The Trimming Crew (goosebumps style scary story)
The air in the trimming room was thick. Heavy.
Sweet with the scent of fresh-cut buds.
MAC 1.
The smell clung to their clothes. Their skin. The backs of their throats.
Rich. Creamy. Like vanilla butter. But sharp. Diesel fumes and citrus. A bite that stung the sinuses.
And underneath it… something else.
Something damp. Earthy. Wrong.
It wasn’t just a smell.
It wrapped around them. Seeped into their lungs. Sat too thick on the tongue.
And beneath the buttery vanilla, beneath the citrus and spice, there was something rotting.
Something watching.
The crew worked in silence.
Scissors snipping. Snicking. Wet sounds that echoed too long.
They had been here for a week.
A week.
Trimming for a grower who paid double their usual rate.
Now they understood why.
They had worked together for years.
Greg, the manager. Always talking to the growers. Always making deals.
Tom, the joker. The one who kept things light.
Lisa and Sarah, best friends. Always together.
Mark, the quiet one. Not much to say, but always watching.
And Eric.
Eric knew things.
Eric had only been with them for a few months, but he knew everything.
The best way to trim. The science behind the strains. How to tell if a plant was off.
“See this bend?” he’d say, adjusting Lisa’s scissors. “That’s a sign the plant wasn’t flushed properly. The grower must’ve cut corners.”
When Greg came back from his meetings shaken, forgetful, not quite himself, it was Eric who stepped in.
“You guys worry too much,” he’d say when Sarah whispered about shadows moving in the corners.
“Old buildings make weird noises.”
And they believed him.
Because why wouldn’t they?
But things weren’t right.
Sarah noticed the buds twitched. Not from static. Not from moisture. They… moved.
Mark found symbols carved into stems. Tiny screaming faces when held up to the light.
Tom stopped joking after cutting himself. The wound refused to heal.
Then Lisa saw something inside the coffee machine.
It wasn’t mold.
It was pulsing.
“Guys… what the hell is that?”
Eric inspected it. Calm. Too calm.
“Fungal contamination, probably,” he said. “I’ve seen this before. No big deal. Just don’t touch it.”
His certainty soothed them.
Even when Greg started muttering in a language that made their ears burn.
Even when black liquid dripped upward from Mark’s coffee cup.
Even when Sarah swore she heard the walls breathing.
No one wanted to be the first to say it.
But they all knew.
Something was wrong with the building.
It was watching them.
Listening.
Tom was the first to break.
They were in the break room, a small, windowless space with a fridge, a coffee maker, and a table covered in snack wrappers.
No one had been hungry lately.
Tom stirred his coffee. Slowly. Staring at it.
The others were quiet, waiting for him to speak.
“I’m not crazy,” he said finally.
The coffee in his cup moved.
Not sloshing. Rising.
Dripping upward.
The black liquid stretched toward the ceiling in a thin, trembling thread.
Tom dropped the cup. It shattered on the table, spilling coffee that never hit the floor.
The liquid crawled up the walls instead.
Mark shoved his chair back. “Jesus Christ.”
Lisa covered her mouth. Sarah grabbed her wrist.
Eric, sitting across from Tom, didn’t flinch.
He sighed.
“We’re all just exhausted,” he said. Patient. Calm. “Trimming this much, for this long? It messes with your head.”
He leaned forward. Smiled.
“Drink some water, man. You’ll feel better.”
Tom stared at him.
At his smile.
And for the first time…
Tom didn’t trust him.
Then it happened.
Sarah’s scissors hit something solid inside a bud.
SNAP.
Clear fluid sprayed across her face.
She screamed.
The bud split open.
And something inside it… blinked.
The crew crowded around.
Staring.
Not breathing.
The bud was full of eyes.
Human eyes.
Familiar eyes.
“Those are…” Eric’s voice was steady. Comforting.
Lisa’s stomach lurched. “Janet.”
She knew those green eyes.
Janet had taken a trimming job here six months ago.
She had never come back.
And now… she was here.
They weren’t trimming marijuana.
They were harvesting something else.
A figure stepped from the shadows.
It wasn’t hiding anymore.
It was wrong.
A twisted mass of stems and leaves and human parts, grafted together into something unnatural.
It jerked forward in impossible angles.
Leaving behind a trail of spores.
Spores that whispered their names.
And Greg…
Greg was no longer Greg.
His skin split open like overripe fruit.
And inside…
Tendrils.
Tendrils that had been wearing Greg like a suit.
“We don’t need to leave,” Greg said.
But it wasn’t just his voice.
It was all of their voices.
Speaking from all of his mouths.
“We belong here now.”
The crew screamed.
The walls closed in.
The lights went out.
And in the darkness…
They finally saw the truth.
The facility was alive.
It was one massive organism.
And they were being digested.
Their screams became part of the whispers.
But one figure did not scream.
Eric stepped away from the writhing mass.
His movements were too smooth.
Too calm.
His uniform, now clearly visible, bore a logo none of them had noticed before:
“Lovely Ladies Who Trim.”
Eric pulled out his phone. Calmly. Casually.
He typed.
“Got another crew for you.”
He smiled.
A warm smile.
A friendly smile.
Even as his teeth spiraled inward, row after row after row.
“The Ladies are eager to start. Same rate as usual?”
Behind him, the thing that had been his crewmates pulsed and whispered.
Eric had played his part perfectly.
As he had so many times before.
Because someone had to feed the garden.
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