Darkness Blooms by Christopher Bloodworth Read Free Book Online Page A

that were open farther back.
    Some of the flowers closed their blooms before the water hit them, but most took the water full on in the red.
    Sylvia cried out a yelp of victory as she watched all the smoking plants die.
    Sylvia worked fast as the sun climbed higher in the sky, alternating tossing balls of paper at the plants and dousing them with water.
    She quickly realized that they weren’t as intelligent as she’d made them out to be. They all seemed to work based on several survival mechanisms. They opened due to movement or vibration, maybe even sound, and they tracked their prey, paying little attention to things that weren’t alive. Whether that was heat or movement-based, Sylvia didn’t know.
    These mechanisms ensured their survival in the wild, wherever that was, but also ensured their destruction at the hands of an intelligent species.
    Once there was a huge muddy area surrounding the faucet and hose, Sylvia shut the window. She headed back to the bedroom and nodded to herself as she looked at the clothes she’d laid out. She checked the two coffee cans, happy to see that both bulbs were still submerged at the bottom of the can.
    The hose was too far down the side of the house to reach without someone holding her legs, so she was going to go right out the kitchen window and get it herself. That was the plan.
    Sylvia sat down on the bed and started pulling her feet through the pant legs and froze. Morning light filled the bedroom, a bright, skewed rectangle window of light outlined on the wall next to the bathroom.
    At the center of that skewed rectangle was a large shadow that took up most of the window.
    A shadow shaped like a starfish that had too many long, narrow legs.

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    Sylvia froze.
    Had the shadow been there when she walked into the bedroom?
    She wasn’t sure, but she didn’t think it had.
    Sylvia inched her head and shoulders around. What she saw chilled her more than a house surrounded by the dusky black flowers.
    The black and white plant clung to the window right outside the bedroom. The underside of the plant was bright yellow, and from the tips of its legs all the way up to the center were dotted lines of black fangs that all curved back toward the center.
    Sylvia wheezed in a breath at what lay in the center of the plant.
    A solid black mass of the same fangs, but long enough so that they overlapped at the center.
    Sylvia didn’t want to know what lay behind all those fangs.
    When the plant skittered off the window, Sylvia let out a little scream of surprise. It moved fast, streaking away around the edge of the house before it really even registered in Sylvia’s mind.
    When Sylvia heard clicking in the room, she started to cry.
    Was it inside?
    Eyes wide and darting all over the room, Sylvia searched for the black and white striped plant. She started crying harder when she realized that the clicking sound was her own teeth chattering.
    After taking several calming breaths, Sylvia stood up.
    What was she supposed to do now?
    She couldn’t risk crawling out the window; that spider thing was too fast.
    What she needed was a rake or a hoe. Something long and curved that she could hook the hose with. Sylvia chewed on her lip while she thought of stuff in the house that might work.
    The broom seemed to be the best bet, so once again, she headed to the kitchen. She opened the pantry and grabbed the broom. She moved fast after that, not wanting to lose her nerve and chicken out.
    She checked all the angles outside the window, and sure that the coast was clear, she was about to open the window when she stopped.
    If she got hose into the kitchen, she would have to keep the window cracked. If she kept the window cracked and the spider thing came across that crack, Sylvia knew it would open the window completely. It had already opened the door to the green house and that had been closed. If it could figure out a closed door, it would have no problem with a cracked window.
    In short? It would be an all