His breaths were loud and heavy as he walked through the old, dusty, glass passageway. Although he couldn’t move very fast, his eyes jetted back and forth looking at every dead vine, every broken pane of glass, every crack in the bone dry dirt as he slowly moved away from the old Victorian house towards the greenhouse. The foliage that covered the glass tunnel was long dead but still blocked most of the light. The harsh beam of the flashlight elongated the shadows and made him jumpy, but he wasn’t going to let anything slither through the shadows and surprise him.

As he entered into the main greenhouse, there were rows of tables with planter boxes covered by acrylic hoods. The small pants were dead inside, but many vines were wrapped around the thick, silicone gloves on the inside of the enclosures like they were trying to strangle the fingers. When he shined the light through the plastic, the shadows and the changing angle of the light caused the appearance that the dead vines twitched in surprise.

He slowly stepped around the tables as his heavy breathing increased. It was dark enough that he needed the second flashlight. The two beams cut through the dusty air that hadn’t been disturbed for some time. He examined the other scientific equipment on tables, and looked at the dust covered computers that had been dark for years. Power cables from all over the greenhouse snaked in towards the generator. Next to it were several fuel cans in a disorganized pile with missing caps. He looked up and noticed the large alligator clamps at the end of heavy gauge electrical cables attached to the steel frame of the greenhouse.

As he moved to the far side of the building, he announced, “Found the bodies. Looks like about twelve,” he said.

“Confirmed,” a voice crackled over the radio. Other words were spoken but were unintelligible as the transmission broke up. He slammed something against the large steel helmet with a clang, causing the lights to flicker momentarily. The faceplate was starting to get foggy as he tried to maintain the breathing rate he was trained for. “Repeat last transmission,” he said.

“You have incoming creepers, Cap,” the voice said. “The vibration from the chopper must have woken it up.”

“I need five more minutes,” he pleaded.

“You have two,” another more authoritative voice granted him.

The chairs of the twelve victims were arranged in a square around a small card table. Cups were on the floor, a large piece of chemistry glassware serving as a carafe. He thought it would have had the feel of Jonestown if the bodies weren’t strangled and pulled away from the knocked over chairs by thick, dead vines had broken through the glass of the greenhouse. The tendrils were wrapped around their necks and plunged into their bodies. The corpses were mummified, but the vines were blackened and rotted.

“Let’s go,” the authoritative voice demanded.

“I haven’t found what I’m looking for yet,” the man in the steel suit said.

“Time to evac, soldier,” the voice demanded.

“Not yet,” he said.

“That is an order!”

“This is the only Crynoid rhizome we’ve ever found dead,” the explorer argued. “And this house belonged to a prominent research corporation. It cannot be a coincidence!” He moved slowly towards the table in the center of all the corpses. He looked right at the thick lab book was on the center of the table, and wondered why he didn’t see it before. It was placed there like a centerpiece. “Hello,” he said.

This was the first time since the comet streaked through the atmosphere with a green tail and exploded into the Pacific Ocean that he found himself smiling. His face almost hurt from the strain on the muscles that had hardly been used in eight years. First the aggressive, invasive species took over the oceans, causing the water level to drop by over ten feet, and later crawled onto land and devastated the coastal cities. It eventually crossed the entire continent but it was the Russians who figured out that if their nutrient base was scorched earthed, there was a chance for humans to take back the land. There had to be a better way.

He picked up the book with the steel gloves, It was thick enough to open up and inside were pages of labs notes with chemical diagrams. He looked at the dead vines entering into the dried up corpses, and said to them, “Thank you. We’ll improve upon the method of delivery.”