Radley's Home for Horny Monsters

by Annabelle Hawthorne

  MIKE COCKED HIS HEAD. Did he just hear his name?

  “What is this place?” Sarah asked from behind him. They had stepped through the busted door, Mike taking great care to step over the vines. Sarah, seeing this, had done the same. Now they stood in the weird open space inside the greenhouse, the sky up above a gentle blue.

  “The greenhouse. The others don’t come here, they think it’s just a big dirt pit.”

  “A dirt pit?” Sarah looked doubtful.

  “Well, um, in a manner of speaking.” Mike pointed at the large jungle. “When I asked, they thought the plants in here were dead. Lack of care and all. I guess Emily didn’t ever come in here either. Those vines that are all over the house are just huge, literal stink weeds. Touch them and poof! You’re covered in this sticky shit that smells like vomit.” Mike looked at the Mandragora vines. “Emily planted it to keep them out. That’s why it’s all over the house-nobody wants to even attempt to fix it.”

  “Disgusting. Now show me where you put the grimoire.”

  Grimoire. Mike had heard the word before. As he walked closer to the edge of the cliff, it came to him. “It’s more of a journal, really. There’s a cave out that way. I put it there to keep it from getting wet. This guy,” he gestured at the Mandragora, “is simply all over the place. I’ve never seen any animals here, and the plants don’t give a shit, so I figured it would be safe.”

  “A cave, huh?”

  Mike felt a shift in the air, and that familiar ball of ice formed in his gut. “Yeah. I locked it in a special box that only I can get into. Soul resonance. Trick I learned from the book.” Behind him, the magic fizzled, and he hid his sigh. She had been about to kill him. “Box kills anyone else who touches it. Disintegrates them. Spent my morning crafting the thing out of dragon-hide, minotaur fur and what was left of the succubus.”

  “You had those things just lying around?” Some of the edge was gone from Sarah’s voice, replaced with curiosity.

  “Emily had tons of weird shit stored all over this place. Granted, the dragon-hide was hard to identify, it was in a box with so many other things.”

  “And the grimoire let an amateur such as yourself simply create such a thing? And it wasn’t hard?”

  “Oh yeah. It’s like Hardcore Magic for Idiots.” Mike was looking for the path that wound down into the valley, doing his best to pretend like he knew where he was going. The Mandragora vines twitched when he neared them, but were otherwise still. He noticed that their dark green hue had gone slightly pale. He really needed to feed the damn thing.

  But not just yet.

  “If one such as you with no magical aptitude could achieve such a feat, then I can only imagine what I could do with it.” Sarah was close enough now that she poked Mike in the back with the tip of her knife. It split the fabric of his shirt with ease, and Mike winced, the sensation of warm blood down his back flooding him with terror. It would take no effort at all for Sarah to take his life, and then the others would fall into her hands.

  “There was a section in the back that I couldn’t figure out.” The lie came easily, and Sarah’s eagerness to hear them was a blessing. “It was a bunch of diagrams, and some ingredients and stuff I couldn’t pronounce.”

  “That makes sense. It likely has to do with the Old Ones. That is the strongest kind of magic.” Sarah’s voice had risen slightly in pitch. Mike looked back and saw her cheeks had reddened. “If one such as you could do Master-level spellwork, then I bet I would have access to the Creation-level ones!”

  Mike let out a breath. He had no idea what she thought the grimoire was, but now he really hoped that none of his bullshit was actually true. If such a thing actually existed, he wanted no part of it. It would be the magic equivalent of finding a live nuclear warhead in the Vault.

  The path became steep, and Sarah waited for Mike to traverse the longer stretches of it first. She’d hiked up her robes and tucked them into her belt, revealing long, slender legs. Her large breasts bounced pleasantly on the occasions she had to hop down from a rock or tree stump, but her attractiveness ended where her face began. Her face frozen in a sneer, he wondered what drove a woman of such beauty to be so evil. Then again, beauty had never seemed very particular about who possessed it.

  “We are almost to the bottom,” he said, surveying the land. Mike was playing a hunch. He’d noticed that the Mandragora vines ran outward in every direction, but always clustered within a couple of feet of the trail itself. The further they walked, the thicker the vines got, and they were now stepping beneath the canopy of the jungle, the floor of the path decorated in the shadows of the leaves up above. “Need to go for a bit in here.”

  “How far?” Sarah asked.

  “I didn’t wear a Fitbit this morning. I found the cave the other day, after that fire lizard tried to kill me.”

  “That was MY fire elemental,” Sarah said, the edge back in her voice. “If we don’t get there soon, I’m going to break both of your legs and make you crawl.”

  Shit. He needed to do something. He saw that there were small stones littered along the trail. Looking at the increasingly thick vines all around them, he realized that they had begun to move, twisting around themselves like giant snakes. Every few steps, he shuffled his feet a little, trying to catch the ends of his shoelaces with his other foot. Gradually, he loosened one of them, all the while keeping his eye out for a rock big enough to do the trick.

  “Hold up a second,” Mike said when he spotted one the size of an egg. He placed his foot right next to it. “Shoe’s untied, slowing me down.”

  “Hurry up,” she snapped.

  Mike chanced a look back. Though the wand was trained at him, her eyes were on the jungle. Suspicion was in her eyes-she clearly sensed danger, but could not spot it. After tying the laces on his shoe, he grabbed the rock and casually palmed it.

  “Okay, I’m good.” Now that he had a stone, he needed to figure out how best to use it. Did he throw it at the vines, and hope they woke up and noticed him? Or should he try to nail Sarah with it, stun her and then tackle her into the vines? Sniffing through his blood-crusted nostrils, he suddenly knew what to do.

  After scratching an itch by his mouth, he pinched his nose and gave it a sharp yank. He heard something pop, and blood flowed fully once again down his face. This time, he let it run down his shirt, caught some on his fingertips and flicked it toward the Mandragora. The vines immediately flexed, sensing prey nearby.

  “It’s just up ahead now.” The trail twisted to the side, then switched back. A large tangle of vines lay along the edges of the narrow pass, and Mike wiped his face, coating the stone in his hand with blood. Slowing down to walk through the narrow section of the trail, Mike stopped, then stared into the sky through a gap in the canopy, twisting enough that he could see Sarah, his eyes tracking nothing.

  “What is it?” Sarah asked, stopping right behind him, her body so close that he could smell her sweat. She looked up too, trying to figure out what he had seen. Mike casually tossed the stone to his right. It landed squarely in a loop of Mandragora vines. They were everywhere now, like a giant cobweb, wrapped around every tree and plant. Immediately, they flexed, little creeper vines grabbing at the stone, the jungle shifting around them.

  Sarah, seeing the vines move, pointed her wand and fired, a greenish blast of energy that blew the foliage apart. Her dagger was on the far side of her body. Mike stepped away from the blast, and then around her. Grabbing her around the waist, he pulled her off her feet and into the larger Mandragora vines behind them.

  “What are you doing?” She was inhumanly strong, and easily ripped his hands off of her. However, the Mandragora had sensed them both. Dozens of vines looped around their bodies.

  Sarah shouted in an arcane language the jungle floor caught on fire. Mike grabbed on to her legs when the vines tried to drag him away. Sarah’s blade easily cut through the vines, but there were too many of them. She and Mike were tied up completely by the thick green tendril
s then dragged away across the jungle floor.

  “You piece of shit,” she screamed, kicking at his head. Mike could no longer let go even if he wanted to-the vines had secured his arms to her body. Her foot struck, but with very little force. “You cocksucking, motherfucking, shit-stinking mortal!”

  Mike ignored her and turned his head to see where they were going. Sarah struggled against her bonds, which in turn tightened his. He no longer cared what happened to him, as long as he could protect the others. As they were dragged across the jungle floor, he felt relieved that he had managed to lure her away.

  “Where are you taking me?” Sarah shrieked, kicking her feet some more.

  Mike chuckled. “I’m not taking you anywhere.”

  New vines wrapped around them as the old ones let go. Mike and Sarah were split apart, and they accelerated across the ground, splashing through puddles and devastating bushes in their passing. As they traversing the curves of trees, Mike was flung from side to side, smashing into other plants and even rocks, his whole body becoming a giant bruise. The Mandragora was tenderizing its meat.

  He wondered what the end would look like. A cavernous maw, perhaps, with man-sized teeth? A bottomless pit? A huge Venus flytrap ready to impress him with show tunes prior to devouring him?

  Behind him, Sarah was muttering curses. Her hair was snagging on bushes, undoing her braids. Mike ignored her ramblings and concentrated on the new problem at hand. He had given them over to the Mandragora. Now what?

  The bushes disappeared, and suddenly they were in a large clearing. At its center was the Mandragora plant itself. Nearly twelve feet tall, it was a giant, green bulb with an immature bloom on top of it. Huge leaves surrounded the base, interspersed with giant pitcher plant traps that looked like huge, green sleeping bags. The vines pulled them ever closer, dragging them through the dirt. Up above, hanging like giant cocoons, were pods that swayed gently in the breeze.

  “What is this that thing?” Sarah asked, her voice unnaturally calm.

  “It’s a Mandragora.” Mike looked back at her. “I was going to feed it today; poor thing is starving. If you had showed up later this afternoon, my plan probably wouldn’t have worked.”

  “I fucking hate you,” Sarah said, her cheeks bright red. Her face was scraped up, blood and dirt across her face. “I hate you, I hate this plant, I hate your whole fucking family, and your fucking monster collection. You don’t have the grimoire after all, do you?”

  “Nope. Never even seen one.”

  Sarah snarled and ground her teeth. “Once this thing lets me go, I’m going to set this whole goddamn jungle on fire.”

  “About that,” Mike said, watching in amusement as several vines yanked the wand from Sarah’s hand and snapped it in half. “The Mandragora speaks English.”

  “Fuck.” The plant took away her dagger too, then tossed it casually to the side where it landed point-down in a stone, sinking to the hilt. “What does it want with us?”

  “I’m guessing lunch.” Mike looked at the plant, which wasn’t moving. He wondered how big its teeth were going to be. “I hope it eats you first. I bet you taste like shit.”

  “I’m still going to kill you. With my bare hands.” Sarah’s whole face was red, her nostrils flaring. “I’m going to rip off your face and piss all over-“

  The pods up above rustled, and a cloud of pink and yellow glitter settled on Mike, Sarah, and the ground around them. They coughed violently — it was like inhaling black pepper.

  “What is this?” Mike asked.

  “Fuck,” Sarah whispered.

  The vines around them were loosening. Circulation slowly returned to Mike’s limbs. The first thing he was aware of was how much his new scrapes and bruises hurt. The second thing he noticed was how hard his cock suddenly was. “I...I don’t get it.” Sitting up, he saw that Sarah was on her hands and knees, taking deep breaths, her breasts heaving beneath her robes.

  “I won’t do it, I won’t do it,” she kept muttering to herself. Her shapely ass was beginning to sway, and she started rocking and squeezing her legs together.

  “What’s happening?” Shifting, Mike’s cock shifted slightly in his pants. The sensation was magnified tenfold, and an instant thrill shot up his spine to his brain. He tried to adjust himself, but the feeling of cloth on the head of his dick was already making him leak precum, a small stain forming on the outside of his filthy pants. “Oh God.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s happening.” Sarah’s voice had a raspy quality to it. She was breathing entirely too hard. “The Mandragora plans to eat us.”

  “By making us horny?” That didn’t make a lot of sense.

  “No, you idiot. This plant. I’ve read about it. It needs to exhaust us before it eats us.” Sarah laughed, spit dribbling from her mouth. “I always thought it used poison, or made us struggle. Fact is, once we’re inside it, it can’t use the vines, and it needs to make sure we are too weak to get out. This, though. This is ridiculous.”

  “I still don’t follow.” And it was becoming increasingly hard to. Mike’s vision was narrowing, all thought of the outside world fading away. All he could focus on was this woman before him, in dark robes that clung to her skin in all the right places. The v-neck of her gown hugged her large breasts, the fabric opening slightly to give him a peek down her blouse.

  “You’ve killed us. You’ve killed both of us.” Sarah laid her upper body on the ground, her ass up in the air. “If I could just... resist.” Her left hand slid down her stomach and pushed up against her pubis. She let out a hiss, rubbing insistently with her fingers. “If I can just... get off, maybe I can run away.”

  This was crazy. Mike didn’t see how the plant was planning to eat them by making them horny. He also saw no reason to wear pants anymore. They were confining, hugging his skin too tightly. He slid them free, sighing as his cock sprang up into the open air. Turning his head to look at Sarah, he saw that she was rubbing her breast through the gown with her free hand, moaning quietly while she squeezed.

  He couldn’t look away. For several minutes, he watched as Sarah diddled herself, adjusting her robes to slide her whole hand beneath. Mike felt strangely relaxed, strangely fine with the idea that he had no desire to escape.

  Sarah’s eyes snapped up to meet his, a desperation in them. She looked down, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. Puzzled, he realized that she was now staring at his cock, which he was absentmindedly stroking in full view.

  “You asshole,” she gasped, crawling toward him. As she drew close, she withdrew her hand from beneath her gown and grabbed his dick tightly. Her hand was soaking wet, and she pumped him with purpose. “You need to... share.”

  Share? Mike’s eyes rolled back in his head when Sarah sucked him into her mouth, jacking him off at the base of his dick while her tongue worked wonders on the head. He couldn’t even remember why they had been fighting anymore, she seemed like a perfectly lovely woman, her body all curves before him.

  “Show me your tits,” he muttered, and she hastily obliged, as if afraid he would take his dick away from her. Her gown slid easily to the side, revealing two voluptuous globes, the skin between them red with arousal. Everything around him was little more than a haze, his entire attention on this buxom beauty servicing him. His entire world was the warm, wet sensation of her mouth, gulping greedily at his cock, her hands twisting and squeezing him at the base...

  “GAH!” Mike came with very little warning, grabbing Sarah by the hair and forcing himself deep into the back of her throat. Semen shot out of her nose, though Sarah was swallowing heavily.

  “Wait. Wait!” It suddenly occurred to Mike why what they were doing was wrong. He pulled his dick free and shoved Sarah to the ground in a frantic bid to escape. Nearly tripping over his pants, he made it almost ten feet before his head started swimming again.

  “No fair!” Sarah tackled him around the waist and drove him to the ground, then rolled him on her back. She shifted her robes to the side,
and Mike’s dick grew rock hard once more. By the time she impaled herself on his cock, there was no place he would rather be.

  ABELLA WALKED FORWARD, a giant spear in her hand, with six more leaned up against the house. Behind her came Tink with a crossbow in each hand, followed by Cecilia, who carried nothing. Tink had taken them to the armory. After a quick discussion, it was decided that the weak point in the golems was the gemstones themselves.

  “Where did the Mandragora go?” Cecilia asked, gazing at the wall of the house. There was no sign of the hungering plant.

  “Tink find out later,” the goblin hissed. “Kill stupid rock fucks.” Tink had been inconsolable since waking. “Much easier with goggles. Tink having bad two days.”

  “We’re all having a bad day. Cecilia, you ready?”

  The banshee nodded.

  They headed toward the golems and spread out, ready to intercept Cecilia. When she neared the closest one, Cecilia jumped out of the way when it smashed a fist into the stone boundary of the yard. Letting out an angry grunt, the golem swung again, just missing Cecilia. Cecilia ran right in front of it, taunting it farther.

  This time, the golem lifted its arms and belly flopped. Smirking, Cecilia sank into the ground, the golem smashing into the dirt and leaving a giant, belly-shaped crater. When it pushed itself up, it stopped when a crossbow bolt shattered next to the gem in its head.

  “Fuck!” Tink lifted the other crossbow, then closed one eye and took aim. This one flew true and struck the gem. It exploded in a cacophony of light and sound, the golem crumbling into a large pile of gravel.

  The others, unperturbed, remained at their posts, moving closer together.

  “Stupid rock fucks,” Tink growled, reloading both of her bows.

  Cecilia emerged from inside the golem’s carcass, clearly pleased with the shattered body beneath her.

  “Let’s take our time,” Abella said. She held up her spear, and she and Tink moved forward, ready for Cecilia to lure the next one out.