The Garden

Pam and Tony were looking at houses. They'd been looking for two weeks. Three houses a day. This was how they chose to spend their vacation. Three houses a day and not a single one was worth making an offer. At least Pam didn't think so. Tony could have lived in almost any of them; but Pam was picky. The house had to be perfect.

Today she fell in love with a Victorian style house with a steep slanted roof, a circular porch and an ornate door which came to a point at the top. Tony saw nothing but inevitable expensive repairs in all this, but at this point he would be happy if his wife just picked a house. He was tired of looking. If she picked a hovel, a ramshackle log cabin, or a trench dug in the ground, he would agree: this is the place for us!

So he was encouraged by her enthusiasm. Money was no object. They could afford to take the time to look because they had money in the bank. He'd published two books which were providing a decent supplemental income, and Pam was so eBay savvy that she could spend all day buying and selling the junk she'd spent her lifetime accruing, turning a profit by spending five to fifteen minutes here and there in idle moments on her smartphone. He didn't know how she dealt with it all, but she was very organized, and seemed to enjoy it.

He preferred quiet, reflective moments, and modern day media saturation made him squirm as if he were being pestered constantly by an insolent child. He had a smartphone, too, but he kept the sound off most of the day, and often forgot to return calls and messages from people.

Tony would rather be in his own head than on the information superhighway. He chuckled to himself. They probably haven't called it that in two decades. He loved Google. Research had never been easier; but he hated facebook, he hated chatting, and hated social networking of all types. He was an oldschool recluse, the stereotypical introverted artist. He would rather be left alone with his ideas than in a room full of people having lively conversations. Which was fine. Pam was social enough for both of them.

The realtor opened the front door and Pam gasped. Tony felt his small speck of hope grow, but he stifled it. There would be something wrong. There was always something.

“Oh, just look at this cozy but open receiving area,” Pam cooed.

“Yes, this is a nice house to enter,” said the realtor. “The living room is off to the left, the dining room and kitchen off here to the right. There's a half bathroom right there under the staircase, and a full one upstairs, along with three bedrooms. There's a door that leads out from the kitchen into a spacious backyard, and another one that goes down to a full basement. I think this may be the perfect place for you two!”

Tony got the feeling about fifteen houses ago that the realtor was getting fed up with the search too. He could detect her forced cheeriness, and suspected that she may also be stifling any speck of hope that Pam would finally just make a decision, but from the look on Pam's face he had to admit they were on the right track. Usually she was already picking the place apart, but, for whatever reason, this one was different.

He couldn't say why. He saw many of the same flaws here she'd complained about in the other houses. Shoddy old windows and hardwood floors (though in some houses she'd complained about the carpet). As he followed her into the living room he could already see that it would be a dark one. The one window was small and sunlight was obscured by a tree in the front yard; but she didn't care. It was like she didn't even notice.

He was trying not to hope too much, but he did anyway. He thought she might actually pick this one. He decided that he would get away so as not to dampen her enthusiasm by blurting out any of these discrepancies. His critical mind sometimes didn't allow him to keep his mouth shut when he was ahead.

“Hey, honey. I'm gonna go check out the backyard while you and Cathy check out the rest of the place,” he said.

“Okay, dear.” But she didn't even turn to look at him, and neither did Cathy..

There was still a table in the dining room. It looked like an antique, and the backs of the chairs had the same ornate design as the front door. There were cabinets with glass doors built into the walls. There were still dishes in them. Old china. The kitchen had much of the same ornate design on the cabinets, and Tony was finally overcome with enough curiosity to inspect it.

From the center of the cabinet door there was a series of lines interlocked in a spiral, and they grew out to the four corners of the door, where they terminated in shapes vaguely reminiscent of snake heads. The cabinet doors didn't have the same points at the top as the chairs and front door. They were square, but they all shared this central design.

He was facing the back of the house. There were two doors, one in front of him and one to the left. The one to the left must go to the basement. Both doors had the same design, which Tony was now thinking of as The Snakes. The back door had the pointy top, too. Tony thought he knew why Pam liked this place, it was strange and unique. He liked to think that was why she loved him.

He opened the back door, and there was the garden.

It was a mess overgrown with high grass and vines, but he could see concrete benches off to either side of a small fountain. The water in the fountain was a mossy bog, and there was a stench Tony associated with decomposition. Tony slapped a mosquito on his arm while feeling another bite him on the back of the neck. Dammit. This would be the something that changed Pam's mind. Always something. Dammit.

Then the tall grass rustled, and something smacked Tony in the right eye. He fell back from the force and sudden shock of the blow, but before he could fall down the thing that hit his eye pulled him forward as if it were stuck to him, and with his left eye he watched a long sinewy tongue as thick as his arm pull, tugging his eye into a bulge. Then he was screaming as the eye was torn from its socket, trailing nerves like viscous tendrils. He fell forward on his face in the tall grass, and rolled onto his back, clutching the hole where his eye used to be.

His remaining field of vision was then filled with the face of the biggest chameleon he'd ever seen. It's head was the size of a pit bull's and it was rolling the fat tip of its tongue with his eye, dangling, into its mouth.

Tony watched as it chewed on his eye. He heard a pop and juices flowed down the scaly chin as the chameleon slurped up his ganglia like spaghetti. Then he heard the back door open.

“Oh, Tony, I see you've met Leza.” It was Cathy talking.

“Where's Pam?” Tony said. His voice cracked, and his body was starting to shake from shock. The chameleon gulped down the remains of his eyeball, and Tony gulped too.

“She's inside, safe and sound. I wouldn't want to overfeed my pet. Pam can hang out awhile, while Leza finishes you off. I sure wish you two hadn't wasted so much of my time. I hate that.”

Tony saw the Chameleon's pinhole eyes rotate forward on its face, and he met its gaze.

“She loves eyes, Tony. She always takes them first, then she'll watch you stumble around back here, falling over things, and rip strips of your flesh out piece by piece, feeding on you while you scream and bleed to death.”

Then the tip of the chameleon's tongue sneaks out of its mouth, like trickling bile, and Tony tries to turn his head and close his eye, to roll away, to run away, but the tongue darts so fast that even as he turns he feels just enough of the sticky tip dart between his eyelids to catch hold, and the top lid and eye both are ripped free, pulling at his head momentarily before it thuds back into the dirt.

“Keep screaming, Tony. There's no one out here to hear you. Remote location still romantic? Sorry it had to end this way. I hate it when I can't make a sale.”