(no subject)
It’s a few days (a week? He’s stopped keeping track) after Seymour had his realization. When customers come in, they’re sniffling and sneezing, talking about parents or kids or brothers or sisters or boyfriends or girlfriends that are in the hospital, sick at home, or already in the ground. There’s an upsurge in calls for funeral arrangements lately. (Seymour tries to act like Mushnik did when people cry - wait a respectable while, listen, nod, and bring the conversation back to flowers. He feels guilty, wishes he could do more, and knows he can’t. Not every one cries, though; Seymour is privately grateful when he consults with people who are dead-eyed with shock and grief.)
At first Seymour thinks this is a form of divine justice - then he reminds himself that not everything is about him.
There’s a super-bug going around. People say it’s because of the terrorists. Or God. Or a government program gone wrong. Or because the flu mutated because that’s what viruses do.
Seymour called up the Krelborns. There was no answer. He left a message on their machine. He worries, but that’s all he can do, and even that he has to set aside for a while.
He’s got a plan. It feels weird not to be discussing it with Twoie, but, well, it’s not one of those types of plans.
Well, it is. It’ll still involve a death. Just not a human one. That’s what matters.
Today, he doesn’t flip the sign on the door to ‘Open’; he keeps the door locked and the blinds pulled down. From the back room, he calls Audrey and tells her not to come in today.
“Why?” she asks, surprised, and with the worry that’s been ever-present in her voice since Mushnik ‘went to Phoenix’.
“I’m taking the day off, like you told me. Gotta keep my immune system up. Don’t want to catch this cold like everyone else.”
“That’s a good idea,” she says warmly. “Mind if I drop by?”
“Any other time, I’d love it….But not today, sorry.”
A disappointed, “Oh.”
“I just need some-some time to myself, y’know?”
“Yeah. I know. But I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
“Of course.”
And that’s that. Seymour watches some TV without really seeing it. He takes the axe from downstairs, goes to the counter and takes out a pistol.
Leaves and vines rustle as Twoie moves from his resting position to his awake one. Somehow the huge pod balances on that stem.
“Whatcha up to, Seymour?”
Seymour glances at his weapons. “You think your kind get the flu?”
“Haven’t yet, but I ain’t eating no sick bitches.”
Seymour gives a soft laugh. “Twoie, you don’t-you don’t get it, do you? If they’re sick, it means…it means…I’m not the one killing them, if they’re gonna die anyway-”
“I get it,” the plant grumbles. “But don’t think I gotta kiss your fucking feet.”
Seymour swings by the local shopping mall, which has a very decent gardening store named Green Thumb. The store is closed; most of them are. Other stores have been broken into - a siren wails from a jewelry store down the hall.
Seymour drives over to a grocery store which has a little bit of everything - weed-killer included, and a gas station where he fills up. The gas-station attendent sneezes ten times in the few seconds Seymour interacts with him.
There are fewer people in the store than usual. A young man with piercings has a coughing fit and pulls a hand away splattered with reddish phlegm.
A few people he passes seems fine. He meets a middle-aged woman in a grey sweat suit buying chicken soup and cough syrup for her kids. “Nothing better than Campbells,” she tells Seymour with a harried smile. The one clerk on duty doesn’t sniffle or sneeze. There’s a connection between Seymour and the woman and the clerk - the woman looks him in the eye, talks to him about Caleb and Eden and baby Nashville, listens when he tells her that he’s working on his garden, he tried to contact his folks but he can’t get a hold of them. The clerk doesn’t look at Seymour and avoids touching him when he hands the weed-killer back. Neither of them are sure what to do with their ‘different’ status.
It’s around three o’clock when Seymour comes back to Mushnik & Son’s. He staggers under the spray can of weed-killer, testing the wand a few times. It’s a good arc. He unlocks the door, shoves the pistol in his pant pocket, then takes a deep breath. Axe in one hand. Wand in the other. He won’t have much time.
He bursts in.
He sees Audrey wrapped in Twoie’s vines, its mouth gaping.
Audrey struggles, twists, uttering cries barely louder than the ding of the bell as the door opens.
Before he can think he’s racing forward, spraying chemicals and swinging the axe at anything green. THUD. THUD. Hisssssss. Hissssssss. The vines are dripping red sap (?) and when the chemicals hit they start turning yellow.
Twoie roars. The windows rattle with the force of the sound. Its primary vines begin to loosen around Audrey.
THUD. THUD. Hissssss. Hisss- Seymour throws the wand aside mid-spray to grab Audrey. His fingers close around her shoulder and he heaves back, trying to swing the axe in the same motion. The axe slams into the plant - barely an inch to the left and he would’ve hit Audrey’s arm. Seymour pulls Audrey free and drags her back.
The two primary vines are curled close to Twoie, but two secondaries lash out; they coil around the spray can and toss it to the far wall. The door is open, Audrey must’ve opened it, she’s behind him now so he swings the axe in wide arcs at the smaller vines that slither through the air-
A vine grabs his arm and slams it into the doorframe. He drops the axe with a shriek of pain. The vine tightens around his wrist. Bones grind, pain flares, he screams again. He’s being pulled back; nails digging tightly into his shoulder, cutting into his skin. He pushes himself backward. The vine squeezing his wrist is one of the smaller, weaker ones, but the larger ones are swinging from the spray can to him, they’ll get him soon - the weaker vine begins to lose its grip-
-- They’re out and running for the opposite side of the street. The vines burst from the open door-
-- Can’t reach. It can’t reach. They’re too far away.
“I shoulda brought more weed-killer,” Seymour finds himself telling a pale, shaking Audrey. “I shoulda…if I’d had more…Gotta go back. To the store.”
“It moves,” she mutters, looking to him for confirmation.
“We need to get more weed-killer,” he repeats. His mouth is dry. The pain in his wrist is making the storefronts whirl. Every breath hurts. “And another axe.”
“And it talks.”
Seymour hesitates a second, then says, “Does it? Audrey, c’mon.” He starts walking towards the car.
Her voice is behind him. “We should call an ambulance. And the police.”
Seymour shakes his head.
“Why not?” Her voice is further behind. He glances back, sees she hasn’t moved.
“We gotta get more weed-killer.” And something else. Something else. He’s going to fail if he can’t remember. The plant will live. The plant will eat. So he has to remember - but it hurts too much to think.
“C’mon, Audrey, c’mon,” he mutters as he wracks his brain.
“Why not?” she repeats, shaking her head softly. Seymour is dimly aware that a few bums are watching.
Seymour gropes for a reason. Audrey doesn’t move; her gaze is fastened on his face. “I have to finish it,” he says finally.
“Finish what?”
Seymour shakes his head again. “Let’s talk in the car, on the way to the store, let’s-”
Slowly, her expression unreadable, Audrey strides past him and stands by the car door. “Thank you,” he says to her.
“Give me the keys?” She asks, but it sounds like an order nonetheless.
“What?”
Patiently: “You can’t drive like this.”
He gives her the keys. They get in the car. Seymour barely feels the wave of heat past his throbbing wrist. Audrey doesn’t put the key in the ignition.
“Finish what?” she asks again.
“The plant.” He falls silent.
“The plant that eats people,” she prompts.
“No. Blood. I fed it animals are first, but now….” He isn’t sure where that came from.
Lying to Audrey isn’t right. His wrist hurts. He has to finish the plant. The battle between those three concepts ends in one winner: “We have to get more weed-killer.”
Audrey stares at the store, jaw tight. The vines have withdrawn from the sidewalk. There are two of the neighbourhood bums talking to each other, pointing at the store, looking over at the Mushnik’s car; they obviously haven’t decided quite what to do yet.
“We can’t go in there again,” Audrey tells him. “We were lucky this time. It won’t give us a second chance.”
“But-”
“There’s another way. We burn that sonnuva bitch to the ground.”
Seymour stares at her. Softly, he says, “I’ve never heard a better idea in my life.”
They go back to Audrey’s apartment. (There’s a man lying on the street nearby who isn’t moving. Flies have collected around him and someone stole his shoes. Seymour doesn't look at the man's face.) The Internet provides information on how to make Molotov cocktails.
They go to the closest grocery store to buy some heavy objects to break down the window and some beer bottles. The clerk behind the counter takes his money in one hand - the other holds his shot gun. “Wouldn’t believe what this place has turned into,” he tells them as they leave. “Keep that loaded.” Seymour has no idea what he’s talking about - then he remembers the pistol sticking obviously out of his pocket. He glances at Audrey, but she doesn’t say anything.
Audrey knows how to siphon gas from a nearby car. “We should do it when there aren’t many people around,” she tells him. “Don’t want anyone calling the cops.” Seymour nods in response.
It all goes off without much of a hitch. A few people do see them, but whether they call the police or not is immaterial. Nobody comes to arrest them.
The Chevy Cavalier with “Mushnik & Son’s” on the side comes back to the store. Seymour gets out with the bottles but Audrey says, “Wait!” and points out an unmarked cop car in the nearby parking lot.
They wait, staring at it. Eventually, Audrey gets out and walks past the store. The stops and looks into the window. She comes back and quietly says, “I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”
They get up as close as they dare to Mushnik & Son’s Florist. It’s a toaster that makes it through the window. The glass shatters. The first cocktail Seymour throws doesn’t even go through the window - he’ll pretend his hurt wrist made him misjudge the distance, but really it’s because he can’t throw. Audrey’s goes through the window. Twoie roars. They throw the rest of their ammunition then rush back to the other side of the street.
The vines burst through the wall. These are thick vines and they’re not burning easily. They grab the wall, pull away hunks of plaster and brick.
Twoie moves. The fire licks up and down its body, reaches the pod, but Seymour can’t feel anything but terror because the plant moves. It drags itself from the store. The pot falls in shambles around a thick root system.
Could it always move? Seymour wonders. Audrey drags him back and to the side as the vines reach closer. They run down an alleyway. The vines can still fit, and do, because the plant makes it across the street.
“YOU THINK THIS IS IT?” Twoie roars. “YOU THINK THIS IS THE END?” It opens its gaping, meat-stinking mouth and laughs. The thorn-teeth have patches of clothes and goopy red flesh stuck between them.
It laughs as it burns, laughs until it starts screaming. Inside are the dentist and Mushnik and that cop and they must be laughing and screaming along with Twoie.
The plant falls to the ground, which shakes a little underneath their feet. Copious amounts of black, oily smoke billows from it. It struggles, vines twitching.
“We know…what you taste like, now…MOTHEFUCKERS….And you better enjoy the second act….”
Its vines coil and lash at the ground some more, but it’s beyond speaking now.
Seymour watches Audrey II die with tears streaming down his face, feeling utterly empty.
*
Seymour wakes up in an unfamiliar room. White lilies and pale pink roses climb over the mint green background of the wallpaper. The bed has checkered green and blue covers with thick pillows. There’s a small white wardrobe with chipped paint, revealing the blonde wood underneath - on top of it is a reading lamp, a mirror, and a sapphire-blue jewelry box. Used romance novels and magazines are scattered about haphazardly. There’s a desk on one side of the room with a scuffed laptop and a cellphone.
His right wrist is throbbing dully. He checks on it. It’s swelling. A bag of water is near his wrist; the water is lukewarm.
A woman cries, long and loud, in a room nearby. Seymour worries that it might be Audrey until he hears the voice speak in Spanish.
“I’ve got some more ice,” Audrey says as she enters, holding up another small bag of ice. She sets it on Seymour’s wrist. There’s a ding from the other room. Audrey leaves then returns bearing a plate with cheese and toast and a glass of orange juice. On the plate are two white pills that he took last night - extra-strength Asprin.
“Who’s that?” Seymour asks, nodding to the wall.
“My neighbour, Mrs. Rosario. Her family’s sick - or was, when we talked a few days ago.” Audrey gives the wall a worried glance. “Things got worse, I guess. I’m gonna go over once you’re done.”
Seymour picks at his food in silence, then Audrey leaves. He hears them through the wall: Mrs. Rosario crying, Audrey speaking, then both crying in low, keening moans. He wants to help them, he does, but his head is stuffed with cotton and his wrist begins to burn like fire, so he takes the pills and drifts off into sleep.
When he wakes up it’s early evening. Audrey is sitting in her chair by her desk, reading something on her laptop. She turns from it when he clears his throat. The light of the laptop is the only thing in the room - he can barely see her face.
“How’s Mrs. Rosario?”
“Her sons are dead,” Audrey reports dully. “She’s not taking it-fuck,” she hisses suddenly, “of course she’s not taking it well.”
She’s silent. She swallows heavily. “And my mom died. A mother without her kids and a kid without a mom.” She grunts something that might be a chuckle.
“I’m sorry,” he says automatically, feeling slow and still tired though all he’s done all day is sleep.
“She called me two days ago, got my machine, said she was going into hospital but not to worry. I found the message yesterday morning and started checking. They told me.
“That’s what I was coming to tell you.” Audrey rubs her face, her voice muffled by her hands. “Why I was at the store. I knew you were trying to deal with stuff and I went over anyway. Because…that’s who I am.”
Being selfish doesn’t approach any evil Seymour’s done. He’s both comforted and annoyed by her admission.
They fall silent. They’ve finished the plant. The pain in his wrist is less. There’s only one thing to deal with now.
“I didn’t feed it animals.”
He wishes he could see Audrey’s expression. Her voice is barely there when she says, “I know. It told me.”
“Had to be human blood, it said.” Twoie could’ve easily lied - why didn’t he ever check? “It was bringing in money. I was so…so sick of not having any. And Orin,” a pang in his gut, because he hasn’t even thought that name for weeks, “he was….” He shrugs, because they both know and he doesn’t feel like saying.
Audrey has her arms crossed over her stomach as she nods. He can’t mention the other body. That’s private in a way the dentist - Orin - never was. Maybe Twoie didn’t tell her about Mushnik.
“And your dad?”
He tries to frame a response. He never loved me I didn’t mean it I’m sorry I just got angry he shouldn’t have walked so close to the plant it’s his fault it’s my fault it’s Twoie’s fault
As his mind works his throat closes up. His body shudders, his breath comes short, tears prickle at his eyes. “Can’t,” he manages, a whined squeak of a word.
“Try.” The word cuts into him, leaves his entrails spilling out.
“He found out and I couldn’t-couldn’t-he was always yelling at me-” What’s backed up by emotions and memories, some so ingrained he doesn’t need to consciously recall them, sounds so vile and pathetic when told out loud. He can’t explain it. He never could.
He moans, tears his glasses off to cover his (lying murdering weeping) face. He hears Audrey get up and go to another room. A shower runs for a while, long after the water must have gone cold. Then it stops.
Seymour finishes crying eventually. He wipes his hand (he couldn’t raise his right one) on his pants and feels for his glasses. He slowly gets to his feet and goes to the door. There’s a bathroom to the left, then a cramped kitchen and a living room. Audrey is sitting on the couch - he catches a glimpse of her in profile as she looks out a window that faces an industrial area. Then she turns towards him, lightly surprised, damp hair rustling against the threadbare couch.
He moves to the door, thinking of what he could possibly say. “Thanks for the help,” is what he comes up with. “And…I’m sorry.”
They’re the worst parting words ever, Seymour reflects.
“I didn’t mean any of it to be like this,” he adds, but that’s another lie. He clubbed her boyfriend over his head and he knew exactly what he was doing. “I didn’t think it would get as far as it did.” Another lie - he let the plant live and knew exactly what he was doing. “I-” he sighs heavily, “I am sorry.” At least it’s the truth, even if the truth means nothing.
Audrey looks at him as if from a distance. She takes a deep breath. “You don’t have anywhere else to go, do you?”
“I…was….” Seymour thinks for a moment. “Going to go see the Krelborns.” He realizes that’s exactly where he wants to go. “Help them out.” If they need helping. Seymour twitches his head, shaking the thought away.
“You should wait ‘til tomorrow,” Audrey says. “It’ll give me time to pack, too.”
Seymour can’t say anything. His shocked look asks the question.
Audrey gets to her feet. Her expression is weary, it makes the wry smile she gives into a heroic effort. “Oh, lots of reasons. I’m a very complicated girl.
She becomes serious. “I’ve been reading some blogs and LJs, and this flu is big. Like, across America kind of big. There’ve been reports on TV, more gang violence, more muggings and burglary - and that’s just the stuff they’ve got time to cover. Things aren’t right.”
Her voice softens, her gaze drops to the floor. “I don’t want to be by myself right now.” Her hands are clasped in front of her like a child at church. “And I think I’m in love with you.”
She stops his heart and takes the air from his lungs. It takes him a moment to reanimate.
“Why?” he croaks.
“Because I am.” She lifts her shoulder in a shrug. “Because of who I am and who you are. Because…because. That’s just it.”
This is madness. You can be crazy for a while, but you’ll always come to your senses. Seymour did (or so he likes to think, even though now he’s beginning to wonder). Audrey will. She’ll realize that love is just a word and words (ones that aren’t ‘schmuck’, at least) are nothing. She’ll leave.
Unless he can keep with him, somehow. Somehow. He can’t ever deserve her, he’s done things she can’t even contemplate, his own father figured out that there was something wrong with him….He should leave. It would be better if he left.
She looks up at him from under her lashes. Those beautiful deer-gazelle-rabbit eyes gleam with tears. Her voice shakes unsteadily. “I need you.”
The part of him that wants to leave knows that it’s defeated. It dies right there. Its ghost won’t ever return.
“You have me,” he says, with every part of his soul and body. Life, mind, soul, body. Anything. It’s yours.
“I’m a mess,” she warns him, swiping under her eyes.
“You have me.”
She sniffles then opens her arms wide. “Come here, Seymour.”
Seymour does. They kiss as she cries, and with his good left hand he runs his fingers through her damp hair.