Reluctantly, he put on his slippers and walked to the greenhouse. That familiar chill ran through him again as he stepped inside. He avoided looking at the head on the table and turned the lights off, rushing back out and closing the door behind him. As he walked back to the house, the sound of shattered glass echoed in the distance. He turned and walked cautiously back to the door. In the moonlight, the head seemed less foreboding. He could see just enough to confirm that it was still on the table. He edged closer, noticing something large atop the table near the head. He grabbed a hoe in the corner and gripped it tightly, taking a hand off it quickly to turn the lights on.
He expected to see a cat, or a feral dog perhaps. Instead, he saw the root system he had used to sustain the woman’s head. It had sprouted a mass of foliage so thick that it had knocked a beaker from the table. And it was moving.
The woman’s head turned towards him. Again, it mouthed the words, “Where am I?” Only this time he swore he could hear her.
He tried to swallow the fear that welled up inside him, but could not. “Vermont,” he replied.
“What happened to me?”
He took a step closer. “You’re…you tried to take your own life. I’ve managed to keep you alive.”
He was close enough now to see the plant life attached to her heaving. She began to cry. “Is this hell?”
“No.” He put his hand on the tangle of leaves and small branches, pulling away as quickly as he touched it. There, under the surface, he felt a heartbeat, or plant life emulating a heartbeat. He inspected the plant closer. It was forming a torso. Thick branches sprouted from where the shoulders would be. Somehow, the plant was attempting to reproduce her body. “Is… is there anything I can do to make this easier on you?” he asked.
She closed her eyes. “Kill me,” she said. “I don’t want to live like this.”
He turned for the door. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. I’m sorry.”
“Then stay with me,” she said. “I don’t want to be alone.”
“I…” he now longed for the comfort of his bed more than ever before, not to sleep, but for a semblance of safety. “Okay.” He pulled a chair towards her and sat down, careful not to look her in the eye. “Do you want to hear more about why you’re here?”
“I don’t want to think about it anymore tonight.” She closed her eyes. “Just don’t leave me alone.”
THE NEXT MORNING HE woke tangled in a myriad of branches obscuring the daylight. He tore at them until he realized he was not confined, but simply covered. Her body had grown significantly over night. Her arms were now almost completely developed, with thick veined limbs extending into five separate digits. Her legs were beginning to sprout. She moaned and the body began to move. What he recognized as a crude rendering of hands moved towards him. “Thank you,” she said. “For staying with me.”
He pulled away. “You’re welcome.”
“And fuck you for doing this to me.”
“What?”
“Who the fuck do you think you are? Look at me.”
He turned away until she sat up and turned his face to meet hers. She stared into him. “What kind of sick shit are you doing up here in the mountains? Am I the first?”
He nodded. “A firm paid me. I didn’t know you’d end up like this. You were clinically dead.”
“You should have left me that way. Look at my body.” She looked at the hand that cradled his chin. “I want to see my face.”
He walked to the far corner of the room and brought back a small mirror plate. “Your head was the only thing the firm gave me. They asked me to reproduce the results of my thesis experiment. I thought they’d bring a finger, or a hand at the most. I never thought they’d ask me to do this.”
She looked at herself in the mirror. “I want to be alone.”
“Can I bring you anything?”
“Go.”
He complied, returning to the house to check his messages. Sands had called. Dick played the message:
“Dick, I’ll have someone up there this evening. It’s the best I could do. They’ll bring a ticket for your flight back to Indiana and clean up for you. Hope you’re holding up all right.”
He deleted the message and tried to wash himself of everything in the shower, the evidence and the memories of the last few days. In less than twenty-four hours it would be over. The head would be in Sands’s custody and he would be on his way home. He rinsed the soap from his scalp, holding his eyes shut to let the water run over his face. Then the shower curtain opened.
It was her, body fully developed. Large flowers emulating the pigment of her original skin tone had blossomed across her torso.
“Jesus!” he shouted.
She grabbed him by the throat and pinned him to the wall, stepping in beside him. “I want to feel human again. I want to be human again.” She kissed him forcefully. His hands worked their way around her waistline gently. She reciprocated, drawing him close to her. She pulled his arm away from her waist and guided it between her legs, pressing his finger inwards.
He pulled away. “Shit!”
He held his hand up. Blood spat from thorn-covered wounds. When he looked up again, she was gone.
After searching the entire house, he dressed and made his way to the greenhouse. He found her crouched in the corner. She cowered. “Stay away from me!”
He knelt down beside her. On the floor, the mirror he had given her earlier lay shattered. One of the pieces was covered with thick mucus-like strands of green. A puddle of the same substance gathered nearby below her wrists, which were riddled with deep gashes.
She hid the wounds. “You should have let me die.”
He lifted her off the floor. “Come on.”
They went back to the house together. He wrapped the wounds in gauze and led her to his bed, where she slept throughout the day. He sat at the edge of the bed watching her grow, not larger, but she was beginning to fill out. The thin vines that had made up her appendages were now of greater substance. A thick, white moss began to grow over them like skin.
Her body continued to develop as night drew in. Dick watched until he heard a car pull into the driveway. Sands’s man had arrived.
Dick met him at the door.
The man handed Dick a plane ticket scheduled for departure the following morning. “Agent Brody. I’m here to clean up.”
“What are you going to do with…with the head?” Dick asked.
“I’ll take care of that. You just pack up. I’ll take you to the airport first thing in the morning.”
Dick pointed to the greenhouse. “It’s in there.”
As soon as Agent Brody started for the greenhouse, Dick ran upstairs. “Wake up,” he whispered.
“What’s wrong?”
“Someone’s here. They’ve come to take you. They don’t know what you’ve become though. They still think you’re just…they think it’s just your head.”
She sat up. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“We have to go.” Dick rose to check the window. Brody was already on his way back to the house. “Shit.”
Downstairs Agent Brody let himself inside. “Dick?”
Dick hurried down to meet him. “What’s up?”
Brody eyed him suspiciously. “There’s nothing out there.”
“Really?”
Brody waved him to the greenhouse. “Come on.”
Dick followed him, looking back at Tara through the upstairs window.