Matthew always had a green thumb; he could grow a tree from a stick. He had been looking for a new challenge when he found an ad on the internet for a person to take care of their flowers. He was intrigued and called the number on the bottom of the ad. 

An elderly woman answered, and Matthew said, “I saw your ad in the paper and was interested in what taking care of the flowers entailed.”, “The flowers are very rare and have very specific directions that must be followed exactly. What is your qualification?”. Matthew explained he had a degree in horticulture and had taken care of plants at a few nurseries. He also explained his passion for plants and growing them.

The lady sounded very excited on the other end of the line and told him she would give him a chance. She gave him a direction to where the plants were kept and told him to meet her there at 5 a.m. before the sun rose. Matthew was excited and told her would be there when she asked.

That whole night he couldn’t believe his luck. He was going to be able to work with some rare plant, this was going to look great on his resume. That night he could barely sleep with anticipation of the next morning, but he did and made sure his alarm was set for 4 a.m., allowing him plenty of time to get to the nursery.

When he walked up to the nursery, he saw an older lady standing next to a darkened building. He was surprised because he figured that the flowers would need plenty of light, but he figured he would learn more. He pulled up and got out of the car and walked over to the lady and said, “Hi, I’m Matthew I’m here to take care of your plants.”. She smiled at him and said, “My name is Ethel, these are my pride and joy. I hope you are ready for something amazing.”. Matthew smiled as she opened the door, and they walked into the building.

As they entered the building Matthew was amazed how dark it was. Ethel began explaining that the flowers needed complete darkness, they were a rare flower that grew in caves. She also explained later today they were going to need some light because “Wherever there is the light, the flowers find it.”.

Matthew smiled and thought that was weird, but he knew that sometimes these old ladies, so he just nodded and smiled to himself. Ethel looked at him and told him that as soon as the sun comes up, around 7 a.m. he needed to open the slates and then the flowers could feed. Matthew said he understood and Ethel told her she would be back later to check on him and how things were going, and with that she left him there alone.

After she left Matthew thought he was the luckiest man alive and looked at his watch and saw that it was almost 7 already and prepared to open the slits in the ceiling that the old lady had pointed out. First though he wanted to admire the flowers a little, but they were closed. I guess when they get light, they will open he thought to himself and reached for one of the chords to open them.

He started to pull the chord on the shades and started to see the first plants start to open. They were beautiful with red and blue petals with a yellow center. He had never seen anything like them before, and then he saw them begin to rise and the yellow centers seemed to be opening with what looked like teeth. He started to become frightened as the flowers seemed to be working towards him and began to scream.

The flowers leaves started to reach out and wrap themselves around his arms and legs and pull. He was able to break free and ran towards the door, but it was locked. He began beating on the door yelling for help, but it was pointless the building was in the middle of nowhere. He turned around and saw one of those beautiful red, blue, and yellow flowers coming towards him. They were opening and he screamed.

The old lady returned to black house as she called it and looked through the window. She pushed a button that closed the shades up tight and made the building completely dark and opened the door. She looked around and said, “There are my babies. You have been fed and now it is time to rest because mommy needs to put another ad on the internet.”.