The House of the Vegetable Read online

  Don’s terror magnified. It wasn’t just the way it looked, and the fact there was some freaking floating entity in the room, but there was an overwhelming sense of, Don could only describe it as anarchy, that seemed to forcefully radiate off it.

  The thing seemed still, almost like something inanimate, until Don saw its head start to move.

  Don in fear, felt waves of nausea pushed up into him, and he wasn’t sure if he’d just loosened his bowels. The creature’s head slowly turned towards Don until the insect eyes locked menacingly, shockingly, on his.

  “Panic!” The cry came from Don’s right and Don just about jumped out of his skin with fright. Mandrake.

  Heart now hammering a mile a minute, Don turned to see Mandrake cross-legged on her mattress, eyes rolled back in her head. She screamed again, “Panic! Panic!” And then to Don then it suddenly seemed as if everyone in the room started to writhe, a few even now rising zombie-like to shuffle about.

  A harsh scream came from one of the girls across the room and then the loud awful sound of retching immediately to his right. Too late Don realised that Damiana had started to ‘purge,’ no bucket in sight, in his direction. His hemp pants were spattered with sick.

  Don shot up. The room was still thick with the sickly green light, insect pan thing still hovering above Thornapple, Don attempted, though body rubbery as all hell, to move toward the door.

  The floor seemed to be sloping and Don had to lean a bit to stay upright. It took some degree of mental focus but eventually he made it across the room. Finding a wall for support, he staggered out into the corridor. Don jumped with fright when he saw someone, maybe Salvia, lying on the floor in the passage.

  Don rushed on to the toilet, a terribly powerful wave of nausea now pushing up in his gut.

  Heading through the batwing doors he somehow caught his thumb between them as one swung back. Ignoring the pain, he pushed on into the toilet cubicle, soft streetlight spilling in through the windows. All vestiges of the ghoulish green were thankfully gone.

  But then he was there again. He had not actually moved, he was still lying on the common room floorboards next to his mattress. But then still feeling the cold tiles of the toilet floor. No, he was still up in the bathroom above the garage.

  He was somehow in all places at once. The sensation brought up a rising gorge and then Don was— while trying to ignore the comic demon head that had just appeared at the bottom of the toilet bowl and was trying to talk to him—for a long time- violently and profoundly sick.

  ◆◆◆

  He came to sometime later, after either a mind wandering or sleep. He was lying on his side next to the toilet, in the gloom, staring over at a huge, what he guessed was a baboon, spider on his thigh.

  Don hoped it was a hallucination because for not any kind of love or money—or avoidance of spider venom—could he be enticed to move.

  Also he was half worried about the filth and bacteria he was lying in but right now he couldn’t be bothered. All he knew was that he didn’t want to go back into the common room. The goat man thing had freaked him out to no end. It had looked so damn real. The large spider was far preferable, and the cold toilet floor even seemed to somehow comfort and ground him.

  Don closed his eyes. How long was it before dawn? He just lay breathing, waiting, trying to build up enough strength to move. Nothing seemed that important now. If he was ever able to walk again maybe he’d just take off, jump over the wall and be out of there, tell Lesley to go fuck himself. He was done with this mission. Fucking done with it.

  Don opened his eyes. Raised his head a little. The spider was gone. He couldn’t decide if that was better or worse.

  He laid his cheek back down on the cold tile. He’d wash it tomorrow—today, whatever. Everyone nowadays just too worried about germs, he thought randomly, a little was good for one, it toughened up the immune system.

  As the morning light finally eased into through the small window above the cistern he could only feel thankful that he had survived.

  But he never wanted to do that again.

  An hour or so ago though he’d sworn he was done with the mission, and he might have still been if not had not been for the possibility that he might’ve had revealed a clue revealed to him?

  If the plants wanted him to take the money, well, at least he would have to give it one more try.

  Chapter 17

  The sun was fully up by the time Don was finally helped to his bed by Ephedra and Valerian.

  He supposed he could have got up and walked back to his room earlier, but he had just found something safe and comforting about the little cubicle. Lowered to his mattress now though, he found it was also sweet enough relief.

  A short time later Nutmeg came into the room. Don didn’t think he was tripping anymore but he was still disorientated, the world still felt somehow altered. As though if it were in a movie everything might be slightly tilted at a ‘Dutch angle.’

  He’d been told one was meant to feel okay the next day, but he felt awful, like he’d been hit by a train. The light seemed too bright, noises harsh and grating.

  Nutmeg sat down on the bed next to him.

  “Valerian says they found you in the toilet? You still alive?”

  Don nodded.

  Nutmeg looked at him for a time then said, “Take it easy. You’ll be okay.”

  After Nutmeg had left Don lay quietly on his side. Sleep would have been nice he thought, but as he lay there, disconnected thoughts just kept rattling through his head.

  Slowly Don seemed to return to what he thought of as a normal state of mind. Still wanting sleep, but just unpleasantly wakeful.

  Later in the morning he managed to stumble to the bathroom and swap his gross clothes for clean ones. He chucked the puke uniform into the laundry basket and selected a nice fresh set.

  He looked at himself in the mirror. His pupils were huge, virtually no iris visible. No wonder the light was hurting his eyes. He randomly recalled another fun fact he’d just learnt recently in his plant book—how Belladonna, Italian for “beautiful girl”, had got the name because it had at some point been used in eye drops to dilate the pupils.

  Most drugs as far as Don knew had the effect of dilating the pupils but wasn’t that usually supposed to fade as the effects wore off?

  Don made some attempt to wash before putting the new uniform on but just felt too battered to take a shower and just managed to soap and rinse his hands and face before stumbling back to bed.

  He wanted to get some sleep, knowing he was going to have to be up again tonight, but instead just lay in bed going over the events of the previous night.

  Don passed on lunch spending most of the day in bed, although not sleeping, just lying there with eyes closed or staring at the wall. Finally he made it out for dinner.

  The others had had a kind of debriefing session in the common room in the afternoon—Thornapple reportedly not present, no doubt having returned to his isolated state—but Don had luckily been given the choice to opt out.

  They did seem a little concerned about him, which in turn made him concerned. Was this not what was supposed to happen?

  At dinner Don was taken by surprise by an announcement of Nutmeg’s. Most of the house had been in the kitchen, partaking of the usual veg and grain, when Nutmeg had stood up and announced, “Word has come down. Dan has survived the ceremony and will forthwith, until he dies, or joins another collective…” Nutmeg laughed. “…be known as Betelnut. Or Betel for short.”

  It did not make Don feel any better about what the mission but, well, what could he do?.

  Last night he had been ready to pack it all in. Physically and mentally sick, tired and fed up, but then—aside from having gotten a bit of a dose of revelation about how he always bailed out when the going got tough—he had also surely had a vision, or experience, or something, of a possible location of the money.

  Whether it was a real extra-sensory experience or just in his head, he still was
n’t sure. It had certainly felt real. More real than real. He hadn’t remembered seeing an access panel in the ceiling in the bathroom, but surely he’d picked it up in his periphery and just not taken it in consciously. Also why he had only seen a damn cheap paperback and not a bag full of cash? He just did not know… but he thought it was just weird enough to give a shot.

  If the money was up there, Don thought, he would take it as confirmation that the plants wanted him to carry on with the mission.

  He had been anticipating that the drug was going to clean him out. Make him realise through some epiphany that stealing was wrong. Oddly it had seemed, in this case, to encourage the opposite.

  Oh well, the Lord works in mysterious ways, Don supposed, and the fastest way from point A to point B is not always the straight line.

  Chapter 18

  Still feeling a bit out of sorts that evening, Don, for a moment, considered putting off the heist for another night, but ultimately decided it was best not to push his luck. How long before the keys were noticed missing? Or someone pushed back the net curtain in the bathroom and wondered why all the screws on the burglar bars had had the paint scraped off them.

  Every day also increased the chance that the money (assuming it was still there) would be moved or spent.

  Don hoped also that tonight the rest of the House would feel as tired as he did and without a bloated bladder forcing them to rise, their sleep would be fast and deep, and as a result his nocturnal meanderings might have less of a chance of being detected.

  About an hour after dinner, Don repeated his trick of consuming as much water as possible. Maybe though not as much as last time, seeing the trick had worked perhaps a little too well.

  He hadn’t slept all day and was hoping that he could get a few good hours before having to get up again. No such luck though, as unfortunately his—possibly anxiety driven—insomnia recurred and he lay awake for a lot of the night thinking.

  One of the things turning over in his head was that if he now succeeded in his mission it would be the last time he’d see any of the members of the House. They were an odd bunch, but not unlikeable, he thought. He had only been there a few short days, but he did think he would miss them. Nevertheless, after he had taken their money and disappeared in the middle of the night, he did not fancy bumping into any of them in the future.

  It was late, lying on his back in the dark, with the rest of the House presumably out already, when Don finally fell asleep.

  Don’s sleep was uneasy, filled with strange images, short-lived and far from restful, but the pressure in his abdomen finally brought him round.

  Opening his eyes he took a moment to let the dreams abate. All was quiet, except for a light tinkle of wind chimes outside.

  Don raised his head to check on Valerian and Ephedra. Both looked well enough asleep.

  He sat up, rubbed his face. He could still feel a residue effect of the plant mix, but it was fading; he was good enough to go at any rate. He got up and checked the clock. Just on three. As long as no one had the runs again, Don thought, it was now or never. Picking up his shirt and retrieving his shoes with keys and sap still tucked in the left one, Don headed out the room.

  Stepping cautiously out into the corridor he listened again for any signs of life. The house seemed at peace—and no light coming from the bathroom.

  He pushed in through the batwings and switched on the lights. First to the toilet, he urinated but did not flush. Deciding to forego washing his hands, just trying to keep all noise to a minimum, he put his uniform top on. Still leaving his shoes off though. His plan was to leave them and the socks out in the garden and only put them on after he had returned from Thornapple’s—it would be quieter moving about barefoot.

  Don then removed the sap from its hiding place. He tried putting it in his pocket. It fit but the pocket was shallow, and he worried it might fall out when he was climbing out the window, so he tucked it back into his underwear. Retrieving the set of keys Don chucked them in there as well—not wanting them jangling about in his pocket.

  Don then opened the medicine cabinet and removed the bottle of massage oil, which fit okay enough in his pocket, and he would be using it shortly anyway.

  Dressed now, Don, as silently as he could, lifted the lid off the toilet cistern and retrieved the butter knife. Then back to the window he pushed back the curtain and got to work on removing the screws. Already loosened, the process took only a couple of minutes. As he was busy on the second to last screw, he heard a creak from the nightingale floor. He stopped, froze, ready to hide all evidence. Ears pricked he listened with full intent. But nothing, no further noise.

  Less than easy, Don got to work again and quickly removed the bars. He opened the window, tossed his sneakers out, and then remembering the bathmat as well, chucked it into the garden, and then clambered out himself, stepping out onto the damp grass.

  Behind him, Don closed the curtain as best as he could and then lifted the security grill back into place. Holding it in position he took one of the screws from his pocket and sending a hand through a gap in the lattice, screwed it loosely back in. One screw seemed enough to hold it in place. Just so it would look like nothing was amiss at a casual glance.

  Don had the awful thought that he might have to return through here if he couldn’t find the money. Just in case, he laid the other screws down in the grass next to his shoes

  Okay. So far so good. Now Sativa and Indica.

  The two dogs still obviously hadn’t heard him yet. Their kennels were round the back of the house and, assuming they were there, he planned to try to get close enough for them to catch a scent of him, to recognise him, before they had a chance to go off barking.

  Don now made his way slowly round the back, padding through grass as quietly as he could manage.

  As he moved, his breath sounded heavy in his ears. He tried to quiet it. That then made him a light-headed, but he thought he could at least survive the next few minutes without passing out.

  Along the back of the house were the windows to Damiana and Amanita’s, as well as Nutmeg and the cook’s rooms. Luckily though, for Don, both sets of windows were now closed.

  As he approached the nearest kennel, still a short distance away, Don saw Sativa pop her head out, no doubt to investigate who was padding about quietly in the grass.

  The moment she caught sight of Don’s silhouette she seemed to just about jump out of her skin with fright and began yelping wildly. This of course, brought Indica out of his neighbouring digs to add his voice to the cause.

  Don squatted, called out to the dogs in a harsh whisper but they were still too wound up. He rose and approached the dogs as quickly as he could, patting his thigh, this seeming to alarm them even more, their barking growing even more frantic.

  Finally though, in a moment, Sativa caught his scent, or recognised him somehow, and abruptly stopped barking. Indica seeing this also quietened and both ran forward to greet him.

  Don knelt, scratching and patting both dogs. His heart racing now, he shifted in front of the kennels, trying to calm his nerves and also stay out of line of sight of the bedroom windows.

  Minutes passed and there was no visible sound or sign of stirrings from the inside the house. Possibly if there was a real burglar (or at least a strange one) they would have just expected the dogs to carry on barking.

  Finally satisfied he’d let enough time elapse, and itching to get moving again, Don rose, knees popping, and made his way to Thornapple’s security gate—the two Africanises happily bounding after him.

  Don looked up above the garage. There didn’t appear to be any lights on.

  At the security gate, Don now removed the small bottle of sensual massage oil from his pocket. He unscrewed the lid and squirted some out over both gate hinges. He then tried to work as much of the stuff into the gaps as possible, Sativa lapping at his fingers when he let his hand fall back down to his side.

  Don waited a few moments to let the oil run down in
to the cracks, then wiped his hand off on Sativa’s head, removed the keys from his underwear and slipped the relevant one into the lock. He turned it and slowly pushed the gate open.

  It swung back on its hinges quieter and smoother than he could have wished for.

  Leaving the oil bottle on the grass, Don entered the stairwell, gently closing the gate after him and using the key to prevent the clicking of the latch.

  He decided to leave the keys hanging in the lock, for his return, then turned and headed up the staircase, his damp feet slapping lightly on the concrete as he ascended.

  Up on the landing he approached the curtained doorway with caution, ears alert for any noise. At the threshold he stood, waited. Nothing. Satisfied the news channel wasn’t on, Don pushed back the curtain.

  Enough light was coming in through the thin fabric over the windows to allow him to make out the space.

  The room was much as he recalled, just now a lot dirtier. Used wadges of toilet paper, a few chocolate wrappers and empty 750ml beer bottles lay scattered about one of the bean bags that had been moved to face the huge screen TV. The aroma of essential oils also now barely masking a strong weed smell.

  Moving as quietly as he could, Don stepped into the room and made his way across the carpet, the solid concrete floor thankfully helping to deaden the sound of his footfalls.

  The door to the bedroom was open and Don, ever so cautiously peered in.

  In dark he could just about make out, under a light sheet, Thornapple asleep on his stomach on the king-sized bed. Don was startled for a moment to also see what looked like the outline of another figure in bed next to him, Thornapple’s right arm draped lazily across it.