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Original Fiction: How Does Your Garden Grow

Just a few quick notes: This is meant to be the opening (in part) to a longer novel, a project I've been working at on and off for a couple years. It's fairly dark and/or graphic. I'd love to see some honest reactions.

================== "How Does Your Garden Grow"



I’m watching you.

You don’t even notice, but I am.

It’s starting to get warmer out now; this is my favorite time of year. You - all of you - start to strip down, leaving your coats behind and letting a few scintillating bits of flesh feel the sunlight again.

Arms bare in the morning breeze.

The gentle rise of a barren ankle, slipping up the soft skin to a rounded calf.

The slender curve of a neck, throat lily white after months hidden beneath heavy sweaters and winter scarves. Pale as a dove; soft and sweet as a lick of ice cream on a hot summer day.

I don’t like summer. No, it’s too much. Too crass. Early spring is best, when all your secrets first begin coming to light.

I’m watching you.

You come here everyone morning, like so many others. I t in the back with my newspaper and watch as you place your order.

Vanilla latte. Light on the foam. Fat-free blueberry muffin, on the days you have your Pilates class. Jumbo chocolate chip cookie on the days you’re feeling naughty.

You live in the building across the street, and park in a garage next to the café. You stop in on your way out – to work, to your classes, to vit your friends – and then head to your little red Jetta on the third level of the parking garage.

I’m watching you.

You walk past my table, but you don’t see me. You never see me. Not yet. Not until today.

You walk past my table and I push it, just slightly. Just a little. It nudges your bag and shifts your arm, and your coffee spills, dribbling a mocha streak down your lily white hand and pitter-pattering against my newspaper.

Eyes as blue as fresh delphinium buds staring in surprise, and then in apology. “Sorry,” you mumble.

I’m watching you and, for the first time, you see me. It won’t be the last.

I smile and shrug it off. Better than you’d expected. You thought I’d complain, didn’t you? Demand a new paper off the rack by the door? Thought you’d have to pay for the trespass.

You will. But not yet.

I’m watching you as you leave and I see the sun glint off the back of your lily white neck as your long red ponytail swings from de to de.

You will be my lily. The first in this year’s garden.

I’m watching you, and soon it will be time. Spring is coming, and the flowers must be planted.

~*~

Erica thought the woman must have been pretty once; she could tell, even looking this way.

Standing at the entrance path to the Forest Preserve in just outde of the city, she shifted from foot to foot and listened for the oncoming rens. Behind her was a clearing with a large memorial stone engraved with the names of the family that had once lived there; someone had pressed a shock of bloody feathers to the back of the stone. Unsure of whether it was meant to be a tribute to those who had lived and died there, or just some kids playing at pretend magic, Erica had left it be. It wasn't why she was there, after all.

Rumor had it the woods were haunted, though the same could be said about just about any Forest Preserve in and around the city. The weather had been in an upturn and it had seemed a good day to go poking around the woods, so Erica had spent the morning trying to get her Jeep running and once it roared to life, had set out for the forest in search of wild mushrooms, herbs, even some decorative stones... and hoping just a little bit to hear the phantom drums that so many people talked about.

What she found there was nothing like what she had expected.

I should have stayed on the path, Erica mentally berated herself, tears pricking her eyes as she waited. The rens were getting closer now. She gave up a lent prayer of thanks for cellular phones, knowing there wasn't a payphone for miles around. She'd never have been able to alert the authorities if she hadn't had her cell phone with her, an overpriced electronic trinket that her father had frowned upon when she'd first bought it.

The girl shuddered, pulling the collar of her light denim jacket a little tighter around her throat, as if to fend off some imaginary chill. The sun had been warm and welcoming that day but now Erica felt cold, the tips of her fingers numb and frozen and her body shuddering without cease. The woods seem to breathe the frozen air, invible waves of wintry cold seeping out from among the trees and wildflowers to cut her to the core.

Should have stayed on the fucking path, she repeated in her mind. She knew better, really. Everyone did. The Forest Preserves were lovely for daytime walks, rides on the bike paths, picnics and soccer games in the open fields. But you stayed on the paths; stayed away from half-built shelters and piles of empty beer bottles, and, most importantly, never went in after dark and never went alone.

But Cathy had been busy and Erica had been desperate to get out into the sunshine, so away she had gone on her own. The patch of wild daies had caught her eye and suddenly she had wanted nothing more than armfuls of fresh flowers to spread around her living room and her bedroom and everywhere, just to bring a bit of the sunshine home. What she found there, however, was not the cheerful perk of early spring sunshine she had been looking for; the daies, beautiful, mple, sweet little flowers, had yielded nothing more but death.

The girl had been beautiful once. Whoever had dropped her there seemed to care a lot, laying her on her back and presng her arms over her nude chest as though to guard what modesty the corpse might have had when it was first placed in the little flower grove. Her red hair stood out among the flowers and still remained fiery and bright in spite of the discoloration and rot of the body.

Erica at first thought the daies had encroached on the corpse but when she squinted in the sunlight, she saw it was something else entirely. Gleaming white lilies covered the woman's exposed sex and protruded from her mouth and eye sockets. The flowers were new, nearly still alive, and seemed fresh, as though placed there recently and feeding of the dead woman's body. Whoever had brought the dead woman to lay amongst the daies must have vited not long ago.

It was then the smell hit her, the unmistakable stench of wet rotten gore. Not even the fragrance of the flowers could cover the stench of a festering body. Erica gagged, turned away and vomited, before running back for the path and the entrance, desperate to get away and call the police.

A local squad car arrived as she waited, then a county sheriff's car and an ambulance. She trembled and stuttered, trying to explain what she had found to the kindly middle-aged policeman who had rested a hand on her shoulder. He wrote down what she said and shuffled her off to a parmedic, a hispanic woman maybe just a little older than Erica herself, who had asked her name and wrapped her in a warm grey blanket, saying something about shock and calling her family. Erica had mply nodded, and let herself be guided into the back of the ambulance.

Daies had been her favorite flowers, once upon a time. She would never look at them the same again.

bout to read it now - got a graphic you want to include? we'll get it up on the main page!

Fantastic start so far! Can't wait to read more!

Great to have another author on the board! Really good work with creepy narration by our killer and great descriptive work of not only the crime scene, but the girl's thoughts and feelings on the scene. Looking forward to more.

you've got some good imagery working for you here. Definitely interested in seeing where this story heads.

Good stuff! I was originally annoyed by the overuse of the "lily-white neck"

thing, but I liked how it connected with the story at the end. The killer seems frightening, so I to am excited to see where this is going.