GARDENER

GARDENER

“Then it moved, and I saw it wasn’t a stain at all, but a big brown thing snuffling around on the eutex like a dog after something. Then it stood up. That was when I screamed.”

“Yes, but what did it look like? Go on, Marie! You never want to tell this part.”

“It was a big, tall lanky thing,” Marie said reluctantly, “with a rough brown skin like a potato. It had two little pink mole hands. And it had an awfully, awfully kind face.”

"With ten separate chops of its strong white teeth the Gardener bit away his toes. While Hobbs struggled and shrieked and shrieked and shrieked, the Gardener peeled away the skin on the inner surfaces of his legs and thighs and bound these members together with a length of vine."

Margaret St. Clair, The Gardener