I pick up the pace.
I pull the gas can up and splash gasoline across the walls. It runs in shiny rivers over vines and cabinets. The aroma punches my sinuses hard enough to make tears streak down my cheeks. I soak the counter. The fridge. The table. Gas drips onto the floor and spreads into dark, shimmering puddles.
One of the smaller pumpkins twitches when the fuel hits it.
I jump back, heart in my throat.
“Stay still,” I bark at it. “I swear to god.”
It settles. For now.
I grab the stove and wrench it forward. Metal shrieks. The gas line pops loose with a sharp hiss.
Val’s voice cuts through my head, calm and maddeningly practical.
A gas can helps. The fumes do the real work.
“If I live through this,” I mutter, dragging the can toward the living room, “I’m memorizing every random survival fact you’ve ever said. I will become a damn survivalist expert.”
The vines squirm under my feet as I go. One curls around the leg of a chair. Another creeps toward my ankle, curious.
I kick it away and keep pouring.
By the time I reach the living room, the can is half empty. My good arm aches. My hand shakes. Gasoline slicks the floor, the walls, the furniture, soaking into cloth that darkens with each pass.
The vines here are thicker, denser, like the house is being slowly strangled. One root is as wide as my thigh, buried into the wall, pulsing in time with something deeper.
I dump the rest of the gas in wide arcs, soaking the couch, the rug, the exposed beams. The fumes bloom instantly, sharp and eye watering, crawling down my throat. I toss the empty container into the center of the room and straighten, chest heaving, my broken arm rising and falling in quick beats across it.
I back toward the front door.
Or try to.
Vines have sealed it shut.
They’ve grown thick and layered, braided together across the frame like living rebar. One pulses as I step closer. Another twitches, ready to pounce if I get closer. They aren’t blocking the door by accident. They’re guarding it.
“Of course you are,” I mutter.
I pivot toward the nearest window, but no luck. All are reinforced with vine and root, like the house itself decided nothing was getting out that way.
Okay, I’ll just go out the way I came.
I retreat back to the kitchen, but the basement door is now a thick wall of vines. They vibrate as though they are wagging invisible fingers at me.Nah nah nah nah nah.
Motherfuckers.
They knew.
They knew exactly what I was about to do. They let me pour the gas. Let me think I was clever.
They didn’t need to stop me.
They just needed to wait.
Because I’m not the kind of idiot who lights himself on fire.
Right?