Horror - Novelette

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. The Sunflower Prince Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

THE SUNFLOWER PRINCE

Nick leaned out from behind the mule and plow, checking to see that none of the other boys were looking. They weren’t. Mrs. Lundin had come to the field with a bucket of cold water and a ladle; nobody would look his way, not with the promise of drink. Nick bolted over the hill, his bare feet cutting ruts in the freshly plowed soil, each kick sending out a wave of dirt in his wake.

The plowed field rose abruptly into a long row of rocks that separated the crops; stones plucked to keep from damaging the tools and machines. Nick climbed over the stones like a monkey, his heart pounding higher and higher, reaching for 200 BPM.

He paused a moment, gasping, back against the cool grass that lay in the shadows thrown by the wall of sunflowers. As close to calm as he was going to get, Nick crawled into the sunflowers, basking in the coolness beneath the thrumming canopy of green and yellow.  He continued crawling until he reached the area he’d cleared the two nights preceding.

Stilled, listening for movement beyond the constant buzzing of the bees busily collecting their fill from the heavy yellow heads atop skinny green stalks. Nick exhaled a deeply held breath as he reached for the crown he’d started weaving last night beneath a yellow three-quarter moon.

As he continued his work, a fat green grasshopper landed on the stained knee of his stiff jeans. His hands stilled and the grasshopper seemed to stare into his eyes.

“Were you sent by the King’s wizard?” he whispered.

The grasshopper didn’t move.

“Quick now, take word back to the castle that I’ve been enslaved and am being treated very poorly by Mr. and Mrs. Lundin.”

The grasshopper leapt, kicking off Nick’s cheek and flying into the mass of shadowy stalks. Nick frowned. If that grasshopper had been magic, it would’ve spoken, surely.

“Doesn’t matter. My crown’s not ready,” he whispered.

His fingers moved slowly, working with meticulous attention and patience—something the other boys knew nothing about. Braided stalk strings for the banding, jewels made of black and grey seeds, and stiff, leafy peaks woven into the band to accent his true lineage.

“Almost perf—” Nick began.

“Nick! You lazy little sonofabitch! Get out here, now!”

Nick didn’t dare move at the sound of Mr. Lundin’s voice.

“He’s probably in the flowers,” another voice said, one of the boys.

The crown slipped from his lap as Nick readied to run. He had no doubt he’d be caught, but he didn’t want his special place discovered by unfriendly eyes. The swish, swish, swish of rubbing sunflowers surrounded him. Movements drew close enough to encroach upon his special place. Nick bit his lip, terrified, knowing a beating was immanent. He sprinted.

“Hey!” Mr. Lundin said, his voice booming with violent promise.

A hand came down on Nick’s shoulder, yanking him backward.

“I ain’t never saw a kid so goddamned useless.” He pinned Nick, a knee centering his back. “I ought to make you eat that dirt. Ain’t no way you ever earnt a bite a food from my table.”

Mr. Lundin shifted his weight and Nick jerked his face far enough sideways to spit out a mouthful of dirt then suck in a lungful of air.

The swishing continued around them until all four of the boys joined them, then Mrs. Lundin.

“Think you’re too good for work, boy?” Mr. Lundin said through clenched teeth.

With a smile on his words, the nine-year-old named Tom said, “He thinks he’s from royal blood.”

“He told me the King would come find him any minute,” Gayle said, a boy of seven—there was nothing pleased in his tone.

Mr. Lundin laughed in a way that suggested not a damned thing was funny. “You fucking orphans always making up shit.” Whether he was suggesting that the boys were making up Nick’s words or that he was suggesting Nick was making it up was unclear. “You got any use for him in the kitchen?”

“He can’t even peel a tater,” Mrs. Lundin said, her expression askew with disgust. “Ought to take him right back.”

Mr. Lundin exhaled a deep, rumbly sigh. “They won’t give us another if we do; you can bet that.” He bent to take a handful of shirt. “Get up. You’re gonna work.”

Nick gagged, as the collar of his shirt bit into his neck; he was suddenly back on his feet.

Mr. Lundin let go and stuck out an index finger, pointing from boy to boy. “Now, if Nick here don’t do a full day’s work, not a one of ya get supper. If I catch him in the sunflowers again, none of you get breakfast. This ain’t just today, neither. This rule is permanent.”

A chorus of groans played out from every dirty mouth, aside from the Lundins themselves.

“We’re a working family; we ain’t no lazy family. Get moving.” Mr. Lundin turned to his wife. “Tan his hide raw and send him out to the privy. I want that seat clean enough—you gonna want that seat clean enough to eat off ‘cause that’s where you’re eating your supper tonight.”

Nick straightened his back. “You’ll pay for this. You’ll see.”

Mr. Lundin swung, clobbering Nick hard enough in the side of the head that the world blinked out until he felt arms lifting him from the dirt. There, crushed within the outline of his felled body, was his crown.

—

The boys slept in a room tacked onto the back of the farmhouse. The old barnboards were riddled with holes and small night creatures regularly paid visits, looking for food and cotton scraps.

Nick lay with his eyes closed much longer than normal, knowing the others were now minding his actions. He had worked and behaved all through the evening, letting the tension fall by varying degrees from the gazes offered up by the other boys. Jim and George were the eldest, both ten, and they hardly had to look at Nick to promise there’d be trouble if he faltered again.

To hell with them.

Nick slid out of his bed and began to crawl, stopping momentarily to consider the rat that sat beneath Gayle’s bed, picking at his soiled trousers. He then carried on to the door, nudging it open like a dog. It squeaked gently. Tom, whose bed was nearest, rolled over, pointing a sunburnt back and a pale ass crack at Nick as the boy hurried outside.

The atmosphere was thick with humidity and alive with electricity. It seemed as if at any moment, the skies might open up with a crack and a flash before dropping a deluge of rain. Nick was already sweating by the time he pushed upright and bolted past the tire swing and the man door to the barn where the Lundins housed two horses, a mule, a milking cow, and, currently, twenty-one chickens. The moon was big but remained mostly hidden behind a low-hanging ridge of clouds.

Still, Nick saw the tall heads of the sunflower field clear as could be. Saw them more precisely, in fact, when the moon went into hiding and the sun was many hours away. Those bobbing flower heads became the faces of his family’s citizenry. Each was a loyal servant to his crown.

It took six minutes to reach his secret, special place. The sunflowers swayed between warring breezes, left right, left right. The swish, swish, swish was constant. It comforted him in its regularity.

He felt around for the crown he’d all but ruined and began reshaping it, mostly by feel. Tears spilled as he worked, his mind drifting to his parents and how sad they had to be that he was missing. If they knew where he was, surely they’d come to reign hellfire down upon the Lundins and their foul brood of fostered boys.

“Once I’m six, I’ll show ‘em all…maybe seven.” Nick shook his head. “No, by then they’ll come looking. Probably they’s looking right now.”

“Ain’t nobody looking for you,” George said, his voice full of growl, just like Mr. Lundins.

“Ain’t nobody gonna miss breakfast on account a you neither,” Jim said, stepping up next to George. In his hand was a flickering kerosene lantern.

Sniffling as he spoke, Gayle said, “Okay…I think he learnt. Right, Nick? You learnt?”

“Nuh uh, he ain’t learnt nothing,” Tom said, the last to step into the small clearing. In his hand was a sickle. “I says we cut up his feet and he won’t run no more.”

Nick steadied his jaw, knowing the time had come to demand his rightful place in the world. He put the crown on his head. “Kneel before your prince,” he said, lowering his voice, trying to sound important enough to listen to.

Gayle began sobbing into his palms.

Jim shook his head. “He ain’t never gonna learn nothing.”

“Cut him. He’ll learn, we just gotta cut him every time he don’t act right,” George said.

Tom didn’t wait for any more direction and slashed out with a wrist flick at the tail of a crossing arc. Nick jumped back, trying to kick the sickle. The tip of the blade cut his thigh and he dropped, instantly bawling.

The sky lit, then cracked, the sound seeming to come from directly overhead. Gayle screamed, turning on his heels, then bolted. Another flash and crash lit and rumbled the sky. Rain began to drop in huge fat strikes. Tom, wide-eyed at what he’d done, tossed the sickle to the dirt, looking to George and Jim for guidance.

Nick remained on the ground, holding his leg and whining as rebounded mud smattered his face like temporary freckles. Jim took a step toward him, bending as if about to kneel.

“No, let’s go!” George said, shouting to be heard over the thumping storm.

The three boys broke away, leaving Nick in the mud, blood leaking at an unsustainable rate from his thigh while the ground beneath him softened, sinking him bit by bit into the field.

—

“Guess we’d better go visit your brother,” Mr. Lundin said to his wife as they stood over the partly submerged body of an orphan named Nick.

“What happens to the farm if we can’t have kids working?” Mrs. Lundin said.

Mr. Lundin sighed and shook his head. They’d been so eager and so ignorant in the early days of their marriage that when the bank refused them, they took out a private mortgage to buy the farm. Without the free labour of foster boys, and without the small stipend they received to feed those boys, they’d lose the farm. And just how many more boys would they receive if one died violently within their care?

—

“He’s dead all right,” said Kirk Roslovic, the county coroner, as he leaned over the body.

Joe Bob Benn, the sheriff, laughed a brisk, humourless laugh.

The Lundins, alongside Kirk and Joe Bob, were gathered around Nick’s body, which was only now being touched. That the boy had been dead most of the night was plain as a cloudless sky when they’d discovered him; they hadn’t needed to get too close.

“Yes, but what do we do about it?” Mrs. Lundin said, speaking to her brother, Joe Bob.

Joe Bob breathed deeply through his nose, then sighed from his mouth. “Well, Michele, I suppose that’s up to Kirk here.”

Kirk brushed his hands together, rising slowly. “How’d it happen, far as you know?” Neither of the Lundins said anything. “Darren?”

Mr. Lundin puffed out his cheeks. Quickly as he could, he told the story about threatening the loss of meals, then the boys trying to teach a lesson, and finally about the part the weather must’ve played. “I like to think we would’ve heard him if it weren’t for the storm.”

“A big, unfortunate mess,” Mrs. Lundin said.

Kirk stared at the corpse. “Looks like a previously undetected heart defect to me.”

The Lundins both closed their eyes in relief.

“Strictly natural causes.” Kirk nodded. “Yep, bad luck, but this boy was due to go.”

“Mighty white of you to say,” Joe Bob said, then reached for the tobacco pouch in the back pocket of his jeans.

“Say, those boys of yours wouldn’t be interested in helping clean up around my mother’s place? She’d taken to collecting and gathering before she passed, rest her soul,” Kirk said.

“Any day you need ‘em,” Mrs. Lundin said.

“She’ll even pack their lunches,” Mr. Lundin said.

“I reckon they’ll need it,” Kirk said, turning away from the little corpse. “Joe Bob, you can call in for an ambulance whenever you like.”

Joe Bob said, “Right,” as he started away, trailing behind the coroner.

The sunflowers swished at the motion, sending out waves of rainwater-wet heads that stamped anything they touched. The Lundins stood over the body a few moments longer but eventually followed as well. There was nothing more that could be done.

—

Nick had only been in the county three months, just long enough to create one party interested in attending his funeral. The first of the three months Nick had been at the farm had been the easiest and the most normal to what he’d known up to then.

“I just can’t believe it. Nick was such a bright, imaginative, and driven boy.”

Mrs. Lundin held the woman’s gaze only moments after the pastor quieted his short burial sermon. “And just who are you?”

“That’s Ms. Reaves,” Gayle said, grinning despite how sick he’d been since the incident.

Mr. Lundin put a warning hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Maryanne Reaves. I teach first grade in town,” she said, reaching into her sleeve for a frilly white handkerchief. “I taught Nick briefly, of course, and I taught Gayle last year…when he was still able to make it.”

Mr. Lundin clicked his tongue. “They get a real education on the farm. Come to you when they need a minder. Keeps ‘em out of trouble.”

Maryanne had obviously heard it all before because she simply nodded, pursing her lips. “There’s not a bone in my body that would argue farmwork isn’t riddled with educational possibilities. It’s a true shame Nick couldn’t be around longer to learn, live, create a life for himself. He was so driven and imaginative.”

“You said so already,” Mrs. Lundin said, looking deeper into the cemetery and its many rows.

“Yes, of course. This tragedy has me flustered…to think a boy who could run laps an entire lunch hour suddenly falling dead of a heart problem,” Maryanne said, shaking her head gently, her eyes damp; she dabbed at the corners with the handkerchief.

“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” Mr. Lundin said. “Good day, Ms. Reaves.”

Though they’d been warned already, Mrs. Lundin leaned into the back of the truck after the boys had climbed in to sit for the ride home. “Don’t you forget, you breathe a word a what y’all did and it’s a Siberian labour camp for the lot of ya.”

“We ain’t gonna say nothing,” Jim said.

“It was his fault anyway,” Tom said.

Gayle began to blubber anew. “I don’t want to go to Siberia.”

“Then shut your gob,” Mrs. Lundin said, taking a chunk of bicep flesh between her fingers and twisting. “You boys, if Gayle here says a word…”

Gayle wrenched and writhed, trying to free himself as the other boys stared daggers at him. Mrs. Lundin let go, then climbed out of the back. She rode shotgun and they bumped along, much, much slower than the rest of the traffic leaving town.

—

Kirk Roslovic yawned, rolling his Ford V8 from the office toward home. He lifted his foot from the gas pedal to push the brake. A stone in his shoe announced itself. He rolled his ankle back and forth, trying to work the irritation to a less intrusive spot.

At the town’s traffic light, Kirk hooked a right. The stone dug into the meat of his foot, despite that he used a single toe on the pedal, attempting to keep pressure off the foreign element. At a stop sign three blocks from home, he felt a second stone, this one in his left shoe, a sharp edge grinding painfully as he pressed the clutch.

“Goddamn things,” he whispered.

In his driveway, Kirk killed the engine. He opened the driver’s door and slung his feet out, his backside still firmly on the seat. Bent forward, breath held, belly compressed, he untied his shoes. The right came off first.

“Huh,” he said upon seeing the sunflower seed.

He dumped the shoe, not at all surprised to see another sunflower seed. Shoes still untied, he headed for the house. Glenda Roslovic met Kirk with a half-sandwich and a bottle of ginger beer.

“Supper in an hour,” she said, as she did in one shade or another every weekday Kirk worked. She turned back to a kitchen smelling of boiling vegetables and raw beef.

“I’ll be in the basement,” Kirk said—as he did most days—taking his snack and drink down into the den.

The youngest of their six kids were out of the house only a few weeks before Kirk claimed the basement for himself. He knocked down two walls, opening things, giving room to a hobby he’d been aching to get into. Now, some nine years after Margot left on her wedding day, Kirk had thirty-three feet of train track, a model countryside, and a village with a small station. The cost was a secret between himself and Adam Maitland at the hardware store.

Kirk sipped from his bottle, drinking in the miniature scene. In three quick bites, the half-sandwich disappeared. He sighed, thinking that all he wanted from life was to conduct trains, real trains. It’s all he’d ever really wanted. He became a doctor by default—his father had been a doctor; his grandfather had been a doctor.

“Now boarding, the five PM into Weston,” Kirk whispered.

He flicked the three switches mounted to the underside of the table. Little lights glowed, a gentle buzz playing through the basement. He set the train on the tracks. Beneath the setup, Kirk opened a wooden chest. He withdrew three passenger cars. They clicked into place behind the train.

“Five into Weston, all aboard.”

Gently, he turned the dial on the transformer. The engine began to pull. Kirk eased, his mind creeping toward emptiness. The train rolled at top speed along the lengthy straightaways, slowing through the corners. His hands worked even as his head became a vast white plain.

Ping.

Kirk blinked.

Ping.

He had to move quickly to snatch the sunflower seeds from the track. Squinting, he held the seeds before him. Where the hell had they come from? He tried to recall if he’d shaken the seeds from his shoes into his hands, then absently brought them downstairs. It seemed unlikely; these seeds had to have come from—

Kirk jerked a hand to the speed dial. He’d very nearly taken a corner at full speed, which would’ve derailed the train, and he knew from experience, derailments were a recipe for bent wheels and burned-out engines.

He huffed, turning from the table to toss the seeds into the little garbage can next to the stereo cabinet. One hand on the speed dial, Kirk reached for his ginger beer.

Ping. Ping.

He paused, head tilting to look at the ceiling.

Ping.

He watched a seed fall as if from nowhere. Quickly, he brushed the seeds from the track. As he leaned, he absently opened the speed dial to full throttle. The train hummed. Kirk straightened and—

Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. Pingpingpingpingping…

A hail of sunflower seeds rained from the ceiling. Kirk attempted to turn the speed dial; it snapped off in his fingers. The train sped faster and faster.

…pingpingpingpingping…

“What the hell,” he whispered, stepping sideways around the table and bending to reach for the switches.

…pingpingpingpingping…

There was a mound of seeds on the table and track. The train barreled through them, sending out a steady wash as if rolling through puddles.

Kirk touched the switches and was shocked. “Ow!” he said, his hand jerking from beneath the table.

…pingpingpingpingping…

He bent lower, reaching for the cord that traveled to the wall. A steam whistle roared. Kirk gasped, looking through the tiny window of the engine from an eye-level position.

…pingpingpingpingping…

“How the fu—”

The lead wheels hit sunflower seeds simultaneously, ramping the train and its cars airborne. Kirk did not have time to get out of the way, though he did manage to turn his head. The crack was incredible; the blackout was immediate.

—

At 6:01 PM, Glenda stepped down the first four stairs, bending at the waist to look into the den. “Kirk, supper’s ready.”

She saw the train set. The lights were on, the buzz of electricity fizzing gently through the atmosphere. Glenda took another three steps, then she saw Kirk sprawled on the floor next to the setup.

“Dear lord,” she said, running to her felled husband.

Half his face was purple and swollen, ballooning out in a hideous mass that looked ready to burst. The train was on the floor next to him. She put a hand on his chest. He was breathing.

“Dear lord, dear lord,” she mumbled as she ran upstairs.

—

“Put it back,” Mr. Lundin said after Gayle snatched a dinner roll from a plate.

Gayle swallowed a lump, letting go of the bread.

“Hands together and heads down.” Mrs. Lundin reached out to either side from the foot of the rectangular table.

“We might’ve gotten away with something here, but without God’s forgiveness, it ain’t worth a lick,” Mr. Lundin said, then downturned his face, eyes closed. “Dear God, we’ve had a tragedy and we have sinned, all of us. We are guilty. Nick was a lazy, prideful daydreamer, but it was not for us to judge. What happened was a mistake, and that’s the only defense we—”

“It’s also the economy; gettin’ by ain’t always so simple,” Mrs. Lundin said, the words tumbling desperately from her skinny, sunburnt lips.

“I reckon God sees the state of things, Michelle,” Mr. Lundin said. “No matter. We are sorry, God. Truly, from the pits of our souls, we’re real’, real’ sorry. Please, forgive us.”

“Please, forgive us,” Mrs. Lundin said.

“Please, forgive us,” George and Jim said in unison; Tom said it then, too, and finally Gayle.

—

Jim awoke with a start. A liquid blub sounded within his guts and pressure immediately pressed against his sphincter. He kicked out from the bed he shared with Gayle. He grabbed his butt cheeks through his underwear and ran out of the room and through the backdoor. Sweat dappled his forehead; it began streaming down his face the moment he reached the outdoors. The air was thick with moisture and electricity. They’d be getting another storm, almost certainly.

He swung wide the privy door, undies already yanked down in the back. He dropped onto the soft wooden seat and a deluge screamed out of him. Jim moaned at the heat and pressure. As if striking an internal wall, the flow ceased a moment, and he sighed. Rain began to pelt the rusty roof like acorns. Fat drops nailed the dirt just outside the privy, so Jim popped up to grab the door, slamming it closed as he dropped back onto the seat. The motion was enough to clear away a temporary blockage.

“Uggg,” he whined as the boiling diarrhea ejected from his guts.

The rain stopped suddenly for one, two, three, four seconds before it began anew. The drops sounded small, but hardly like water at all. It sounded like when he and George ate watermelon and had spitting contests out by the steel gate, seeing which of them could make the best ping.

Jim felt around for the tobacco tin where the Lundins kept matches. Once he located it, he waved blindly for the candle—both were just about where he expected them to be. He pried open the tin with a dirty thumbnail, then lit a match, the flame dancing and flickering at the wind seeping through the cracks of the outhouse. He touched the flame to the candle’s wick where it sizzled a moment before flaring to life.

The pinging continued. The winds picked up. A golden glow shined around the door, oozing through the cracks in a way that was unusual: thickly full, unlike typical light. Jim pushed, no longer feeling the burn at his backside, only feeling scared and wanting to be indoors.

“Hello?” he whispered.

The pinging suddenly ceased and the wind quieted. A gentle rustling swished and crackled just outside the door.

“Hello?”

The door banged against the frame. Jim began to shake, reaching for the short pile of newspaper strips. He no longer cared if he didn’t get it all out, would in fact willingly shit the bed just to be inside right now. He wiped with the rough page, smearing his mess over a column about hog futures.

The door eased open a crack, and green tendrils played through, sliding along the walls and floor. Jim dropped back down onto the seat to lift his legs.

“Go ‘way! Git!”

The tendrils crept closer, reaching up to his ankles. He kicked, forgetting the tendrils rounding the shadowy walls.

“Go! Git!” Jim kicked, his hands pressed against the walls. “No! Help!” he screamed when the tendrils from the walls wrapped around his wrists. “Help!”

The door shot open and golden light bathed the terrified boy.

“How?” Jim said a moment before the light disappeared.

The green tendrils remained one, two, three seconds longer before whiplashing away. The cracks and snaps and tears were incredible, echoing over the quiet farm. His left arm disappeared first at a tendril’s yank, sending out a great, boiling gush of blood. Jim flew forward, barely conscious over the sudden pain and unrelenting fear. Pulled by his right arm, he launched high above the house, above the barn, soaring into the thickly static sky before being yanked downward. The dirt of Nick’s cleared patch in the sunflower field rushed at him. In a snap, he thumped against the dirt, his right arm finally detaching and sinking deep beneath the soil.

Underwear around his ankles, Jim lay face down, armless and dead.

—

Mrs. Lundin was up first. Sleepily, she crossed the yard in the soft light coming from the distant east. The air was thick and promised a sweltering afternoon. She sat in the outhouse to do her business. The old newsprint provided her something to look at. She cleared her throat, snuffled, scratched beneath a breast.

“Damned wasteful kids,” she hissed upon seeing what remained of the candle. It was but a nub in a puddle.

She rose slightly, gave a wiggle and a shake before standing straight. More awake than she had been two minutes ago, she started across the yard. She didn’t get far before stopping to look at the human arm, covered in ants, sitting in the grass. She looked back into the outhouse, her brain connecting something she saw in her periphery while she’d sat. One wall was dark, dark brown. Not painted, but splotched.

“Darren!” she shouted, unable to take another step.

—

“They’ll take everything if we don’t,” Mr. Lundin said, grunting as he dug.

“I know. I know, but—oh, I’ll go fetch the book.” Mrs. Lundin turned and hurried back toward the house, passing the trio of damp-faced boys.

The morning was slipping toward noon hour. They were in the small patch of forest beyond the barn and grazing pasture. It was perhaps the first occasion when they’d ever stood around for any length of time, watching their foster parents work without doing their share of the lifting themselves. They spoke little, were in fact all but silent aside from Gayle’s occasional sobs. Next to the hole Mr. Lundin was digging was Jim’s corpse, minus an arm that they hadn’t been able to find.

At first, Mrs. Lundin suggested they just bury the arm from the lawn, but Mr. Lundin wanted more proof that the arm did indeed belong to Jim—a boy they’d had on the farm for close to six years. The five of them fanned out, each boy being directed to a different area. Gayle was to check along the road, but he had a hunch and followed it to the sunflower field. Looking for a mangled corpse did not prepare him for seeing a mangled corpse.

Mrs. Lundin reappeared with her battered Bible in hand, speaking as she walked. “Boys, if anyone asks, Jim ran away.”

Mr. Lundin spiked his shovel into the mound of dirt he’d dug. Mrs. Lundin let out a short gasp and the boys went wide-eyed when the man turned toward them and tear streaks cut through the dirt on his cheeks.

“Boys, come close. We’ll all need to beg of the Power of God. Looks as if Satan himself has his eye on—”

Gayle cut off Mr. Lundin. “It’s Nick! Nick’s getting us!”

“Enough,” Mr. Lundin said.

“It’s true!” Gayle said, his voice a wail of agonized terror.

“Enough!” Mrs. Lundin said, striking Gayle over the head with the Bible.

Mr. Lundin climbed from the hole. He lifted the limp body, slipping to his knees to place the corpse in the shallow grave. He put the arm on Jim’s chest.

Mrs. Lundin stepped forward and began reading from Romans 6. The boys bowed their heads while Mr. Lundin slowly tossed dirt into the grave.

Once the impromptu service was done, Mr. Lundin made a cross symbol of stones atop the mounded dirt. He looked toward the house for stretching minutes, nodded, then faced his wife.

“Tom and Gayle will help you load a couple sacks of last year’s corn and grain. Then run them over to Ms. Theodosia. Tell her we need help clearing a ghost.”

Gayle whined.

Mrs. Lundin nodded, cradling the Bible to her chest.

—

The boys said little on the hour-long trip to Ms. Theodosia’s shack. Upon arrival, they were treated to a peculiar juxtaposition between the rundown living area and the fine Ford V8 trying to shine through the backroad dust. A moment after Mrs. Lundin killed the truck’s engine, Glenda Roslovic stepped out of the shack with two sealed jars in her dainty grip. She spotted Mrs. Lundin and nodded curtly; Mrs. Lundin nodded back. Glenda climbed into the Ford and reversed onto the slim road.

The trio in the truck sat there until the sound of the heavy Ford played beyond earshot. Mrs. Lundin stepped out and instructed the boys to put the feed bags next to the door, then wait outside the shack unless called.

“Is Ms. Theodosia magic?” Gayle whispered, eyes on a peacock strutting around the yard by a broken-down wagon and a great patch of garden dirt which sprouted a plethora of unrecognizable plants.

Tom leaned against the wall of the shack, then plucked a long string of grass from next to his too small boot. He unsheathed the base and popped the moist straw into his mouth, the bulb and grains dangling two feet from his face.

“She’s a witch, I reckon.”

Gayle looked wide-eyed at his foster brother—possibly biological brother as most of the foster boys came from the same British orphanages when they were toddlers. “So, what’s gonna happen to Nick’s soul if she does witch stuff?”

“Witchcraft.”

“Oh, so…what happens to Nick’s soul.”

“Probably it’s a real old Indian curse. Got nothing to do with Nick.” The grass bent mid-way as Tom spoke and he spat it to the dirt at his feet before snatching another candidate to chew on.

Gayle frowned, deep in thought. “But if it ain’t Nick, how come it waited ‘til after—”

“The blood in the dirt did it, I reckon.”

“The blood?”

The latest piece of grass bent an inch from Tom’s lips. “Blood wakes up Indian ghosts. Brent Smith told me he’s got this cousin that’s half-Indian and told him all about curses.”

Before Gayle could respond, the door of the shack opened. An old woman, no more than 4’6” leaned out. Her face was a sea of waving wrinkles, her eyes milky blue, her lips like two dried twigs. Her hair was a vibrant orange.

“You boys lug those sacks into the barn, then bang the pail until you count nine chickens, two pigs, and three peacocks. Storm’s a coming, big one,” Ms. Theodosia said, her voice like crumpling paper.

The boys looked to the clear grey-blue sky.

“Snap to it,” Ms. Theodosia said.

Mrs. Lundin popped her head out above the old woman’s and said, “Mind her, now.”

As if the storm was nipping at their heels, the boys each took the end of one of the sacks and rushed across the yard to the barn. When they returned to the shack for the second bag, Mrs. Lundin was stepping out with two jars and two squares of folded paper. As she went to the truck, the boys raced back to the barn.

The set-up was obvious. A steel pail sat atop a long, rectangular bin. Tom snatched up the pail and began banging it and thumping open and closed the lid of the bin. The chickens raced, as did the pigs. The peacocks took their time. Gayle closed the backdoor after a quick headcount and conference with Tom.

In the truck, they rolled slowly along the dusty gravel, eyes on the sky, looking for the supposed storm. Gayle couldn’t help himself and asked about the jars and paper packets.

“None of your business, Nosy Parker,” Mrs. Lundin said, her eyes, too, on the sky above.

Thirty-two minutes into the trek, they had to roll through town. The sky had darkened into an eerie shade of green. The people on the street were rushing around, many were getting ready to affix plywood over their store windows. About three miles out of town, a breeze blowing from the same direction they headed, they heard the tornado siren, just vaguely. Mrs. Lundin said nothing but put the gas pedal a little closer to the floor.

—

Hail thumped against the roof of the truck as they pulled up the farm lane. The skies had darkened so far that it seemed twilight had come five hours early. Mrs. Lundin parked and sat, silent, much as she had in Ms. Theodosia’s laneway. She wore an expression that suggested the notion of the supernatural had come down upon the farm. Gayle, sitting in the middle of the bench seat, reached for her hand.

“Come. We’ll go to the shelter,” she said, looking to the barn. It was so shaky it seemed to rattle at its foundation beneath the hail and wind.

“Where’s Mr. Lundin?” Tom whispered, his grip tight on the doorhandle.

“And George,” Gayle added, voice like a mouse squeak.

“Come on. We’ll run,” Mrs. Lundin said, stuffing the jars and the packets down the collar of her dress and into the sturdy cup of her brassiere. “Lord, save us.”

The doors fought to open against the pounding weather. The volume exploded tenfold beyond the cab of the truck. A piece of plywood bounced across the lawn like high-speed tumbleweed. The shade trees around the house danced and swayed.

Running, the trio covered their heads as they raced for the cellar door at the back of the house, next to the afterthought portion which housed the boys’ bedroom. The wall boards were gone, leaving only a skeleton framework. Within, the beds had flipped and the boys’ meager belongings were strewn about, soiled and torn. Squatting in a corner, covering his head, was George.

“George, come!” Mrs. Lundin shouted.

Tom ran to the boy, hurdling bedframes and sidestepping a makeshift shelf. His hands came down on George’s shoulder, pulling him around. “Hey!” Tom shouted.

George’s cheeks and forehead were marred by nicks and the flesh was swollen and bumpy. His eyes gazed vacantly.

Tom shook him. “George, come—”

The flesh of George’s cheeks and forehead lit into motion, the little bumps squirming like maggots on a festering carcass. Tom stumbled backward, tripping over the bric-a-brac of the over-turned space. George tipped sideways and the moment his head hit the rough-hewn floor, his flesh began to give. Sunflower seeds poured out in a lively flow, tearing through his cheeks and forehead.

“Come! On!” Mrs. Lundin shouted.

Tom climbed to his feet and sprinted to be with the others. The cellar door rested at a 15° angle from the ground. The pressure of the atmosphere made opening the door a struggle. Mrs. Lundin had the handle while Tom wrenched at a corner. Gayle pressed himself against the wall of the house. He saw them then, three skinny fingers carving and sucking up the world into fat cones of power.

“Tornadoes!” Gayle shouted.

“In!” Mrs. Lundin got the door open just far enough for the boys to crawl through.

Gayle dove after his foster brother, tumbling down the short set of stairs to the cold soil of the floor. Tom remained at the top, pushing against the door from the inside. Mrs. Lundin managed to skirt the edges and slide into the cellar, tearing her dress to shreds in the process. As it had been in the truck, the storm volume dropped several notches.

“Get the matches and candles,” Mrs. Lundin said, pulling the witch’s fixins from her bra.

Gayle and Tom raced through the dark along the right side of the room—they’d played in the cellar enough to know where all the emergency supplies were. Gayle grabbed the box with the matches and Tom snatched them from him. Used to it, Gayle said nothing and reached for the bundle of candles tied together with baling twine.

Mrs. Lundin squatted after lighting a candle for tom to hold. Gayle freed one of his own and held the wick to the flickering flame from Tom’s candle. Mrs. Lundin drew a circle in the dirt of the floor. She then opened a jar of strange green fluid that reeked bad enough to make their eyes water, despite the breeze playing steadily through the cellar.

Mrs. Lundin opened one of the paper packets, dumped the sandy contents into the liquid. She tossed aside the packet and reached for the jar with the milky grey liquid.

“Hello?” a low voice said from the far side of the room. “Help me.”

Mrs. Lundin didn’t seem to hear it, but the boys did. Tom nudged Gayle. Gayle understood and shook his head.

Tom sneered, turning away, stepping into the darkness of the cellar as Mrs. Lundin spun away the lid of the second jar.

“Is anybody there?” said that low voice.

Tom paused a moment, glancing over a shoulder. The storm had the cellar door banging and dust from the floor dancing about the space. The candle flames flickered. Tom continued, slowly.

Mrs. Lundin opened the second packet, holding its contents over the soupy mix on the floor before her. She dumped the powdery grains into the mess, her face turned to the ceiling. “I cast thee, evil spirit, from this property! I cast thee from the property! I cast thee—”

A great thupt! sounded and the storm was gone. Light shined in around the door. The quiet was palpable.

“Hello?” that voice said again.

All three heads turned to the shadowy corner of the cellar and the figure now visible there. Tom stepped closer with the candle, emboldened by the effectiveness of the witchcraft. Mr. Lundin’s boots came into view. He leaned close, kneeling, one hand in the dirt of the floor.

The door swung open behind Mrs. Lundin. Late afternoon light bathed the cellar. Tom jerked away, screaming. Mr. Lundin reached with green stalk arms. His eyelashes were soft, golden flower petals, his eyeballs were grey seed clusters.

“Is anyone there?” Mr. Lundin said, trying to stand.

“Darren?” Mrs. Lundin said.

In a snap, the cellar darkened and the storm raged, sucking the unprepared woman from the doorway like a piece of food dislodged from a throat, disappearing her from view. Gayle began to moan. Tom scrambled away from Mr. Lundin, but the man flopped onto him.

“It was Nick! It was Nick!” Mr. Lundin screamed, his voice equal parts raspy and squealing.

“Gayle!” Tom shouted.

Gayle took one step toward his foster brother.

Mr. Lundin’s clothes blew apart as dozens of sharp stalks burst from his flesh. The man shook and gagged, bleeding yellowy-pink fluids as the fresh stalks slammed out, through Tom, pinning him to their foster father and the floor.

Gayle spun and charged up the stairs, into the storm. The tornadoes had separated and were eating everything to his left and right. He took three racing steps toward the lane and the road before the third tornado became visible. The house shot into the air and Gayle sprinted in the only direction the storm wasn’t.

After less than a minute of running, Gayle recognized his folly—he was in the sunflower field. “Please, Nick! I didn’t wanna! I’m sorry!”

Thupt!

The storm switched off once again. Gayle looked to the clear grey sky, his breaths coming out of his chest in great heaves.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, knowing it was over and that Nick accepted his apolo—

All around him, sunflower stalks sucked into the soil. One by one: wup, wup, wup. Within seconds, he stood in an empty field. Dirt and him, the sunflowers were gone.

Gayle nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said again, then turn back to head toward the road.

The soil burst upward before him and he stumbled in reverse, crab-walking with his eyes on the rising form. Humanoid in shape, the figure had to stand fifty feet high, made up entirely of sunflower stalks. Rimming its skull was a crown of sunflowers.

“Please!” Gayle sobbed, wailing the word.

The figure bent. Its eyes were massive seed clusters, like Mr. Lundin’s had been, but it was obvious these ones weren’t blind.

“Please?” said a voice, rumbling the core of the universe.

“Please…Prince Nick! It wasn’t me!” Gayle put his hands up before him in supplication. “I’m sorry!”

The figure opened its mouth and said, “Apology…not accepted,” a moment before millions of sunflower seeds rained down on the frightened little boy, burying him, drowning him.

—

The worst of the storm had missed town. The sirens were quiet. The townsfolk were out cleaning up blown debris, mostly tree limbs and bits of trash. In the hospital, however, things weren’t quite as calm. Six minutes prior, Kirk Roslovic awoke—a moment after his wife poured the contents of Ms. Theodosia’s brew down his throat—and began screaming for Joe Bob Benn.

“Where is he?” Joe Bob said. He’d been reached over his car’s CB radio while he toured town, looking for destruction.

A nurse took him by the arm and hurried him to the room where the formerly comatose man had been since the incident in his basement. A pack of looky-loos stood outside the room—nurses, doctors, janitorial staff, patients—whispering about the shouting man within.

“I saw him! I saw the boy!” Kirk screamed. His arms and legs were strapped to the bed.

Glenda stood next to him, her hands over her mouth. When she saw the sheriff, she said, “Joe Bob! He’s gone mad!”

Kirk jerked around to look at Joe Bob, his eyes wide, feral, terrified. “The boy was driving the train! The boy was—”

Ping.

Ping.

Ping.

“He’s here!” Jack shouted.

Sunflower seeds began pinging against the large room’s three windows—pingpingping—like machinegun fire.

“Who?” Joe Bob said, stopping just short of the bed.

“The boy from the sunflower patch!” Kirk shouted.

Joe Bob frowned, then opened his mouth to rebut, but didn’t. The ceiling above him disappeared in a blast of screaming nails and crumbling cement. Bright for a moment, a shadow played over all those in the room.

Kirk wailed. “It’s him!”

A hand of sunflower stalks reached into the room as the figure’s great mouth said, “Strictly natural causes,” seeds spilling in a hail from around the words. “You’re all due to go now.”

That hand scooped the sheriff, the coroner, the coroner’s wife, a doctor and two nurses in a single swipe, bringing them to its hungry maw. And hungry it was.

All plants needed food, and only the best would do for royalty.

XX