The Plant

From John Kenton's diary
April 4, 1981

It's 10:45 P. M., and I'm sitting here waiting for the phone to ring. I remember, not so long ago, sitting in this same chair and waiting for Ruth to call, thinking that nothing could be worse than being a man in love sending thought-waves at the telephone, trying to make it ring.

But this is worse.

This is much worse.

Because when the phone finally rings, what if it's not Bill or Riddley on the other end of the line? What if it's some New Jersey cop who wants to know—

No. I refuse to let my mind run in that direction. It'll ring and it will be one of them. Or maybe Roger, if they call him first and leave it to him to call me. But everything is going to be fine.

Because now we have protection.

Let me go back to when I yanked the frypan right off the stove (which turned out to be something of a blessing; when I got back to the apartment some hours later, I discovered I'd left the burner on). I grabbed the kitchen table and kept on my feet, and then that goddamned siren went off in the middle of my head.

I don't know how long it went on; pain really does negate the whole concept of time. Fortunately, the reverse also seems to be true: given time, even the most horrible pain loses its immediacy, and you can no longer remember exactly how it felt. This was bad, I know that much—like having the most delicate tissues of your body repeatedly raked by some sharp, barbed object.

When it finally did stop, I was cringing against the wall between the kitchen and my combination living room/study, shaking and sobbing, my cheeks wet with tears and my upper lip lathered with snot.

The pain was gone, but the sense of urgency wasn't. I needed to get to the office, and just as fast as I could. I was almost down to the lobby of my building when I checked to see if I'd put anything on my feet. As it happened, I'd found an old pair of moccasins. I must have gotten them out of the closet by the TV, although I'll be damned if I can remember that part. If my feet had been bare, I'm not sure I could have forced myself to go back up to the ninth floor. That's how strong that sense of urgency was.

Of course I knew what the siren in my head had been, even though I'd never been given an actual demonstration of Sandra's Rainy Day Friend, and I suppose I knew what was calling me, as well: our new mascot.

I caught a taxi with no trouble—thank God for Saturdays—and the run from my place to Zenith House was a quick one. Bill Gelb was standing out in front, pacing back and forth with one side of his shirt untucked and hanging down over his belt, running his hands back and forth through his hair, which was standing up in spikes and quills. He looked as nutty as the old lady in front of Smiler's, and

Funny thought to have. Because there was no lady in front of Smiler's, not really. We know that now.

I'm getting ahead of myself again, but it's hard to write scintillating prose when you can't stop looking at the phone, willing the damned thing to go off and put an end to the suspense, one way or the other. But I'll try. I think I must try.

Bill saw me and raced over to the cab. He started grabbing at my arm while I was still trying to pay the driver, pulling me onto the curb as if I'd fallen into a shark-infested pool. I dropped some coins and started to bend over.

“Leave em, for Christ sake, leave em!” he barked. “Have you got your office keys? I left mine on the bureau at home. I was out for a...” Out for a walk was what he meant to say, but instead of finishing he gave a kind of out-of-breath, screamy laugh. A woman passing us gave him a hard look and hurried on a little faster. “Oh shit, you know what I was doing.”

Indeed I did. He'd been shooting craps in Central Park, but he'd left the majority of his cash on his bureau (along with his office keyring) because he had other plans for it. I could have gotten the other plans, too, if I'd wanted to look, but I didn't. One thing was obvious: the telepathic range of the plant has gotten stronger. A lot.

We started for the door, and just then another cab pulled up. Herb Porter got out, redder in the face than I'd ever seen him. The man looked like a stroke waiting to happen. I'd never seen him in bluejeans, either, or with his shirt misbuttoned so it bloused out on one side. Also, it was sticking to his body and his hair (what little of it there is; he keeps it cropped short) was wet.

“I was in the goddam shower, okay?” he said. “Come on.”

We went to the door and I managed to get my key in the slot after three pokes. My hand was shaking so badly I had to grasp my wrist with the other one to hold it steady. At least there was no weekend security guy in the lobby to worry about. I suppose that particular paranoid virus will work its way down Park Avenue South eventually, but for the time being, building management still assumes that if you've got the right set of keys, you must be in the right place.

We got in through the door and then Herb stopped, holding my upper arm with one hand and Bill's with the other. A daffy, goony smile was surfacing on his face, where his complexion had begun to subside to a more normal pink.

“He's dead, you guys. He wasn't before, but he is now. Ding-dong, the General's dead!” And to my total amazement, Herb Porter, the Barry Goldwater of 490 Park Avenue South, actually raised his hands, began snapping his fingers, and did a little Mexican hat-dance step.

“You're sick, Herb,” Bill said.

“He's also right,” I said. “The General's dead and so's—”

There came a clattery, disorganized knocking on the street door. It made us all jump and clutch each other. We must have looked like Dorothy and her friends on the Yellow Brick Road, faced with some new danger.

“Let go of me, both of you,” Bill said. “It's just the boss.”

It was indeed Roger, hammering on the door and peering in at us, with the tip of his nose squished into a little white dime against the glass. Bill let him in. Roger joined us. He also looked as if someone had lit him on fire and then blown him out, but at least he was dressed, socks and all. Probably he was on his way out, anyway.

“Where's Sandra?” was the first thing he asked.

“She was going to Cony Island,” Herb said. His color was coming back, and I realized he was blushing. It was sort of cute, in a ponderous way. “She might well turn up, though.” He paused. “If it carried that far. The telepathy thing, I mean.” He looked almost timid, an expression I never expected to see on Herb's face. “What do you guys think?”

“I think it might have,” Roger said. “That was her gadget that went off in our heads, wasn't it? The Dark and Stormy Night whatsit.” I nodded. So did Bill and Herb.

Roger took a deep breath, held it, then let it out. “Come on, let's see what kind of a mess we're in.” He paused. “And whether or not we can get out of it.”

The elevator seemed to take forever. None of us said anything, not out loud, anyway, and when I discovered I could turn off the run of their thoughts, I did so. Hearing all those muttering voices twined together in the middle of your head is distressing. I suppose that now I know how schizophrenics must feel.

When the door opened on the fifth floor and the smell hit us, we all winced. Not in distaste, but in surprise. “Oh man,” Herb said. “All the way out here in the fucking hall. Do you suppose anyone else could smell it? I mean, anyone else but us?”

Roger shook his head and started toward the Zenith offices, walking with his hands rolled into fists. He stopped outside the office door. “Which of you has the key? Because I left mine at home.”

I was rummaging for them in my pocket when Bill stepped forward and tried the knob. It turned. He looked at us with his eyebrows raised, then went in.

I'd characterize what we'd smelled when the elevator door opened on Five as a scent. In the reception office it was much, much stronger—what you would have called a reek, if it had been unpleasant. It wasn't, so what does that leave? Pungent, I suppose; a pungent, earthy smell.

This is so hard. To this point I've been racing along, wanting to get to what we found (and what we didn't), but here I find myself moving much more slowly, searching for ways to describe what is, essentially, indescribable. And it occurs to me how infrequently we are called upon to write about smells and the powerful ways in which they affect us. The smell in the Central Falls House of Flowers was similar to this in its strength, but in other ways, important ways, entirely different. The greenhouse smell was threatening, sinister. This one was like...

Well, I might as well just say it. It was like coming home.

Roger looked around at Bill and me and gave us a forbidding District Attorney stare. “Toast and jam?” he asked. “Popcorn? Honeysuckle? New goddam car?”

We shook our heads. Zenith had put its various disguises aside, perhaps because it no longer needs them to entice us. I tuned into their thoughts again, just enough to know that Bill and Roger smelled what I did. There were variations, I'm sure, as no two sets of perception are alike (not to mention no two sets of olfactory receptors), but basically it was the same thing. Green... strong... friendly... home. I just hope and pray I'm not wrong about the friendly part.

“Come on,” Roger said.

Herb grabbed his arm. “What if somebody—”

“Nobody's here,” I said. “Carlos was and the General was, but they're... you know... gone.”

“Don't gild the lily,” Bill said. “They're dead.”

“Come on,” Roger repeated, and we followed him.

The reception area was clean as a whistle, the garlic still holding Zenith at bay, but the first green scouts had already gotten to within five feet of the pass-through to the editorial department (there's no door at the reception end of the hallway, only a square arch flanked by Macho Man posters). Fifteen or twenty feet down, where the door to Roger's office opens on the left, the growth has thickened considerably, covering most of the carpet and climbing up the walls. By the point where Herb's office and Sandra's face each other, it has covered the old gray carpet in a new carpet of fresh green, as well as most of the walls. It has gotten a start on the ceiling for good measure, hanging from the fluorescent lights in ropy swags. Beyond that, down toward Riddley's country, it has become a jungle. Yet I knew that if I walked down there, it would open to let me pass.

Pass, friend, come home. Yes, I could hear it whispering that to me.

“Ho... lee... shit,” Bill said.

“We've created a monster,” Herb said, and even in that moment of stress and wonder it occurred to me that he'd been reading too many Anthony LaScorbia novels for his own good.

Roger started down the hallway, moving slowly. We had all heard pass, friend, and we all felt that undeniable welcome, but we were all ready to run, just the same. It was just too new, too weird.

Although there's only one corridor in the office suite, it makes that little zigzag jog in the middle. We call the part running through the editorial offices “the front corridor.” Beyond the jog are the mailroom, the janitor's cubby, and a utility room to which only the building's personnel are supposed to have access (although I suspect Riddley has a key). This part is called “the back corridor.”

In the front corridor, there are three offices on the left: Roger's, Bill's, and Herb's. On the right there's a small office supply closet mostly taken up by our cranky Xerox machine, then my office, and finally Sandra's. The doors to Roger's office, Bill's, and the supply closet were all closed. My door, Herb's door, and Sandra's door were all open.

“Fuu-uck,” Herb said in a horrified whisper. “Look on the side of her door.”

“It's not Kool-Aid, I can tell you that much,” Bill said.

“More on the carpet, too,” Roger said. Herb used the f-word again, once more breaking it into two syllables.

There was no blood on the ivy-runners, I noticed, and although I didn't want to think about that too much, I suppose I know why not. Our buddy gets hungry, and doesn't that make perfect sense? There's so much more of it to support now, so many new outposts and colonies, and our psychic vibrations can probably offer it only so much in the way of nourishment. There's an old blues tune on the subject. “Grits ain't groceries,” the chorus goes. By the same token, friendly thoughts and supportive editors ain't...

Well, they ain't blood.

Are they?

Roger looked into Herb's office and I looked into mine. My place looked okay, but I knew damned well Carlos had been there, and not just because of the fancy-shmancy attache case sitting on top of the desk. I could almost smell him.

“Things are a trifle disarranged in your cubby, Herbert,” Bill said in a really terrible English butler voice. Maybe it was his way of trying to lighten the tension. “In fact, I believe someone may have urinated a bit in theah.”

Herb glanced in, saw the destruction, and grunted an oath that sounded almost absent-minded before turning to Sandra's office. By then, I was getting a pretty clear picture. Two crazy men, both with grudges against different Zenith House editors. I didn't care how they got in or which of them had arrived first, but I was curious about how far apart in time they'd been. If they'd met in the lobby and had their lunatic shootout there, they could have saved us a lot of trouble. Only that probably wasn't the way Zenith wanted it. Aside from the fact that Carlos may have owed a rather large debt to something (or Something) in the Great Beyond, there's the fact that grits ain't groceries. Telepathic plants get more than lonely, it seems. Pore little fellers get hungry, too.

It's certainly something to think about.

“Roger?” Herb asked. He was still standing by his door, and he sounded timid again. “She... she's not in there, is she?”

“No,” Roger said absently, “you know she's not. Sandra's on her way back from Cony Island. But our friend from Central Falls is finally present and accounted for.”

We gathered around the door and looked in.

Carlos Detweiller lay face-down in what Anthony LaScorbia would undoubtedly call “a gruesome pool of spreading blood.” The back of his suit-coat was pulled upward in a tent-shape, and the tip of a knife protruded through it. His hands were outstretched toward the desk. His feet, pointing toward the door, had already been partially covered by thin green bows of ivy. Zenith had actually pulled off one of his loafers and worked his way through the sock beneath. Maybe there was a hole in the sock to begin with, but somehow I don't think so. Because there were broken strands of ivy, you see. As if it had tried to pull him out, out and down toward the main mass of the growth, and had been unable. You could almost feel the hunger. The longing to have his carcass the way it had undoubtedly already had the General's.

“This is where they fought, of course,” Roger said, still in that absent tone of voice. He saw the Rainy Day Friend lying on the floor, picked it up, sniffed at the little hole on top, and winced. His eyes began to water at once.

“If you set off the siren in that thing again, I will be forced to kill you as dead as the asshole at your feet,” Bill said.

“I think the battery's fried,” Roger said, but he set the thing down on Sandra's desk very carefully, also being careful not to step on Detweiller's outstretched hand.

Carlos had been in my office, because I was the one against whom he'd built his grudge. Then he left for something.

“I think it was food,” Bill said. “He got hungry and went looking for food. The General jumped him. Carlos got to Sandra's gadget before Hecksler could give him the coup de grace, but it wasn't enough. Do you see that part, John?”

I shook my head. Maybe I just didn't want to see it.

“What's this?” Bill was out in the hall. He dropped to one knee, moved aside a clump of ivy, and showed us a guitar pick. Like the leaves of Zenith himself, the pick was as clean as a whistle. No blood, I mean.

“Something printed on it,” Bill said, and squinted. “JUST A CLOSER WALK WITH THEE, it says.”

Roger looked at me, finally startled out of his daze. “Good God, John,” he said, “that was him! He was her!”

“What are you talking about?” Bill asked, turning the pick over and over in his fingers. “What are you thinking about? Who's Crazy Guitar Gertie?”

“The General,” I said hollowly, and wondered if he'd had the knife when I gave him the two dollars. If Herb had been there that day, he'd be dead now. There was absolutely no question about that in my mind. And I myself was lucky to be alive.

“Well, I wasn't there, and you are alive,” Herb said. He spoke with his old don't-trouble-me-with-the-details irritability, but his face was still pale and shocked, the face of a man who is running entirely on instinct. “And congratulations, Gelb, you just left your dabs on that guitar pick. Better wipe em off.”

I could see other stuff scattered amid the thickening greenery back down the hall: shredded bits of clothing, a few pieces of what looked like a pamphlet of some kind, paper money, coins.

“Fingerprints aren't a problem because nobody's ever going to see any of the old coot's stuff,” Roger said. He took the pick from Bill, briefly examined the printing, then walked a little way down the corridor. The drifts and clumps of ivy drew back for him, just as I had known they would. Roger tossed the pick. A leaf folded over it and it was gone. Just like that.

Then, in my head, I heard Roger's voice. Zenith! As if calling a dog. Eat this crap up! Make it gone!

And for the first time I heard it speak a coherent reply. There isn't anything I can do about the coins. Or these damn things. Halfway up the wall, just beyond Herb's office door, a shiny green leaf almost the size of a dinner plate unrolled. Something bright dropped to the carpet with a clink. I walked down and picked up Iron-Guts's Army ID tags on a silver beaded chain. Feeling very weird about it—you must believe me when I say words cannot begin to tell—I slipped them into my pants pocket. Meanwhile, Bill and Herb were picking up the General's silver change. As this went on, there was a low rustling sound. The bits of clothing and shreds of paper were disappearing back into the jungle where the front corridor becomes the back one.

“And Detweiller?” Bill asked in a hushed voice. “Same deal?”

Roger's eyes met mine for a moment, questioning. Then we shook our heads, both at the same time.

“Why not?” Herb asked.

“Too dangerous,” I said.

We waited for Zenith to speak again, to contradict the idea, perhaps, but there was nothing.

“Then what?” Herb asked plaintively. “What are we supposed to do with him? What are we supposed to do with his goddam briefcase? For that matter, what are we supposed to do with any little pieces of the General we come across in the back corridor? His belt-buckle, for instance?”

Before any of us could answer, a man's voice called from the reception area. “Hello? Is anyone here?”

We looked at each other in utter surprise, in that first moment too shocked for panic.