# **JIMMY PARKER’S LAST CROP**
This year, autumn in **Creston County, Oregon** came earlier and colder than usual. The wind blew down from the eastern mountains, bringing moisture and the smell of burning pine resin. But that didn’t stop the crowds from flocking to **Parker Apple Farm**, where old Jimmy — a skinny farmer with eyes as bright as fire — declared for the first time in 10 years:
**“This is going to be the biggest crop of my life.”**
And he was right.
This year’s apples grew red and shiny, like wax, and the aroma wafted down the highway. Supermarkets in the area rushed to place orders. Newspapers came to interview them. People called Jimmy “The Creston Apple Wizard.”
Until **things started to go wrong**.
—
## **1. STRANGE APPLE SEEDS**
On September 17, teacher **Maggie Collins** was grading papers in class when she saw Jenna frown.
“Maggie, this apple… smells weird.”
“What’s weird?”
Jenna split the apple in half. The inside was moist, white, and normal — **but the seeds were… silver gray**. Not brown. Not black. A cold, metallic color.
Maggie frowned:
“It must be a new variety.”
But by the end of the lesson, **25 out of 30 students** returned the apples because the seeds had one thing in common:
**– They were all silver gray,
– And they were all slightly… vibrating.**
As if there was a very faint sound coming from inside.
Maggie got goosebumps. She gathered them in a zip-top bag and drove to Parker Farm.
—
## **2. THE CLOSED HOUSE**
The Parker Farm was usually a bustling place, but that day it was dead silent. Maggie knocked on the apple barn door and found no one.
She went straight to the main house. The door was ajar.
“Mr. Jimmy? I’m Maggie Collins, I have something—”
The door creaked open.
In the living room—dark and cluttered—Jimmy was sitting on the floor, his back to the door. He held a thin knife in his hand, his head bent close to the bag of apples in front of him.
Maggie coughed.
**The sour smell of apples was as strong as the smell of a rotting corpse.**
“Mr. Jimmy, what’s wrong?”
But he didn’t answer.
Maggie stepped closer.
Jimmy was cutting open each apple—not to examine it, but as if he were… praying. He picked up each apple that fell and placed it in a small glass jar. The jar was filled with **silver** seeds that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Maggie pulled her hand back.
“What the hell?”
Jimmy turned. His face was haggard, his eyes red, like someone who hadn’t slept in a week.
“Maggie… you shouldn’t have come here.”
“You’ve been feeding this to the whole town! What kind of apple seeds are like metal? They vibrate!”
Jimmy stood up shakily. “I know… I know, you bastard… I didn’t mean to—”
“What did you do? Mix chemicals? Use growth hormones?”
Jimmy laughed, but it was a sick laugh.
“I wish it was just chemicals…”
—
## **3. THE TRUTH ABOUT THE BASEMENT**
Maggie noticed that under Jimmy’s feet—on the wooden floor—there were **muddy footprints** running from the back door down to the basement. The mud was reddish-brown, stuck together in streaks.
“Is someone in the basement?”
Jimmy paled.
Without waiting for him to answer, Maggie rushed to the basement door and pushed it open.
A musty smell filled the air.
A single light bulb flickered with each step she took down.
Jimmy ran after her, trying to pull her hand:
“Don’t go down there! Maggie, you don’t understand—”
But it was too late.
The light turned on completely.
Maggie was stunned.
In front of her was **a homemade laboratory**, exhaust fans, incubators, glass tanks, wires… and in the middle was **a young apple tree** planted in a steel frame.
But its roots weren’t soil.
They clung to **a round, metallic object the size of a basketball**, its surface streaked with pale blue light that vibrated like an apple seed.
“Oh my God…”
Jimmy stepped back, as if confessing his guilt.
“I found it in January, in the woods behind the farm. It fell from the sky. I thought it was a satellite… but then the apples in the field nearby mutated.”
Maggie turned her head in disbelief.
“You mean… this thing mutates the tree?”
“More than that,” Jimmy whispered. “It… controls.”
—
## **4. THE “NOT PURE” TREE**
Jimmy opened the glass case. Inside were slices of apple seeds.
Not seeds.
**They were hard metal spores, like nano-devices.**
Each spore had a blue vein running through it, like an electric circuit.
“They replicated themselves,” Jimmy said, like a confessor. “They spread into the soil, into the tree, into the fruit. I tried burning them, trying to bury them… but they grew faster and faster.”
Maggie shivered.
“You’re still selling apples?”
“I didn’t sell! I was going to cancel the whole thing! But the state of Creston… they came to inspect… they forced me to deliver because the contract was signed. I said the apples weren’t safe, and they wouldn’t listen. They said I was making it up.”
Jimmy collapsed in his chair.
“I don’t know what they’re going to do to people, Maggie. I don’t know.”
Suddenly footsteps sounded from above.
Not one person.
**Many people.**
Maggie held her breath.
“Who else is living in the house?”
Jimmy stared at the ceiling for a long moment, then said in a trembling voice:
“Not people.”
—
## **5. THEY CAME TO
HARVEST**
A loud banging sound echoed down the basement.
“OPEN UP!”
This voice… wasn’t familiar. Not the police. Not a neighbor.
Jimmy pulled Maggie back behind the glass.
The basement door was kicked open.
Three men in black coats stepped down. Their faces were pale, expressionless, their eyes staring straight down as if they knew everything.
The leader spoke:
“Jimmy Parker. It’s time to hand over the object.”
Maggie covered her mouth.
Jimmy stood in the middle of the room, his hands trembling as he raised them:
“I… I don’t have it anymore. It’s connected to the roots. You can’t take it.”
The man curled his lips.
“It’s not the roots that are connecting to the object. It’s the **object that’s feeding the plant.”**
Jimmy backed away, his face pale.
The man snapped his fingers.
The other two stepped up to the tree. One of them pulled out a scalpel and lightly sliced the trunk.
**Apple sap flowed out—silver.**
Like mercury, but thick and raw.
Maggie held back a scream.
The man’s voice rang out:
“The object has completed its incubation period. The metal spores have begun to spread through the fruit.”
Jimmy screamed:
“I warned them not to sell it! You told me to just leave it here! You said it was harmless!”
“The attitude has changed,” the man replied. “Now all that matters is harvesting it.”
He turned to the other two:
“Kill him.”
—
## **6. BLOOD AND APPLES**
Jimmy lunged at the knife-wielding man, knocking him onto the support. The other two rushed forward.
Maggie grabbed a nearby iron bar and hit the second man on the head.
“Run! Run, Maggie!” Jimmy screamed.
But there was no escape — they had blocked the basement door.
The third man swung a knife at Jimmy. He couldn’t dodge.
The blade dug into his stomach.
Blood spurted out.
But… not red.
**Mixed with silvery metal**.
Maggie panicked:
“Mr. Jimmy! Oh my God—You’re infected?!”
Jimmy laughed dryly:
“I ate the apple… two weeks ago.”
The man approached Maggie.
“Miss Collins. You’ve seen too much. Go in the cage with him.”
He gestured to the metal object — which glowed like a strange heart.
Maggie backed away.
Jimmy suddenly grabbed the trunk of the apple tree — where the object was clinging.
“You want to get close to him?” he growled. “THEN GO TO HELL WITH ME!”
Jimmy used all his strength to yank the tree trunk.
The metal object fell from its roots.
The vibrations exploded like thunder.
The men in black staggered, clutching their heads—as if they were all listening to the same inhuman sound wave.
Maggie rushed forward, grabbing Jimmy and pulling him toward the stairs.
“I… can’t live,” Jimmy whispered. “You have to get this truth out of Creston.”
“No! Go!”
Jimmy pushed her hard.
“RUN!”
—
## **7. THE OBJECT AWAKENS**
As Maggie ran up the last flight of stairs, there was a **small explosion** behind her, and a flash of blue and silver filled the basement.
She didn’t dare look back.
Maggie rushed outside, running through the apple fields. The apples on the tree **shook** in unison, each one glowing a faint blue as if pulsing in time with the object.
Like a field controlled by another mind.
When she reached the main road, she turned back.
**The Parker house was glowing.**
Not fire.
Not electric.
But silver light — spreading from **each apple tree** like a thousand veins of metal waking up.
—
## **8. TWIST THE NEXT MORNING**
On the morning of September 18, the entire state of Creston was shaken.
The news broke:
**“Parker Farm Explodes – 4 Dead.”
“Jimmy Parker Confirmed Dead from Gas Leak.”
“All Parker Apples Recalled.”**
Maggie watched TV with cold hands.
Because on the screen, she saw something that took her breath away:
**The three men in the “gas explosion” were pronounced dead at the scene — but investigators said they found no… BRAINS in their skulls.**
Only tiny silver particles, like metal dust.
Maggie trembled.
She knew it wasn’t an accident.
She knew who killed them.
And then the TV continued to report, making her almost drop her glass of water:
**“NASA experts say the explosion likely came from an unidentified piece of metal that was found in the woods north of Creston earlier this year.”**
NASA?
Not the state.
Not the FBI.
NASA.
Why would NASA know?
Maggie realized something:
**The men in black weren’t local.
Not the government.
They were the force that monitored the falling objects from space.**
So…
**What was controlling the apple field…
It wasn’t just an alien object.
It was a creature.**
Maggie stood up.
Out the window, on the horizon — where the Parker farm used to be — the sky was a hazy blue.
A silver light was… **moving**.
—
## **END:
THE NEW SEASON IS ABOUT TO BEGIN**
Three days later, at school, Jenna ran up to Maggie and showed her:
“Hey, I found the apple seed in my backpack last week! It’s still there!”
Maggie was stunned.
Jenna opened her palm.
**The silver apple seed was in her hand — and it was shaking slightly.**
Maggie paled.
The battle wasn’t over.
It just **started quietly** — from the very apple seeds the whole town ate.
