Germ Growers - Story Book
The Germ Growers
Robert Potter
Australia, 1892
The Germ Growers
Name in the Smoke
What if a map remembered terror?
The Germ Growers
Name in the Smoke
In a dim Gippsland hotel, Bob heard a bushman describe Kimberley, and the talk struck him like cold water.
The Germ Growers
Name in the Smoke
Jack was already watching Bob across the smoke, his brows drawn tight, as if the same buried place had opened in both minds.
The Germ Growers
Name in the Smoke
They left the room, crossed the dark scrub, and walked the moonlit beach without a word.
The Germ Growers
Name in the Smoke
Near the surf, Bob said the gold seekers were close to a place they had never named aloud.
The Germ Growers
Name in the Smoke
Jack answered that silence had been safer, and the sea kept thundering as it carried Bob back to another coast.
The Germ Growers
Shadows at Penruddock
That same sea had pounded below Penruddock, where Bob first learned that a handsome face could feel wrong.
The Germ Growers
Shadows at Penruddock
James Redpath charmed strangers at first, but dogs shrank from him, doors closed behind him, and Bob once saw pleasure flash across his face at another's pain.
The Germ Growers
Shadows at Penruddock
One cloudless noon, after James Redpath walked inland, two shaped shadows slid over the grass like boats on invisible wheels.
The Germ Growers
Shadows at Penruddock
Bob sprang up, but the sky was empty, and the fishermen below kept pulling their nets as if nothing had passed.
The Germ Growers
Shadows at Penruddock
James Redpath was never seen in Penruddock again.
The Germ Growers
Shadows at Penruddock
Before the whispers could settle, a new terror entered Penruddock, and even his vanishing seemed to fade inside it.
The Germ Growers
The Red Sickness
That terror came as the red sickness, moving from cottage to cottage until Penruddock shut its doors.
The Germ Growers
The Red Sickness
Doctor Leopold and Doctor Furniss burned bedding, sealed the valley, and fought the fever almost alone while the village kept away.
The Germ Growers
The Red Sickness
When the deaths finally slowed, Doctor Leopold told Doctor Furniss that hidden enemies might cultivate disease the way men breed dogs.
The Germ Growers
The Red Sickness
Doctor Furniss looked hard at the brook, and even the picnic sunlight seemed to lose its color.
The Germ Growers
The Red Sickness
That night Bob dreamed of invisible cars crossing a bright sky and dropping sickness over sleeping roofs.
The Germ Growers
The Red Sickness
Back on the beach, Jack told Bob to write it at last, and the waves sounded less like fear than warning.
The Germ Growers
The End
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