![]() In the early 1980s, I started an epistolary novel called The Plant. The letter from Stephen, which accompanied the first installment: The story struck me as both scary and funny. It told the story of a sinister plant-sort of a vampire-vine-that takes over the offices of a paperback publishing company, offering financial success in trade for human sacrifices. At the time I quit, the work in progress was roughly 25,000 words long. I gave The Plant up not because I thought it was bad but because other projects intervened. I published limited editions of the first three short volumes, giving them out to friends and relatives (folks who are usually but not always the same) as funky Christmas cards. If the inspiration does return, at some time in the future this project will be completed but the format for its publication may be different. The Plant was published in six installments and distributed through Stephen's web site as an e-book on the honor system for payment. The company experiences a sudden turnaround of fates but, as always, success doesn't come without a price.ĭownload The Plant, Parts 1-3 (Adobe PDF)ĭownload The Plant, Parts 4-6 (Adobe PDF) After having his book rejected, Carlos sends them a "gift"-an ivy plant which is taken in and cared for by Riddley Walker (the company's mail clerk who pretends to be less educated than he is). Their sales are failing and the company is about to go under when they are approached by Carlos Detweiller who has a book called True Tales of Demon Infestations he would like them to publish. Squires & Steffanie Tan & Kassandra Tate & Katarina E.Things aren't going well for Zenith House, Publishers. Seibert & Rebecca Sky & Karim Soliman & Kate J. Peters & Michelle Jo & Dmitri Ragano & Elizabeth A. Latimer & Bryony Leah & Jordan Lynde & Laiza Millan & Peyton Novak & C.M. Evansley & Kevin Fanning & Ariana Godoy & Debra Goelz & Bella Higgin & Blair Holden & Kora Huddles & Annelie Lange & E. Popular ebooks IMAGINES: Celebrity Encounters Starring You by Anna Todd & Leigh Ansell & Rachel Aukes & Doeneseya Bates & Scarlett Drake & A. Maybe the child was the father of the man, but fathers and sons often shared very different interests and only a passing resemblance. but it was easier to believe in the oldies on the record-player after a couple of drinks or some pretty good Panama Red.īut, Richie believed, it was the reversion that was the hallucination, not the present life. What was it Springsteen said? No retreat, baby, no surrender. Ah, we all fell neatly and easily back into our old roles again, didn’t you notice? But was there anything very unusual about that? He thought you would probably see much the same thing at any tenth or twentieth high-school reunion-the class comedian who had discovered a vocation for the priesthood in college would, after two drinks, revert almost automatically to the wiseacre he had been the Great English Brain who had wound up with a GM truck dealership would suddenly begin spouting off about John Irving or John Cheever the guy who had played with the Moondogs on Saturday nights and who had gone on to become a mathematics professor at Cornell would suddenly find himself on stage with the band, a Fender guitar strapped over his shoulder, whopping out “Gloria” or “Surfin’ Bird” with gleeful drunken ferocity. The others saw him as the Klass Klown, the Krazy Kut-up, and he had fallen neatly and easily into that role again. He looked to the left and saw the big glass-brick-and-steel building that had looked so modern in the late fifties and now looked rather antique and tacky.Īnd here I am, he thought. I went up by City Center and sat down on a park bench for awhile and I thought I saw. “Because we’re grownups now,” he muttered, and discovered the thought had absolutely no power or logic at all it might as well have been a nonsense line from a kid’s skip-rope chant. Of course, Beverly’s parents had never seen any of the blood that came out of the bathroom drain either, but this wasn’t the same. The best proof of the hypothesis was that Rose had seen nothing at all. It had been a group hallucination brought on by all the spooky shit they had been talking about. He thought that most likely nothing at all had come out of them. or the things which had seemed to be in the cookies. Since the mad conclusion of the reunion lunch, he had been walking aimlessly, trying to make his peace with the awful things which had been in the fortune cookies. I got away from them in the toy department of Freese’s. Now he stopped, hands stuffed in his pockets, looking toward the Kissing Bridge but not really seeing it. Richie was walking along Outer Canal Street, past Bassey Park. Well, there was the day Henry and his friends chased me-before the end of school, this was.
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