Tag: weird stories

She looked in the mirror and noticed a large pustule on the right side of her nose.

It hadn’t been there when she climbed into bed the night before, nor had there been the usual signs of its arrival.

Redness.

Irritation.

Swelling.

Nothing to warn her something was going to pop up.

But there it was, larger than a marble – and just as shiny – begging her to mess with it.

Relieve her face of its unsightly appearance.

Leaning into the bathroom mirror, she placed both index fingers on either side of the mass and with determination… squeezed.

Hard.

What issued forth did so with unexpected ease, but more surprising was the enormous amount of pus – if one could call it that – which oozed forth.

A pastry bag filled with mashed potatoes was the image she couldn’t shake, as an hellacious amount of creamy, white, semisolid goo continued to issue forth until she felt faint by the sight and sheer volume of it, and had to stagger out of the bathroom to steady herself by sitting on the edge of her bed.

“What the fuck was that?!”, she cried aloud.

For the first time in her life, she felt near hysterics.

“Calm yourself, woman. There is a simple explanation for what you saw – or think you saw.”

Closing her eyes, she lay back on the bed, hoping the last of the pus had erupted and that she would return to the mirror after a few deep, cleansing breaths, to find a small, raw, unsightly crevass – and nothing more – where the strange pustule had been.

“Just your average, everyday zit,” she laughed unconvincingly.

Steadying her breath, she opened her eyes and watched the ceiling fan above her spinning.

Normal.

She turned her head right to see her nightstand, piled high with books, and the alarm clock, which read 7:17 a.m.

Normal.

Turning her head left, toward the bathroom door, which was wide open, she could see a portion of the mirror where she couldn’t be sure whether she had just experienced the creepiest moment of her life, or quite possibly stood half-asleep, having not completely stirred herself awake from an outrageous nightmare.

Everything there appeared normal, so slowly raising herself, she sat up and was just about to stand when she looked down.

What she was seeing just wasn’t possible.

Her body shook violently, as she grabbed for her glasses on the nightstand, which only brought the grotesque site clearer into focus.

Her feet resembled nothing of the sort, but instead were clumps of earth with winding roots, tubers and stems – what she could only describe as a potato plant where her feet should have been.

She reached out, but stopped.

Instead, she attempted to wiggle her toes hoping the action would – as when your foot falls asleep – create a tingling sensation and wake her from this strange scene.

She watched the soil shift a bit as she set her entire being to the task, but she felt no tingle and her toes and feet remained indiscernible.

Shocked to silence, she stumbled to the bathroom, and sitting at the edge of the tub, began clawing at the clumps of dirt and tubers and leaves, but to no avail.

In fact, each time she did seemed to stimulate further growth.

An inner voice shrieked, “For god’s sake, then don’t use water!”

Grabbing a pair of hair scissors from the bathroom drawer, she looked down.

She was desperate to start cutting at the roots and runners.

To stab through the clumps of dirt.

To find her feet.

But the fear of cutting off her toes stopped her cold.

With the scissors still clenched in her right hand, she looked to her face just visible above the sink in the lower part of the mirror and, raising her left hand, she SLAPPED her left cheek as hard as she could.

“WAKE THE FUCK UP, ANNE! THIS ISN’T REALLY HAPPENING!”

But the sting on her cheek, and the red welt now rising on the side of her face, were telling an entirely different reality.

Sheer panic dug the scissors into the roots and soil below, but the more she stabbed and cut, the more the plant grew and wound further up her legs.

She dropped the scissors and feverishly began pulling at the expanding, sinuous roots, stolons and stems with her hands, now feeling their movement under her skin, climbing up her torso like a hundred, small snakes.

She pulled and pulled and pulled at the never ending plant, like a magician pulling the infinite handkerchief from his pocket – the sudden image of which sent her into frenetic bursts of laughter and tears.

“Somebody… help me,” she whimpered, still pulling at the potato plant now winding its way in and out and up her body as if this was now made of nothing but soft, accommodating earth in which to propagate.

By the time she reached the front door, it had wound around her neck, choking her pleas for help as she stumbled outside and into the front yard.

The dirt and the potatoes, the tangled roots and leafy stems, had become too much weight to bear and with a final gasp of “Why?”, which filled her mouth with earth, forward she fell with a heavy, earthen thump onto a patch of ground she had recently readied for a small vegetable garden

She didn’t know how much time had passed after her collapse – for time meant nothing now – before she heard footsteps through the dark and silence that entombed her.

Though muffled and distant at first, the voices were familiar, being those of her two best friends who had come by to borrow a picnic table for the barbecue they had all planned for that evening.

She struggled to move.

To speak.

To scream.

But as she did, she felt the roots wrap tighter.

Not getting a response to their knocking, her friends turned to leave, but not before spotting the enormous, fecund plant growing out of the garden patch, bearing so many potatoes they were bursting from the ground.

They looked to each other and smiled.

“She won’t mind if we take a few for the barbecue,” she heard one say.

“Of course not,” answered the other. “After all, she’ll be there to enjoy them.”

“Besides…” one of best friends continued, as she yanked at the large tubers erupting from the soil, “look how many there are!”

“Did you hear that?” she asked, holding a triumphant clump of potatoes clinging to a tangle of roots and dirt.

“Hear what?” the other replied.

“I swore I heard a scream,” she said uneasily.

“I didn’t hear a thing,” said the other as she turned and walked away. “I bet Anne will be really pleased that her potatoes will be a main part of dinner tonight.”

“I hope so,” said the potato-laden friend, who rose from the garden patch, but not before hearing a low, smothered whimper rising from the soil.

“It must be the heat,” she laughed to herself, leaving a trail of dirt, and a flicker of doubt, behind her.