The white-knuckle suspense generated by Pat's impending announcement is tragically interrupted by a conflagration in the heavens, as what appears to be an errant meteor streaks through the sky above the festival, landing not more than a couple of miles away, to the accompaniment of an eerie green flash and earth-shattering kaboom.

The crowd is rendered understandably murmurous by the event. "It's beffudlin' to ma dumb cracker mind!" chimes a voice from somewhere in the crowd. Solely disinterested are the Miss Creamed Corn contestants, squirming impatiently as they wait to learn who gets the crown.

And, with amazing speed, the rest of the townsfolk begin to follow suit, casually dismissing the interstellar interloper, and turning their attention back to more dire and corn-oriented concerns. But not you. No, for you, the meteor strike represents more than a mere oddity; it is a heaven-sent escape from banality.

By your best guess, the space rock has landed on or near the old hospital. Grabbing Jerry by the arm, you propose a bit of freelance investigation, which he quickly and enthusiastically turns down. Letting out a contemptuous huff, you stalk off on your own.

Arriving at the abandoned shell that was once the very oddly-named Our Lady of Extreme Spookiness Regional Medical Center, you can't help but pause and reflect a bit on the building's history. Built in the late 70s and operated for just over a decade before being shut down for lack of funding, it stood in the present as a monument to nondescript post-modern architectural squarishness. Small as hospitals go, and in all manners thoroughly unimpressive, with its vacant state serving as strong evidence of a town that had beaten it in both categories.

But, the fact remained that it was still an abandoned hospital; words that translate respectively to "creepy" and "as hell". Come to think of it, hadn't its abandonment been precipitated not by funding issues, but by a mysterious fire? And hadn't it spent part of its existence as an insane asylum notorious for patient abuse? And hadn't it been built on a sacred burial ground?

Again, you find yourself scoffing at Jerry's unwillingness to spend an evening marked by strange events, cavorting about in or around a dilapidated structure where a lot of people have died.

However, the "in" part directly became a moot point, upon your discovery that the strange object from the outer reaches had landed just outside the hospital. So, it would seem that this night would not feature any ghastly ethereal nurses or gurneys wheeling around by themselves or rattling morgue lockers. Sad.

Fortunately, the object in the crater was itself sufficiently creepy. It appeared to be a tangle of vines crowned by something resembling a closed tulip bulb, except green, and massive by tulip bulb standards; somewhat larger than a human adult.

A sense of foreboding clouds your previously jovial escape from the Harvest Festival, but it's no match for your curiosity. Picking up a conspicuosly - convenient hatchet - not covered in blood, and not embedded in a skull, and therefore good enough for you - you cautiously advance toward the vegetable mass.

As you come to within a few feet of the. . . thing, much to your surprise, it speaks.

"Feed me."

"It has a mouth, and it speaks, and I need to get out of here," you think aloud, turning to skedaddle. Your flight is intercepted immediately, as a pair of vines lance out from the mass thereof and snake around your ankles. In less than a heartbeat, you find yourself dangling upside-down, struggling mightily to keep the pee in as you stare face to apparent-face with the menacing plant. Despite a lack of any facial features aside from a giant toothy maw, you can tell somehow that it isn't happy. Also, your finely-tuned small town instincts give you the impression that it's a mean green mother from outer space, and is in fact, bad.

"Did I stutter, punk?" the plant shouts, its voice and manner possessed of a conspicuous preponderance of jive and/or funk, "I'm starvin', and you either gonna get me some lunch, or you gonna be lunch, dig?"

It takes a moment for the gravity of the plant's words to sink in. While you certainly don't relish the idea of becoming plant poop, and don't hold any great fondness in your heart for the town where you live or the people in it, you can't think of anyone you'd willingly lead to their own doom. Perhaps you could sate the plant with human analogues? Livestock and such? There's certainly plenty to be had. . .

Or perhaps you could make a valiant attempt at slaying the beast, even if it means giving your life in the process. It's clearly dangerous, and although you aren't in the best position strategically, you are still holding the axe you found earlier. Besides, it isn't that big as man-eating plants go, and is in all likelihood just going to get bigger if left to its own devices.

The plant interrupts your thoughts: "What is it gonna be, boy? Yes or no?"

Here, sheepy sheepy. . .

I regret that I have but one life to give for my dumpy agro-centric hellhole. . .

A-lemme sleep on it, I'll give you an answer in the mornin'. . "