Plants

P L A N T S

Tom woke up, disgruntled, to the sound of his alarm clock at a time that he felt was much too early for him to be woken up during his summer holiday. Might as well be waking up for school, he thought to himself grumpily as he groggily reached out for clothing. Today was to be the first visit to Mr Abaddon's home. Mr Abaddon lived at the top of the road, and required somebody to stop by his house to water his indoor plants while he was away. Word had reached Tom's dad, who suggested Tom do it, and also insisted he do it in the mornings so as to give him some sort of routine. Tom disliked this insistence. What use is a holiday if he's still following a routine? He cheered himself up upon remembering that Mr Abaddon would pay him, as well as realising that he could be back home and in bed again in half an hour.

Tom gobbled up a couple of bananas and went out, taking the spare key that Mr Abaddon had silently put through their door. As he walked up to Mr Abbadon's door, he briefly observed the front of the house, which was filled with cracks and half swallowed by vines. Tom had never been bothered by the derelict appearance of his neighbour's home, but he knew other neighbours liked to talk about Mr Abaddon. He'd overheard them from their garden conversations a few times, saying that Mr Abaddon was a recluse, that he was a widower who had given up on life, and that he spent all his time with his plants.

Tom had rarely seen Mr Abaddon since living on this street; he was a gaunt, grey-skinned, somewhat elderly man with piercing green eyes, and eyebrows so thin that he seemed expressionless. He may not have had the most welcoming appearance, but he had been kind enough to wave and grunt at Tom when he'd walked past him a couple of times before, on the rare occasions that Mr Abaddon had ventured out of his house. It was strange that he had gone away at all. As far as Tom was concerned, the man may be a weirdo hermit, but he was paying him quite a few quid for such a simple task. He supposed he ought to feel some gratitude. A couple of his mates had found some summer work, shifts at cafes and whatnot, while he merely had to water some plants. Great!

Tom entered the house and was struck by a faint yet noticeable rotten stench. Something in the fridge must have gone off. Tom grimaced through the hallway into the kitchen/dining area, where he was amused to find stacks of plants covering up most of the walls. Tom chuckled; this man really did love his plants then. There was a watering can on one of the shelves next to a written note on the table giving instructions not to go upstairs. Sure, whatever, responded Tom in his mind.

He popped into the other two rooms downstairs, and found they were also similarly covered in plants. Aside from the shelves holding them, there seemed to be no furniture. Only plants. A green ocean of leaves and stems. Tom's amusement turned to dismay as he realised this would take much longer than half an hour. He grudgingly got to work with the watering can.

It really did seem like there was nothing to do in this house but water plants. Tom's mind painted a picture of Mr Abaddon stood amongst his plants day and night, forever gazing at the endless green sea of plants through his equally green eyes. More than once, Tom was convinced he had heard movement behind him, only to turn and see nothing but the still plants. After the third time this happened, he began feeling uncomfortable and started skipping a few plant pots to finish sooner.

He suddenly felt a sharp cut across his thumb, making him yelp. He looked down at his thumb, which had drawn a couple of specks of blood across a graze mark. He stared for a moment, dumbfounded, then noticed beside his hand was a particularly long bright green root covered in thorns, appearing to lurch out of its pot and away from its main stem towards the floor. Annoyed at himself for grazing his thumb, Tom reacted by grabbing the thornless base of the root and aggressively snapped it off, as if blaming the root itself. He was almost certain that root had not been poking out so far from its pot before.

At that exact moment, a piece of paper fell out from between the plants onto the ground. Tom picked it up, and saw that it was actually a worn out photograph of a woman, neither young nor old, stood in a greenhouse, smiling radiantly. She appeared full of life, proudly holding a pot with a distinctive thick, near black stem with dark leaves grown around it. Tom wondered if she was Mr Abaddon's late wife, and found that this increased his discomfort. His thumb started to sting, so he left the room to rinse it under cold water.

Seeing a bathroom at the top of the stairs, he dashed upwards, whereupon the rotten stench he had smelled in the hallway was noticeably stronger. He could also hear a beating sound coming from behind a door left ajar. Curious yet cautious, and ignoring the escalating sting of his thumb, Tom opened it and his eyes widened in astonishment at what he saw.

A large, gigantically wide ceramic pot, filled to the top with soil, lay in the centre of the otherwise empty room; growing out of it was an enormous, distinctively thick, near black stem with dark leaves grown around it. The top of the plant was crushed against the ceiling; it looked desperate to escape out of its confined space. Transfixed, Tom approached the vastly huge plant, taking out his iPhone. Bizarre as this was, he was definitely going to take a picture.

As he approached the pot, the beating sound grew louder. Staring closer at the stem, he found that it was pulsating. Before he could react, something inside the pot caught his eye, which darted downwards and saw, as if digging itself out of the soil, a pale, yellowish, human hand. Tom felt his heart and lungs freeze as he opened his mouth to cry out, only for silence to stun him. The fingers on the hand suddenly jerked upwards and began twitching. Without thinking, Tom swung around, sprinted out of the room, and dashed down the stairs, jumping down every three steps. He desperately lunged toward the door, barely registering the now burning sensation of his thumb, which had spread throughout his hand, which had begun to turn green.

THE END