I lived in your every-day suburban environment. Mostly consisting of two-story houses, and well-kept lawns, the perfect combination of comfort from the modernization of city life, without all the noises and smells that you’d rather not know about. Every house had an equally spacious front and back lawn, about 1,000 square feet for the front, and 10,000 square feet for the in back. So, you can imagine the beautiful gardens the people here have. My next-door neighbors were an elderly couple in their late 70’s, each were retired from a previous job in business. The wife, Helen, loved roses, while her husband, John, preferred petunias. Their backyard had enough trees, to where growing petunias, which required a large amount of sunlight, was nearly impossible. So, the couple came up with the agreement that Helen could grow as many rose bushes as her heart desired in the back yard, while John grew his petunias in the sun-filled front lawn.

As good as this all sounds, a pleasant neighborhood, friendly neighbors, and my stable job as a retail agent, I hate to say that I wish I was in the right financial state to move. You see, there is a high school only a few minutes from my neighborhood, so many families move to the area to be closer to the school. Along with these families came the Maxwell family. Two parents, five kids, all either in their freshman or junior year of school. None of them are what you’d call a… model child. The five of them were always getting into trouble, the older ones would constantly be caught smoking, and would pressure their younger siblings to get into all types of trouble. My neighbors on my left had a sweet little girl that, thankfully, stayed away from the group of rampaging teens. From what their daughter would tell them, the Maxwell kids were always getting in trouble at school, and most were failing. The worst part was that their parents didn’t even seem to care, always making excuses about how their children were “a special bunch” and “just a little rough around the edges.” Underage smoking, bashing neighbor’s trashcans, and vandalism seemed a little more than rough around the edges if you asked me, but I had a job to concentrate on, and honestly didn’t care if one of them got arrested or not, which was bound to happen sooner or later.

What happened, I didn’t expect and only made me want to move even more.

It started last month, Helen had an overabundance of rose bushes this year and asked if I wanted to take any for my yard. I gladly accepted a small bundle of common red roses for my front lawn, a few minutes spent planting them and that was it. Nothing exciting, just a bunch of pretty roses to add some color to the landscape.

 A week passed before disaster struck, in the morning when most of the people on my street started to leave for work, they found their yards in ruins, pots overturned, plants bashed into the ground, the grass all torn up. I knew immediately who was at fault. It was those bratty Maxwell kids, it had to be. Luckily, I never went all out with my lawn, so clean up for me was relatively quick, I even tried to pitch in and help some of my other neighbors before work. But before I had the chance, I took a closer look at the rose bush Helen had given me. It looked so pitiful, all battered up, stems bare of any leaves, and only one or two rose heads now hung from the sad bundle of what used to be quite a lovely plant. Then I noticed something odd about the rose heads, while hanging there the petals seemed to have been folded and repositioned, to where it appeared as if they were frowning. Petals separating to reveal two eyes, and then more petals below lined up to give the appearance of that classic upside-down smile we see in emojis and cartoons. “did the Maxwell kids do this?” I thought, “no, they were destructive, but I’ve never seen them put this much detail into their stupid pranks. No, it must just be a weird phenomenon, or my eyes playing tricks on me.” A little confused, I hopped into my car and drove to work. The roses stayed like that for about a week more, I didn’t think much about it, just another funny story to tell bored relatives at thanksgiving.

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That was three days ago, I don’t know what to do. I installed a new security system to make sure that my private property was safe from the Maxwell kids. In case they decided to inflect more damage, which of course, inevitably happened. The day after they decided to go around and do a night nighttime “trash bash.” Leaving the street covered in filth for the next day. The day after that, the oldest Maxwell kid, Ethan, was reported missing. My security cameras show why. That morning after the “trash bash” was Saturday, so I decided to look through the footage so that I could file a proper report against the Maxwell family, with no way for them to sneak out of it. Enough was enough, I thought. The first few hours I simply skipped through, till when the camera time showed around midnight, I finally got some action. It was what I was originally expecting, the two oldest Maxwell kids going up to my trash cans and beating the crap out of them as if there was no tomorrow. After that, I was preparing to save that footage to my computer for the report, when I noticed that on the camera Ethan Maxwell was going up to my rose bush, bat in hand. “Odd,” I thought, “there was nothing wrong with the bush this morning.” But here was Ethan, fully prepared to beat the bush to the ground. That’s when it happened, it started slow, barely noticeable, but I thought that I could faintly see the heads of the roses turn to look at Ethan. Ethan took his first swing, only to have the stems and leaves of the rose bush shoot out, grab the bat, ripping it away from Ethan’s hands as it tossed it to the side. Ethan stumbled back clearly shook, his brother was watching as well, and both made a bee line back to their house. But the rose bush shot out again, grabbing onto Ethan’s ankle, tripping him and making him fall hard onto the ground. More stems shot out of the bush rapping around Ethan’s mouth, but I could still make out the sound of his muffled screams and sobs as more stems came and wrapped themselves around the boy pulling him closer. Thorns dug deep into his skin, causing more muffled screams as blood ran from his legs and sides. Ethan was violently thrashing at this point, arms stretched out clawing at the ground for anything that he could grab onto, anything at all. The bush did not even seem to notice his attempts to escape, the more he fought it, the more thorns that would latch onto his skin, tearing it as he was forcefully dragged closer, and closer to the heart of the plant. He tried grabbing at the ground again an again, but it was too late, the second his body was over the rose bush, roots and stems appeared, gripping onto his ankles, head, legs, and torso, mummifying him pulling him under the soil. He went down quickly, like quick sand on steroids. I had enough time to only get one final glimpse of him, his eyes, glossed over from pain, terrified, and pleading as if he could see me through the camera. Then he was gone, just like that. I quickly shut off my computer and ran outside, still in my pajamas. This couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t be. Once a reached the rose bush I stopped, scared of what I might find, but all I saw were claw marks etched into the ground, nothing else.

For the next 24 hours, I didn’t sleep or eat. My fears were only confirmed when posters of Ethan marked missing started showing up. I can’t go to the police, they’d never believe me, and I’d likely end up charged with kidnapping or worse, murder. But I did know one thing that had to be done, I went back outside, matches and shovels in hand, fully prepared to rip that monstrosity from the ground and destroy it. But something made me freeze in place, the rose heads were slowly turning around, but this time, they were looking at me.

The roses aren’t frowning anymore, they’re smiling.