“Beneath the layer of ice and snow, a small seed slept in the frozen dirt. A tendril sprouted from the germ, forcing the chilled earth aside as a stem thrust its way above into the deathly silence of the midwinter night. A crimson bloom opened in a swirl of petals, shining darker than blood in the full moon, a dark contrast from the blank, unfeeling snow surrounding it. It almost seemed to breathe as the fresh petals released a gentle scent—a sickly sweet smell that floated over to the barn standing nearby. The Flower of Death grew again.”

Patricia stared at the two girls enraptured by her voice, swinging her dark hair out of her eyes. The fire flickered in the grate with the howl of the wind, setting the scene perfectly. It felt as if she could have planned it this way. The firelight darkened, lengthened, and danced upon the three girls’ faces, deepening the darkness around. Lissa’s pale face—now somehow whiter with fear—stood in horrifying relief.

“Patricia, what happened? You can’t just leave us there!” Rose’s voice shook slightly.

“Drops of blood feed the Flower, this rose of destruction. The stories follow its bloody path through history. The scent of the Flower turns all animals against their nature,” Patricia read on, “Herbivores got an irresistible urge for flesh. Human flesh.” Lissa screamed. Patricia nodded seriously, continuing, “A small boy, John, left to check on his cow. No one knows what may have happened. No one heard from John again, although blood covered the barn and cow in a congealing blanket of darkness that did not fade.” Patricia smiled darkly. “The Flower still grows—fruit of man’s own wickedness. In any place, at any time, the Flower might grow…and none can stop its power.”

A sharp knock came at the door, causing all three girls to scream and turn. Slowly, the handle turned, pushing the door open. An evil laugh penetrated the gloom of the room. “DAD!” Patricia screamed, laughing as her father entered the room.

            “Did I scare you?” He looked from Lissa’s breathless form to Rose’s wide-eyed expression and chuckled. “Hey, girls. I just wanted to let you know that your mom and I leave for Nevada in a few minutes. We’ll see you in a week. Patricia, your brother’s home. He’ll make sure you stay out of trouble.”

“No problem, dad.” Patricia giggled, trying to get over Lissa and Rose’s reactions.

It only took a few minutes after her dad left that Patricia’s brother entered the room. Tall and imposing, with blue-white eyes looking blindly around the room, he took up the entire doorway with his muscles. “Midnight! Time for bed!” The groaning subsided as the girls situated themselves on the floor.

Patricia’s brother smiled thinly in the firelight he could not see. “Don’t let any flowers get you while you sleep!” He laughed his way out of the room.

Outside, the Flower bloomed.

The morning sun’s harsh rays penetrated the room, awakening the girls. Lissa looked up, rubbing her eyes. “What shall we do today?”

“Breakfast,” Patricia said. She led her friends out to the chicken coup to grab a few fresh eggs for omelets. Entering the coup, the normally complacent and placid chickens pecked at Patricia’s hands hard enough to draw blood.

“I have nothing to feed you!” Patricia scolded them. “Look, you have plenty of food!” She pointed to the bowls that overflowed with a mixture of grains, fruit, seeds, and corn.

“The Flower,” Rose laughed, forgetting how scary the phrase seemed in the dark. Patricia and Lissa joined in the laughter. The Flower couldn’t possibly exist. Not in this world of sunshine bouncing off of snow.

Not in this world. The mantra that pounds through every human heart beat in the chests of these young girls. Nothing bad can happen to me. Those stories—just stories—only happen to others. Not in this world. Not to me.

The chickens squawked and swarmed after the girls, pecking their ankles and hands. Patricia dove through them, grabbed six eggs, and bolted out of the coup.

After breakfast, the girls sat in the living room, nursing their wounds. Lissa’s ankle had the deepest cut, showing straight through to the bone. They waited for Patricia’s brother to awaken. He would know what to do.

The girls did not know that he would never wake up. A window is a flimsy thing to birds with beaks and talons—birds that, driven by hunger and the sickly-sweet smell of the flower, would stop at nothing to get food.

“Anyone want anything to drink?” Patricia asked, heading towards the kitchen.

Inside the kitchen, Patricia looked out upon the barn. Birds flew around outside. Nothing unusual, except… maybe they flew more violently than before. A scream left Patricia’s mouth as a blackbird hit the window in front of her. A sharp whinny wound its way into the room.

Patricia gasped. Rosamund! Her horse stood with the other animals in the barn and with these crazy birds flying around… Patricia didn’t want to think what Rosamund must think of the commotion. Such a sweet, gentle, loving horse would never understand why the birds suddenly turned insane and seemed to purposely hit windows.

Ignoring her friends in the other room, Patricia bolted for the barn, dodging the stinging beaks of the birds. Her vision darkened by wings that blocked out the sun, she did not see the bird that took out her eye. Disregarding her pain, Patricia made her way to the barn by memory, blood pouring in a dark stream from her eye. The coppery substance trickled its way into her mouth—she became her last meal.

Patricia slammed the barn doors shut behind her and sighed. Safe at last. Rosamund stood in her stall, eyes rolling, with sweat running almost pink down her pure white flank, looking as if the sweat washed off blood. Patricia stepped up and placed a hand on the side of Rosamund’s face. “Shh... Calm down girl.” The mare wouldn’t calm down. Normally docile, Rosamund reared and kicked at the stall door in violence with blood covered hooves, doing her best to get out.

 Undoing the lock that bound the door to Rosamund’s stall, Patricia entered to place her arms around Rosamund’s neck. Only then did she see her father’s shoe, with the cold bloody stump of his ankle inside, sitting in the straw beneath Rosamund’s hooves.

Lissa and Rose heard her screams.

“PATRICIA!!!” they shrieked, running outside. They tried to avoid the beating wings, the screeching calls, the biting talons, and the pain of the birds as they ran to where Patricia’s screams grew fainter and fainter.

Together, they burst through the door of the barn. No sign of Patricia. Blood had sprayed over everything. Rosamund’s coat stood speckled with it. The mild brown cow that stood tied to the wall next to Rosamund also dripped with fresh blood. The two girls rested, gasping for breath before looking around.

“God,” Rose whispered, tears choking her voice. “Patricia? PATRICIA!”

Lissa leaned against the pigs’ gate. Disbelief clouded her face as tears ran down her cheeks. “How—? Who—?” No answer. Lissa hadn’t expected one.

Rosamund looked at the two girls. Instinctively, Lissa slid to the floor, below Rosamund’s gaze. Something in that gaze told of a primal age, where the horse ruled and people simply existed to be used—maybe as servants…maybe as food. The gate behind her unlocked as she slid, allowing the pigs free range of the barn. But, the herd of swine, blood dripping from their maws onto the hat of Patricia’s mother, looked intently at the girls. The cow, too, stared at them. Birds fluttered in to sit on the rafter and watch the girls. “Lissa?” Rose’s voice, soft and scared, asked the question both had wondered. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. Let’s go back inside. Her brother needs to know about her.” Lissa avoided mentioning her name, never knowing that Patricia’s brother had died more violently than she, ripped apart by thousands of sharp little beaks, forced to watch his living flesh tear away from his bones as he lay, unable to do anything.

Rose and Lissa turned to leave, but the cow had pulled itself free and stood in the doorway. Rose screamed in pain.

“What?” Lissa asked, but she saw what. A pig gripped Rose’s ankle in its green-black, rotting teeth. Lissa cried out when the cow grabbed her arm with its malformed and yellowing teeth, blood dripping from its mouth as the teeth began to saw through to her bone. She could do nothing.

Horrified, Lissa and Rose fought against the animals, but to no avail. Lissa pulled free of the cow, scuttling over to a corner. There she fought off the barrage of mice that gnawed her skin and licked her blood. A rat neatly snipped off her little toe and scurried away with its prize. A wren snatched her ear, tearing it away from Lissa’s head. She could no longer stand the pain. Lissa screamed and the animals dissipated from her. They moved on to Rose.

Lissa watched in shock and disgust as Rosamund and the cow and the pig pulled Rose in three directions. She watched as Rose’s skin stretched. Lissa heard the popping of bones as they dislocated and the terrified screams of pain that emanated from Rose’s mouth. Screams that ended when a dove sprang from the rafter, scattering dust and blood, and stabbed through her throat with its pointed beak.

 Lissa stared in fear as Rose’s arms tore off, leaving a stump that spurted blood with the beat of her fading heart, as birds set upon the corpse, eating all but the heart, which still beat as if the feeble pumping could keep the owner alive in some way, as pigs grunted and tore up the last bit of flesh from the head, the birds having already plucked the eyes, and as the animals swallowed the bones, crunching them between bloodstained teeth, leaving no trace that Rose had stood there just seconds before.

Then, the animals turned on Lissa.

The Flower’s petals dropped to the snow, their job finished. The stem bent under the weight of the thousands of seeds that had replaced the petals. A strong burst of wind blew the seeds away—away to other lands, other countries, other sinners.