The Wrong Cowgirl
Horror/Splatter Punk: Little Shop of Horrors x Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Originally Published in AHOY Comics, ARCHAIC, Issue #3, Feb 2025.
980 words
When a terminally ill cowgirl discovers that toxic bull manure has spawned a garden of carnivorous vegetables, she digs her boots in. As the mutant vegetables spawn and grow, she discovers that what doesn’t kill you just might save you.
The Wrong Cowgirl
By Angelique Fawns
Kim blinked. Some very odd vegetables were growing at the back of the manure pile.
Since when do cucumbers have cruel spikes? Why were the lettuce leaves gnashing like demented Venus flytraps? Were those actual eyeballs rolling in the putrid orange of the tomatoes? She covered her nose at the burning stench of fermented produce, cow urine, and moldy straw.
“Please tell me I’ve overdosed on pain meds. Or the chemo is making me hallucinate.”
A black bull peeked around the edge of the six-foot pile of compost and leveled his malevolent gaze at her. He had no answer.
She took the corner of her pink t-shirt and rubbed her eyes. Her friends had designed it for her and emblazoned the front with Cancer picked the Wrong Cowgirl.
Her vision wasn’t flawed. She was four feet away from a living garden of horrors.
A slimy tomato rotated until its beady eyes found hers and grinned with a row of gleaming fangs. The entire garden grumbled and burbled, like Mogwai soaked in water. Vegetable gremlins.
The bull snorted and ran back to his buddies on the other side of the field. But Kim held her ground.
Cowgirls don’t run.
Since her diagnosis, Kim fought nausea by watching a lot of old eighties horror movies. A year ago, her cell rang right at this very spot with her doctor’s name on the call display. She’d been snarfing down a salad during a break from worming the cows. (Try and pour ivermectin on a bull’s back without being gored. Not so easy.)
All she’d eaten that week had been salads; trying to lose that new bulge in her belly. At first she thought she might be preggers. There had been that wild night with Bill the Bronc rider...
Nope. That swelling in her stomach? Cancer. She’d tossed her salad into the manure pile and swore to fight the disease. The lettuce, tomato, and cucumbers settled on the thick, fertile mound of poop produced by the country’s most vicious bulls.
She had told her uncle to stop feeding the cows that weird new steroid. But his bucking stock became the best in the country, even if their manure glowed a little.
Kim bit her chapped lips, drawing a bit of blood. At her last visit, the doctor said she was done for. No point continuing treatment. A few months to live at most --but that didn’t mean she stopped working. The fences needed mending.
Cowgirls don’t cry.
When a cucumber lunged at her, viciously swiping at her ankle with a serrated spike, she jumped back. It narrowly missed her, thankfully the plant was rooted in dirt. Adrenaline flushed her system and her heart pounded, like when she was bull riding at a rodeo.
If she could ride the rankest animals in the country, she wasn’t going to run scared from a salad gone bad from toxic manure. She spit at the veggies and they vibrated, rumbling louder. A weird venomous chittering.
Kim rattled her bucket of wire cutters, thick gloves, and nails at them. “What are you going to do? Give me heartburn? I’m already dying.”
A tomato spun on its vine and then released a flying ball of orange. A viscous goo, peppered with blood-red seeds, dripped down the side of her cowboy boot.
A crazy laugh burst from Kim. “That’s all you got?”
The lettuce snapped and the cucumbers spun in the dirt, stirring up a mist of green glowing condensation. Kim’s nostrils quivered at the sweet, earthy smell. Like shish-ka-bob at a country barbeque. Her stomach growled. The air no longer stunk. It was delicious.
When was the last time she’d been hungry?
Kim put her bucket down and used her middle finger to scoop some of the tomato mucus off her boot. Hesitantly she brought the liquid to her lips and licked. It was delicious. Tangy, acidic, like gourmet hot sauce. Her taste buds screamed in delight. Kim couldn’t remember the last time something had tasted so good. Her headache, the constant one that worsened every day, abated.
The ghastly garden erupted in shrills, burbles, and shrieks. The tomatoes gnashed their fangs, the lettuce leaves snapped, and the cucumbers roiled.
Kim narrowed her eyes at the plants as another unfamiliar sensation flared in her stomach. Something she hadn’t felt in a long time. Hunger. Determination. The will to live.
Cowgirls don’t quit.
She dumped out the bucket and put on the thick work gloves. A slow smile spread across her face as she waded into the garden. Her boots were tall and made of thick leather so the slapping lettuce leaves didn’t hurt. The first cucumber slashed her wrist above her glove when she cut the stem with her cutters. The blood dripped down her arm but she hardly noticed. By the third cuke, she had her technique down.
The veggies screamed like sirens at a four alarm fire. The bulls spooked at the sound, stampeding across the field.
Thick green bile oozed from the stems as Kim picked up the pace. Snipping, cutting, and harvesting. The tomatoes tried to twist out of her reach, and one managed to nip her elbow, but Kim persevered. Her bucket was nearly full.
Cowgirls don’t quit.
Once plucked, the veggies lay in a quiet pile. Kim’s stomach rumbled again, and she nibbled on a spiky cucumber. Refreshing and crunchy. Blood filled her mouth from the spikes piercing her gums. This was going to be the best salad ever.
Her stomach shrank an inch. Healing energy flooded her system.
She smiled as she chomped. If she could ride bulls and tackle a mutant garden of evil plants, she could handle a few more hospital visits. That doctor could eat his words.
Maybe she would bag this stuff and hand it out to the other patients.
Her stomach was nearly flat for the first time in over a year and she felt amazing.
Cancer did pick the wrong cowgirl.
You are going to love the art…
