Morpho-Grow back. Remember you borrowed it last week? YEah...Uhhm, well that's it. Talk to you later."As soon as the message stopped playing the phone rang. He was standing right there, picked up the receiver and said "Hello?"

"Hello, Bill?"

"Yeah, this is Bill..."

"Bill, this is Mr. Corrales down at the plant, we've been trying to get in touch with you. Why haven't you been in to work this week?"

"Well, I had a little problem with my yard," Bill began, wishing he'd called in. " It grew a little too high and I had to do something about it. It was sort of an emergency."

" Your yard? It was an emergency? Come on Bill. You stayed home to do yardwork and you didn't even bother to call in. That's the lamest excuse I think I've ever heard."

" Well, its not that simple really, my grass actually grew ten feet overni----" Bill was cutoff by his boss.

"I don't really care to hear it Bill. We're sick of your insubordination anyway. This was the last straw. I came by earlier this morning and left a box of your things from the plant on your front porch. Maybe if you had spent a little more time worrying about your job than you did your yardwork, this wouldn't have happened. You're fired Bill. Good-bye." And with that, the phone went dead in Bill's hand and he stood there with a frown on his face.

"Great."

Bill went to the front door and opened it. Sitting on the front porch was a large cardboard box. A small envelope was taped to it. Inside the envelope was a termination letter and Bill's final paycheck. He took the box inside and tossed it on the coffee table. He would have to go through it later when he felt more like it. Right now he was just pissed off, drained and bewildered.

He poured himself another cup of coffee and went out the front door. He was sitting there feeling sorry for himself, when he noticed the house across the street seemed to be listing to one side just slightly. Bill cocked his head to one side and looked again. Yes. It did seem to be sitting a little lower on the right side. Hmmm. Bill thought, maybe the foundation was slipping a little. He was about to get up and go in the house when the front door to house across the street came flying open and Mrs. Upchurch came running out screaming.

(wanna add you own chapter? There's an interactive version of this story that you can play around with. Try "Bermuda Grass" )

Chapter 3: A Sinking Feeling

Bill stood up quickly and spilled coffee on himself as Mrs. Upchurch shot out her front door like greased lightning. Her hair was in curlers and she was still dressed in her housecoat and slippers as she ran madly towards Bill yelling.

" HELP! IT'S ATTACKING JUSTINE! SOMEBODY HELP ME! "

Justine Upchurch was her 9 month old baby and the thought of something or someone attcking the little girl sent Bill into motion right away. He met Mrs. Upchurch in the middle of the street, grabbed her by both shoulders and asked.

"Where is she Mrs. Upchurch? What's happening in there?!"

" She's upstairs!I-I tried to reach her but the v-vines were too strong and the st-stairs are gone!" She sobbed, tears streaming down her face. Vines? Bill wanted to ask her what the HELL she was talking about, but he sensed he didn't quite have the time for all that. He looked toward the Upchurch house just in time to see the foundation shake and the house drop six feet into the ground with a cloud of dust! A few feet of the first story was still visible and the second story was almost at ground level now. Bill ran up to the sinking house and looked in one of the second story windows. It was dark inside but he made out a vast tangle of large roots and vines that seemed to be alive, twisting and crawling around each other. The vines were devouring everything in sight, pushing walls and floors and furnishings down into the ground with a splintering, crushing noise that was sickening.

Above the noise, Bill heard little Justine crying.. somewhere in the house. He stuck his head in the window, got slapped in the face by a flailing vine, pulled back and then dove in headfirst. As soon as he got inside he felt the whole house shift again and drop. The window he had just crawled through was now below ground level and he realized he would have to find Justine quickly or neither one of them would make it back out.

Like giant wooden snakes, the roots and vines writhed around destroying everything in the house and dragging the wreckage down into the ground. The crashing and splintering noise was deafening as Bill climbed around inside the house trying to get to Justine. He could here her crying close by, so he was relatively certain that she wasn't on the ground floor level of the house, which by now was more than likely completely trashed and twenty feet underground or more.

With the root mass and vines twisting and grinding beneath his feet, Bill picked his way through what was left of the upstairs rooms until he found the baby, still in her crib, crying. There was a large hole in the floor here, and the network of interlaced vines and roots were spilling out of it, grabbing walls and furniture and debris and sucking them back down the hole as if they were feeding. Every few minutes the house groaned and heaved and buckled under a little bit further as Bill looked for a way to get to Justine without falling down the gaping, splintered hole in the floor or without being grabbed by the vines and roots.

Managing to avoid the waving vines, Bill scooted around the hole and worked his way carefully to the baby's crib. Every footstep was dangerous as the root mass was now hammering holes in other parts of the floor which was for the most part, rapidly crumbling beneath him. He reached the crib safely as the house shifted and fell a few more feet. Bill looked nervously for the window in the room. It had already sunken below ground level now and Bill knew he was in deep trouble. How could he get back out if the whole house went under? He sought refuge in a corner of the room with Justine and her crib and fought off some vines as they tried to drag the crib under. Justine was crying loudly. Suddenly, with a great cracking sound, the vines broke through the roof and grappled onto the chimney outside. Brick and mortar and insulation and splintered wood chunks rained down on him as the roof broke open and the root mass tried to pull the house down by its chimney. Bill all at once saw his opportunity and he scooped up Justine in one arm and stuffed her inside his shirt. Then, sheilding them both from the raining debris from the roof he jumped onto the chimney vine and climbed it through the hole in the roof.

As he emerged with Justine in his shirt, the Fire Department was driving up, sirens wailing, and the street was crowded with his neighbors who had gathered to console Mrs. Upchurch and watch the strange events that were unfolding. And of course they noted, Bill was once again right in the middle of all of it.

He stepped off the roof and walked to Mrs. Upchurch with Justine crying in his arms.

" Thank you Bill! " she was sobbing hysterically with relief and despair as she took Justine from him.

Bill told her it was alright, and looked back at the sinking house just as it dropped out of sight. The vines and roots made one last sweeping motion and swept in all the scattered debris from around the house hole. Then they disappeared too, and all was quiet.

Immediately after the house disappeared into the ground, the Fire Department cordoned off the area and wouldn't let anyone near it. So the neighbors and passers-by all gathered at the edges of the yellow tape that marked the boundary to stare and speculate.

Bill was completely shook up about what he had seen and experienced, as was Mrs. Upchurch. Nobody else had actually seen anything except the house collapsing and the vines sweeping the rubble into the house hole. But Bill and Mrs Upchurch had seen massive root structure alive in her house and had very specific memories implanted in their minds...the rest of the day went rather quickly as news media and police officers both wanted to talk to Mrs. Upchurch and Bill. They were both on the news that night and Bill was shown as somewhat of a hero in his risky rescue of little Justine Upchurch. The main focus though was of course, what had happened? How is it possible that a common root system below ground can come to life and suck up a whole house.....without leaving a trace behind? Bill did not have these answers.

When Bill finally did fall asleep that night he had dreams of huge, dark forests where all the trees were alive and talking angrily to each other in hoarse rasping voices. He couldn't hear what they were talking about, but that only made the dream all the more disconcerting....

Bill woke up and sat bolt upright in bed, sweating from every pore in his body. He was wide awake and shaking from the dream he had and so he went into the bathroom for a hot shower. The steam and pounding water helped him gather his senses a little bit. After toweling off he prepared to shave in the sink. Hunting for a fresh razor he accidentally knocked the can of shaving cream in the sink. When he reached for it, he gasped and quickly pulled his hand back. A single blade of grass was snaking lazily out of the sink drain. Bill watched in surprise as it hovered delicately over the shaving cream can. Suddenly, with lightning quickness it wrapped itself around the can and began banging the can against the drain, seemingly trying to drag it down. Again and again, with a tight grip on the can it pulled and bashed the can against the drain. Bill watched in horror until finally, the tiny tendril of grass tightened its grip and squeezed all the pressure out of the can with a loud bang. Globs of shaving cream burst out and shot all over the sink, counter and mirror. The blade of grass continued banging and squeezing, cracking the sink around the drain, until with one last loud crash, it successfully pulled the can down the pipes, leaving the sink cracked and ruined. Bill just stood there, shocked, looking at the shaving cream dripping down the mirror. He kept repeating to himself, a blade of grass just crept into my bathroom through the plumbing and destroyed my sink and stole my shaving cream! After yesterday he didn't think things could have gotten any weirder.

He went over and looked out the front window expecting to see a large square hole in the ground where the Upchurch's house used to be. He was surprised to see that growing up out of the Upchurch's house hole was a huge tree!

Not just any huge tree - but a monsterously huge tree. The early morning darkness must be playing tricks on me, he thought. But the more he looked, the more convinced he became that it was real. After all, some mighty strange things had been happening lately and he was inclined to believe just about anything at this point.

Bill gave up on shaving and went out the front door and across the street. The tree was massive. It's trunk was exactly as wide as the hole the house had made and towered up into the sky forever. He crossed the yellow boundary tape and stood directly under the tree and looked up. It was so tall he couldn't even see the top. Bill touched the bark and patted the tree to convince himself it was genuine. It was. He walked all the way around the tree and marveled at how big it was. This has got to be bigger than any other tree on the planet, he thought. Bigger than the redwoods in California, by far.

Suddenly Bill was outraged. Something very strange was going on in his neighborhood. He didn't know what it was or what it wanted, but he knew he wanted his quiet suburban town back to the way it used to be.

Bill turned suddenly and charged back towards his house, not totally sure of what he was going to do once he got there. He reached his front door and stormed through it, very upset. He went straight through the house and into his back yard to his gardening shed.

"There's no way I'm going to let this stuff take over my neighborhood," he said out loud to himself as he ripped open the doors.

He looked around for a moment and finally found it. The ax in the corner of the shed. He picked it up and heaved it over his shoulder and began to run back out into the street. He stopped short just before the tree, again marveling at how tall it was.

He began to chop, his anger fueling his strong arms as his muscles rippled with every motion. He worked straight through the remainder of the night, never stopping to rest. When he looked up he saw the sun coming up in the distance and noticed the crowd gathering just outside the yellow tape. Working all night, he had barely made a dent in the monstrous tree.

"Hey Bill," Someone yelled to him. Bill looked around to see who it was, but there were too many people in the crowd. It was like an endless sea of faces out there. He put his ax down and went toward whoever was talking to him, stumbling a bit as he did it.

"What do you suppose is gonna happen when that tree falls?" One of the women, Kelley, said to him.

"What do you mean?" He asked her. Bill thought that was a rather dumb question.

"Well," Kelley said with a smile on her face, "It's so tall. Who knows where it will land? It'll crush everything in its path." Bill hadn't thought about that.

"Yeah, Bill. That tree is huge, if you chop it down there will be a big mess in our neigborhood." another man stated.

"Yes," Bill said, "but it's not natural! You people saw what happened here yesterday! There is something alive down there! There's something very wrong going on around here and it started in my yard! Are we all going to stand around and just gawk at this thing? Shouldn't we do something?"

The neighbors nodded their heads, like, yeah he's got a point about that. But when they saw him hoist the ax again, they started murmuring to themselves and craning their necks to try to see up the tree. How tall was it? Would it fall on your house or mine? Or all of ours?

Bill walked back to the tree, ax raised above him and decided he would indeed be cutting this tree down today...and the next day too, if it took that long. Then he was going to chop up all the firewood and burn it in his fireplace all winter long!

" Chop it down Bill!" A voice in the crowd yelled. A man Bill didn't recognize came forward with a chainsaw and some work gloves. He gave a pair to Bill and started up the chainsaw.......

Bill and his new friend were starting up the chain saw when they felt a low rumbling at their feet. The rumbling was getting harder and louder and people began to scream.

"What is it?" Someone shouted over the noise of the chainsaw and the rumbling ground.

"Hey turn off the chainsaw!" Someone else cried.

The man next to Bill turned the loud machine off and instantly everyone was surrounded by the dull rumbling sound. Little Justine began to cry and Bill noticed that his ears were starting to hurt.

People were slowly backing away from the tree with horrified looks on their faces. Bill turned around to see what all the fuss was about when he realized...it's the tree. At first he thought it's growing again, but then he noticed that the roots were coming up out of the ground.

"What the-" Bill said with wide eyes.

The man standing next to Bill dropped his saw and gave a low grunt as he turned to run back to the safety of his own house. Bill was left standing there alone in front of the monstrosity that was slowly forming before his eyes.

The tree seemed to be getting taller but it wasn't. Bill noticed the roots coming up out of the ground. The roots were long and about as big around as Bill's body. Soon the roots were completely exposed and Bill heard someone in the crowd behind him scream as the tree stood up, using it's roots as legs. The rumbling stopped, and for a moment the sudden silence was deafening.

The tree shook itself and dead leaves fell to the ground. Bill heard Justine giggle as only babies can, and the tree stopped shaking and seemed to be looking straight at him.

"YOU!" It seemed to bellow as one of it's branches reached out to point squarely at Bill...

Bill stood there, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead and mumbled, "Holy shit...." He took a few steps backward and fell over the chainsaw lying on the ground as the tree towered over him. Did this tree just pull itself out of the ground and speak to me? Why yes it did, he answered his own thought. That shouldn't have been very surprising considering everything else that had been happening.

" YOU!" the tree roared again. Couldn't anybody else hear that?!Its voice sounded like a cross between a serious windstorm and a garbage truck, raspy and airy at the same time.

Bill narrowed his eyes, set his jaw and picked up the chainsaw..."I'm gonna put an end to this nightmare once and for all.."

"OK, tree." said Bill in a quiet voice. The chainsaw was vibrating in his hands. "Let's get this over with."

" DON'T BE A SIMPLETON." growled the tree. "THIS IS MY TIME WE'RE ON, NOT YOURS. I CAME HERE TO SPEAK TO YOU, AND YOURS IS TO ONLY LISTEN AND OBEY."

Bill stood his ground and considered this new development. The tree spoke rather eloquently for a tree. Not that Bill could ever recall having spoken to a tree before, but nonetheless this tree was unbelievably large and rather scary when it was waving its branches about. Not to mention quite imposing when it spoke. Bill didn't care. This tree was ruining the sanctity of his neighborhood and so, like a pesky bit of garden weed it had to be dealt with.

"You'll burn nice and hot in my fireplace this winter." Bill muttered under his breath, and with new vigor he revved the chainsaw and took off toward the base of the tree, mindful of the hanging overhead branches that swatted at him as he ran under them. He parried with the tree, sawing off branches that got too near as the tree screamed. Bill ducked and blocked, swinging the chainsaw madly in ferocious circles. He forgot all about the crowd of neighbors so engrossed he was in his battle. He didn't see them or hear them anymore, and didn't even know if they were still there. Finally, the tree managed to grab Bill by the ankle. It jerked Bill into the air, updside down and hung him there. Bill reached around with the chainsaw and sliced the offending branch off as the tree howled in pain and anger. Suddenly the chainsaw was wrenched out of his hands by a large limb and flung toward the crowd that was watching from a safe distance. Then before Bill knew it, he was completely restrained by the tree and was passed upward, limb to limb, branch by branch toward the top of the tree. His struggles to free himself were in vain, so Bill eventually relented.

(wanna add you own chapter? There's an interactive version of this story that you can play around with. Try "Bermuda Grass" )

Chapter 4: The Tree Stands Tall



When Bill finally arrived at the top of the tree (after what seemed like hours of passing through branches and leaves), he was placed in the crook of leafless branch, poking out of the very top of the tree. The view was simply amazing. He could look down over the entire neighborhood and see each house and street as if on a game board, with little houses dotting the edges of every street, stretching as far as he could see. Bill's anger quieted and he calmed considerably as he took it all in. Then the tree spoke again.

" YOU. " it said. " YOU HAVE COMMITTED CRIMES AGAINST THE FLOWERING CHILDREN. YOU HAVE WRONGED THE GRASS THAT GROWS. YOU HAVE DEMONSTRATED CONTEMPT AND ANIMOSITY FOR THE STRONG TREES THAT POPULATE OUR WORLD. YOU WILL NOW HAVE TO ANSWER FOR YOUR SELF-SERVING BEHAVIOR."

Bill was taken aback. "What did I do?" he asked. " What are you talking about?"

"YOUR MACHINES THAT SAW AND CUT. WE DO NOT APPROVE."

"What? You mean lawnmowers? Chainsaws? We all use them for....."

" YOUR CHEMICALS THAT SUFFOCATE US AND STUNT US. WE DO NOT APPROVE." the tree continued.

"Huh?" Bill asked." They're pesticides, everybody uses them for......."

" YOUR BUILDINGS AND ROADS THAT TAKE OUR SPACE. WE CANNOT APPROVE."

" Oh come on...We have to live SOMEWHERE. What is this some kind of joke?"

A fierce wind came up through the center of the tree, creating a swirling vortex of leaves and sticks that spun Bill around and had him teetering on the edge of the canopy, looking down. He could barely make out the crowd of neighbors far below, like a five o'clock shadow on the edge of the Upchurch's yard. Emergency personnel had arrived for the second day in a row and a squad car's tiny blue and red lights were blinking far below. Bill righted himself and reached for a branch to regain his balance.

"Ok. Hang on a minute" he said sarcastically, "So is this what this shit is all about? Mother Nature gets her revenge on the stupid people of the earth? You can't be serious."

Bill said this in spite of his precarious postion at the top of the talking tree. The tree answered him with another blast of sticks and leaves, this time with an equal portion of pollens and molds. The force of it lifted Bill straight up in the air, spun him around and dropped him on top of the canopy, sneezing and coughing.

"OK! OK! I get it !" he cried, squinting through burning eyes, "What do you want me to do? What?"

"YOU WILL WARN PEOPLE TO STOP WHAT THEY ARE DOING OR FACE THE WRATH OF ALL THE POWER THAT IS IN THE PLANT WORLD."

Bill sat down in his crooked branch and wiped the sweat from his forehead and the dust out of his eyes. The pollen had gotten into his sinuses and his eyes were itchy and puffy from the irritation. This whole thing is getting out of hand and it's all just a little too far-fetched, he thought. He wiped at his swollen eyes with the back of a hand and asked the tree,

" Are you sure about all this? It seems kind of goofy.....," The tree shook violently, as if in response, and an apple fell out of thin air and struck Bill on top of his head. " Ow!" Bill said and looked up at the clouds.."How did that ......?"

"WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING, YOU WILL SEE THAT WE MEAN WHAT WE SAY. YOU WILL BE GIVEN NO SECOND CHANCES BILL. MAKE THEM STOP NOW OR YOU WILL SEE THE FULL FORCE OF WHAT YOU EXPERIENCED THE LAST FEW DAYS."

The next morning, the authorities showed up bright and early. On hand was the Fire Department, the Police Department, assorted news agencies and a top notch official from the National Forestry Service. Bill had somehow fallen asleep in the top of the tree and was a bit disoriented when he woke up. Seeing the commossion below, he shook himself awake and began the descent through the twisting maze of branches and leaves to the ground. He tried talking to the tree again, but the tree did not respond. As he climbed down, the trees words from yesterday echoed in his head..........

"......YOU HAVE COMMITTED CRIMES AGAINST THE FLOWERING CHILDREN. YOU HAVE WRONGED THE GRASS THAT GROWS. YOU HAVE DEMONSTRATED CONTEMPT AND ANIMOSITY FOR THE STRONG TREES THAT POPULATE OUR WORLD. YOU WILL NOW HAVE TO ANSWER FOR YOUR SELF-SERVING BEHAVIOR."

Almost to the bottom, Bill could see the Forestry Service personnel arguing about something with the local police. They called the Fire Department over and continued their discussion. Bill did not want to talk with any of these people so he quietly dropped down to the grass and crouched behind the giant tree, waiting for his chance to sneak away unseen. A sharp PSSST! caught his attention and he turned to see Betty beckoning him from behind a clump of pampas grass. Head down, Bill quickly scampered over to her. A reporter saw him duck and run, and shouted,

"Hey! You there! Could I talk to you for a minute?!"

Betty grabbed Bill by the hand saying,

"This way, Bill," and they were off running through the neigborhood, jumping fences, crawling through shrubbery and ground-cover until they had circled their way back around to Betty's house.

"In here Bill, this way." Betty directed Bill through the backyard and into her greenhouse. "We can talk in here. I'm so sorry I didn't believe you. Come in here and we'll talk." She ushered Bill into the greenhouse and followed him in, closing the door behind her.

(wanna add you own chapter? There's an interactive version of this story that you can play around with. Try "Bermuda Grass" )

Chapter 5 :


Betty's greenhouse was attached to the screened in area on her back patio. She spent several hours in there every day caring for a wide variety of plants and flowers. The air was heavy with humidity and the scent of flowers as Bill walked in and sat down on an overturned bucket. All at once, he realized he was exhausted. The events of the last few days, combined with last night's warnings from the giant tree had really taken a toll on him. He was very relieved that Betty had snuck him past all the reporters and the crowds of neighbors who seemed to multiply as each day went by.

"Thanks for getting me out of there, Betty." he said, "I really didn't want to talk to all those people again, especially now."

Betty was picking dead leaves off a begonia plant.

"The neighborhood is not upset with you anymore, Bill. How could they be after the UpChurch house vanished and that giant tree grew up in its place? They've got to put two and two together and realize that your amazon grass problem was simply part of it all. And besides, you saved Little Justine's life, Bill! Nobody can take that away from you......" She stopped pruning and looked into Bill's face over her little cat-eyes bifocals. Her forehead wrinkled and her eyes widened. "Don't worry about them."

" Bill." she said, back to picking dead leaves off the begonia, " We all saw that tree pick you up and take you up into it. What happened after that? You were up there all night long."

Bill tried to explain the sound of the tree's voice; it's warnings, the way it pulled him up through the tree, the whilrwind of sticks and branches and pollen, and the apple that fell out of nowhere on his head. Betty had stopped working on her flowers and was completely absorbed by Bill's story as he described everything the best he could. How his grass had just shot up overnight, the whole story from rescuing Justine and what he saw in the Upchurch's house, to his whole conversation with the tree last night. When he was done, she just sat staring at him blank-faced.

" Did any of you hear the tree speaking to me before it pulled me up? " he asked her. Betty shook her head, "No. I mean I didn't. I don't think anyone else heard it either. I guess just you, Bill." She put her pruning shears back where they belonged and brushed some dirt from her jeans.

"Let's go in the house, Bill. I'll get us something to drink. There's something I need to tell you. Coffee?" she said, standing and opening the door to the patio.

"Coffee sounds really good." Bill admitted, getting up too. "What did you need to tell me?"

"Your house disappeared last night too." she answered, watching him. Bill's face went white immediately. He looked out Betty's side windows that faced his house about 50 yards away. Standing in its place was another titanic tree at least as big as the first one. The little shed in the backyard was still there, but the house was nowhere to be seen, and the tree cast a shadow over his entire property. The media crews and some of the crowd from the neighborhood were milling around under the sprawling tree, taking pictures and marveling at its size and girth.

"Bill, I think we need to get the Upchurch's together with you and I for a sort of meeting." she said, "you know, to compare notes and the like. There has to be a reason that your two houses were singled out. If we can determine what that is, then we'll be a lot closer to knowing what our next move is. Sound good?"

Bill nodded, still looking forlornly out the window toward where his house used to be. The lawn was perfect in the morning light. Not a blade out of place, as the giant tree stood watching over it all. The only thing out of place was Bill's little shed. Why hadn't the tree removed it as well? Bill thought that was a good question and he was about to go over and have a look for himself when he thought better of it. He still didn't want to face the camera crews. As he stood there, the door to the shed opened and he watched a short, round man walking calmly away, slowly heading for the golf course. Ambling along on short, quick legs, he had the appearance of moving quite a bit faster than he really was.

Junior, thought Bill, why's he coming out of my shed? At first Bill considered going out and confronting him, but then what was that Rusty used to say about Junior? "...nicest guy on the face of the earth, ....when he was thinking straight..." As he watched Junior disappear behind the row of dwarf poplars that lined the back of his property, Bill decided against it.


Chapter 6: Junior


Junior fired up his tiny maintenance vehicle and pulled it up onto the cart path. It was beginning to rain slightly and he was irritated. That bag of fertilizer was supposed to have been at Bill's house, and that's where he expected it should have been when he got there. Instead there's cops and people all over, the neighborhood is in an uproar about something, and there wasn't even a house at Bill's house! The property was there, and a little tool shed was standing in the backyard; Junior checked it, but the bag wasn't there.

He cursed himself for letting the world back into his life again. Crabgrass! Every time! Every time I try'n do good....dammitall! Every time! He pounded the cart's steering wheel with his frustration, and made slapping motions at thin air.

Junior wasn't what you would call a very sociable fellow. His manners were poor, his hygeine poorer, and for what he lacked in moral fiber, his intellect was even worse. But generally, if left alone, he was happy as a clam to be living in the maintenance shack out on the back nine of Mulberry Beach Golf Club.

He gripped the little steering wheel tighter, and rumbled the cart across the bridge over the creek by the sixth flag, past the fourth green and swore again. Shoulda turned 'er down flat, I shoulda....Shoulda told 'er ta' mind 'er own business! ...or worse!Damn! He clenched his teeth and open-handed himself angrily in the forehead. I just want to try it on my begonias!he mimicked, stomping the little pedal on the floorboard as rain drops pittered on his forehead, Every time I let somebody borrow sumthin'! Bouncing along the path furiously, hunched over the wheel.... Crabgrass! Every freakin' time! Cutting the wheel vigorously around a narrow turn.... Well this time, I've learnt ma' lesson. I'm stickin' to ma' shack on the back nine here.... detouring through a perfectly raked sandpit.... and I ain't comin' out no more.... tires spitting sand into the pond around the eighth.... 'cept to water the greens!

Rounding the last turn toward the sanctity of his shack, Junior was more than just a little pissed off now. He had worked himself into quite a lather as he drove back from Bill's house. The house hadn't even been there, he was one bag of fertilizer lighter, and he was not taking it very well. Shouting and driving as fast he could on the cart path, gesticulating wildly with both arms, he somehow lost control on the path and managed to launch the cart over a small ravine. As he flew through the air toward his shack, engine whining, he recognized Ben Tipper, Sean Willough, and Hector Green below him, running for their lives and shouting at him. Mulberry Beach board members with breifcases and little umbrellas in hand.

He narrowly missed landing on a few of them as he touched down heavily in his maintenance cart, mud and grass flying in the air. When the dust had settled and he had regained his senses, Junior rolled himself sideways, out of the cart and greeted the board members nervously.

"Hiya fellas! he said, as properly as could manage.

They frowned at him and straightened their clothes as they approached. "Junior!" roared Hector. "What do you mean, driving company property like that!? You nearly killed us all!"

Delicate mud spatters were patterned on Hector's finely pressed white shirt as he glowered at Junior fiercely.

"Junior," he said dabbing futiley at the mud spots on his shirt, "We've been needing to speak with you about something..."

Chapter 7 : The Rains Came

The unrelenting rain that began that night on the corner of St. Augustine and Rye, lasted about 52 days in Bill's mind, the way he remembered it. During the first week, the sky simply darkened, and the air grew heavy and humid. Then slowly, a light misting began, and increased until soon it was softly and easily... raining. Just flat out raining.

Bill stayed at Betty's house while it rained, looking out the windows, keeping a low profile, and watching the heavens dump sheets of water on the neighborhood. Betty seemed unaffected by the whole thing, puttering about in her greenhouse, tinkering with potting soil or the odd transplanting chore. Bill, on the other hand was nervous, and it showed. He paced the floor with a grimace on his face, forehead wrinkled tightly.

He just could not get over the idea that two houses on the block had disappeared beneath the ground and were replaced by two of the biggest trees he'd ever seen. None of made any sense. He wondered if the tree that replaced his house could talk like the Upchurch tree.

As the rainy weeks went by, Bill hoped that the media would lose interest and go back to their stations. They didn't and while watching the local evening news on night, Bill learned why.

"Betty," Bill called, turning up the volume with the remote."Come in here and look at this. It's the local weather."

Betty came into the room, wiping her hands on her garden smock and sat down to watch.

"Tomorrow's forecast calls for more of the same around town.... Hot and Sunny! With the high pressure system in place right over us, we'll be seeing a lot of this weather pattern for at least the next couple of weeks. The only place it won't be hot and sunny is in the Meadow Creeks Community where it's been raining for the past ten days straight. So, all you golfers out there can keep your clubs in the trunks of your car again today, because it doesn't appear to be stopping anytime soon."

The meteorologist turned to the other anchor and said, as he straightened his notes,

"If you recall, this is the same neighborhood where last month, two residents had freak sink holes appear on their property, which totally destroyed their homes and were replaced by huge trees that seemed to grow up overnight."

"It's only raining here, Bill?", Betty asked. "Not anywhere else?"

"Apparently, not." said Bill. "How strange is that?"

Betty looked at him and frowned. "Not any stranger than those trees out there."

(definitely, to be continued... )

(wanna add you own chapter? There's an interactive version of this story that you can play around with. Try it you'll like it! "Bermuda Grass" )