The Haunting of Flower (short story)

 

The Haunting of Flower

(Random 2-word prompt- maid, resign)

 

                “I quit!”  Flower threw down his tools.  “I’ve had enough; I can’t take it anymore.”

                He was talking to an empty room in the Queen’s chambers.  He’d been roped in to clean her suite, dusting mostly, but he’d been misled by just how big her private quarters were, just how many rooms there were, and just how dusty they’d become.  He’d heard she was prone to temper tantrums, especially since the King had gone missing last year; she got rid of every maid who crossed her.  Got rid.  Not fired or sacked.

Beheaded.

                Flower wiped the sweat from his brow and picked up the cloth and feather duster he’d abandoned.

                The palace always paid well.  They were desperate; he thought he’d never work here again after the first time he’d worked for the Queen, and he’d been lucky enough not to get beheaded the last time he was here.  That fiasco with the ant had caused quite the stir.

                He adjusted the fabric he’d tied around his mouth to protect himself from the dust, then returned to sweeping away the grime from atop the dresser.  He danced the feathers around the perfume bottles and hairbrushes, around the lipstick, over the wooden veneer of the table, and up the sides of the mirror.

                It always smelled nice in here, and a strong, sweet, peppermint aroma permeated everything.  It reminded Flower of cosy winters, curled up by a fire with a minty hot chocolate.  It was his favourite scent, and lessened the burden of the chore.

                He wasn’t alone.

                He heard his words whispered back to him; it was quiet, almost under their breath, but he heard someone repeat, “I can’t take it anymore.”  He paused, straining his ears.  Maybe it was an echo, somehow delayed.  Maybe he’d imagined it.  He was tired and hungry, and it’d been a long morning.

                Flower shook his head, let out a small laugh, a little embarrassed by his midday scaries, and chalked up the murmuring to his empty belly.  He continued sweeping the furniture.

                A whispering susurrus crept back into his ears, and he tried to ignore it.

                “I can’t take it anymore.”

                “I’ve had enough.”

                It wasn’t his voice; it was a woman’s voice.

                “I hate you.”

                “Die.”

                And then a man’s.

                “No.”

                “Stop.”

                “I didn’t mean it.”

                “Please, no.”

                He couldn’t make out everything, the words talked over each other, overlapped and interrupted, hissed and muttered in a quiet cacophony.  A shadow fell over Flower’s shoulder, a chill breeze on his ear.  He couldn’t move, arm stuck in place with the duster just above the counter; he couldn’t turn away from the dresser and he couldn’t face whatever loomed.  Fear froze him.  His throat dried, tightened, and he pulled away his claustrophobic face covering so he could suck in oxygen.  Goosebumps rippled up his arms and scampered down his spine.  Pressure squeezed the air, thick with the susurrant dissonance; it closed in on him, gripped him, gripped his lungs, his heart.  He sweat cold sweat.  He gasped.

                One of the voices screamed bloody murder.

                And the whispering ceased, the shadow dissipated, the air cleared, lightened.

                Flower took a breath of minted air and sighed into the silence.

                He was alone again.

                He scanned the area; the foyer was empty, apart from the dust, and the bedroom door and walk-in wardrobe door were both shut tight.  He’d been told it was forbidden to enter either, to only dust the foyer and other rooms of the Queen’s private quarters.  Across from where he stood, the door into the hallway was wide open.  He wandered over, the peppermint perfume of the chamber lessening, and looked out into the passage.  He saw nothing but sunlight snaking over and under the muntins of the windows, casting itself onto the garish carpet and highlighting its tawdry patterns.  Paintings of the Queen’s tart ancestors watched the room, stoic and taciturn; it wasn’t them that’d haunted him moments ago.

                He turned back to the foyer.

                Something moved in his periphery, a slight sinister shudder in the corner near the wardrobe.  Flower took a few tentative steps closer.  A small table held a purple vase that wasn’t quite as central as he’d left it when he’d dusted it earlier.  He slunk closer, not taking his unblinking eyes off the curvaceous ornament.

                It moved.

                The vase moved.

                It rocked forward barely a millimetre, but it moved.

                The room was still, with no breeze or draft, and Flower certainly hadn’t disturbed the air as he shuffled forward.  Was there something in the vase?  A rat?  The castle was known to have a pest problem.  Or was there something more ominous at play?

                He peered inside and found it empty.

                Strange.

                He shivered, suddenly cold near the vase.  There was a patch of frozen atmosphere filling a meagre space, and when he stepped back the temperature was normal, warm and comfortable.  But in the corner near the walk-in wardrobe door, it was as if the air was nervous and tense.  Sharp and jittery.  He felt it too.  He glared at the ornament.

                Nothing.

                It was still.

                Then, the vase flew from its stand.  He dodged as it sailed across the room and slammed, smashed, exploded against the wall.  Pieces ricocheted, attacked.  A porcelain shard drew blood, and Flower pressed his hand to his wet cheek, his fingers staining red.

                “I can’t take it anymore.”  The whispers returned.  “Stop.  No.  Please don’t.  No.  No.  Stop it.  I didn’t mean it.  I take it back.  Stop.  Stop.  Stop.”  And then a meagre.  “Help.”

                Silence.

                There was something different about the whisper this time; he heard its direction clearly.  The words came from inside the walk-in wardrobe, and he realised the minty aroma of the Queen’s chambers was stronger here too, as if the ghostly voice and the scent both came from within.

                Flower reached for the handle… and hesitated.

                He’d been told the wardrobe was off limits; he wasn’t allowed in there or the bedroom.  There would be consequences.

                His curiosity got the better of him.

                It was locked.

                Of course it would be.  Of course it would be locked.

                But the valet had given him the skeleton key, just for him to get into the Queen’s apartments and clean, but it should work on every… ah, yes.  The lock clunked with the turn of the key.

                As the door creaked open on its hinges, the stink hit him like a hammer to the face.  His eyes watered, his nose and throat burned.  What had been a pleasant wafting aroma of sweet peppermint was now a thick wall of sickly sharpness.

                Flower pulled his face covering back over his mouth.

                It didn’t help.

                He waded through the stench into the pristine wardrobe.  He was greeted by a rainbow plethora of silks and satins, brocades and fringes, patterns and ornamentation.  Dresses, hats, shoes, all blurred in his teary eyes.  He staggered, his head pounding from the reeking room.

                “Help,” hissed the whisper again.  It came from the other side of the room, from within a closet between two racks of dresses.

                Flower wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve, teetered closer, moving around the green pouffe in the centre of the room, and across the tasteless and tacky carpet to the cubbyhole.  The minty stench was almost unbearable here; a putridness crept up underneath the sickly thickness in the air.

                “Help,” muttered a shadow to his right.

There was no-one there when he looked.

                His heart was pounding between his straining lungs.  He needed to know what was inside the closet, an irresistible urge gripping him and pulling him closer and closer, as if somehow opening the door and looking inside would clear the air of this vile stink and resolve the unresolved… whatever that was.

                His hand reached for the handle, almost as if someone else had grabbed it and guided it.  He was no longer in control of his actions.  Fate, destiny, whatever had manifested around him, conducted his movements.

                The door opened.

                The fetid peppermint slammed into him like a brick to the face, and he almost fell to his knees.  He retched, trying not to vomit on an empty stomach, coughing and hacking, tears running down his face.  His lungs burned.

                Flower pushed through it, blinking hard, trying to steady his breaths, calm himself, stay standing, and as his vision lucidified, and he adjusted to the fiery menthol air, he was met by a white leather trunk.

                He knew that whatever horrors he’d been drawn to would be hidden inside.

                Flower opened the trunk.

                “Oh shit.”  The words left his lips almost as fast as the realisation of what he was looking at reached his brain.

                It was filled with salt.

                Mostly salt.

                Peeking out at him through the white powder, body entombed, was a familiar and almost mummified face.  There was no mistaking that the dried-out husk of a body buried in the salt and hidden in the trunk, was the missing King.  The dead face stared back at Flower.

                He didn’t know what to do.  He couldn’t take his eyes off the corpse, couldn’t move.  The putrid peppermint drowned him, and it no longer hid the stink of decay that washed over his remaining senses.

                “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

                There would be consequences if he was found here, rummaging around in the Queen’s closet, looming over the dead King.

                And those consequences appeared as a sudden shadow in the doorway of the wardrobe.  A shadow flanked by two others.

It was the killer and her guards.

                “Regicide!” screamed the Queen.  “Off with his head!”

                And Flower, despite his protestations, was hauled away to the dungeons to await his doomed fate.

                He was grateful to no longer suffer the stench of peppermint.

                It was his favourite scent no more.

To be continued…

Read the final Flower story

Foggy Flower (short story)

 

Foggy Flower

(Random 2-word prompt- inspector, grounds)

 

                The mist was thick and cold.  So was he.  Cold, that is.  His clothes were soaked with a penetrating and perpetual damp that sank right down to his bones.  Flower shivered, his breath caught by the icy air, condensing around his lips with every exhale.

                His torch did very little to help his visibility in the dark of the night; it’s narrow beam only caught misty grey walls closing in on him… and yet, he could still somehow feel the wide-open castle grounds around him.  It was both claustrophobic and agoraphobic.  He felt vulnerable.

                Flower kept walking, a quick pace; he wanted to get home.  His dull footsteps, and their accompanied syncopated echo, were the only sound of life in the gardens, though a gentle breeze tussled the bushes intermittently too.

                He’d heard that ghosts haunted the castle grounds.  George, the old guard, had regaled him with terrifying tales and supernatural stories all evening, and those eerie yarns had spooked him.

                Flower’s torch flickered.

                George had told him of headless knights stalking the paths, vengeful wailing maidens in white dresses with slit wrists creeping through the bougainvillea.  He’d spun fables of gruesome beasts hiding under the hedgerows, creatures with long red claws and creepy grins, waiting to grab unsuspecting victims by their ankles and pull them into their lair.  He’d told Flower about the evil witches and warlocks who, hundreds of years ago, used these grounds for their dark rituals and blood sacrifices, and who, while being tortured and burnt at the stake, swore a cursed revenge in their afterlife as spirits.

                His torch flickered again.  And again.

George had told Flower that the witches and warlocks could still sometimes be heard, crying out their pained curses in the middle of the night, casting malevolent spells on those with fear in their hearts.

Of course, Flower didn’t believe any of those fictional fables…

The torch died, and Flower came to a sudden stop, the echo of his footsteps following suit almost immediately.  The walls of grey mist were replaced with walls of blind darkness in an instant.  There was nowhere to go.  He couldn’t see anything in front of him.  He shuddered in the cold.  His clothes deepened the icy feeling on his skin, sodden by the damp air, and goosebumps stalked up his arms.

The wind crept around him, and the flora of the gardens whispered secrets to it.  Flower’s heart quickened, so did his breathing.  He was alone, hoped he was alone, in the quiet dark.  He began to see the grey of the mist as his eyes adjusted to the dark; it did little to improve his vision.  He looked at his feet; he could just about make out the path.

And then, a high-pitched cry in the distance broke the silence of the night.  The whinny of a horse in the castle stables.  Or was it a witch, a warlock, cursing him?  Was it a gruesome beast in the hedgerows?  Or a wailing maiden?

The silence retuned just as quickly as it’d been disturbed.

And…

Flower broke in a run, boots thumping against the stone path, eyes straining in the dark.  He ran and he ran and he ran.  He could feel it behind him.  Something was there, following.  It echoed his steps, chased him through the fog.  His legs strained to move faster.  His heart thrummed hard.  He ran.  His lungs struggled.  He tried not to scream, but fearful utterances escaped his lips.

A rock or a branch caught his foot.  He cried out as he fell, his body slammed into the dewy grass, his face collided with the earth.  He was winded and hurt.

                He didn’t move, couldn’t move.  He shivered in the dirt, but not from the cold.

                The pursuing footsteps came to halt, and Flower could sense the presence standing over him.  He could hear it wheeze and groan; it gurgled a death rattle.

                The supernatural creature was about to pounce.

                “Flower?” came a breathless, yet familiar voice.

                Flower twisted onto his back and looked up into a light that now shone on his prone body.

                “You forgot your keys,” wheezed George the guard, pointing his torch down at the man.  He tossed the keys to Flower.  “Why did you have to run so fast?  Silly bugger.  I could barely keep up.”

The End.

Next Flower Story

Flower-stein’s Monster (short story)

 

Flower-stein’s Monster

(Random 2-word prompt- toss, specimen)

 

                Thunder boomed.  Lightning crackled across the gloomy clouds, and lit up his small, dingy room.  The sounds of the storm were short and sudden respites from the torrent of rain that hammered against the walls and roof of the castle, and a distraction from the howling winds that roared through the forest and found their way into all the cracks and cavities of the large stone building.

                “Gwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”

                The manic laughter filled the lonely and empty halls.  It echoed against decrepit paintings, rotted furniture, and neglected rooms.  Candles flickered at its touch… or maybe that was the wind.  It was the song of a crazed and genius mind.

                It continued.

                Flower thought that the Doctor didn’t know when to stop; the laugh always lasted longer than it had any right to.  He stood up and closed the book he’d been squinting through; it was too cold and too dark to read, and he’d persisted as long as he could, struggled through the anticipation of tonight’s coming events.  And now was the moment he’d been waiting for… almost.  The Doctor would be calling for him any second now, given the intensity of the crazed cackle.

                The laugh continued, and then a breathless voice called out: “F…F… Flower!  Flower!  I’ve done it!  Ha hahaha!  The time is now!”  Flower heard the Doctor break into a coughing fit as he headed out and up the steps to the tower.  “Come hither and help me change the very definition of life itself!  Gwhahaha!”

                “Doctor Smithenstein.”  Flower bowed his head to the tall and skinny man as he entered the lab.  The Doctor was hunched and bald, only a few scraggly white hairs poked from his scalp; his body bore decades of wear and tear from late nights in the lab where he’d focused on a singular purpose, his life squandered away like the fortunes he’d inherited.  He was as decayed as this old castle.  It remained to be seen if it was all worth it.

                “Ah Flower,” he said with a dramatic flourish of his rubber-gloved hand.  His white coat, a little too small on his bony frame, strained against the movement.  “Ready the switches, open the circuits, and release the chemical mix!”  He laughed his maniacal laugh.  “The storm is nearing its apex!  We must be ready!”

                “Yes sir.”  Flower hurried to the large haphazard machine pressed up against the left wall; it’d been put together from all sorts of things, found things and reclaimed things, and the recycled LEDs and bicycle lights blinked and flickered.  An old ship wheel turned and pulled ropes attached to several car wheels, churning a spectrum of coloured liquids in vials and containers of various sources and sizes.  Flower flicked a row of switches, each different, and mechanisms whirred into life behind the recycled metal chassis.

                “Gwhahahaha!”  The Doctor ducked beneath the cloth covered table, the table where the small specimen had been lain, and adjusted the wires and pipes.

                Flower opened the circuits, pulling the big lever on the side of the device, ducking from the sparks, and moved to the other side ready to release the chemicals.

                The storm raged above, and the clouds, visible through the skylight, thundered and roared.  Rain beat against the glass in sheets.  Lightning flashed, and for a second the dim lab was lit by more than just candles and flickering lights.

                Flower opened the valve on the first pipe, and a glass milk bottle emptied its thick red liquid.  He opened a second.  Yellow liquid drained from an Erlenmeyer flask.  And a third, green from an upturned vodka bottle.  Fourth, purple from a glass orb.  Fifth, sixth, seventh, and so on, different colours from different containers.  Liquids poured and mixed into a vat near the Doctor and his specimen, and a huge metal arm stirred and blended the concoction.

                Doctor Smithenstein laughed as he stood.  “Gwahahahaha!”  Did he ever stop laughing? “The time is at hand!” he exclaimed.  “Flower, raise the lightning rod!”

                Flower shuffled across the room, and he watched as the Doctor filled a large syringe with the chemical mixture from the vat.  He placed his hands on the crank and began to wind it as the scientist worked on the small creature under the sheet; blood would be replaced by the chemicals, electrodes connected to its neck.  Flower wound the handle.  It was hard work.  The long metal pole rose higher and higher as he sweat and strained, the skylight opening on cue, as rain drenched him and the stone floor around him.  The storm was getting worse, as expected.  Thunder quickened, lightning arced.  The rod locked into place and Flower stood back.

                “And now, we wait,” grinned the Doctor.  He stared up at the night sky, eager anticipation upon his brow.

                Nothing happened.  Flower watched as Doctor Smithenstein became more and more anxious as the minutes ticked by and more nothing happened; the scientist wrung his hands in the candlelight, struggled to hold his grin, cast regular furtive glances at the dead specimen hidden under the cloth on the table.  The weather was as angry as ever; it had to happen soon!

                And it did!

                Lightning struck the rod with a loud zap, the room flashed with a bright light… and everything went dark, candles blown out by the storm.

The room smelt of blood, or was it just the aroma of electricity?  Thunder rocked overhead, and the only other sounds he could hear were the thrash of the rain and the thrum of his heart.  He held his breath; he didn’t know what to expect.

And then the maniacal laugh broke what remained of the silence.

                “Gwhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”  The Doctor’s face was lit by a small flame, a match.  “I’ve done it!” he shouted.  “Life!  I’ve created new life!”

                Flower moved around the room, relighting the candles as the laugh continued, bringing dim light back to the damp lab.  The scientist’s arms remained raised in triumph as the assistant approached the table, ready to see the results of the Doctor’s experiment.

                “Flower,” said Doctor Smithenstein, eyes charged with lightning.  “Remove the sheet and let us see what magnificence my brilliant mind has wrought.”

                Flower did as he was ordered, whipping away the fabric with the theatrical embellishment expected of him.

                “Oh.”  The Doctor’s shoulders dropped, his hunch hunched lower, and a frown fell down his face.

                On the lab’s table lay the specimen.  Dead.  It had been dead to begin with.  Roadkill.  Flower had felt sorry for it, and that’s why he’d brought its corpse to the Doctor, for a new life, but somehow the baby deer looked even deader than it had been before, with metal bolts in its neck, and stiches on its head and limbs.  It had been enhanced by science and technology, and had been failed by it too.

                The poor creature remained dead.

                Doctor Smithenstein cried out, hand to his forehead like a betrayed lover, and he fell to his knees and sobbed.  “F… Flower… I’m useless.”

                “No sir.”  Flower couldn’t stop looking at the corpse on the table.  Poor thing.

                “Toss the specimen,” bawled the Doctor.  “And take the rest of the night off; I… I… need to be alone.”  He placed his head in his rubber-gloved hands and broke into more tears.

                Flower knew better than to stay, especially when his boss was in this sort of mood.  He quickly scooped up the dead specimen in his arms, holding the cold baby deer close to his chest, and headed out of the lab and down the tower steps.

                He could hear the Doctor’s manic crying, no longer a laugh, echo through the lonely and empty halls and amongst the sounds of the storm, as he descended further and further down the stone steps.  He felt a little guilty for bringing the deer to the Doctor.  And though it had been dead already, he’d allowed its corpse to be desecrated and mutilated in the hopes that science could resurrect a young creature whose life had been cut short.

                Flower would bury it in the forest; he couldn’t just toss it away like Doctor Smithenstein had suggested.  It deserved better.

                He held the specimen… the baby deer…  tight against himself as he unlatched the door and crept out into the squally night.

                The rain and wind hit him hard, soaking him through as he fought his way into the cover of the trees.  He was cold, freezing.  His boots squelched through the mud, and he struggled to see a clear path.

                Flower tripped in the dark, catching his foot against a stray branch, and the deer fell from his arms.  Its small limp body rolled across the ground before coming to a halt.

                “Noooo!”  He stretched out his arm to the body, but it was just out of reach.  He crawled along the muck toward it.  The little thing deserved more than being left out in the rain alone.

                The baby deer twitched.

                Flower stopped in his tracks, rain pouring down his face; he wiped water from his eyes.  Had he imagined it?

                The baby deer’s legs kicked against the forest floor.

                Flower’s jaw dropped.  He could taste the mud, the rain, the electricity in the air.  He couldn’t believe what he was seeing; the Doctor’s experiment had been a success.

                It lived.

                The specimen, the formerly dead creature, clambered unsteadily to its feet.  It appeared to tower over Flower’s prone body, despite its diminutive size.  The baby deer stood defiantly against its death.  It was alive.  Thunder and lightning careened overheard, and for a moment, the bolts and metal stitches glinted in the sudden illumination.

                “You’re alive!”  Flower laughed, fighting the urge to mimic the Doctor’s manic cackles.  “You’re alive!  You’re really alive!”

                At moments like this, he knew what he was expected to do, what he’d been employed to do; he’d need to recapture the specimen and return it to the lab.  But his heart won out.  He couldn’t do what was expected; he had to do what was right.

                “Go,” he said.  He gestured at the baby deer to move.  “Run, run away from here.  Go.  Now!”

                The creature stared at him with a deep intelligence.

                “Go!  Just go!”

                The deer ran.  It stopped several metres away and looked back at Flower.

                Thunder.  Lightning lit up the sky.

                It stood there, and he felt a sudden unease.

                The specimen’s eyes glowed red and it shrieked a blood-curdling cry against the storm.  It disappeared into the night, and Flower’s empathy became terrified regret.

The End.

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