Once

Thirty Three

They got hold of Sellan after a few tries. Through a few garbled instructions Russell managed to tell them where they were going. He just kept saying:

"It's Jax, Sellan. She's the next one. Jax!"

Even despite his desperate tone Sellan still seemed to be trying to put them off. Elle snatched the phone out of Russell's hand.

"She's at the garden centre, Sellan. With Maggie's dad."

There were a few seconds of silence, presumably as Sellan spoke to Maggie. At last he said, "We'll meet you there," and the line went dead.

They ran on through the streets, darting round the few passing cars that constituted early evening traffic. David said:

"Jax and Jack. I can't believe none of us thought of it."

Elle, frowning angrily to herself, replied:

"Let's just get there."

Every few seconds she felt another deep grumble quivering through the ground beneath their feet, like the very slightest of earthquakes. Each time it happened she realised it was getting nearer. Or rather they were getting nearer to it.

Russell had been on his phone again, but hung it up after a moment.

"No answer from Jax," he said.

"Of course not. She doesn't have her phone on her at work."

David said, "We could call the garden centre? Find their number online?"

Elle just gave a shake of her head, and said again, "Let's just get there." She had a feeling that calling was a waste of time. Even if they found a number she imagined by now that there wouldn't be an answer.

They crossed the junction at Farway Road and Kingsway, dashed down the pavement that skirted the high embankment at the edge of the wood, and from there it was only another minute before they reached the garden centre.

At the north end of Farway there was a natural break in the woods, about a hundred metres wide. Through the middle of this gap the only real road in or out of the town ran straight out of Farway like a wide black river. Two hundred yards along this road the garden centre stood right on the outskirts of the town, set way back from the road behind the wide grey expanse of its own car park.

Any trace of doubt they might have had was banished from their minds the minute the garden centre came into sight. They all knew at once that something was wrong. A small group of people were standing on the pavement at the edge of the car park, staring across at the building. They didn't look at all horrified or scared, just mildly curious - but Elle put that down to another case of the curse of Farway.

She knew this had to be the case when they screeched to a halt at the corner of the car park. There was a horrendous amount of noise coming from inside - groaning and thudding and thumping with the occasional crash that sounded as though about thirty people were having a brawl in there. But the most alarming thing was what they could see happening on the right hand side of the building.

The whole right side of the garden centre was entirely fronted with glass, essentially a gigantic greenhouse. Usually behind these smeared and weathered windows you could make out rows and rows of plants and flowers, with plant pots and trellis panels stacked along the back wall. Today they couldn't see any of that. The inside of the glass from floor to ceiling was nothing but a whole mass of moving, swelling greenness, pushing outwards against the windows in every direction. It looked almost as if a giant green balloon were being inflated outwards, filling every available inch of space inside.

But it wasn't a balloon. At that exact moment one of the window panes suddenly splintered, cracked and then shattered outwards. Through the hole in the glass a thick tendril-like vine curled out, its glossy leaves slick and shiny as oil in the sunlight.

"Jesus, it's a plant," Russell gasped.

"A beanstalk," Elle corrected.

David turned to an elderly couple standing nearby.

"What's happening in there?" he demanded.

For a second the little old lady looked as if she were going to tell him something, but then she just gave him a blank smile.

"No idea," she said. "They just told us all to leave. Very annoying. I was just browsing for a new hanging basket."

She gave her oblivious husband a nudge and the two of them wandered off down the street.

Another crash of breaking glass, and another tendril twisted its way out of the building and up toward the sky. And then another deep bass rumble shaking through the floor, stronger than any they'd felt yet.

"What the hell is that?" David said. "You guys keep feeling it too, right?"

Russell said darkly:

"Of course we do, David."

Footsteps pounded down the pavement, and the next second they were joined by Sellan and Maggie.

"What's going on?" Maggie said. "Where's -" Her eyes widened at the sight of the monstrous plant breaking its way through the windows of the garden centre. "What the hell is that?"

Elle saw it - the look in both hers and Maggie's eyes. The realisation that this had all been real all along. Until that very second it wouldn't have mattered what she tried to tell them, but right then they saw that every word she'd said had been true.

About a million things passed through their eyes in that second. The horror of it all - the insane deconstruction of everything they'd ever thought possible and real. Elle didn't pay attention. She'd been through all this too many times already.

Instead her eyes were desperately scanning the little crowd of gathered onlookers. She looked further afield - to the edge of the car park, all around the edges of the building. But she already knew she wouldn't see what she was looking for.

"Where's my dad?" Maggie asked with a sudden mad urgency.

"And Jax?" Sellan added. "I don't see them anywhere."

"They're still inside," Elle said.

And then with a sickening sort of deja vu the exact same thing occurred that had happened to Elle outside Russell's grandma's cottage the day before. Through the crashes and groans from inside the building came a high piercing scream.

Before it had even faded from the air Elle was running like mad toward the doors of the garden centre.