Hammerston Heroes: Part One

The primary thing that you should know about Iowa, is that it is mostly corn and soy. Besides that, there’s Des Moines, and whatever collection of shops the locals happen to call town. For me, town is Hammerston. It’s a small little town with all of the usual fare: a grocer, a few diners, an elementary and a secondary school, the works.

I’m Jimmy Miller, and I’ve lived in Hammerston for my whole life. I run a farm about 15 miles out from town, so it’s not too far. I’ve lived on this farm for my whole life. I inherited it from my dad, who inherited it from his, so on and so forth. Of course it has grown since then, but still it’s in the family.

I was laying in bed one night, I was having trouble sleeping or else I wouldn’t have been up so late, when out of nowhere this green light came through. Now, I’m no stranger to weird stuff happening out in the middle of nowhere, but this is a little bit too weird.

Anywho, that probably explains why I just yelled at a stalk of corn and it grew. The corn and the other stalks around it shoot up into the air, higher than any corn has any business being. They grow until they are at least double the height of ready to harvest corn. I look down at my watch, and it says it’s 6:25. Dale said he was coming at 6:30, so I head back towards home.

I arrive back home just in time to hear the rumbling of Dale’s sky blue truck coming to a halt in front of my house. I’m barely around the corner before he starts hollering. “Jimmy! Jimmy! You’ve gotta see this! You’ve gotta see what these suits are doing!”

“Dale! Slow down!” I laugh. Dale’s always talking a mile a minute about some wild new thing that usually adds up to soil testing. “You’ve gotta see this first.” He won’t believe this corn trick.

“Well can it wait? These suits are in a hurry, and they might be gone by the time it gets there.” Dale always got like this and there was no point in arguing, until you’ve already seen that it’s just soil testing.

“Alright fine, you’re driving though. I’m not wasting my gas on another one of your ‘discoveries’, Dale.”

I press down the button on his door with all of my might, and it finally clicks open. Once I’m in, Dale slams on the gas, and tears out of my driveway. I look at the row of trees along my driveway as we rush past them.

After a good few minutes on the road, a thought crosses my mind, I’m not entirely sure how far out Dale is planning on taking me. “Say, Dale, just how far out is this thing?”

“Well, hmm.” He pauses for a moment, and I’m sure I won’t like his answer. “Probably something like an hour.”

“Is that with your driving?” I laugh to try to hide how irritating that is. I can’t believe after all these years, I still haven’t learned my lesson. Dale’s young still, but I can’t keep doing all of these out till dawn trips.

“I could probably make it in less.” Dale steps on the gas and his engine roars in response. The car starts to go way faster than any car from that far back has any business going.

I laugh and look in the mirror. There’s a black SUV behind us, and it looks a lot newer than anything we usually see in these parts. Maybe it’s just a lost tourist or something. “Hey, Dale, look at that,” I point back to the SUV, “The suits are out to get you!” We both laugh and laugh.

After another twenty or so minutes, we reach Turner’s fork and Dale goes left. I’m a little surprised that he was out this way, considering his place is on the right, and

there’s nothing worth seeing on the left for hours. Besides old Turner’s field, that is. He’s been dead for years, though, so Dale has no business snooping about there. Then again, that hasn’t stopped him before.

Another thing that I notice, is that the black SUV is still behind us. I figure that may just be the soil testers. After we take the fork, the SUV begins to gain on us, and it looks like they want to pass us. They get closer, and soon are right up behind us. Dale seems to notice this too, he rolls down the window and motions for them to pass.

They begin to flash their brights behind us, and Dale waves them on more aggressively. “What are they doing?” He mutters.

The SUV finally gets into the other lane and starts to overtake us, but they don’t pass us when they meet us. They begin to bump into the side of our car.

Dale and I look over to see what they’re doing, but their windows are tinted. “What the hell are you doing!?” Dale shouts and begins to honk his horn.

The SUV full on rams us, and we spin off towards the field next to us. Which would be great, but Iowa is only mostly corn and soy. This happens to be a field of grass surrounded by trees.

We hurtle towards the trees going eighty. In a moment of pure instinct, I command the trees to move. I watch as two giant oaks quickly part to allow this hunk of steel through, before closing behind us.