“Look, I don’t know what that is out there, but I don’t want to find out!”

119. Flowers of Evil – Robert Charles

From Russia to Scotland with bloodlust. This is a serious evil plants story. At first, they’re just in the “forbidden zone,” and this was written before the Chernobyl disaster, so they’re referencing the Kyshtym disaster, which I was unaware of as an 80s kid who did not realize there were more forbidden zones in the Soviet Union. And the villagers aren’t going near them, but they’re coming anyway after those pesky scientists and their secretary come in and move around. And the secretary makes the completely stupid decision to take a pretty blue flowering plant out of the FORBIDDEN ZONE, I mean, what about that name is not ominous? It eats her pets. It also eats her neighbor’s pet via spores taking flight and growing new evil plants in the lower groud area. This plant is not going to stay confined and it wants blood. It would have been best served by finding AC/DC as they’d get it.

The Russian secretary gives one of the plants to her brother, in exchange for him not telling anyone she took it from the forbidden zone like an idiot, and he is a sailor, so he brings it on the boat and now it has a license to travel the world and end up throwing spores at a small island in Scotland that is a major stop for migratory birds before eating all the sailors.

Barry and his family are also on their way to Lairg so Barry can write his book about said migratory birds’ activities and mend his family back together via rainbow colored anoraks and isolation. You see, his wife is having an affair with a fancy living lad down in London, Simon not Bar Sinister, and Barry is not a fancy living dude. However, a guy who likes discos and upscale meals wouldn’t make it on an island full of sheep, birds, and bloodsucking plants either, which Valerie grows to appreciate. The sheep do not appreciate it. The sheep dog, however, makes it!

If you’re into plants eating people, this is a good story. I am definitely into plants eating people, because, what else is going to scare someone as allergic as I am? Dust, actually. I’m more allergic to dust than anything else. I haven’t finished the book where dust takes over the earth yet, aptly called Dust. I started reading it before the pandemic and still haven’t finished it because a dust pandemic is worse than an illness one as far as I’m concerned and I haven’t been ready to dive back into the idea. Anyway, these plants in Flowers of Evil are more intimidating than I expected. It’s the silence and the effectiveness, I bet they’d make me sneeze, then seize me to suck my blood when I’m indisposed by sneezing. An enemy no one can really negotiate with is scarier. And fire can only do so much when you’ve already shot your spores to Canada.

 

Horace was one of my most reliable pigs for pigmergencies and stoic support and possibly also killing carnivorous plants as he still had very sharp teeth.