The plant - By Stephen King Page 0,81

myself moving much more slowly, searching for ways to describe what is, essentially, indescribable. And it occurs to me how infrequently we are called upon to write about smells and the powerful ways in which they affect us. The smell in the Central Falls House of Flowers was similar to this in its strength, but in other ways, important ways, entirely different. The greenhouse smell was threatening, sinister. This one was like...

Well, I might as well just say it. It was like coming home.

Roger looked around at Bill and me and gave us a forbidding District Attorney stare. "Toast and jam?" he asked. "Popcorn? Honeysuckle? New goddam car?"

We shook our heads. Zenith had put its various disguises aside, perhaps because it no longer needs them to entice us. I tuned into their thoughts again, just enough to know that Bill and Roger smelled what I did. There were variations, I'm sure, as no two sets of perception are alike (not to mention no two sets of olfactory receptors), but basically it was the same thing. Green... strong... friendly... home. I just hope and pray I'm not wrong about the friendly part.

"Come on," Roger said.

Herb grabbed his arm. "What if somebody - "

"Nobody's here," I said. "Carlos was and the General was, but they're... you know... gone."

"Don't gild the lily," Bill said. "They're dead."

"Come on," Roger repeated, and we followed him.

The reception area was clean as a whistle, the garlic still holding Zenith at bay, but the first green scouts had already gotten to within five feet of the pass-through to the editorial department (there's no door at the reception end of the hallway, only a square arch flanked by Macho Man posters). Fifteen or twenty feet down, where the door to Roger's office opens on the left, the growth has thickened considerably, covering most of the carpet and climbing up the walls. By the point where Herb's office and Sandra's face each other, it has covered the old gray carpet in a new carpet of fresh green, as well as most of the walls. It has gotten a start on the ceiling for good measure, hanging from the fluorescent lights in ropy swags. Beyond that, down toward Riddley's country, it has become a jungle. Yet I knew that if I walked down there, it would open to let me pass.

Pass, friend, come home. Yes, I could hear it whispering that to me.

"Ho... lee... shit," Bill said.

"We've created a monster," Herb said, and even in that moment of stress and wonder it occurred to me that he'd been reading too many Anthony LaScorbia novels for his own good.

Roger started down the hallway, moving slowly. We had all heard pass, friend, and we all felt that undeniable welcome, but we were all ready to run, just the same. It was just too new, too weird.

Although there's only one corridor in the office suite, it makes that little zigzag jog in the middle. We call the part running through the editorial offices "the front corridor." Beyond the jog are the mailroom, the janitor's cubby, and a utility room to which only the building's personnel are supposed to have access (although I suspect Riddley has a key). This part is called "the back corridor."

In the front corridor, there are three offices on the left: Roger's, Bill's, and Herb's. On the right there's a small office supply closet mostly taken up by our cranky Xerox machine, then my office, and finally Sandra's. The doors to Roger's office, Bill's, and the supply closet were all closed. My door, Herb's door, and Sandra's door were all open.

"Fuu-uck," Herb said in a horrified whisper. "Look on the side of her door."

"It's not Kool-Aid, I can tell you that much," Bill said.

"More on the carpet, too," Roger said. Herb used the f-word again, once more breaking it into two syllables.

There was no blood on the ivy-runners, I noticed, and although I didn't want to think about that too much, I suppose I know why not. Our buddy gets hungry, and doesn't that make perfect sense? There's so much more of it to support now, so many new outposts and colonies, and our psychic vibrations can probably offer it only so much in the way of nourishment. There's an old blues tune on the subject. "Grits ain't groceries," the chorus goes. By the same token, friendly thoughts and supportive editors ain't...

Well, they ain't blood.

Are they?

Roger looked into Herb's office and I looked into mine. My place looked okay, but I