The Dying Garden Row

Two autumns ago, when I was a sophomore, my mother lost her job at the county assessor’s office. She’d been accused of falsifying records by a jealous coworker, and the stress of the investigation, even though she was cleared, left her hollow. Then, in early spring, she got hired as a teller at a small credit union in the town of Marrow, a place that prided itself on its manicured lawns and flower beds. But the road leading to the credit union, Cypress Lane, was like a scar on the town’s face. The trees were stunted, their bark peeling like sunburned skin, and the hedges were brittle, brown, and skeletal. The credit union itself sat in a lot where the grass was patchy and yellow, and the few shrubs planted near the entrance looked as if they’d been dead for years but somehow refused to fall over.

The staff were a quiet, closemouthed bunch. The branch manager, a woman named Mrs. Rathbone, had a smile that never reached her eyes, and she always smelled faintly of mothballs. The other tellers, a middle-aged man named Gil and a young woman named Penny, rarely spoke above a whisper. They’d greet customers with polite nods but never small talk. My mom, always eager to please, tried to brighten the place with a tiny potted fern on her desk, but within a week, every leaf had curled up and turned black, as if it had been singed. She replaced it with a cactus, and within days, the cactus had gone soft and mushy.

I remember picking her up after my after-school activities, and the parking lot would be almost empty, even during business hours. One evening, I got there early and sat in the car, watching the building. The sun was low, casting long shadows, and I saw something odd: a man in a brown coat, who I’d later learn was the maintenance worker, Mr. Coyle, walked around the building and stopped at a dead shrub. He stood there for a long time, just staring, then he reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a small vial. He uncorked it and poured a few drops onto the soil. The liquid was dark, almost oily. He then backed away, his head bowed, and hurried inside.

That night, Mom came home looking more tired than usual. She said the ATM had been acting up, spitting out blank receipts, and the drive-thru window had jammed open, letting in a cold draft that smelled like damp earth. She also mentioned that Mrs. Rathbone had asked her to stay after closing to help rearrange the vault, and while they were in there, she’d seen a door at the back of the vault that she hadn’t noticed before. It was small, maybe three feet high, and sealed with a rusty padlock. Mrs. Rathbone saw her looking and said, ‘That’s just old maintenance access. Don’t worry about it.’ But there was a chill in her voice.

A few days later, I accompanied Mom to the bank on a Saturday morning so she could do some catch-up work. The place was silent except for the hum of the fluorescent lights. While she was in the manager’s office, I wandered near the teller stations. Behind the counter, I noticed a small, grimy window that overlooked the drive-thru lane. On the windowsill, someone had placed a tiny statue of a dog, but it was missing its head. I picked it up, and noticed the base was engraved with the word ‘Clyde’. I put it back quickly.

Then I saw a hallway I’d never noticed before, leading to the restrooms. At the end of the hall, there was a heavy metal door with a warning sign: ‘Authorized Personnel Only’. The door was slightly ajar, and from it wafted a terrible smell, like rotting vegetables and old pennies. Against my better judgment, I pushed the door open. Inside, it was dark, but I could make out a narrow staircase going down. I heard a faint scratching sound, like nails on concrete. I called out, ‘Hello?’ and the scratching stopped. A moment later, a voice, low and guttural, whispered from below, ‘Fresh dirt.’ I slammed the door shut and ran back to Mom.

My mom laughed it off, but she later told me that she’d seen the same doorway from the vault, and it had a new padlock. She asked Mrs. Rathbone about it, and Mrs. Rathbone said, ‘Oh, that’s the old sewer access. We sealed it off years ago. No need to worry.’ But my mom noticed that Mrs. Rathbone’s hands were trembling at lunch that day.

Over the next few weeks, things got stranger. The dead plants along Cypress Lane began to perk up, but in a horrid way: the brown leaves turned a sickly green, and the soil around them looked wet and dark, almost black. People in town started saying that the credit union had a ‘bloom curse’—that anything planted near it either died or grew twisted. A local nursery donated a new maple tree, but within a month, its branches had twisted into grotesque shapes, and the leaves were mottled with gray spots.

One evening, I stayed late to help Mom close up. We were the last ones there, except for Mr. Coyle, who was in the basement doing something. The clock struck six, and the lights flickered. A low hum filled the air, like a far-off engine. Then, from the vault, we heard a thud, followed by a scraping sound. Mom and I exchanged a look. She grabbed a flashlight, and we slowly approached the vault door. It was slightly ajar, and inside, we saw that the padlock on the small maintenance door was gone, and the door was open. A cold draft emerged, carrying that same rotten smell.

We heard a sound like a wet sigh, and then a voice that wasn’t human said, ‘The garden needs feeding.’ I felt a hand clamp on my ankle. It was cold and strong, and it was pulling me toward the open doorway. Mom screamed and grabbed me, but the hand yanked hard. I felt my foot slip into the doorway, and I saw something glistening in the dark below, like a mass of roots and teeth.

Just then, Mr. Coyle appeared from behind us, yelling, ‘No! Not the girl! The teller!’ He threw a handful of dark soil into my face, and the hand released me. I scrambled back, coughing. Mr. Coyle was now kneeling at the doorway, speaking in a frantic whisper, ‘It’s time, it’s time. The roots are hungry.’ He then took a small garden trowel from his pocket and began digging at the floor of the vault, right in front of the door.

Mom and I ran out of the bank, not stopping until we were in the car. We drove home in silence, and I saw that the dead plants along Cypress Lane were now blooming with thick, dark flowers that smelled like a corpse. The next day, we reported everything to the police, but when they investigated, they found nothing unusual. Mr. Coyle claimed we had a shared delusion. But a week later, the bank was closed for ‘remodeling’. We moved away, and Mom found a job at a library.

But I still dream of that doorway. And last week, I got a letter from the bank, a final paycheck for Mom. The envelope had a postmark from our hometown, and inside was a single dead leaf, shaped like a hand. The check itself was printed on paper that smelled faintly of fresh soil. On the memo line, someone had written: ‘The garden misses you.’ I burned it. But that night, I looked out my window and saw, in the garden of our new house, a single plant had sprouted overnight. It was a scraggly shrub, and its leaves were the same mottled gray, and it seemed to be reaching toward the house. I knew then that the roots had followed us, and the only way to stop them was to never let them feed. But I don’t know how long we can hold out.