The Tall Grass

**The Tall Grass (🌿🌿🌿)** is the fifth episode of the second volume, and the overall twenty-third episode of LOVE DEATH + ROBOTS.

3 Symbols:

1. Tall Grass
2. Tall Grass
3. Tall Grass

## Episode Synopsis

During a journey across the prairie, a man becomes transfixed by distant, ghostly lights.

## Plot

A train chugs through a vast prairie at night. Our main character, Laird, reads a newspaper in his train car, looking up as the rail man peeks into his window from the hallway. He thinks nothing of it, looking out the window at the scene passing before him. Suddenly, the train grinds to a stop. Laird gets up to investigate, stepping through the empty train and out onto the gravel tracks to have a smoke. The rail man joins him outside to inform him that they're taking a brief stop to build up steam. Before walking off towards the rear car, he issues a vague warning: "...don't wander. Once we're ready to go, I'll call for you to get on board, but only twice. Then we go no matter what". Laird gives him a strange look before lighting his cigarette.

Out in the prairie overrun by tall grass, Laird has noticed strange blue lights that glow and then fade. Overtaken by his curiosity like a complete f-ing idiot, he wanders out to investigate. Continuing to smoke, he grows more suspicious by the second, the rustling noises in the grass unnerving him. He begins to panic when he hears the rail man call "all aboard!". Once, twice. Laird shouts to him, but he's unable to see the right direction back to the train over the grasses. Running towards what he thinks are the tracks, he stumbles upon one of the lights getting brighter by the second just a few feet in front of him. Pulling aside the grass, he is horrified by what he sees: a creature worse than death. It is clear that it was once human, but almost all facial features had vanished, pale grey skin stretched over every inch of its body. The only human-like thing about it was its form and its gaping, needle tooth-filled mouth that lets out a horrible cry when it spots him.

The creature lunges at him, and as Laird turns to flee, he tumbles down a hill into a pit in the field. He fumbles for his glasses that have flown from his face, and when they are placed once more on his nose, he is face to face with half a dozen creatures that tear after him. He kicks and crawls out of the pit, spotting the lights of the train through the grass. He dashes to the tracks, yelling for someone, anyone, to hear him. Before Laird can make it, he is thrown to the ground. The creatures have caught up to him. Looking death right in the face, he closes his eyes, accepting his fate. Suddenly, red is all he can see. Fire blazes in front of him, startling the monsters and forcing them away. Laird turns to see the rail man, and doesn't hesitate before sprinting away with him to climb aboard the back of the train. They are out of breath, terrified, but safe. The rail man remarks on how badly the things in the grass hate fire, and how he's sure that they used to be people at some point. He theorizes that they were souls that got lost crossing the plain, and every once in a while, the train stops in the grass and a passenger is taken by them. He turns to enter the train, and we look out to the fading plain from Laird's view. The last we see are the blue lights in the field following the train, but unable to catch it as it speeds off into the night.

## Cast

* Joe Dempsie at the Internet Movie Database as Laird
* Steven Pacey at the Internet Movie Database as the Rail Man

## Trivia

* This is the first episode not to feature love, death, or robots.

## References

* https://geekycraze.com/love-death-robots-season-2-cast-guide-for-every-episode/
* https://www.polygon.com/22436649/love-death-and-robots-netflix-review-shorts-breakdown
* https://www.reddit.com/r/LoveDeathAndRobots/comments/ncwx5j/love\_death\_robots\_volume\_2\_title\_cards/