Darkness Blooms (7 page)

The barbs shot from the pistils embedded themselves in her boot at once. When Sylvia felt a sudden, strong tug on her right foot, she snapped out of her daze. She ripped her foot back, watching the threads attached to the barbs that were embedded in her boot snap.

Good,
she thought.
I hope it fucking hurts when I do that.

Sylvia grabbed the broom and ripped it away from the flowers. So caught up in this struggle with the black flowers was she that she didn’t see the striped spider plant creeping along the grass at the outer perimeter of the mass of black flowers.

Sylvia finally saw it just as she was about to toss the broom through the window. She saw it when it was directly in front of her, twenty feet away at the edge of the black flowers.

Sylvia didn’t know how it got onto the grass and didn’t care. All she knew was that the sea of black flowers formed a natural barrier between her and the spider plant. Sylvia flipped it off, directing her upturned middle finger straight to the center of the pod on the spider plant’s back before turning around to throw the hose through the still open window. When she turned to look for the spider plant, she frowned.

It wasn’t there.

“Shit,” Sylvia said, looking to either side of her, searching the walls of the house for the thing.

When she saw it, she frowned.

“What are you doing?” she muttered, watching as the spider plant crept up to the edge of the sea of black, just outside the reach of the shooting pistils at the back corner of the house. It leaned back from flowers, its pod tilting back with it and then forward. Back and then forward.

“No,” Sylvia whispered. “C’moooooon,
no.
”

Sylvia didn’t wait to see if her worst fears were about to come true, instead she twisted the knob above the spigot and scrambled through the window. Her thighs were on the windowsill when she heard and felt the spider plant bang against the wall of the house.

Maybe it overshot, bounced off the wall, and fell into the flowers,
she thought.

“Yeah right,” she mumbled as she struggled to get through the window with all the heavy, wet clothing on.

She was pulling her feet through the window when she heard a series of fast bangs. The patter of too many feet.

Sylvia screamed as she pulled her feet through the window and slammed it down on the hose. The hose, now filled with flowing water, kept the window from closing completely, but then it didn’t matter.

The spider scrabbled onto the window and was still.

Sylvia didn’t move.

A sound like knives being sharpened drifted in through the crack of the window as the long black teeth of the spider plant’s maw slid across one another. The maw at the center of the spider’s yellow belly opened.

Behind the long black teeth lay a pale pink mouth. From that mouth extended a tongue from which hung strands of clear saliva. The tip was thicker than the rest, reminding Sylvia of a chameleon’s tongue.

Sylvia couldn’t breathe.

She watched at the fat tip of the tongue touched and then pressed against the glass. The pink mass suctioned and spread across the glass in a rough circle that was about two inches in diameter.

Then the center of the pink mass slid open in a vertical slit, and an eye looked out at Sylvia.

If it had just been a black, bug-like eye, Sylvia thought that she would’ve been okay.

But it wasn’t.

It was white, and in the center of the eye was a red iris with a black pupil. Sylvia watched the eye of the spider shift towards her and the pupil shrink.

That moment, the moment where a predator saw her, recognized her, and focused. That was the moment Sylvia felt everything come undone in her little world. That was the moment when her situation felt impossible. The spider plane wasn’t a plant.

It was an actual animal. It wouldn’t just melt under the spray of a water hose. Of that, Sylvia now felt sure.

Sylvia moaned when the eye blinked. Something about it was alive with intelligence and malice.

Before Sylvia knew what was happening, the sharp teeth of the maw slammed against the glass and the creature’s legs shifted. Cracks radiated out along the surface of the glass, but the window didn’t break. Every winding crack terminated at the point of one of the retractable fangs that dotted the bright yellow inner legs of the spider.

The damn thing had stopped the glass from shattering. The eye flattened a little more, and a disc of glass inched into the kitchen in a rough circle around the eye where the maw impacted. The glass stayed attached as the eye pushed its way through the glass into the kitchen. The big orb shifted at the top of its narrow stalk to look at Sylvia. The slit narrowed and at that moment, Sylvia felt like the spider was glaring at her.

Something about that glare made her snap. Something about it reminded her of Mamere and what Mamere had done to ensure that Sylvia end up here.

Sylvia glared right back into the spider’s eye, the cold, primal part of Sylvia moving her hand to grasp a pot and start the motion to swing it.

The eye pressed farther into the kitchen to look at Sylvia, to take her measure, then the glass window shattered and the eye dropped into the sink, neatly severed from its stalk by the glass. The spider let out a high pitched scream that brought up gooseflesh on Sylvia’s back and arms as it fell from the shattered window. It bounced off the window and fell out of sight.

Sylvia gaped at her white knuckled hand gripping the pot that she’d just swung in a vertical arc. Red blood dripped down the edge of the pot. In the sink, the eye shifted to focus on her.

Sylvia shook her head
no
and slammed the bottom of the pot down on top of the eye. The crushed eye made the same sound that grapes make in your mouth when you bite into them. Sylvia glanced out the window, watching as the dusky black flowers shot barbs into the legs of the flailing spider and dragged it away.

“Survival of the fittest,” Sylvia mumbled as she swung her legs off the counter. She bent over to pick up the hose where it lie on the linoleum, gushing water all over the kitchen, then she waddled to the front door.

She doused her clothes with the hose one last time and threw the door open. The flowers closest to the door blossomed open and Sylvia looked out at all the red.

“Open wide, bitches,” she said, a smile ripping across her face as she held her thumb over the mouth of the hose, creating a strong spray that buffeted against all the red faces that were turned up to her. The effect was instantaneous. Flowers smoked and melted into nothing. She walked out the front door and stood on the porch, dousing the plants in a wide semi-circle, working her way toward the steps.

Once the steps were clear, she went back in the house and grabbed the coffee cans, Papere’s book, and her keys. She walked out, set them on the porch, and got right back to work making blossoms open and then promptly exterminating them with water. By the time she got as far as the hose would allow her to go, her cheeks ached from smiling so much. There was still about a foot of plants, but she could just jump clear of it. And if they barbed her shoes and clothes?

Who cared? She was going to strip before getting into the car anyways.

Sylvia cut down the last remaining foot of flowers to four inches by walking up, kicking them, and then going back to get the hose and angling the spray so it would fall down on them in an arc. When she couldn’t hit any more of the flowers, she grabbed her stuff off the porch and stomped through them, ignoring the feeble attempt they made to bring her down.

Sylvia scanned the yard for any other mounds of flowers near her car. There weren’t any so she set the book and the coffee cans on the hood of her car and started stripping off Papere’s contaminated clothing layer by layer until she was down to a single layer. She left the clothing there in a pile then tossed the book into the passenger seat and briefly thought about putting the coffee cans in her trunk.

That seemed like a terrible idea though. How could she allow tin cans full of water and death to roll around?

Instead of the trunk, Sylvia wedged them against the driver’s side rear passenger door with her purse. Once she was sure that the cans wouldn’t so much as move, she settled into the driver’s seat and closed the door. She slipped her key into the ignition and bit her lip. If the car didn’t start, she was screwed. Sylvia twisted the key in the ignition, heart thudding in her chest.

The car turned over and started up just fine.

Sylvia let out a breath of relief. She reached for her cell and tried to unlock it.

Nothing happened though. Her cell was dead.

She snorted. “Had to be something, didn’t it?”

Sylvia pulled out the car charger from the glove compartment and plugged it in. It beeped and showed the charging symbol. She couldn’t turn it on yet, but she’d be able to in a few minutes and run it off the car’s power.

Sylvia took one last look at the home she’d never visit again.

The black flowers that surrounded the house were all open and facing her, making it look like the house was floating on a gently rolling sea of blood. Sylvia frowned.

Why were all of them open?

Shaking her head, that sense of unease sitting heavy in her stomach, Sylvia drove away.

As she cruised along the street, she saw mounds of the black flowers everywhere. Some were in patches and some surrounded houses. She saw one house with a family all on the roof, waving to her. Flowers grew out from the walls.

Sylvia slowed for a second and rolled down her window.

“Hey,” the father called out. “Can you help us?”

“I’m on my way to the Sheriff’s to let them know about this,” Sylvia called back.

The man held up a cell. “We been trying to call all day. No answer from the office.”

Sylvia nodded. “Well I’m going to the office to drop off a sample so they know how to kill them.”

Sylvia waved and started to roll her window up.

“Wait!” The whole family yelled.

Sylvia rolled her window down.

“How do you kill them?” The father asked.

Sylvia shook her head. She’d almost driven off without telling them how to kill the nasty little plants.

“Water,” Sylvia called back. “Hit them in the red center with water. They disintegrate.”

“Thank you!” The man called back. “Good luck!”

“You too,” Sylvia called back.

As she drove away, Sylvia saw the whole family jumping up and down on their roof, waving their hands in the air at her.

Sylvia waved back.

Sylvia rolled into a silent town.

No birds.

No noise.

The black flowers covered the streets and sidewalks of the town. When she looked in her rear view mirror, she saw a sea of swaying blood in her wake, to either side of the crimson lay blackness.

Sylvia slowed her car outside of the Sheriff’s department, but kept moving when she saw the propped open door. Black flowers grew in the lobby.

The flowers inside opened to face her. Chills ran up Sylvia’s arms and she kept driving.

It was good to be back in New Orleans. The olde city.

And though it was good to be back, it was even better to be back in her childhood home.

Mamere laid back in bed and closed her eyes. She breathed out a long sigh.

“What about the girl?” Mamere’s sister Delphine asked from the other side of the room.

Mamere snorted. “Male and female of the same blood was sacrificed. What’s to think about?”

Silence fell over the room and Mamere leaned over the edge of sleep when Delphine jerked her back.

“She stronger than Amos,” Delphine said. “She don’t know what needs doin’.”

Fuck you, cunt,
Sylvia’s voice said in Mamere’s head, and like usual, Mamere saw red.

“Don’t matter if she wasn’t willing,” Mamere said, head filling with the thought of a mound of those black beasties sprouting in a torrent from Sylvia’s stupid screaming mouth.

“What if she didn’t go into the greenhouse?” Delphine asked.

“She did.”

“How do you know?”

“Put a note in her Papere’s journal.”

“How do you know she even took it?”

“It was the only thing she ever showed interest in, ‘sides that plant of hers.”

“What did the note say?”

“I wrote that her Papere grew one of his orchids, special-like, just for her, and I kept it alive over the past year.”

Mamere could hear the rustle of Delphine nodding.

“Okay,” Delphine said. “I just get worried is all. If the sacrifice isn’t made... well, ain’t a whole lot to say except kiss your ass goodbye. Croatoan.”

“You tellin’ me,” Mamere said. “Ain’t gonna be no Croatoan this century though. Now can we get some sleep? I’m plum exhausted.”

“Awright,” Delphine said. “In any case, glad you’re back home. ‘Night.”

“G’night.”

Mamere woke to the sound of rustling sheets. The room was still dark so it had to be midnight or later.

“Del,” Mamere said, sitting up and sliding her legs out from under the covers. “You okay?”

The rustling from the other side of the room stopped as Mamere slid her feet into her slippers and leaned toward her bedside table for her glasses.

“Ow!” Mamere shrieked.

Two sharp pains lit up on her face. It felt like a wasp sting, but worse. With a wasp the sting didn’t get worse, it stayed the same. The two spots on her face throbbed with hot pain, one above her left eyebrow and the other under her right eye on her cheek.

“Oh Jesus,” Mamere screamed when two more stings throbbed into being on her chin and her throat. “What’s in here? Get away!”

Mamere brought her hands to her face, fingertips probing the stings. It felt like long hairs were growing out of the already swelling lumps. Mamere reached her hand out for the lamp on the bed stand.