Photo by Julie Blake Edison on Unsplash

Dave wasn’t a very good boyfriend. Again. Daisy had had enough of his lies and cheating and now it was time to get rid of him for good. She had stormed off earlier in the evening, after catching sight of a text message flashing up on his phone. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but when the person texting your boyfriend happens to be called ‘Unknown Caller’ you tend to be dead suspicious. Daisy Murray was indeed dead suspicious. All those weeks of so-called spam calls he’d been receiving suddenly made sense; each time he received one he was always late from work the next day.

            In the beginning she thought he was working on a medical a project involving cancer molecules and plant DNA from the Madagascar Periwinkle. Or Catharanthus roseus, as scientists call them. For weeks he would be home late saying that they were almost at a breakthrough, or the last test failed, or we have a new team member that I have to train up. Never once did she question his reasons. Then as the calls became more frequent she started to become more suspicious. She followed him one night to see where he would go. And sure enough he was indeed going to work. But, at the time he was supposed to leave the uni complex and come home his legs diverted towards a car at the edge of the car park. Then the real truth came out; he had been seeing another woman that he had met at work; the team member.

            It just happened, he said, one minute we were talking about perennials and the next she was all over me. It wasn’t the first time this had happened either. Three, four maybe more. She had lost count. The only reason she stayed with him. Was because of his love of plants. She admired that in him. He could tell you the Latin name to almost any plant. That’s how she fell in love with him. She had met him whilst they both worked at Notcutts, that’s where she found out about his indefatigable love of flora and fauna. In fact, he called her Belle, the shortened name for Bellus, the Latin name for her namesake, but only when they were alone together. It was his way of saying that he loved her and that she was his, and he was hers.

            She now stood in front of the door to her flat, unable to breathe properly. Somehow she had to tell him she was finally going to leave him. My daisies would never do this to me; they’re loyal. The very thought of the confrontation made her anxiety as leggy as a sunflower. She went inside and closed the door gently, turned the light on, took off her trainers, and quietly made her way to the living room, where the TV was still flickering. She stopped to gather her thoughts before she entered, working out how best to tell him. She found that Dave wasn’t there, but his remnants were. A few empty beer cans next to the sofa looked like they had been tipped over and spilt into the deep shag of the carpet leaving a horrid piss coloured mess. Another can was wedged between the arm of the sofa and one of the loosely tossed cushions surrounded in a dark patch.

            All three of her precious daisies had been displaced from the windowsill, their soil splattered across the carpet resembled an angry butterfly. They looked like they had fallen rather than been knocked. She went to pick up the fallen daisies, scooping up the scattered soil and packing it back into the pots. It wasn’t like Dave to get drunk. He hardly ever touched the stuff, and this made her even more anxious.

            “I’m leaving you Dave,” she muttered to herself as she pressed the soil into the containers, “I’ve had enough of your lies and cheating,” The flowers of the daisies were lopping to one side as if paying attention to her, like a dog listening to their master, “I wish you were gone from my life,” she smiled at the daisies and continued, “not you guys though, you don’t treat me like he does, you don’t cheat on me,” she said as she stroked each of their heads with a forefinger before putting them back where they belong.

            Daisy stopped herself before entering their bedroom; she was not looking forward to this conversation at all and was still panicking inwardly about how to tell him. Goddam it, I will just have to say it. She peered around the edge of the door. A hazy orange glow penetrated the bedroom window quartering the duvet covering Dave’s sleeping body. An offensive stench of stale lager permeated the room, so she quietly crept round the bed to open the window. Instead of fresh air entering, her nostrils were bombarded by an odour that assaulted her throat; a thick eggy smell like raw sewage. She closed the window sharply. Fucking Southdown Water. Dave was still asleep. She would have to wait until he was awake and sober.

            She went back into the living room and found a spot on the sofa, which was almost dry, and thought of the many nights spent together. Some nights they would just sit and watch TV, and on others they would try to impress each other with random facts about plants and flowers. She remembered the first fact he told her about her name. Daisy originates from the Old English phrase daes eage meaning ‘day’s eye’, he had said, because of its petals being the first to open in the morning sun. The thought made her smile unconsciously. Then she remembered the text from last night, and her thoughts quickly wilted. As tears welled up, her smile vanished. She felt like an unwanted toy being shoved aside.

            It was getting late, and she was feeling tired. She couldn’t bring herself to sleep next to a man that once loved her but now appeared to have lost interest in her, so she resigned herself to night on the sofa. Still, I have my daisies. The muffled snoring from the next room, and thoughts of leaving him, kept her awake all night. Unable to sleep, she got up and decided to check on her daisies. They were wilting. She went to the kitchen and filled a jug with water from the tap, and noticed a slight greyness, but she put that down to the natural fluorides, sometimes Southdown Water’s filtration didn’t extract the excess minerals properly and they’d end up with cloudy water. She filled a glass for herself and drank a few mouthfuls. It tasted like dry clay. There was a juddering sound as she turned the tap off. The water pressure again. A cosy feeling of love returned to her as she remembered her nana telling her that too much fluoride stains the teeth whilst grinning through yellow teeth that looked like stained tombstones. A few moments passed and her daisies had seemingly perked up, as fresh as. Their stems straight, regimental; revived. She lay back down on the sofa, satisfied that her babies were nourished, and began to drift off.

            The following morning she was woken up by clattering from the kitchen. What the hell is he doing? She had to go see what he was doing, but wasn’t ready for what she saw. As she entered the kitchen more crockery was being moved about but not by Dave. No, not at all.

            From the centre of the sink a long, dark, thin strand of something was rising out of the plug hole and feeling its way round the kitchen cupboards, opening doors and probing around inside. She froze, unable to move. The very sight made a mockery of reality. The thin tendril pulsated like a thick wet vein. Blood, or something resembling blood, gurgled along its translucent stem. The thing detached itself from a cupboard door and its tip peered towards her as if were looking at her, then wavered for a moment pointing upwards as if sniffing the air and then slowly hovered towards Daisy’s face. She tried to scream but all that came out was silence. She though it was going to jab her eyes out, but all the thing did was gently brush her ashen cheeks, as if it was toying with her. She could feel her bladder beginning to weaken. She then heard erratic clumping noises coming from her hallway.

            Daisy started to edge back towards the kitchen entrance, her eyes never leaving the pulsating tendril, afraid that it would lunge for her. But it didn’t. Instead it looked as if it was watching her every move. Her heartbeat sped up as her mind failed to take the incomprehensible scene in. This shouldn’t be in her kitchen; this thing shouldn’t exist! The noises from the hallway were louder now, but not getting closer, and were sounding more and more like footsteps than clumping. Her back was up against the kitchen door now, both hands feeling the edges as she tried to open it and escape.

            At the end of her small hallway she could see what was making the noise. More slimy thick tendrils, this time shaped like malformed legs were wearing her trainers and were moving about clumsily. She would have laughed if this was in a movie, but it wasn’t. She felt a slight wetness dribble down the inside of her thigh. The lumbering ‘legs’ were walking towards her, leaving dark patches of gloop where footsteps should be. Daisy had to think quickly. Running to the front door wasn’t an option, and she was buggered if she going back into the kitchen. There was the living room, but the legs were almost upon the door to that room too. Goddam it.

            Behind her she heard something creaking like dry plastic. Not wanting to turn to see what was making the noise she crept towards the bedroom door, whatever was causing the creaking was behind her, had come from the kitchen. When she turned to see what it was she wished she hadn’t; it was her daisies. The flowers had grown twice the size since the previous night, all three as tall as sunflowers with their heads touching the ceiling. But they were in the living room, how did they get out?

            She noticed that the flower heads had changed; instead of pretty yellow disc florets they were now the colour of bleached bone. Nodules of receptacles had fallen out giving them the look of freakish skulls. Even the outer petals had morphed into the shape of bones. A tendril reached out to Daisy and brushed her cheek gently before it retracted, and remembered the tendril from the kitchen. Her cheek started to sting, and her eyes began to blur. She could feel her blood boiling, and the room spinning as she clambered about in the hallway. A tingling sensation spread from her face and down her chest towards her legs followed by a numbness. As Daisy collapsed on to the floor, her trainers stopped next to her head.

Bright sunlight seeped through the living room curtains when Daisy woke up. A pounding headache and blurry eyes didn’t help. What a shit night’s sleep, what a shit dream. Then she realized she was on the shaggy carpet of her living room. It took a moment more to realise she was in the living room and not the hallway. How the fuck? Oh God! she thought, and tears began to well. Her blurry eyes tried to wander to her beloved plants on the windowsill and her ordeal flooded back, along with her stinging cheek. She could see their leaves gently unfurling, as if they too were waking up. The tears were replaced by a smile. She got up off the floor and checked the room for new tendrils. There were none. There were no noises coming from the hallway either. Unsure if she should check or not she decided she should anyway, the hinges creaked as she opened the door as apprehensively. Her trainers were motionless and there was no sign of the vegetal ‘legs’ just splodges of green liquid where the thing had walked. Confident that nothing was there she checked the rest of the flat cautiously.

            She went into the kitchen and there was no sign of any tendrils there either. The cupboard doors were still open where it had been rummaging. Relief flooded over her, but this was short lived, as she remembered the muffled screams. Her stomach churned at the thought of Dave’s body under the duvet. I hope he’s okay! I didn’t want him dead, just gone! God, what do I do if he’s dead? I can’t deal with that right now! What am I gonna tell the police? Should I tell the police?She had to know if he was okay. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself knowing that she had left someone to die. She slowly opened the bedroom door and was hit by the fetid smell before she could peer in. It wasn’t the stench of eggy rot this time, but something stronger, more potent. Something with a rancid afterscent; it made her gag and churn, a warm fizz started to rise up. As she peered into the room, a slice of light broke through the curtain cracks illuminating the dull wallpaper and the outline of Dave’s body from under the duvet. She could see now that it was stained in places with patches of dark brown and green, probably from the tendrils. It was hard to tell what was blood and what was chlorophyll. What had these things done to him?

            Then she heard the sickly sucking sound as the vines pulsated and squirmed around Dave’s body. An enthusiastic cloud of flies had already made him their home. Long tendrils poked out from under like live cables and had routed themselves out through a freshly made crack in the window. The curtains were ripped to shreds.

            She tiptoed around the bed carefully avoiding the vines in order to see where they lead to. Her eyes followed them across the communal yard, along the stone patio, and into the flower beds by a large tree in the corner. A shuffling noise behind her made her jump. She turned and could see movement, but then she noticed the tendrils shifting about under the dirty duvet, followed by creaking, followed by dull snapping and popping, as the vines tightened his body like a snake and its prey. She tried to move but couldn’t, her instincts told her to move but curious fascination told her to stay put and watch the horror instead.

            Goosebumps spread across her body as she watched Dave’s body rise above the bed, like a biblical ascension. There was a groaning noise coming from the tendril as the duvet slid off the rising body revealing a grey, gaunt skeletal husk that was once her boyfriend. Loud cracking and crunching could be heard as she watched, transfixed at the body drifting out the window and disappear into the shivering undergrowth.

            She picked up the dirty duvet and took it into the kitchen placed it inside a bin bag, then flicked the radio on, and began to tidy up the mess. She picking up broken crockery, and wiped the stains off the walls. The news on the radio reported something about a riot in London, a bomb going off in Israel, and something about an explosion at a nearby fracking plant. The droll news came to a finish, the weather is good today, no rain, no clouds, 25 degrees, blah, blah, blah. She wasn’t really listening; she was too busy replaying Dave’s floating body to herself. Then, as David Bowie’s Changesstarts playing she picks up the bin bag and dumps it outside her flat. Closing the door behind her firmly.

***

A robin lands on the bird bath in the communal patio and tapping the ice apart with its beak dipping its dirty wings in the fresh icy water. Frost covers the empty flower beds, except for one patch where the plants are green and verdant. The animals have noticed this all-year round. The daisies are now as tall as the tree in the corner; their heads grimacing white skulls, petals like spiky ribs. There are no tiny footprints in the frost. The robin washes itself oblivious to the thick tendrils worming silently towards it. A vine is now above the robin, poised like a cobra, ready to strike. As quick as the robin blinks its eye, it is gone. Snatched. Leaving nothing but feathers drifting gently onto the frosty patio as the undergrowth behind the bird bath shudders.

The End