The Linoleum Bloom

The summer I turned thirty-two, I went back to my hometown to help my mother recover from a fall that had left her with a limp and a newfound dependence on a cane. The house was the same one I’d grown up in, a sprawling Victorian with a wraparound porch and a kitchen that always smelled of stale coffee and rosemary. My older brother, Dale, had driven up from the city with his new girlfriend, a woman named Priya who had never seen the Midwest. My aunt, Edna, had come to stay too, to ‘help out,’ though she mostly sat in the recliner and criticized the way my mother peeled potatoes.

The evening of the incident, we’d had a long, tense dinner. Dale and Priya had been arguing in low, sharp tones about something to do with her job, and my mother had been pressing her fingers to her temples like she could massage away the headache that had been building all day. After the dishes were cleared, Dale announced he needed air and stalked out the back door. Priya sat in the sunroom, scrolling through her phone with a sour expression. My mother, worried, went out the front to look for him, leaving her cane propped against the hallway coat rack.

I was in the upstairs hallway, about to head to the bathroom, when I saw Edna standing at the top of the stairs, staring down into the dim foyer below. The house had a peculiar feature: a single, narrow staircase that went straight up from the front door, with a landing about halfway up where there was a small window that looked out onto the street. My mother had always said the house was ‘settled,’ meaning the floors sloped slightly, and there was a draft that you could feel even in July.

‘He’s not out there,’ Edna said, not turning to look at me. Her voice was flat, like she was stating a fact she’d known for years. ‘The street is empty. But there’s someone in the yard.’

I leaned over to look past her. Through the frosted glass of the front door, I could see a pale shape, indistinct and wavering, as if seen through water. My chest tightened. The yard was only a narrow strip of grass between the house and the sidewalk, and there was no streetlight on that side, so the darkness was thick.

‘It’s probably just Dale,’ I said, but even as I said it, I felt the lie. Dale was broad-shouldered and dark-haired; this shape was thin, almost skeletal, and it seemed to be swaying slightly, like a reed in a breeze that didn’t exist.

Edna finally turned to face me. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth was set in a thin, hard line. ‘It’s not Dale. And it’s not your mother. They’re both gone.’

‘Gone?’ I took a step toward her. ‘What do you mean gone?’

‘I watched them leave,’ she said. ‘Your mother went out, and as she stepped onto the porch, she looked at that shape in the yard, and she didn’t call out to Dale. She just stood there, like she was waiting for it to come to her. And then she walked toward it. And then they both disappeared. Like they were never there.’

My skin prickled. ‘You’re not making any sense, Aunt Edna. Did you take your medication today?’

She shook her head slowly. ‘I’m not crazy, honey. I know what I saw. And that thing, it didn’t have a shadow. Nothing in that yard cast a shadow.’

I didn’t want to believe her, but I couldn’t shake the dread. I went to the top of the stairs and looked down. The front door was ajar, and through the gap I could see the porch, and beyond it, the yard. It was empty. The shape was gone. But I noticed something else: the linoleum at the bottom of the stairs, which had always been a dull beige, was now covered in a faint, dark stain, like a large wet footprint, but it wasn’t water. It was the color of dried blood.

I called out for my mother, for Dale, for Priya. No answer. I went down the stairs, my heart hammering. The stain was still there, and it was spreading, slowly, like it was bleeding from the floor. I touched it with my bare foot, and it was cold and slimy, and it felt like it was alive, like it was trying to crawl up my skin. I yanked my foot away, and for a moment I saw my reflection in the polished floor, but it wasn’t me. It was a gaunt, pale woman with hollow eyes, and she was smiling at me.

I ran back up the stairs, and Edna was gone. The hallway was silent. I could hear my own breathing, ragged and scared. I stumbled into the living room, where Priya was sitting on the couch, her phone forgotten, her face white.

‘Where is everyone?’ she asked, her voice trembling.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘We need to get out of here.’

We ran to the front door, but it wouldn’t open. It was like the door was glued shut, and the more we pushed, the colder the air became. Through the window, I could see the yard again, and now there were dozens of shapes, all standing still, all facing the house. And in the middle of them, my mother and Dale and Edna, their faces slack, their eyes open but unseeing, walking toward the house, walking slowly, like they were in a trance.

Priya screamed, and the sound echoed through the house, but it seemed to be absorbed by the walls, muffled and distant. I grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the back door, but that was locked too. The kitchen windows, which had been open to let in the breeze, were now shut, and the glass was frosted over, even though it was ninety degrees outside.

The stain on the floor had spread to the kitchen, and now it was forming patterns, like roots, reaching out from the center of the house. I realized it was coming from the walls, from the floorboards, from the very foundation. It was as if the house itself was consuming us, turning us into part of its structure, making us into ghosts of the past.

We ended up in the basement, which I had always hated. It was damp and dark, with a dirt floor and a single bare bulb hanging from a cord. The bulb was swinging, casting wild shadows. And there, in the corner, was a small door, one I had never seen before, though I had played in that basement a hundred times as a kid. It was painted the same color as the concrete, so it blended in, but now, in the flickering light, I could see it was slightly ajar.

Priya and I looked at each other. We had no other choice. We opened it, and found a narrow tunnel, just big enough to crawl through. The walls were slick with moisture, and the air was stale and heavy, like it hadn’t been breathed in years. We crawled for what felt like an eternity, my hands and knees scraping against the rough stone, and all the while, I could hear a sound, faint and rhythmic, like a heartbeat, coming from the walls. It was the sound of the house breathing.

Finally, we emerged into a small, circular chamber, lit by a single candle that was burning with a blue flame. In the center of the room was a stone basin filled with black water. And floating in the water was a single, white flower, beautiful and fragile, with petals that seemed to glow. I recognized it as a night-blooming cereus, but it was impossible, because they only bloom once a year, on a single night, and they wilt by dawn.

Priya reached out to touch it, but I grabbed her hand. ‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘It’s a trap.’

But it was too late. As her fingers brushed the water, the flower burst into bloom, all at once, and the water turned red, and the room filled with a sweet, sickly odor, like rotting fruit and honeysuckle. And I heard my mother’s voice, but it was coming from the flower, from the room, from everywhere. It said, ‘You’re finally here. We’ve been waiting.’

And then the walls of the chamber began to close in, and I knew that we were never going to find our way out. We were part of the house now, part of the bloom, and the only way out was to become one of the shapes in the yard, standing still, waiting for the next family to come along.

I don’t know how much time has passed since then. The sun doesn’t rise, and the moon doesn’t set. I write this in the dust on the basement floor, hoping that someone will find it. If you ever see a house with a single staircase, and a stain on the linoleum that won’t wash away, do not enter. And if you see a white flower in a basin of black water, run. Run as far as you can, because the house is always hungry, and the bloom is always waiting.