2024 PRIMAL FEARS CHALLENGE WINNER

Prize: £1,000

Top Tier Finalists:

Jan Sargeant, Liv DeSimone, Joyce Bingham, Tori Lewis, A. T. Pennington, Caitlin A. Quinn, Lily Steinberg, Aggie Novak, Rachel Harbaugh, Sarah Turner, V. H. Dawe, Melissa Mordi, Tinamarie Cox, Felipe Orlans.

Other Finalists:

Feline Charpentier, Hadyn Sparkes, Carmilla Voiez, Lucas Snydar, David O'Mahony, Valerie Roberts, Chris Chinchilla, Elie Lichtschein, Phoenix Mendoza, Courtney Danielson, Grace Dykstra, Patrick M. Heffernan, Ben Wakefield, Sally Curtis, Tessa Karatza, Kris Schnebelen, Jordan Romero, K.T. Clark, Veronica McDonald, Nate Beckett, Heather R Sutherin, Ben Daggers, Sean Thomas McDonnell, Malcolm Woodstock, Jo Anne Braithwaite, Jaime Gill, Alex Hoeft, Travis Sawyer, December Knight, Karisa Stapp, F. R. Darke, Patrick Spiker, Eileen Stelter, Cate Gallivan, Michael Crouch, Ian O'Connell, Paul Lewthwaite, Jami Blackburn, Susan Zhao, Ann Struck, Val Rodgers, Sue Condon, Dhevalence Moodley, Alice Shaw, Josephine Queen, Chris Connolly, Arlo Fox, Ed McConnell, Lana Younis, Deidra Whitt Lovegren, Nikki England, Joshua D Martin, Hanne Lisa Sampson, Chloe Beckett, Olivia McNeilis, Caroline Ashley, Rya Sheppard, Rachel Harbaugh, Liz Quigley, Zebulon Lemon, Lily Elborn, Kristen Kremer, Sarah Hurd, SJ Masters, Louie Saxton, Dylan Brokensha, Caroline Foltz, Sama Bakht, Jordan Beckett, Julie Peters, Melanie Mulrooney, Jasmine Arden-Brown, Evian Keen, Angela Huskisson, Aggie Novak.

and the winner is…

Madeleine Pelletier

Howard’s War on Weeds

Howard nudged the small pile of dirt and bones lying next to the bearded irises with his boot. Weird, he thought. He put the sprayer of homebrew herbicide on the ground and slowly got down on one creaky knee to investigate.

Shielding his eyes from the bright sun with one hand, he poked at the suspicious pile with the other. It might’ve been a squirrel, but the bones were stripped clean and disarticulated, and it could’ve just as easily been a prairie dog. Or a rat. Whatever it was, it hadn’t been there yesterday. Howard was sure of that. His war on weeds was a daily battle.

Some animal must have dropped the remains there during the night. Probably the neighbor’s dog prowling around again, though Howard hoped not. Nothing in his garden was safe for eating, and he didn’t wish the dog any harm, no matter how much he loathed the neighbor. Howard had thought someone who talked so much about his love of insects and nature would take better care of his pet, but the wannabe beekeeper came from the city, and his kind cared about all the wrong things as far as Howard was concerned. 

“They’ll learn,” Lina’d said, the summer the young family moved in.

“Wanna bet?” said Howard. “Mr. Bee just bought a couple milk goats. Both male. That fella’s got no sense. None.”

“You are an old goat,” Lina said, laughing and serving him up a second slice of pie.

Lord, he missed that laugh. And that pie.

Howard teetered to his feet and continued his rounds, finishing up with the rose bushes in front of the old farmhouse. The bright pink flowers were in their second bloom of the season, and their heady scent filled the air. Howard didn’t smile anymore, not since Lina had passed, but sitting on her favorite bench, under a clear blue sky, surrounded by her favorite flowers, his frown softened a little. 

Sadly, it didn’t last, and soon enough, his mind had twisted back to the weeds.

It was Lina who’d first spotted them.

“Pigweed’s taking over my tomatoes,” she said, placing her gardening gloves and a bucket of cucumbers on the counter. “Seem to have appeared overnight.”

“Nothing grows that fast,” said Howard. “Still, I’ll help you pluck ‘em out tomorrow.”

Except, the next day, the weeds were three feet tall and the tomatoes were already drooping, their roots choked out by the aggressive newcomer.

Howard pulled a stalk of the fast-growing weed towards him and yelped. “Don’t touch it. Not without your rose gloves,” he warned Lina, examining his bleeding finger tips. “This isn’t normal pigweed.” 

“What do you want to do?” she asked. 

“We’re gonna rip these suckers out,” said Howard, cradling his injured hand to his chest. “And then I’m gonna see the boys at the feedstore and find out what it is.”

Howard’s boys were a gang of wizened old farmers who spent all their time at the feedstore. Like Howard, they were too old to work and too used to working to sleep in or sit around. They congregated around the seed catalogues, collecting gossip and handing out advice.

“A vicious son of a bitch,” said Scooter Johnson, when Howard dropped the pigweed corpse on the counter.

“It’s a beast. Eats commercial weedkiller for breakfast and doubles in size by dinner,” said Roland Stolchuck, feedstore proprietor and all-around expert on everything.

“I heard it spread up from the south,” said Jeff Lebraun. “That it cross-bred with a GMO crop and now it’s got a mind of its own.”

“Whatever it is,” said Roland. “You don’t want it.”

Howard and the boys agreed that the best course of action to rid themselves of the unwanted migrant was a liberal application of an under-the-counter herbicide, left over from the days before the government cared more about trees than the folk who elected them. Howard got a pair of steel mesh gloves, too. 

But the weeds were not so easy to stop.

Howard tried hand-pulling, weed-whacking, and roto-tilling. He combined that with herbicides and pesticides and acids. When that didn’t work, he added a dozen other chemical and mineral concoctions formulated by the feedstore brain trust. 

Nothing had much effect on the weeds, although it sure did a grand job of aggravating Howard’s know-nothing neighbor.

“Look at that,” said Mr. Bee, waving his arms at the field full of weeds. “All the wildflowers are gone.” 

Normally, Howard avoided the inept neighbor who was constantly asking for advice that he never took, or crying about his failing homestead. Howard had neither the time nor the patience to indulge him, but Mr. Bee had been blocking his driveway when he came back from town, and Howard was forced into a conversation.

“We all got weeds,” said Howard. “It’s a problem.”

“That is not my problem. Clouds of toxic gas blowing over from your place–that’s my problem. That’s what killed the flowers, and that’s what’s killing my bees.”

“Weeds what killed your flowers. No food’s what’s killing your bees.”

“Weeds are harmless, a part of nature. Unlike your poison. You need to stop.”

Howard pulled down on the brim of his hat and lowered his voice to a growl. “Don’t need no lecture from some city pup.”

“We’re going to lose everything,” Bee’s voice cracked.

Howard looked across the road. Weeds had taken over the fields and their vegetable garden was as dead as Lina’s. There was no more grass for the scrawny goats, who refused to touch the foul pigweed despite their caprine reputation for eating anything. He saw the elder bee child in his blue baseball cap, playing a sad game of fetch with the dog on the veranda, neither boy nor animal willing to wade into the prickly plague surrounding the house. “It’s already lost. You did nothing and now it’s out of control. I’m not letting that happen to me.”

That was the last time Howard had spoken to Mr. Bee. The fool and his family waved from their side of the road on occasion, but there were no more conversations. And that was fine by him. Howard had other things to worry about by then.

Next up in the war on weeds were the controlled burns. Howard took his back field down to the ground, turning everything to ash, including an old cowshed. It didn’t take long for new weeds to take root, and from the ashes, three new ones grew for every weed he’d torched.

Then came the uncontrolled burn, the week that Lina was diagnosed and Howard drank whiskey like it was water for three days straight. He wanted to burn the world down but settled for what remained of their front lawn. Lina soaked him and the yard with her hose, then sent him inside to sleep it off. 

Howard hadn’t had a drink since, but he did not give up the fight against the weeds. Those cursed plants, which spread faster and killed quicker than cancer, would not get the better of him.

However, even Howard had to concede that they’d won a few battles. 

First, they’d taken the vegetable garden, then the yard, the pasture, and the fields. But Howard had already sold the animals and farm equipment to pay Lina’s medical bills, so he considered this a shallow victory for the weeds. 

They also seemed to have driven out Mr. Bee and his family, but that was bound to happen eventually, so Howard didn’t credit the weeds much there either. He was only sorry for the dog they’d abandoned. 

More worrying was the exodus of the feedstore boys. Each month there were less of them, until even the most stalwart were packing up to go live with family in cities, those same concrete jungles they’d cussed and denigrated for decades. 

“How could you?” said Howard, standing among the empty shelves with the last few boys in town.

“Because the weeds are growing up through my floors and working their way through the foundations. I can’t stop it and I ain’t waiting for the house to come down on top of me,” shouted Green Bean Franklin, tenth generation farmer, shaking his cane at Howard.

“You’ll be next,” said Jeff Lebraun. “You’ll see.”

“Got no family and no money,” said Howard. “All I got is the house, and I’m not giving up so easy.”

“You will,” said Green Bean, turning away. “You’re no better than the rest of us.”

Howard stormed out. He hadn’t been back since, living off Lina’s well-stocked cellar and old man stubbornness. Now, he couldn’t go back even if he wanted. The weeds had overtaken the roads.

But so long as there was breath left in his body, they wouldn’t get the house or Lina’s flowerbed; her pride and joy, her final resting place.

Shortly after Lina passed, Howard called up an old pal, a Vietnam vet with anarchist tendencies, who gave him a tried-and-true recipe, guaranteed to wipe out any enemy. Howard didn’t care if it killed everything else in his yard. He didn’t even care if he caught sick. All that mattered was annihilating the pigweeds.

And things were finally going his way.

First, the bushy seed heads had drooped and dried up, their tiny red flowers turned to dust before they could reproduce. Now, the tall weed stalks were disappearing, hopefully never to be seen again. Howard thought it would be nice if the grass grew back, but he could live without it. What he really missed was the birdsong, but the birds had moved on even before the feedstore boys did.

As he got up, something shiny in the bushes caught his eye. He squinted until it came into focus. Just a fly trapped in a spiderweb with unusually thick silks. 

A small lunch for a big spider, thought Howard.

He went inside the house to get a glass of water, careful to brush all the dead flora off his shoes and pants so he didn’t mess up the kitchen. Lina’s kitchen. He could still hear her every time he walked through the door. 

“You’re mucking the place up.” Lina’s voice floated over from the sofa where she spent most of her time, the chemo having left her as withered as her tomato vines.

“Am not,” said Howard, positive she couldn’t see the trail of muddy footprints behind him.

“I don’t have the strength to argue with you, old man,” said Lina. “You water the roses?”

“I’ll do it later. Been spraying weeds.”

“Forget about weeds for a few days.” A frail hand appeared over the back of the sofa.

Howard slipped off his boots and hurried to the living room. He helped Lina up, held the glass of water while she sipped, then tucked the afghan under her legs. 

“I need your help with my flowers.” Lina patted the hand that rested on her knee. “I want them looking their best when you spread my ashes there.”

Howard looked down at a hole in his sock.

“Howard.” She squeezed his hand.

“Anything for you,” he said, leaning in and kissing her forehead, his eyes squeezed shut so she wouldn’t see his pain.

“Thank you,” said Lina. “Now, go mop up that floor.”

His Lina. All he had left of her now were those flowers and a few jars of preserves. He picked up a jar from the counter and traced his finger across the hand-written label. Soon the jars would be empty and he’d have one less piece of Lina to hold on to.

His head ached and he wished for coffee, just as he had every day for the last few months, but that was long gone, along with the electricity and the meat and everything else. He opened cupboards, one by one, glad, for the briefest of seconds, that Lina wasn’t there to see how much he’d let things go. The shelf paper was curling up. The door under the sink wouldn’t close properly. And there were grayish-green smudges in several other cupboards, signs that mold and mildew were taking hold. All were near bare. 

Howard’s stomach growled. 

His thoughts turned to the cellar. He’d used up all the food stores, but there were still mice down there. If he put down traps, he could have a little meat. He shook his head. Not today, he thought. Not time for desperate measures yet.

He switched on the transistor radio. 

“The wall around the capital is nearly complete, putting to rest fears about food and housing shortages.” 

Howard snorted. The same hogwash they’d been reporting for weeks, but the fools in the city probably believed it. Typical of those folk not to know where their food actually came from.

He looked out the back window. The perimeter was shrinking. Even though the weeds were wilting, drying up, their march towards his back door had slowed, not stopped. He could see a few creeping tendrils close to the well pump. He’d take an axe to them tomorrow and double the dose of homebrew. Howard wasn’t worried about polluting his groundwater. That ship had already sailed. He instinctively touched the pustules on his neck.

“…new variants key to finding an effective control strategy.” Howard shut off the radio. He’d heard it all before.

He returned to the porch and sat in his rocker, picking up a romance novel from the table. Howard had read all Lina’s books several times over, but there was nothing to do now but read, weed, and wait. He didn’t get through more than a few pages before he dozed off.

When he woke, the sun was low in the sky. 

Howard watched fireflies flickering at the end of his drive. They wouldn’t be around much longer, he realized, not with the ditch flowers and grasses gone. 

He saw a moth, big as a chickadee and white as milk, swooping gracefully across the yard. As it came closer, Howard saw it was covered in tiny black dots. Never seen one like that before. The thought had barely registered when he saw the second moth. And the third. More and more appearing out of the evening gloom, all flying straight at him, less graceful swoops than rocket-propelled missiles. 

What the hell? Realizing that the moths were neither a hallucination nor about to turn away, he dove out of his chair, landing in an awkward heap on the floor just as he heard the moths hit the wall above him.

Thwip. Thunk. Thwack. 

Howard stared up at the dusty white splotches on the wall. Maybe the pesticide was affecting them? Like those birds in California that ate toxic algae, kamikazed a town, and inspired a film. He remembered seeing that movie with Lina when they were still courting. He’d thought it was nonsense, but he’d loved it when Lina buried her face in his shoulder at the scary parts. His shoulder, which, as the shock faded, he realized was throbbing.

With some difficulty, Howard got himself sat on the front steps and assessed the damage. Besides his shoulder, his hip was bruised, and he seemed to have jammed up his wrists pretty good. He wasn’t sure if he’d hit his head, but that ached more than ever. 

It was time to call it a day.

Howard grabbed the handrail and tried to stand, but his pants were caught on something. He ran his hand down the back of his leg, feeling for the snag, until his fingers brushed up against something soft and decidedly unsplintery. 

What the… Howard yanked his hand away and stood up, ripping his pants, and not giving a damn. 

He turned to go in, but curiosity got the better of him. He walked down the steps and bent to look between them. Squinting into the dark, he saw a spot of pink. One of the rose’s thorny branches must’ve grown sideways, something he’d need to investigate further in daylight. 

Hands braced against the edge of the porch, Howard pushed himself upright, just as he felt it again, the soft thing, brushing against the heel of his palm. Startled, he stumbled backwards, landing on his keister in the dirt in front of the steps.

That’s when he saw the movement. Slow, undulating, hypnotic, a familiar stalk, topped by a fuzzy, fertile seed head, slid out from beneath the bottom step. In place of the usual red flowers, though, were small buds in the unmistakable pink of Lina’s prized roses.

Stunned, Howard watched as the mutated weed crept forward, followed by a dozen more ghoulish green fingers. Suddenly, they surged towards him, curling up his legs and ripping through his pants, thorns drawing blood. 

Howard swore. He scrabbled to get traction, heels digging into the earth as he flailed his arms behind him. He kicked at the green scourge, trying to break free. His left hand smashed into one of the rocks that bordered the flower bed. He grabbed it and threw. A couple stalks were crushed against the steps. He grabbed more rocks and hurled them, one after the other. The weeds pulled back, giving Howard enough time to roll over onto his stomach and crawl away from the house.

When he got as far as the dead magnolia tree, he looked behind him. Nothing was moving. 

Howard collapsed, his back against the rough trunk. 

Lina’s flowers had been corrupted, and his house compromised. He knew his war on weeds was nearly over. 

But, first, it was time for desperate measures. 

Howard looked at the barn where he’d been stockpiling explosives, parting gifts from feedstore boys. He went over the next steps in his mind. It would be easy. Place some explosives. Make some fire. Stand back and watch it burn.

And then? Howard didn’t let his mind go there.

When he pulled back the barn door, he recoiled at the smell. It was musty and earthy, like something had been digging into the ground, but there was an undertone of something sharp and vile. Rotting fish? Unlikely. And absolutely irrelevant to his current plan.

Howard grabbed a hurricane lamp from the wall and lit it. He gathered up what he needed, carrying the boxes and supplies outside and loading them carefully into his wheelbarrow.

A sudden movement in the hay loft caught his eye. He stepped cautiously towards it, holding up the lantern. It was nothing but an old spider web, swaying in a draft. 

As he lowered the light and turned to leave, he tripped over a pile of dirt. Howard swore as he lost his grip on the glass lantern, which smashed on the floor. He hurried out as the spilled kerosene caught fire. 

From the doorway, he watched the flames spread up the walls. Their bright light showed him what he’d tripped on: a child’s blue cap and a few bare bones. Howard walked away as the flames took that, too.

Rattled as much as resolute, he pushed his wheelbarrow back to the magnolia tree. It offered a good vantage to keep an eye on both house and barn. If he was lucky, the barn fire would spread to the house. If not, Howard was ready to move things along. Those bastard weeds had done enough damage. He would not let them take anything else.

He left two boxes and a shotgun under the tree and pushed the wheelbarrow around the back of the house, staying clear of the porch, and keeping his axe within easy reach. When he got to the back door, he pushed it open and hefted two bags of fertilizer and a few sticks of dynamite into the kitchen.

“Sorry, Lina,” he said. “This will make a mess.”

Howard returned to the magnolia in time to see the barn roof collapse. Sparks fluttered over the house, but didn’t take hold. 

This is it, he thought. No turning back.

Howard approached the house, getting within ten feet of the porch. He flicked his metal lighter open, passing the flame over the edge of the rags in a Molotov cocktail. He watched as the rags caught fire, then raised his arm to throw the bottle through the living room window.

As he was about to release it, the ground shook beneath him, and he lost his balance. The bottle went flying off to his side, onto the bare earth that was once lawn. Howard looked down and saw the earth mounding at his feet, something pushing up from below. 

He ran back to the magnolia to grab his axe and more Molotov cocktails, but the weeds beat him, bursting up from the ground at the foot of the tree. They spiralled up the trunk, splitting off as they reached each branch, swirling around those limbs and turning the dead tree green once more.

Another wave of plants burst up from the ground, wrapping around Howard’s ankle. He lunged towards his axe, determined to take his own foot off if he had to. But the weeds beat him once again. As his hand wrapped around the handle, the weeds wrapped around his wrist.

 Howard screamed and thrashed and scratched at the denuded earth, but he couldn’t break free. The plants had him tethered to the ground.

Quick as lightning, the weeds shot forward, up his arms and legs, their sharp prickers cutting into his bare skin. They encircled his waist, squeezing tighter and tighter, until Howard’s world faded to black. The superweeds curled themselves around his throat. As Howard took his final breath, the air was thick with the scent of roses.

This story explored the primal fear ‘fear of abandonment’ and was written in the eco-horror sub-genre.