The Garden of Fear Read online

  The teen found himself in a living nightmare, far worse than any journey he had taken riding on the back of illicit drugs. What was he going to do? What in heaven’s name had just happened? No one would ever believe his story.

  As he looked about the shop, other carvings threatening to come to life had him pushing past his pain to make his exit. Flipping over on his stomach, he dragged himself across the floor and around the counter. The display of gnomes loomed across the room, waiting with impish charm.

  Seconds passed that felt like hours. The little figures remained content in their peaceful vigil. His imagination influenced reality to the point he wasn’t even sure he could trust what he remembered during the fray. A collection of wooden canes with various animal heads carved into the handles rested inside a wicker basket a few feet away. The teen crawled over and pulled the basket to the floor, spilling the contents.

  With some effort, he managed to upright himself on his knees, and chose the cane nearest to help him rise to his feet. Charles’ body lay slumped across the workbench. The gnome hid from view behind the counter.

  Thoughts of Charles coming back to life sent the teen another gift of endorphins that helped him hobble to the front. The door opened to crickets chirping and dim yellow lights above the vacant parking lot. The world was normal again. A little more meth would ease the pain until he could make it to the emergency room. His only regret, he didn’t have a match. He would have set the shop ablaze to purge his mind of the memories.

  *

  A Black Forest cuckoo clock reproduction came alive at midnight on the shop wall. A small window opened at the top of a Swiss chalet with a gentle sloping roof revealing an automaton of a little yellow bird that moved up and down at each strike of the hour. A bellows in sync sent a puff of air through pipes producing the familiar call of the cuckoo. The novelty of the timepiece was lost among the carnage of a humble man, guilty of nothing more than being a trusting soul.

  The life force inside the gnome though dim, still pulsed with ethereal energy too strong to quench. The façade that mimicked skin turned undead gray, its eyes opened bloodshot staring through the grayness of death. The first zombie gnome was born.

  The animated imp frothing with life was no more. Instead, the husk rose to its feet with instinct as its only guide. An insatiable hunger kindled the fires of its lust, a desire that no mere mortal had ever known. For the hollowness inside would only be satisfied by two things: the souls of the living, and the fruit of its flesh.

  The dead body of Charles offered the faintest of recognition as the undead gnome now shared elements of its life force. Its lips peeled back showing rows of deadly teeth, its nails grew long and sharp at the tips. The door to the outside was open, leading the way to a world of endless possibilities.

  *

  “Dude, we shouldn’t wait much longer. Are you ready to go to the emergency room? That thing ain’t gonna heal itself,” Smitty said.

  “In a bit. I just need to calm down some,” Riff said, holding a half-smoked cigarette between his shaky fingers. “I need to take a bath first. Change out of these clothes. I got blood all over my jacket that could tie me in with that shopkeeper.”

  “Jeez man, what’d you do to him?” Bernie asked.

  “What? Forget him! Scumbag. He was asking for it and got what he deserved,” Riff said.

  “I hope nobody saw you get in my truck that knew what you did. I would have never come and picked you up if I’d had known what you done,” Chris said. “If my brother wakes up and sees you looking like that he’s going to start asking questions. If you get him in trouble he’s going to kick me out of his trailer, and I’ll have to make it on my own.”

  “Quit being such a pussy, Chris. Your brother is somewhere over the rainbow sleeping one off in the back.”

  “Yeah, well, your ass isn’t on the line here, now is it?” Chris walked in a small circle, waving his hands in the air.

  A muffled cry rattled from the back of the trailer.

  Chris stopped cold, with mouth falling open, and eyes darting about the room. “He’s awake. Son of a bitch—he’s awake. Riff, get out of here—now!”

  “I can’t. I’ve got to get cleaned up first.”

  A blood-curdling scream from the back sent everyone’s nerves on edge.

  “What the? Chris, go back there and see what’s going on,” Smitty said.

  Chris took a deep breath and stepped toward the bedroom door. Sometimes Max, his brother, got a little out of control in his drug-induced stupors. He had a few scares on his back to remind him of it.

  As quietly as he could, he turned the knob and pushed the door open, leaning with one eye through the crack. A thin stream of light from the hall cut a swath through the darkness. Max lied motionless on his stomach, not even snoring as usual. Was it just a bad dream? Chris wondered.

  The room had an unfamiliar smell, something akin to a dead rat. At the risk of waking Max, Chris pushed the door farther open, and discovered a dark stain marking the white sheet across Max’s back.

  “What the? Hey guys, come quick!” Chris called.

  Chris flipped on the light switch and hurried to the bedside, hovering with indecision. Smitty and Bernie were the first two in. Riff followed after.

  “What wrong?” Smitty said, stepping behind Chris.

  “I don’t know. He’s bleeding from his back,” Chris said.

  “What he’d do? Scratch a zit in his sleep?” Bernie said.

  “Shut up! This is serious. I don’t think he’s breathing,” Chris said. “Should we call 911?”

  “No! The police will come and I’m not ready to leave yet,” Riff called from the doorway.

  “We’ve got to do something.” Chris grabbed onto the sheet up by Max’s shoulder and pulled it down.

  The zombie gnome sprang out from underneath and latched its teeth into the oily folds of Chris’ forehead.

  With a scream, Chris grabbed its legs as he crashed to the floor on his back. “Get it off! Get it off!”

  “The gnome is back! It’s here to get me!” Riff turned and fast-hobbled down the hall heading for the front door.

  Bernie wrapped his fingers around Chris’ hands and yanked with all his strength.

  “It’s killing me! Get it off! Uh—” Chris went limp. Bernie inadvertently pulled Chris’ hands from around the zombie gnome.

  The zombie gnome somersaulted into the air and landed on its feet, chewing on a mouthful of tasty flesh, a warm soul settling within.

  “What in the hell is that thing?” Smitty said.

  “I don’t know. Kill it!” Bernie said.

  “With what?” Smitty said.

  The zombie gnome sped to Smitty’s side and ran around his ankle, filling its mouth with chunks of flesh, circling the leg and gnawing on it like an ear of corn.

  “Hey! Ow! Ow! Ow!” Smitty screamed.

  Its tiny claws dug into Smitty’s leg. The small arms climbed up to his head, where its teeth chomped down in the back of his neck.

  “Ouch! Bernie! Help! I feel like it’s sucking my mind from out of my head! I . . . uh.”

  Any sense of loyalty to his friends vaporized as the strongest instinct known to man, survival, kicked in the afterburners. Bernie turned and ran, unable to tear his eyes away from the gnome as it fed. He had misjudged the location of the door opening and crashed head first into the door jam.

  Swallowing the last gulp of soul, the zombie gnome picked a hair from between its teeth, and sped to the side of the next victim.

  *

  Riff limped down the rural road aided only by the light of a full moon. A trail of fresh blood from the cut marked his path better than bread crumbs ever could. The fate of his friends was a luxury to be considered only once he found safety at his apartment.

  Slowing enough to glance over his should, either for the untimely arrival of the gnome, or an approaching vehicle that he could catch a ride, left him relieved and disappointed at the same time.

  His
left wrist began to hurt nearly as much as his Achilles, having to support his weight with the cane. Putting that amount of pressure on it had him worried it would break off at the next step. The foot stabbed earlier had finally gone numb.

  A pair of green eyes in the bottom of a ditch illuminated by the rich moonlight flashed as a warning. Riff stopped in mid-step, his heart pounding loudly in his head.

  A mutt of a dog resembling a cross of a pit bull, black lab, and poodle, waddled out from the ditch and stepped onto the road as if the last thing it had to drink was a gallon of whiskey.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Riff felt some comfort having a dog by his side. “Hey boy, that’s a good dog. Come over here next to me.” Hopes of having a ‘man’s best friend’ for protection faded quickly as the dog stumbled to the pavement to lay motionless on its side. Its rear end dripped with fresh blood.

  “What the hell?” Another quick look about left him with the only option to continue his journey one-step at time. The cane the only weapon in his arsenal.

  The dog started shaking violently as its stomach bloated two sizes larger. The pointy hat of the zombie gnome smeared in entrails popped out first, the tiny creature emerged with a grin of wicked glee.

  Riff’s bladder showed first sign of surrender, letting loose without inhibition, warming his crotch and his right thigh. Raising the cane in a feeble act of warning, Riff poised to make his final stand.

  The zombie gnome reached Riff’s throat on its third leap. The cane smashed against the pavement completely missing the undead gnome. Riff stumbled backward with the brunt of the fall on his left elbow. The pain of a thousand knives shot up his arm into his neck. It faded into nausea and hopelessness as his soul spiraled into the void of the next dimension.

  Satisfied with the latest addition to its collection, the stealer of souls cut through the pastures heading through the deepest and darkest of the old forest, seeking the next piece to complete its plan.

  *

  Crackles of twigs and leaves rustling interrupted the dead of night as tiny feet invaded the secret world of nocturnal life. A barn owl watchful for a fat wood rat to fill its hatchling’s empty bellies thought it better to swoop down for the kill. Briers and brush parted as the zombie gnome finally came to a clearing by an old wooden two-story house.

  In the moon’s light, the simple design gave it a quaintness the rising sun would soon steal away. An awning provided cover in the rear where an assortment of chairs were haphazardly arranged around a number of potted plants. The grass was low and wet with sprinklings of morning dew.

  A meticulously kept garden by the side of the house was a memorial to its builder, the great-grandfather of the current resident. Conor Moore constructed the house entirely from hand tools with the help of his neighbors nearly one hundred years earlier. He built the forty by forty foot garden to be a place of solitude and to remind him of his beautiful homeland, Ireland.

  Any array of flowers and ornamental bushes adorned brick paths that twisted and turned to take the visitor on a magical tour of discovery. Small trees stood to ‘bookmark’ each display before rounding the corner to the next. The various settings depicted a scene worthy to be captured in a painting. An old stone well with a water bucket that could actually be lowered by turning a crank, a wheelbarrow with seasonal flowers growing from the tray, a water pond with grasses and cattails blowing in the breeze. There were eleven separate themes in all.

  A rusty cast iron fence surrounded the garden that had stood the test of time. The garden gate was framed by two brick columns with the garden’s name arched across the top, Erin go Braugh, meaning ‘Ireland Forever.’

  The gnome entered the garden. The songs of the night creatures stopped abruptly as the intruder approached. The natural warmth the garden projected suddenly became cold, retracting within itself for preservation.

  Dotted throughout the garden, gnome statues stood as sentinels both to add charm and as a watchful eye. Each had a pointy hat and a smile that was sure to fetch a grin.

  With undead eyes, the zombie gnome firstborn fixated upon the nearest of its stone cousins. It approached in wicked contrast with claws set to slash and teeth exposed in warning, evoking emotions opposite of everything the garden was created to give.

  Pushing its undead nose to the beard of the jovial garden gnome, it pulled back with the answer it sought. The zombie gnome opened its mouth wide, flesh still wedged between its teeth, and vomited blood mixed with soul from its inner caldron.

  The vile emesis ran down the gnome’s bright open eyes and boyish grin hiding beneath a full beard. The stone body begin to quiver. The blood streaks came alive and snaked around the body, twisting and turning until not a spot was left uncovered.

  A slight hum filled the air as the gnome progressed through the strange metamorphosis. The statue, once an inanimate lump shaped into a creature of myth, transformed into something dead, but alive. As God formed man from the earth, the zombie gnome firstborn had created another in its image, after its likeness.

  The new creation opened its eyes for the first time and raised its arms to feel the air. Its face slowly contorted to reflect the evil of the tainted soul that lurked within. With some hesitancy, it stepped forward; trying out his its new limbs that would aid in fulfilling his mission.

  The zombie gnome firstborn didn’t smile, but sensed that its new creation was good. Four other captured souls festering inside fought to find a new home. Not far, placed strategically on a log with a row of verbena as a backdrop, was the next garden gnome waiting for its wicked evolution. It was the beginning of the Dark Army.

  *

  Bacon sizzled in a black iron skillet older than the cook. Ryan Moore multitasked in the kitchen preparing breakfast for his guests. Waffles browned in the maker. The rich aroma of fresh coffee carried into the living room where Tom O’Donnell sat up from the couch where he had rested for the night.

  Chris McGuire entered the room enduring a long yawn and with eyes still heavy from sleep. “Moring, Ryan.”

  “Good morning. Sleep well?”

  “I slept just fine. I’m still feeling some jet lag, though,” Chris said.

  “Coffee’s ready. The mugs are in the cabinet over the sink. Sugar’s on the table and milk in the fridge if you want any,” Ryan said, draining the bacon on paper towels.

  Tom stumbled in the kitchen, scratching his backside. “You guys are up early.”

  “It’s after nine A.M.,” Ryan said.

  “Like I said, early.”

  “You’re only going to be visiting for a few days, you don’t want to sleep it away,” Ryan said, cracking two eggs in the skillet to fry.

  “This house is in pretty good shape to be as old as it is,” Chris said.

  “Yeah, it’s been in the family for generations. When Dad died two years ago, he made me promise to keep it up so that I could pass it on to one of my children,” Ryan said.

  “Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen. You’ll always be too big a kid to have kids,” Tom said.

  “Hey, you never know. I might meet the right girl one day. It could happen,” Ryan said.

  “Yes, blind women need loving too,” Chris said.

  “You’re just jealous because I own this fabulous old house and the Erin go Braugh garden,” Ryan said.

  “Yeah, I can’t wait to see the garden. That was always my favorite place to play when we came to visit when we were kids,” Tom said.

  “Something Dad instilled in me long ago was to preserve the garden in honor of my great-grandfather’s memory. He said it would bring me prosperity in life, as it did him. I’ve been helping in the garden since I was old enough to walk. It’s always been a passion of mine. I guess it runs in the family,” Ryan said.

  “How much has changed in the garden from when your great grandfather planted it?” Chris asked.

  “From what I was told, it’s pretty much the same. Any shrubs or trees that died were replaced in kind, as well as the seasonal flowers
that we plant. I have added a unique touch of my own to the garden. One I’m sure Great Grandpa wouldn’t mind,” Ryan said.

  “What’s that?” Tom asked.

  “I added a bunch of garden gnomes. I bought one just to see what kind of feel it would add to the garden. I loved the little guy so much that I bought more. The garden is full of them now. You’ll see. When you first walk in, you get this funny feeling that somebody’s watching you. Then, your eye will catch a gnome hiding around a bush or some flowers. I just think it’s the coolest thing. It really puts a sense of magic in the air,” Ryan said, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Wow, I can’t wait to see the garden,” Chris said.

  “Me too,” Tom said.

  “Okay, time to eat. We’ll check it out after breakfast. I’ll make a batch of bloody Marys to bring with us,” Ryan said.

  The three sat down to eat. In the garden, six zombie gnomes feasted upon a German Shepherd that followed a strange scent only to meet its ultimate demise.

  No one inside was aware of what fate had in store for them. Or, that from this day forward, Erin go Braugh garden would be known to them as: The Garden of Fear.

  The End