New Genna City

The Gardener*

You sigh heavily as you exit the store and lock the door.

It had been a really long day; as one of the first official days of the holiday shopping season, your tiny shop had suddenly been drowning in customers. The rush had finally abated late in the afternoon, but you had a couple who just wouldn't leave. When they finally did, you dashed to the door to lock up before anybody else could come in, and also so you had time to clean up before leaving. While you'd be more than fine with doing it in the morning, it was just easier to do it immediately and save the effort later. It had been a brisk day, but you were still pretty tired.

Luckily, you lived just a couple minutes away in an old building that apparently used to be a hotel of some sort. It had a lot of interesting features you don't normally find on more modern buildings, like detailed eaves, arches and decorative stonework. You really enjoyed living there; it was neat to be able to look at the building and see new details every day.

You lived on the top floor, and it was here that you had a sort of second job. While the whole floor was yours, a gift from the uncle who owned the building, you had to keep the rooftop garden neat. It wasn't a lot of work, and you were pretty happy with the hobby you'd accidentally acquired.

You spent a few hours a day tidying up the flowerbeds and watering everything, as well as picking up any trash that may have been left behind by any visitors from the building. There normally weren't any, as most of the residents either didn't know about it, or didn't care to visit. It usually felt, more often that not, like your own private garden, and you essentially treated it as such.

On this evening, after you got home, you changed into something a little bit more comfy than your work clothes and headed up the stairs to the roof. You normally would water everything earlier and more thoroughly than this, but since time had run so long at work, you gave everything a quick spritz to tide them over until morning.

You quietly skirt around one particular bed, situated near a fairly large stonework statue. While you knew that gargoyles were just used for decoration, this one was way too lifelike, and it made you nervous. The musculature was just a bit too defined, the eyes too clear, the tusks and teeth just a bit too sharp. In addition, the other less detailed statues on the roof were evenly spaced on the corners of the building, but this one, single gargoyle was centered on the front end of the building, with no mirror on the back side. It was just...weird. Thinking about it sent a shiver through your body, and you move away from it.

You look out over the town, and see the sun beginning to set quietly in the distance. You turn off the hose and head back inside; the temperature got a bit too cold up there to just be wearing house-clothes in the wind.

You make yourself a simple dinner, and spend some time watching television. You eventually start to get sleepy, and you think to yourself that you'd best head to bed... after just one more episode.

You wake up in the semi-dark of your living room, the station off-air and filling the room with static-y white light. You feel groggy and a bit disoriented in the dimness; hadn't some lights been on while you'd been watching earlier? You sit up on the couch, and a large blanket falls to the floor. You don't remember having gotten that either. You shake your head; you weren't sure of anything at the moment, anyway: too sleepy. You grab the blanket and shut off the television, stumbling to your bedroom. You flop gracelessly upon the bed and pull the blanket over you. As you drift back into sleep, you hear a muffled thud from the roof. Weird, you think as you drift off. In your dreams, you see the rooftop filled with gargoyles having picnics.

The following morning, you follow your normal routine until you notice small indentations in the wooden floors. You're not sure what could have made them; they looked like claw marks, but you didn't have a dog, and even then, they looked way too big to just be a dog's. You think about it for a minute before glancing at the clock; oh dear. You scramble to grab your coat and rush out the door.