Green Thumb

         The rumors were varied and vague, but all involved the gardener. The house was abandoned, or so it was said, but Blake’s dad had told him that someone was still paying the property taxes, and dozens of kids claimed they had seen a dim light coming from the basement window. The gardener would come to tend the plants, so the story went. Plants that grew in the basement so large that they broke up through the floor and poked out the windows above. Blake had seen the plants, those were true enough. The few times he’d been brave enough to get up to the fence, he had seen the large red leaves moving in the windows, scraping against broken glass. The leaves were red, they whispered, because the gardener put the bodies of his victims in the soil for the plants to feed on.

         These thoughts milled in his head as he sprinted down the road, the old house getting closer and closer. Rumors were less scary than a gang of tenth-graders hot on your heels. He hopped over the fence and dashed across the front lawn, long unkempt grass lashing at his legs. He ducked into the open front door and crouched just inside, looking out one of the many broken windows. He saw the gang come to a stop in front of the house and look around, trying to guess his direction. They wouldn’t come in, they were chicken shits, all bullies were.

         He backed away from the window, getting out of what little light there was. He felt the leaves brushing against him, they had a kind of wet slick feel to them. He tried to avoid touching them. The room was dark and damp and quiet. It smelled of wet rot. As his eyes adjusted to the dark he thought he could see a faint light coming from between the cracked floorboards at his feet. Something was down there. Panic flooded his veins and he moved for the door, echoes of his schoolmates voices ringing in his ear, ‘Gardner's gunna getcha! Gardner's gunna getcha!’ But when he got to the door he froze. One of the bullies was creeping across the lawn, the others egging him on silently.

         He backed quickly into the darkness, hoping desperately that he hadn't been spotted. The leaves slapping against his head got thicker and thicker, until suddenly there was nothing under his feet. He fell onto his ass, stifling a shout and flailed his arms briefly before he realized that he was on a staircase. There was a dim light below. He followed the steps down toward it.

         The basement. Someone was keeping plants down here. He saw rows of long tables lit by dim bulbs, soil was piled on the tables, maybe a foot high along the length of the table. Some sort of bag of plant food was hanging above each table with a tube leading down into the soil. The roots were clearly visible moving in and out of it. They were red and veiny. One more step forward and it clicked in his mind what he was looking at.

         “Oh god!” He said aloud before clasping a hand over his own mouth. Bodies. That wasn’t soil on the tables, it was bodies. One on each table, about a dozen total, all with plants growing out of them. The roots broke in and out of the flesh like it was dirt.

         He spun around and found himself staring at another table under the stairs he had just come down. It was a woman, she was nude and covered with deep cuts. Each one had a tiny sprout growing out of it. Even one of her eyes had the beginnings of a leaf poking out, and the other-

         She was looking at him. Her one good eye was looking right at him. That ‘bag of plant food’ was not for the plants, he realized. They were alive, all of them. He stood in shock until he felt a hand grasp his shoulder hard. Before he could react there was a sharp pinch in his neck, then darkness.

         He awoke to the sound of humming, and a sharp sudden pain in his arm. He tried to move away but couldn't. He opened his eyes. He was laying on his back, a light hung above his head. More pain in his arm, something was pressing into a wound there. He could just see the top of someones head leaning over him, it was covered by a white trucker hat. A pain in his other arm, then the feeling of a finger digging in. The pain moved all about as the man leaning over him hummed a wandering tune. His arms, then his chest and legs, his stomach. He knew what was happening. The gardener was putting seeds in him, and he couldn’t move.

         The cuts finally stopped and the head left his view. He heard steps going up the stairs. He heard a door shut, then silence. Silence and pain from his cuts and a light in his eyes. He couldn’t even scream.

         He didn't know if it was better or worse to know that he was not alone.