"The Green House"

“The Green House”
By Cody Williams

 

1.

When Roger first built that damn green house, honestly I didn’t think much of it. I would always offer to come over and help, but he insisted on doing it for himself. I worked with Roger very closely in the science department at the local university. Building a green house in our own backyard is something that we had both always fantasized about.

            It took him about six months to build the damn thing. During that period, he seemed, I don’t know, somewhat obsessed with it. Whenever I would see him at work, he seemed almost hypnotized with it. He would say the strangest things. Whenever I asked him if he wanted to hang out after work he would always give me some half assed excuse not to show up. That continued throughout the course of the six months and as time went on, we talked less and less. But that all changed when he finished it. Roger almost seemed like a different man.

            “Hello Peter!” He said to me happily. Sat there on that old bar stool kind of shocked. I took a sip of the beer in front of me. I wiped my mouth, and then turned to take another looked at him.

            “Roger? How’s it going buddy?” I asked him as I managed to put a fake smile on my face. I wasn’t jealous. I know it might sound like I am or like I have some sort of resentment towards him. I don’t. I can promise you that. But still, for some reason, I just didn’t want to talk to him. Roger looked at me and smiled.

            “Fine! I’ve been just fine.” Roger answered as he patted me on the back and then sat on the bar stool beside of me. “Give me a beer my good man! A Budweiser!” Roger told the bartender. The bartender smiled and nodded as he finished whipping a glass mug and put the white towel over his shoulder. “How have you been Peter? How are you and the wife?” He asked me.

            “Fine. Just fine.” I said to him. I took another sip of the beer and Randy, the bartender, brought Roger his beer. Roger took a sip and then looked back over to me. The two of us sat in silence for a moment before I finally decided to ask him something.

            “How’s your wife and kids?” I asked him. The cheesy smile that he was wearing on his face quickly disappeared. He gave me a strange look. Almost as if something was wrong. But he managed to put on a noticeable fake smile.

            “Fine. They're…they're fine.” He said as he quickly took another sip of beer and changed the subject. “I finished it!” He whispered in my ear. I backed away and gave him a strange look.

            “Finished what?” I asked as if I didn’t know what he was talking about.

            “The green house! I finished it! Boy, you ought to see it! It is so beautiful!” He told me. I kind of rolled my eyes and took the last sip of my beer.

            “Hey Randy, I’ll take another beer to go!” I told him as I stood up from my barstool. He nodded at me and reached into the open cooler behind him. He pulled out two long neck Budweiser bottles and sat one in front of me and the other in front of Roger.

            “On the house fellas!” Randy said as I began to reach into my pocket for some money.

            “Thanks Randy!” I said as I pushed the dollar bills back down into my front pocket and grabbed the beer from the counter. “It’s good talking to you buddy, but I better get going!” I said to Roger as I began to make my way towards the door.

            “Peter wait!” Roger told me as he stood to his feet and walked over to me to stop me. “Why don’t you come over? You can come over and check out the green house! I know you want to!” He told me. I looked at him and said nothing for a moment.

            “No. I don’t think I should do that!” I told him.

            “Come on man! It’s a shame that we don’t get to talk and hang out like we used to! Just come over for a minute and check out the green house. I’d really like to see what you think!” He said to me. We stood in silence for a moment before I finally sighed and accepted his invitation.

            “Okay. Fine.” I told Roger. “I’ll drop by sometime tonight after dinner!” I concluded. Roger smiled at me.

            “Perfect!” He whispered as he turned his back to me and walked out of the bar.

 

2.

Later that night, I decided to head over to Roger’s house. I didn’t really want to. I’m not going to lie. But I knew that if I didn’t, Roger would bother me to death until I either killed over or he killed me with his rambling. Now, I would be lying if I weren’t somewhat curious though. I mean, I always wanted a green house. Ever since I first took that Greenhouse course in high school. I walked out the front door of my house shortly after eating dinner, and walked down the driveway over to my car. I got into it and quickly backed out of the driveway and drove over to Roger’s house. I figured the sooner I get there, the sooner I get to leave.

            One I arrived; I parked on the side of the street out in front of his house. I got out of my car, locked the doors, and walked up the front walk and up on the front porch to the front door. I waited for a moment and finally decided to ring the doorbell. It didn’t take Roger long to answer the door. It was as if he heard me coming.

            “Come in come in! It’s in the back yard!” Roger said to me full of enthusiasm. I smiled and walked in the front door as Roger shut the door behind the two of us. I looked around for a moment. The house wasn’t really messy, but it was disorganized.

            “Boy, Marsha’s kind of lost her touch. I’ve never seen the place this disorganized before!” I said to him. The smile that greeted me at the door quickly left and Roger gave me this real serious look.

            “Yeah. Anyway, It’s here in the back.” He told me as he began to make his way towards the back door.

            “Where are Marsha and the kids?” I asked him as I tried to make a conversation spark. Roger stopped suddenly and then turned back to face me.

            “They went out. They had to go to the store.” He told me. He turned his back to me again and began to lead me out the back door.

            “The store? At this hour?” I asked Roger with disbelief.

            “Umm…yeah! Come along now!” He said. Something wasn’t right. I knew that from the start. But I put the thought out of my head and followed him out of the back door and into the back yard. There it was. The greenhouse. I stood there for a moment and gazed in total awe. Roger looked at me and smiled. “Come on in!” He said as he walked over to the front of the greenhouse and opened the door. He stepped to the side and motioned for me to go inside of the greenhouse.

            The moment I first sat foot inside the green house, my jaw dropped and I looked around the place in amazement.

            “Wow Roger! This place is amazing!” I told him. It was warm in there. Just warm enough for me to break out in a sweat just by setting foot inside. Plants surrounded the room. But I noticed fairly soon that something indeed wasn’t right. A certain smell lingered in the air that sickened me. It smelt like rotting eggs that have been sitting there for at least a year. I turned around and looked at Roger.

            “What’s that smell?” I asked him. Roger got this fishy smile on his face.

            “What smell?” He asked me. I gave him a strange look.

            “What do you mean what smell? Don’t you smell it?” I asked him. He just smiled at me and pointed forward through the tall grass. I cautiously turned my back to Roger and slowly started to make my way through the tall grass. As I got closer to the back wall of the green house the smell increasingly got worse and worse. I began to notice pools of blood surrounding area on the leaves of plants and on the tall grass. By the time I saw what was leaning up against the back wall of the green house, I could barely move. There was Marsha wearing a baby blue dress covered in blood. There was a big hole in her stomach and her intestates were lying on the floor beside her. I began to take a step back when I felt something under my shoe. It was a hand. I backed up to take a look and lying there on the floor of the greenhouse were the two dead children of Roger. Both of them had serious bite wounds and one’s brain was hanging from the child’s ear. A tear began to roll down my cheek when I turned around to face Roger.

            “What the hell is this?” I asked Roger. He just smiled at me and looked up. I turned around and ground began to shake and rumble. Coming out of the flowerbed up against the back wall of the green house was a giant Venus flytrap. The thing looked down at me and let out a loud growl. I looked back at Roger.

            “I’m sorry pal. But she’s my baby! She needs to be fed!” He told me. I looked back at the gigantic plant and then ran over to Roger. I punched him in the face and grabbed him by the collar.

            “You sick son of a b***h! You mean to tell me that you sacrificed your wife and children for this…this…this thing?” I shouted at him.

            “I’m sorry! I really am! But you don’t understand! She’s my baby! She needed me to feed her! So I arranged that!” He said to me.

            “You sick b*****d!” I said as I began to punch him again. I managed to bloody his nose and bust his lip when the plant growled again. I quickly looked back as the beast began to charge towards me.

            “Agghh!” I screamed as I stood to my feet. As the plant opened its mouth, I picked up Roger and threw him it.

            “Oh! Oh no! Please! For the love of God help me Peter!” Roger shouted as the plant began to rise up.

            “No. No Roger, I think you can handle it! It is your baby after all!” I told him as the creature bit down and Roger’s blood splatter against the wall of the greenhouse.

Copyright 2014 by Cody Williams

Courtesy of TRUE TERROR PUBLICATIONS

A division of TTP Entertainment

Author's Note

This one has been on the back burner for quite a while. I finally got around to writing it. I hope you all like it. Reviews and comments are welcome as always.

-CW

Reviews

[Dayran]

There's a strange relation to Irish folk stories of babies born from trees ... something I read a while back ... that gets a different treatment in an American experience of the same. Thoughts are sometimes conveyed as growing plants ... and find a resemblance to nerves sprouting in the body to hold such thoughts and experiences. You have to be careful CW ... I think there's a leprechaun in your fancy 2nd year at college garden.

[Cody Williams]

Thank for reading Dayran!

-CW

[Nia Hope]

It's very "Little Shop of Horrors" I like it! Great story!

[NoelHC]

An interesting story, I have to agree with Anto a bit here, the tales tend to be structured very much the same from one to another.
There are some edits to clean up, for example:
“Fine. There…there fine. (They're)

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading Noel! I can't believe I missed that one. I'll correct it asap!

-CW

[NoelHC]

Check intestines as well. I think you have intestate, like when you die without a last will. Who knows maybe she did!

[Sami Khalil]

I was mesmerized by the whole story and conversation. Green house with murder. A novel idea. Excellent...:).....................

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading Sami!

-CW

[Sami Khalil]

You are welcome...:).......

[ANTO]

I really like your attention to detail and your dialogue Cody - they are definitely your strengths and you play to them time and again - and Im a fan, however - I feel that your story here is a reimagining of Little Shop of Horrors which was in turn a reimagining of A Roger Corman b-movie. I fear you may be in danger of starting to write to a formula - in this genre. I agree with my friend Sami Kalil that you are an outstanding writer on WC but I think you need to start thinking out of the box mate.

[Cody Williams]

Thanks for reading Anto. I'm not writing to a formula, but this one was difficult to write. It took several starts and stops to write it. I'll take all of what you said into consideration. Thanks again for reading.

-CW

[ANTO]

I didnt mean that your stuff is formulaic - I enjoy reading your stories - they're the only ones I read on here. I appreciate how difficult it must be and you are prolific - amazingly so but in a few stories when you introduce the main character I can kinda tell that they will be horribly murdered in the last few paragraphs. Thats all I mean. I want you to surprise me and thrill me.
:)