Dale and I sit panting for a moment. I seem to be mostly fine, and Dale doesn’t look any worse than usual. We both get out of the car without speaking. The side of the car that got rammed is dented and scratched, but beyond that the car was fine.

“Jim…”

“Yeah, Dale?”

“Did those trees move?” He points to the trees that were now back like they were before we ran through them.

“Yeah, Dale.” I nod.

“Why did those trees move?”

“Well, that was part of what I wanted to show you.” I turn away from him and walk out towards the field. I realize I’m not entirely sure how to replicate what I did earlier.

“Well, you’ve got my attention.” Dale says from behind me.

I take a deep breath. “Grow!” I’m not sure if it’s the words or the feeling behind it, so I decide to go with both. This had better not let me down.

The grass in front of me remains still for a moment, and then shoots up to hip height. I look back at Dale. “Yeah, that was it.”

“Well, how long have you been doing that?” He looks to be so confused that he doesn’t know what other way to process that.

“Since that green light.” I lean up against his truck, and find a dent decently shaped for my back.

“Wow, that’s weird. Do you think that’s why the suits are here?”

“Maybe. I don’t think those guys are soil testing, though.” We both chuckle. “So, are we still going to see what they’re doing?”

“I sure as hell am. They scratched up my truck. You don’t have to, but I sure as hell am.” He reached into the bed of his truck and pulled out a rifle.

“Well, like hell am I gonna let you go alone.” I open the door to his truck and sit back inside.

“Well, we can’t go driving up now, they know our truck, and they’ll be looking for us.” Dale slings the gun over his shoulder. “Open up the glovebox, there ought to be a pistol in there.”

“Well, what are we gonna do? Walk? We’ll be out here all night.” I grope around in the glove box and find a silver pistol with a couple of clips. “This had better not be a 22.”

“Jimmy… I have an idea.” He points over the hill to a ramshackle shed.

“Well what’s gonna be in there? Do you even know whose property we crashed on?” I make sure the safety is on, and tuck the pistol into my pants.

“We’re on O’Reilly’s land… I think.” He scratched his beard for a moment, then shook his head. “Either way, he keeps dirtbikes, and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if we borrowed them.”

“So we’re gonna go stealing somebody who I’ve not even met’s dirtbikes?” Upon hearing it out loud, that does sound like a very Dale thing to do.

“Pretty much. We’ve got strangers trying to kill us in our town, I think special rules apply.” He grabs a bag and starts to stuff it with beers, before strapping it to his back. “Look, I’m gonna do it anyways, you may as well be with me.”

I sigh and slam the truck door shut. “Well, I guess I’ve not done anything this stupid in a good long while. Let’s get going.” So we head off to the shed.

When we finally get to the shed, we find a rusty lock barring our entry. Dale slams it off with the butt of his rifle, and I don’t even bother to object. Inside are three cobweb covered dirtbikes, leaning up against a wall. Along with them, are shelves and shelves of junk.

Dale sets off getting the bikes uncovered, while I search for any gas he may have. Through a pile of sheet metal, plywood, and tools, I see a faded red fuel can. I begin to shove metal and wood to the side, not particularly worried about noise. Sure enough, there’s a two thirds full can. I just hope it hasn’t gone bad.

“Dale, I got the gas.” I look up at a bulletin board, and underneath a pile of pinned papers, I spot a glimmer of keys.

“Good stuff, you see any keys? They’re not in the ignition.”

I look over my shoulder, and Dale had secured two of the better looking bikes. “Yeah I think I’ve got ‘em here.” I grab the keys and the can, and I start filling the tanks.

I’m just about done when Dale bumps me, making me spill some gas on my pants. “Psst… Jimmy? Do you hear that?”

I stop filling and try to listen, I hear shouting off in the distance. I think for a moment about who it could be, but then again there’s not really a good answer to that question, so I call it a day on fueling the bikes and toss Dale a key.

The yelling is getting much closer, and I can just about make it out. “Get out of my shed, you thieves!”

Of course he found us. I make a note not to listen to Dale ever again. I put the key in the ignition, but it doesn’t fit.

“Jimmy, my key isn’t working!” Dale is yelling now, and reaches out a hand for

a different key, handing me his.

I give a turn to the second key, and I hear the roar of Dale’s bike next to me. I throw the other key to the ground, and try the last one. I crank the bike, and it roars to life. I then remember that it has been more than a decade since I rode one of these. That realization is dwarfed by the sight of an angry old man in the doorway.

Oftentimes I doubt Dale’s intelligence, but in a pinch, he can usually figure out a working solution. In this particular pinch, his solution was to mow the old man down. Dale revs his bike and shoots off, the old man barely has time to fall out of the way before Dale is out the door. I shake my head and take off after him.

I guess there are some things you never forget, like riding a dirtbike. I wager that I won’t soon forget that old man’s face when Dale revved that bike. That alone almost makes this worth it… Almost.

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.