This Poisoned Ground Kristi Petersen Schoonover They say you hurt the ones you love most. No one ever talks about when they hurt you back. Just after dawn on the hottest day East Providence has endured in a hundred summers, Todd, a bit of a ladies’ man, finds his prized rose bush dead. This is only the first in an ever-more-ominous series of events, and someone…or something…is trying to invade his home. In the tradition of The Fall of the House of Usher, Ligeia, and Aura comes a gripping tale of love, lust…and regret.
Dark Alley Press
This Poisoned Ground Just after dawn on what promised to be the hottest day East Providence had experienced in a hundred summers, Todd found his rose bush dead. Food for the stray cats still in hand, he walked across his porch to get a better look. The leaves were curled, wrinkled; the blooms brown and shriveled like the dried apples he and his niece fashioned into faces in the fall. And there was an unsettling smell—cooked onions, rotting cabbage, and vanilla. The ground around the bush’s base was dark—like it was wet—but it hadn’t rained in more than a week. Clearly, someone had poured some kind of chemical near the root system, and it had to have been strong stuff, too: The bush was as tall as he was—nearly six feet—and three times his girth, and he wasn’t a thin man. Its thorns were freakishly large, some the size of small kabob skewers. And it’d been robust just yesterday. He’d had his new—and available—neighbor, Erika, over for a glass of wine, and she’d noted she’d never met a single man that could keep such a healthy plant. Because Todd had already asked her for a date the following weekend, he hadn’t told her the bush had been part of his life with…he wasn’t sure what Katie had been, actually. Best friend? Old flame? Longtime love. The thought stung. He willed himself to forget it. Would she have done this? No. After their last—split, was the best term—she’d moved. To New Orleans, he’d heard. It was probably, Todd decided, random vandalism. It’d happened before. Orchard Street was so close to I-195. The grunting of big rigs and whoosh of cars were constant white noise, and nearby Exit 4 was easy-on, easy-off: it was a cinch for any hoodlum looking for a few kicks to pull through, tornado across the chain-linked yards, and vanish. He’d have to dig up the bush and get rid of it, but not today, maybe
not even until the heat wave broke. He’d liked the heat when he was younger, thinner, and in good shape; he’d even gone to Hawaii and hiked for several weeks. But the packing on of 120 or so pounds had changed that: Now summers just meant lots of sweat. His nineteenthcentury house didn’t have central air, just a few window units, and they did jack. Shades didn’t help, either, although that’s what he told his neighbors—“Keeps it warmer in winter, cooler in summer”—so they wouldn’t uncover his real motive: The houses were so close together, it was par to see what people were eating for dinner, and that repulsed him. His 924-square-foot, dirt-cheap disaster rendered in outdated wallpaper, rot, and mildewing carpet was now, after years of loving restoration, his castle. No one—voyeuristically or otherwise—was allowed in unless invited. While his coffee brewed, he contemplated smoking pot before he did the standard Saturday thing—watch porn and troll the Internet for a girl to hang out/sleep with. Something casual, just to keep the loneliness at bay a couple of times a week. He dragged his computer over to his lap—it was connected to his fifty-inch flat screen TV—clicked into his porn file, and fired up one of his favorites. As usual, the moaning made him miserably desirous, but when he commenced, he was shocked the only woman he could envision was Katie. This last encounter had been his third go-around with her. He’d decided to find her again the day he turned forty: Life was getting shorter, and he needed restoration. He needed Katie. It’d be easy enough to find her: The thought of creating an account on the very public Facebook rankled every hair on his back, but she was the opposite. She was an artist and probably had a fan base by now; she’d be on there and have a thousand friends. He hovered his mouse over “Add Friend.” Don’t do it. Remember how badly it ended the last two times. Remember her tears. But her profile picture was both stimulating and comforting—her
eyes held that same acute awareness, that same deep, haunting compassion that made his mind go blank, made him want to be inside her and spill his secrets. Come on, you’re both forty. You can handle it. And so he’d closed his eyes and clicked. Todd flicked on his computer and called up Match.com. He patronized all of them—PlentyofFish, OkCupid, Date.com—well, except for eHarmony. Their ads made him anxious—it seemed as though, to get any results, you had to really expose yourself; it was like being around Katie— Stop, he thought. What the hell is wrong with you today? There was a knock at his front door. He opened it to a blast of heat that smelled like burnt chicken and asphalt. He ran his hand along the door’s jamb and felt a splinter pierce his palm. “Ow! Shit.” His neighbor, Lori, in a sweat-stained orange tank, was fanning herself with an envelope. “What’d you just do?” “Ugh.” He examined his hand, but there didn’t appear to be anything there. He wiped his hands on his shorts. “Splinter. I gotta sand this thing.” “I’m really sorry to bother you but here.” She handed it over. “This was in my mailbox; it went to the wrong house.” He was confused—the regular postman knew the block. “You sure?” Lori nodded. “Thirty-four. That’s you.” He looked at the envelope. It had a cellophane window in it, like for a check, but there was no return address, and it didn’t have his name—just the street, city, and zip in neat, bold typing. “Looks like junk, but thanks.” “We’re taking the kids over to Rocky Bay today, if you wanna come.” He scanned the street behind her; heat waves weltered from the pavement, and he felt nauseous. “Nah. Too hot.” “Listen, come over for a drink later.” She began to make her way back over the cracked sidewalk.
“Um, maybe. Got plans.” He started to close the door, then changed his mind. “Hey. Hold up.” She turned. “Yeah?” She was far enough away that he’d have to be loud, and he didn’t want the whole neighborhood hearing him. He lumbered down his stoop onto the sidewalk. “You didn’t have anything…odd happen, did you?” She blinked. “Like what?” The back of his left calf was itchy; he crossed his right foot behind it and scratched. “Anything not right in your yard. Missing even.” Across the street, a baby cried from the second-floor window of the brown house that was a couple of years younger than his. “No,” she said. “Why? You get robbed?” “Had a problem. With my rose bush. It was dead this morning. Like somebody-poured-weed-killer-on-it dead.” “That’s terrible.” She furrowed her brow. “No, I’ve had no problems, and if there’d been anything else in the neighborhood, I’d have heard about it by now. Maybe it just…died?” “No. This was deliberate. I think.” “Call the police.” If it was anything that terrified him, it was uniforms poking around his house. Especially after he’d been smoking pot. “It’s okay. I’ll just get rid of it.” “That’s too bad. I bet your girlfriend’s going to be upset.” “What girlfriend?” “Real pretty? Long red hair? I thought that was your girlfriend.” Todd’s stomach knotted, caught off guard that it was in sadness rather than any other emotion. “You mean Katie. She…” She what? How was he supposed to explain this? “Katie and I…she wasn’t my girlfriend.” “She’s not?” He understood why she was surprised—there was barely three feet between their houses, so he was sure Lori could hear most of what went on in his bedroom. Especially with Katie. He suddenly wished he could walk into his house and Katie would be there. “We were—just friends. Went to college together a long time ago.” He rubbed the back of his neck. It was soaked.
“Are you alright?” God, he hated being this fat. He really did need to drop some weight; his doctor had recommended it at his last check up. “Yeah.” “Consider that drink.” “Thanks for the mail.” He went back inside and closed the door, hearing the rattle of the kitchen window on the opposite end of the house; it always did that, shifted a little because of the air pressure. He considered the envelope, then slid his thick finger under the flap and worked it open. There was nothing but a blank piece of paper inside, but he pulled it out just to be sure. A few grains of what felt like sand sprinkled his feet. He ripped the envelope and paper in half and tossed it into the trash can. In the dream, he and Katie knelt in a playground sandbox. He was aware that he appeared as the day he’d met her, down to his navy blue shirt; in contrast, she looked like she had the last time he’d seen her, when she’d been wearing her black and white polka dot babydoll. They were building a castle; in one corner, Katie had shaped a turret, and, with the edge of her red shovel, she was carving a window. “That wouldn’t have a window there,” he said. “It has to have a window,” she said. “It’s our bedroom.” Fear gripped him. Without another thought, he thwacked it, reducing it to a pile of sand. Her bottom lip quivered, and the shovel fell from her hand. “Don’t.” He reached for her arm. “Don’t cry—” “You ruined it.” She jerked away, stood up. “You ruined everything!” She kicked sand in his face. Todd startled awake. He normally slept naked; he was often overheated—sleeping next to you is like sleeping next to a woodstove, Katie’d said once—but his arms were goose-fleshed and his teeth chattered. When he shifted onto his side, his back chilled as though doused in ice water. He eyed what he thought was the culprit—the window A/C unit—but it wasn’t blowing any air.
Annoyed, but not sure why, he struggled into the shorts and T-shirt he’d tossed on his nightstand. He lay back down and pulled the thin sheet over his body. Thump. Thump. Scratch. What the hell was that? He sat up, listened. Scratch. It sounded like a stiff wire brush running down the wall. The cats? He looked as his alarm clock: just past three a.m. No—two more hours ’til feeding time. Thump. The wall shook. Thump. Scratch. Was someone was trying to break in? With much effort, he rolled over onto his stomach and groped beneath his bed for the only weapon he kept—a crowbar. Thump. Thump. Thump. He made his way down the narrow second-floor hall and the stairs, cursing each board as it creaked. Scratch. Bang! He stopped on the ground floor just shy of the bathroom and listened. This time it sounded like someone was dragging a body across the porch. He tightened his fingers on the crowbar, rushed to the kitchen, and yanked the door open, ready to come down on— No one. “Hello?” he called. Only the distant groan of a big rig on the highway responded. He stood for a second, not sure what to do. The noises didn’t continue. He took a deep breath, closed the door, set the crowbar on a work bench that served as his wine bar, and decided to have a glass. But as he reached for the bottle, he heard a scraping sound. The kitchen window. Slowly, he reached for the shade’s pull-cord and yanked; it spindled up with a thwuck-pop. There was only the dead rose bush, fingering the full moon.
About the Author
Kristi Petersen Schoonover has never been a fan of roses. Her novel, Bad Apple, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her short fiction has appeared in Carpe Articulum, The Adirondack Review, Barbaric Yawp, New Witch Magazine, Toasted Cheese, and others, including several anthologies such as Dark Opus Press’ In Poe’s Shadow, Great Old Ones Publishing’s Canopic Jars: Tales of Mummies and Mummification, and Western Legend Press’ Unnatural Tales of the Jackalope. She has received three Norman Mailer Writers Colony Residencies, has served as a judge for New York City Midnight’s short story competitions, and is a founding editor at Read Short Fiction. She lives with her husband, occult specialist Nathan Schoonover, in the haunted woods of Connecticut and still sleeps with the lights on. You can find out more at www.kristipetersenschoonover.com.
Also by Kristi Petersen Schoonover
BAD APPLE After an unfortunate incident on a Maine apple orchard, precocious teen Scree is left with a father she’s not sure is hers, a never-ending list of chores and her flaky brother’s baby, who she is expected to raise. In a noble move to save the child from an existence like her own, Scree flees to a glitzy resort teeming with young men just ripe for the picking. But even as life with baby becomes all she’d dreamed, Dali-esque visions begin to leach through the gold paint… Bad Apple is a dark, surreal ride that proves not all things in an orchard are safe to pick.
Praise for
BAD APPLE “Deeply disturbing in the best way possible. These characters screamed for a witness, and I was helpless against them.” — Zombrarian, SciFi Saturday Night “Drags the reader in and keeps its claws fastened long after he’s put it down.” —Philip Perron, Dark Discussions Podcast “…an explosive ending that literally took my breath away.” —Peter Schwotzer, Literary Mayhem “This truly is a wonderful tale, completely feminine in the best of ways…an insightful novel.” Robert J. Duperre, Shock Totem