Mad Tales

Chapter 7 - Prey

CHAPTER 7 PreyThe old man barely looked Dan in the eye when he opened the door.

“You’re here,” he said, then turned around and shuffled away toward the kitchen.

Dan didn’t follow. The day was as wonderful a day as he could remember, and it was made even more wonderful by the fact that, thanks to a very rainy early spring, the grass was green, the cherry blossoms were blooming in full force, and tulips, yellow, satin, and red, sprang up in freshly mulched beds. Birds sang. A soft breeze ruffled his hair. Watching a shower of yellow pollen blow across the street, Dan was grateful not to suffer allergies.

If the outdoors were an Audubon painting, the old man’s house was Bosch. The shades were drawn, the furniture saggy and defeated, the air stale and cold, like a crypt. An old plant sat dying and brown on the mantle of the fireplace, which was neglected and black, a burned-out cave carved out of the wall. Dust motes flickered in the air, and the old man clearly smoked, as the stench of tobacco nearly choked the young reporter. Not an easy feat, as he was himself a heavy smoker.

Dan took a deep breath and put his sunglasses on top of his head where it held up his hair, still wet from a last minute shower. He’d stayed out late with his friend Wes, drinking dollar drafts at the local college bar, taking shots with some soon-to-be graduating coeds from UMW, and smoking way too much. His head pounded. His chest felt like it was stuffed with ash.

The old man banged around in the kitchen.

“You wanna do the interview, or what?”

The kitchen was not in any better condition. The appliances, a bisque refrigerator that chugged along on a dying compressor, and a tan gas stove with rusted grates, looked to be about sixty years old. He didn’t see a microwave or a coffee machine. The single window was littered with dead cacti in miniature red clay pots. Spider webs hung between what needles hadn’t fallen off yet. The surface of the table was decorated with yellow-orange daisies, as were the old, plastic-covered chairs. The old man tended to some water boiling on the stove, his back to the young reporter. Dan took a crumpled pack of Camels from his breast pocket and shook up a cigarette.

“Don’t smoke in here,” the old man said. When he spoke he glanced, just barely, over his shoulder.

Dan let the cigarette dangle from his lower lip.

“I’m sorry. It just smells like—”

“My wife.” The old man turned from the stove. In each hand he held a mug of steaming liquid. “My late wife. She smoked a pack a day.”

Dan nodded and put the cigarette back in the pack.

“Sorry.”

The old man placed the mug before him and he eyed it. The liquid was brown, with an oily sheen on the top.

“She died last month,” the old man explained.

“Oh.”

Dan didn’t want to talk about the old man’s wife. Dan really didn’t want to be there at all, but his jackass editor Bill Sweeny made him take on all of the human-interest stories for the Weekender section. This meant covering the latest community garden fundraiser, or talking to the new butcher who just set up shop on William Street, or interviewing old widowers who liked to garden. Still, he’d done his research. Before he went out drinking, that is.

It was close and dusty in the kitchen, and it made Dan’s head throb even more. Other dead plants sat in pots atop the fridge. They were labeled “Mix 1,” “Mix 4,” and “Mix 7.” Dan rubbed his eyes and placed his mini-recorder on the table between him and the old man and pressed record. Probably only take twenty minutes, then it was back to the apartment for a smoke and a nap.

“So how long have you been interested in horticulture?”

The old man took a sip from his mug.

“Not until recently. In October.”

“While your wife was sick.”

“Yes.”

The man took another sip, warmed his hands on the mug.

“It was a long illness. She suffered greatly. It required my utmost attention. Toward the end, I started to get depressed. Her doctor suggested that I take up a hobby.”

Dan shifted in his chair. It made a funny sound. A crack in the upholstery pinched the skin on his thigh.

“It must have been nice to actually see something grow.”

“Yes.”

“But why such an exotic flower? Why something like . . .” he opened a little notebook in which he had written down the name of the flower, and pronounced the name slowly. “He-li-co-di-ceros mu-sci-vorus?”

The old man brightened a little.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Yeah, but didn’t it require more care than you were able to give? Considering your wife’s condition.”

The corners of the old man’s mouth tugged upwards in what Dan realized was his version of a smile.

“Not really.”

“That’s funny. From what I read, the Helio-whatever actually does require a lot of care for a flower. It’s also expensive to import. I mean, what did you do for a living? To be able to afford this?”

“I was an accountant.”

“Wow.”

Dan waited for the old man to expound, but no further explanation was necessary. It made sense. A man who did not talk much at all, didn’t seem to notice or even care about his surroundings or other people. An accountant. Probably squirreled away every last penny he ever made, which was probably what happened, judging by the ancient appliances. He stared around the kitchen in the uncomfortable silence that followed. The counter was decorated in the same ugly pattern of bright yellow-orange flowers. At least a dozen pill bottles littered the surface. The tile was scuffed. A fly buzzed.

“So you split the time between here and the hospital?”

“Ellen didn’t want to die in the hospital. She wanted to be buried in our back yard. I honored that wish.”

Dan nodded. According to his research, the Helicodiceros muscivorus needed to be watched very carefully, it’s climate adjusted so that it never fell below a certain temperature. The old man must have built an expensive greenhouse, and he would have had to check on the thing every two or three hours. The image of the old man tending his flower while his wife expelled her last breath made him slightly nauseas.

The old man smirked, as if he read Dan’s thoughts.

“Have you ever cared for the dying, boy?”

“Never cared for one, no.”

“It’s not the most pleasant experience, let me assure you.”

“I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Nobody does, nobody does. Nobody truly understands until it happens to them.”

But I’d never neglect my dying wife for a flower, Dan thought.

“My wife was ill for nearly three years,” the old man continued. “When she took to her bed I did everything. All of the cooking, all of the cleaning. Diabetes took her legs in December. I fed her. I emptied her bag. She was helpless without me, like an infant. But worse. She just got sicker and sicker. Her doctor suggested gardening, not me. He thought that I might improve mentally if I were to take care of something that would actually thrive under my care.”

Dan’s hangover was truly kicking in now. A light sweat broke out on his forehead, and his stomach flipped. He was thirsty but didn’t want to drink the oily liquid in the mug the old man gave him. He swallowed and his throat clicked. The old man said nothing. Just sat there, looking at him look at the mug.

He picked it up. The tea was no longer warm, but he didn’t care. He needed a drink. He closed his eyes and took a sip. It was strong, a little bitter, but the old man had added honey to sweeten it. Actually, it was quite tasty. He finished it with one gulp.

“Did it work?” he asked, placing the mug on the table.

The old man watched him for a moment. Then he shook his head.

“Not at first. I didn’t have the proper soil, and it cost too much to have some imported. I found the solution around Christmas.”

“Oh? What was it?”

“This and that. Something special. My own creation.”

“And it worked?”

The old man smiled a crooked smile.

“Would you like to see for yourself?”

For a moment, based on that smile, Dan thought the old man meant his wife’s corpse.

The grass in the back yard was green, the air scented with lilac. In the corner, a garden flourished beneath a blooming dogwood, the bed freshly covered with rich, black mulch. The greenhouse sat in the back, in the opposite corner. It looked like it was worth more than the old man’s house, and it was better maintained, too.

A new vinyl fence had just been installed, tall and white and solid; only birds and squirrels would be able to get over. Dan followed the old man as he tottered across the lawn to the greenhouse door, opened it, and let him in. The smell hit him full in the face, an overpowering wall of rot. He dry heaved. All of the research had told him that the flower let off a scent like rotten meat, but none of what he had read prepared him for the reality of it. A stench like that was primal, deep and full, seeming to revel in its rancidness. He swooned.

The old man said “Here,” and thrust something under his nose.

A tangy, minty scent cleared his head.

“Ben Gay.” He swiped his upper lip with a dollop of the greasy ointment. “Tried Vicks but it didn’t work.”

Dan took the tube and wiped more under his nose. It cut the rotten meat smell nearly in half, but not all the way. At least he wasn’t as dizzy anymore.

“She’s down there, around the corner,” the old man said, and gestured for Dan to move.

They walked down a short path lined with dozens of hothouse plants, flora and fauna the names of which Dan didn’t know. Everything was radiant and healthy, bountiful. The bushes looked twice the size of what Dan thought they should be, and the flowers glowed with color. He walked with his hand covering his mouth and nose, as if the rotten meat scent might lodge there and resurface later.

When Dan spoke, his voice was muffled.

“How long did it take for you to get the fertilizer right?”

“What?”

“You said it took a while before you got it right. How long did it take?”

“Oh, only a few weeks. It was touch and go there then. She was hovering on the edge of death, you know. The first blend perked her up initially, but it didn’t last long. I had to find other sources.”

Dan felt queasy. The old man talked more about the stupid plant than he did his own wife. They reached the end of the aisle. A few gardening tools, a rake, a pickaxe, a shovel, leaned in the corner. Dan saw some sneakers tossed carelessly next to a door in the back. Must have belonged to the old man’s wife. The door was open just a crack.

“What’s back there?”

The old man gave the door a cursory glance.

“Mulching room.” He nodded at the flowers and fauna, his handiwork. “I had a breakthrough toward the end. Found a special mixture that worked magic. She perked up immediately and bloomed.”

“Where is it?”

“Turn around.”

Dan turned and saw the flower, the Helicodiceros muscivorus. The old man had separated it from the other flowers: a queen on a pedestal. To Dan it was an oval shaped, purple lump, spotted white, looking like an alien v****a. He was simultaneously repulsed and intrigued. He leaned forward to get a better look despite the stench.

“She’s a beauty,” the old man said.

“Yeah,” Dan mumbled. “Sure.”

He looked at the soil for any evidence of the special blend the old man had gone on so much about, wondering the whole time why anybody in their right mind would raise such an awful flower.

“So what’s your secret?”

“Secret?”

Dan thought he heard a note of doubt in the man’s voice.

“Your secret. The blend you’ve been talking about. Oh—”

A wave of nausea overwhelmed him, his damn hangover kicking in right then, full force, with the heat and the smell. His stomach rose up and he gulped several times to hold it back.

“Mostly it has to do with age,” the old man said from behind him. “The younger the source, the richer the blend. Works on pretty much all the flowers.”

Dan leaned on the table upon which the Helicodiceros muscivorus sat. He’d been hung over before, many times, but it was never this bad. In fact, this didn’t feel like a hangover at all. The dizziness peaked, his legs shook, his vision blurred and sharpened, blurred and sharpened. He thought of the oily surface of the old man’s tea. He leaned over again, weak, his face inches away from the horrid flower, and something caught his attention, something pale sticking up out of the dirt. He bent forward to get a better look, then drew back sharply. It was a finger.

A human finger.

Dan started to say something when he heard the scrape of metal against the concrete floor of the greenhouse. He turned around to see the old man swinging the pickaxe directly at his head. He had just enough time to let out the beginning of a scream.

The old man grunted as he pulled the corpse to the room in the back of the greenhouse, kicking aside the footwear spilling out the door. A white, clawfoot tub sat in the middle, rust stained and spattered with dark blotches. He heaved the body up by the armpits and draped it over the edge with a grunt, making sure to bend at the knees so as not to throw out his back like he did the first time, the past winter. He removed the boy’s sandals, those stupid roman-styled things all the kids wore these days, and tossed them into the pile by the door. Most were size ten or eleven, although a few were smaller, more petite.

He’d have to burn them soon.

Maybe in November, after the leaves fell.