Speaker 1: Fast Food Horror is an abbynormal production written and created
by me E J.
Speaker 2: Miller.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Fast Food Horror, where we serve up the
most deliciously rancid, tasty horror short stories to satiate your
creepy appetites.
Speaker 1: This month, we welcome our newest cast member, Rachel Cunarzik,
who will narrate our latest creepy disturbing tale titled that
was by design.
Speaker 2: Let's face it, he couldn't help himself. Like a bug
circling of venus flytrap, the allure of the flower, its fragrance,
sweet nectar, the bright bloom. It was too much for
him to ignore all of the warning signs, the sirens
that should have been going off in his head, the
instinct every animal has for self preservation to stay alive,
warning him of the perilous danger he was about to
find himself in if he didn't flee immediately, not to
proceed any closer. And for that reason what happened was
all his fault. Every year, the Hollands Pocket Chamber of
Commerce has a garden Walk. It is a huge draw,
a three day celebration that not only do the residents
of Holland's poet turn out in Mass four but from
the surrounding communities all over the county as well as
does the media. There are various awards given to the
participants for the gardens they create, covering every spectrum of gardening,
but none so prestigious, none so desired as the Blue
Orchid Award, given to the gardener with the best flower,
a title every gardener can brag for a lifetime to
have been awarded. Families have told stories of relatives who
have been awarded it in the past with pride. Former
winners have had signs erected in their yards with the
title of Blue Orchid Award winner resides here but the
year or years they won. A few have had it
etched on their tombstone. It also doesn't hurt that it
comes with a twenty thousand dollars cash prize. Needless to say,
the competition every year is fierce and every year for
the past twenty the award has gone to Cedric Botsworth,
the third. He has delivered every year the most stunning
flowers with the most beautiful blooms and exotic colors that
anyone has ever seen. His flowers after judging retail in
the hundreds for the smallest bouquets. No one has come
close to delivering the quality that he does on the
day of judging, because on the day of judging coincidentally,
his nearest competitors have had a stroke of bad luck
just before judging, like the one year during the middle
of the night, his main competitor's irrigation systems broke, dumping
gallons upon gallons of water on their flowers, drowning them all.
Or the year when someone informed the local authorities that
three of his main competitors were growing marijuana in their greenhouses.
On the morning of the judging, the local sheriff showed
up with a warrant in hand, shut down the properties
for the entire day, stopped through their greenhouses, and confiscated everything,
and disrupted the delicate environments my grandfather had built for
them to survive and thrive. In Or last year, on
the very morning of the judging, a weed and lawn
care company was contracted to spray everything on his competitors' properties,
including the gardens. It was even spelled out specifically in
the notes to the company. Every bloom wilted. When the
company was questioned as to whom contracted them out. They
could only report that it was a mister Blue and
he paid with a prepaid credit card. My family has
been on the receiving end of the strokes of bad
luck more times than not, and was on the receiving
end last year. It's the one that pushed my grandpa
over the edge. Months and months of hard work caring
and growing the flowers his babies just taken away. After that,
he decided he wouldn't be participating anymore. I think it
really hurt him to see his beloved flowers wiped away
time and time again. Not because he lost, he never
had a chance to even participate. The night he decided
he was done, I started my plan. I had been
at my grandpa's side for years, watching, listening, and learning
how to cultivate flowers, taking in a priceless lifetime of learning,
of experience and love. I would use all I had
learned to win and put an end to Cedric Botsworth
the Third's Rain. I'd use my bachelor's degree in botanical
sciences with my miner and botany too. I set about
listing all the best flowering plants, from blooms to fragrance
that I could reasonably attain. I wanted a flower that
was appealing to the eye as well as the nose,
something that could not be ignored, that was captivating. I
wanted something intoxicating to the senses. In a separate list,
I listed the best characteristics of every plant. Their strengths
from how quickly it takes them to grow, to how
long their bloom would last, the resistance due insecticides, bugs
or fungus, how sturdy their leaves and blooms were, and
how adaptable they were to changes of climate. You see,
I wasn't just going to select a plant that scored
high on my list from the plants available. I was
going to take the best quality from every plant and
make something entirely new. It's not as hard as you think.
Nature has been doing it since the beginning of time.
It's a practice that dates back to almost nine thousand BC.
For humans. A great example is broccoli. Broccoli, that long
loved favorite of children everywhere, does not occur naturally. It
was made by humans by selective breeding of the wild
cabbage plant over thousands of years to get the desired
traits to the delicious vegetable you know today, I did
not have nine thousand years to get the plant I wanted.
I had twelve months. I would help the process along
with some new science, the GMO type of science, genetically
modified organism. I would, through genetic engineering, select verosh traits
from each plant's DNA and grow my own superflower with
the wanted characteristics, my own beautiful Frankenstein's monster m probably
a bad example, oh Jurassic Park, my own beautiful creation
without the rampage of destruction. I won't bore you with
all the steps, the long nights, and failed trials. We'll
just fast forward to now, the dark hours before the
sunrise on the new day, the day of the judging, judging,
and not just for the flowers. I had surveillance cameras
installed around my property, specifically around the greenhouse, with alarms
that would alert me of any intruders, secured doors with
key padlocks, and my favorite, a fairly large privacy fence.
I kept access to the greenhouse at a very very
strict minimum, all to protect my secret, my baby, my
prize flower. And I let everyone know it about all
the steps I had taken to keep my entry secret
and safe. Because nothing spreads faster in a small town
than gossip and rumor for months, everyone speculated what was
I growing in there? It was all anyone could talk about,
the town scientist and her mad secret laboratory. I was
equally as public yesterday at the town Cafe, the public
forum where everyone always went to that the power was
out at my property, that my computers were down, and
I lamented and worried over the safety of my entry
into the contest. It wasn't The power was just fine.
It was all in act. I just wanted, oh, oh,
you'll see. I watched his approach from the shadows, trying
to stay hidden in the darkness, trying so hard to
remain stealthy, to blend and not draw attention, slowly moving
from the tree line into the tall grass, waiting patiently watching,
before quickly, with spring like legs, vaulting over the fence
and into my yard. As he landed, I watched as
he scanned the area, looking for movement, waiting to see
if any response to his presence was forthcoming. Before, in
a crouch, he made his way to the greenhouse wall
and inched along its sides, the shadows almost obscuring him
from view. Almost I watched as he entered the door.
I switched the camera feed and watched him with rapt
attention as he walked deeper and deeper in passed rows
of common daffodils, mums and geraniums, passed the tomato plants,
the cucumbers, and the peppers, passed a small collection of
fruit trees I have been nurturing, still too young, still
too small to bear any fruit, till he reached the
entrance to the rear room of the greenhouse. I watched
as he opened the door, and the doorway was filled
with a purple glow. I stared as I saw his
eyes grow wide. I knew what he saw. He couldn't
take his eyes from it. That was by design, his
jaw agape. He stepped slowly into the room, and I
saw his chest rise with a deep inhale. As he
closed his eyes. I knew what he smelled. That was
by design too. It was intoxicating the fragrance. I watched
as he walked slowly further and further into the room,
staring straight ahead, not taking in any other information other
than what was directly in front of him, and I watched.
I watched as he extended his right hand and touched
its leaves. I watched as he ignored the vines start
to flex. I watched as he continued to walk closer
and closer to it, reaching out his left arm and
touching another leaf, reaching out again his right and stroking another.
I watched as the vines slowly, ever slowly, began to
encircle him from behind. As the glow that phosphorescent purple intensified,
the vines, flexing, pulsating. Then I held my breath. The
vine snapped with an elastic like whip around his body,
encasing it, enveloping it in a crushing embrace. Every inch
of his body covered by vine and leaf and flower
as it slowly devoured him, squeezing the life from him.
As the enzymes emitted from the plant began the digestive process,
I watched as he spasmodically, shook and convulsed before stiffening,
and the only movement was the pulsing and flexing of
the vines. That too, was by design. It was all
his fault.