dreadcrumbs

"After The Cure"

My roommate in the hospital is named Brad, and he has no lips.
Brad and I, along with three others, are the sole occupants of a special ward just for us. A place where we rest and recover from the injuries we sustained while undead. Only five of us, all told. The gas was supposed to work on everybody, all the shamblers, supposed to cure us. Make us human again. But most just died. Really died. But we five, at least, are back. I still sort of hope for others, but none have ever come.
I lost two fingers from my left hand in an unfortunate shotgun incident, and my feet are still covered in bandages from running around barefoot on broken glass, but I really feel in the best shape of the lot. Jeff, the talkative one, is missing both ears, part of his tongue, and most of an eye from when he tried to feed on a wild dog. It's unclear to me how one could only lose part of an eye, but that's what Jeff said. He always keeps it covered, so I can't really be sure.
Marjorie, the schoolteacher, lost her left hand and right arm in two separate axe attacks. Bad luck. She spends most of her time doing crosswords orally. The girl Janet looks fine, especially now that her hair is growing back, but she only ever stares at the television.
During group therapy Dr. Jordan tries to help us come to terms with our Time, our infected time. She says, yes, it's horrible, and we're all glad you're cured, but it did happen, and I want to find out what you miss.
Miss? we say. But Dr. Jordan, it was horrible and I'm just so glad to be cured.
But even so, we talk. Brad says he misses the freedom, the wild, wide-open freedom, and Jeff says he misses 'liberty from moral law,' which is really the same thing Brad said, but more pompous. Marge says she doesn't miss anything, but that she imagines it would be nice to be strong. Janet opens her mouth, and then closes it, twice, which is good progress for her. I say I miss the outfits, and Brad chuckles. Dr. Jordan knows this is a dodge, so I say freedom, too, I guess.
When the doctor nods and leads us in some variation of the serenity prayer, we all go back to our rooms for bed. In the darkness, after I've brushed my teeth and settled into bed, I hear Brad remove his night-lips.
"Jim?" he says.
"Yeah?" I say.
"What do you really miss?" he asks.
I'm about to say, no, really, I seriously miss the clothes, but opt for the truth instead.
"The food," I say. "I really miss the food."
"Yeah," he says, sighing. "Me too."

My Five Favorite Unspeakable Horrors

(not to be read aloud)

1. Hastur, Amorphous Lord of The Spaces Between Stars
2. Nyogtha, Haunter of the Red Abyss
3. Cthulhu, Lord of R'lyeh and Bringer of Solstice Cheer
4. Squeetus, She-Who-Oinks-In-Darkness
5. Celine Dion, Worm-Mother and Charnel Toad

"The Unclean"

I hear the toilet flush, and a few seconds later, Adam comes around the corner to where I'm frying an egg. He looks thoughtful, and I can tell he's waiting for me to ask him what he's thinking.
"Did you wash your hands?" I ask, instead.
He retreats back around the corner, and I hear the bathroom faucet.
About a minute later, the scene repeats itself, except Adam's hands are wet and I have a freshly fried egg on a plate.
"So what's going on?" I ask, taking a bite.
"How many eggs do you think we've flushed down the toilet?" he asks, casting a glance behind him, toward the bathroom.
"What?" I ask, and ridiculously check my plate for the egg I know is still there. "None. Why? Are you flushing eggs down the toilet?"
"It wouldn't have been on purpose," he says.
"Explain to me," I say, "exactly how you can accidentally flush eggs down the toilet."
"If, you know, they were growing inside the poo. And you didn't know."
"Oh," I say. "Like parasites. Gross."
"How many?" He asks again.
"I don't know," I say, shoveling the last bits of egg into my mouth, eager to finish eating before the conversation steals my appetite. "Not many, I hope. Could be hundreds, though, the way you eat."
Turning on the kitchen faucet, I run my empty plate under the stream, watching the strings of uneaten yolk slip into the drain.
When I finish, Adam is staring at a point just over my left shoulder, lost in thought.
"What's bothering you?" I ask.
"Would it count as murder, then? To drown them?" he asks.
"No," I say, setting my plate in the sink. "No, you get a free pass with things that eat feces. Kill away."
"That's..." Adam starts to say, but is interrupted by gurgled shriek coming from elsewhere in the house.
"What was that?" I ask, and he immediately darts away in the direction of the bathroom.
There is a sound like a dolphin sustaining a severe head injury, and the toilet flushes. Another sound like two or three screams layered upon one another, and then another flush.
"Adam?" I call. "You okay?"
I hear a groan, and the toilet flushes yet again.
Reluctantly, I walk to the bathrom, the sound of soft grunts and splashes getting louder as I approach.
The door is open when I get there, Adam on his knees in front of the toilet, his right hand shoved into the main drain of the bowl up to his wrist.
The water is tinted pink and darkening red from long open wounds on Adam's forearm.
"Adam?" I say, and he looks up at me, his face red with exertion.
"It's okay," he gasps, looking back at the bowl.
"What happened?" I ask, more than a little disturbed.
He pulls a mangled hand slowly from the pipe at the base of the bowl, watching it carefully.
"It's gone," he says, pulling his hand fully from the bowl.
"What is gone?" I ask.
He just stares at the dark hole at the bottom of the bowl, his hand at this side, dripping blood and toilet water on the floor. "It's okay," I hear him whisper. "I've got a free pass," he mutters. "A free pass."

Five Reasons It Is Bad To Get Hit in the Head With an Awl

1. The cavity it makes is very distinctive, making it difficult to later claim you were struck by something much cooler, like a +3 Rapier of Squealing, or a helicopter.
2. While easily cleaned, the typical awl wielder does not take that opportunity. And having the previous victim's dried blood and hair embedded in your head wound? That's just nasty.
3. You get much less sympathy from people when you're required to stop your tale of woe midscream to try to explain what an awl is. And then spell it.
4. Worse still, people assume you're saying "I was hit in the head with a ball," and they can't figure out what the big deal is.
5. You start to wake up dressed in clothes you don't recognize and frequently find notes on the refrigerator, in your handwriting, that say "Don't open the refrigerator."

"A Talk With Grammy"

Standing outside the study door, I look to my fiancee, pleading.
"I really have to do this?" I ask. "Ask permission?"
She nods, her expression serious, but a little embarrassed, like she had been confessing an intense fear of chickens.
"You do if you really want to marry me," she says. "Grandma's old fashioned that way."
I sigh, and put my hand on the doorknob. I hadn't met any of Ellen's family. I didn't think there were any to meet.
"Having second thoughts about your proposal?" Ellen asks, with just a hint of bite in her voice.
"No, no, of course not," I say, and swing the door open.
The room is dimly lit, the only illumination a small spotlight pointed at a sofa pushed up against one of the walls. Just within the lighted circle is a small child-sized stroller with a doll in it.
I take one look and turn back, not sure whether to laugh or grimace. "Are you serious?" I ask.
Ellen shrugs. "I think she likes the spectacle," she says. "She used to be in the circus, you know."
I take a few steps into the room, which I discover smells something like cooked beets. I look back at Ellen, who gives me the thumbs up and softly shuts the door.
I walk to the couch and sit. The stroller, positioned as it is, offers me a view of the doll inside. While not normally a connoisseur of dolls, I am intrigued by this one, as it appears to have been crafted with ultra-realistic hooved feet. I'm about to risk going over to pick it up when the door to the room opens again and a fifty-something woman in a sharp business suit walks in.
I immediately stand. "Mrs. Paulos?" I ask.
The woman flicks her gaze briefly to me and the walks directly to the stroller.
She squats next to the doll and begins to stroke its head delicately, whispering something I can't hear.
I wait, unsure exactly what she wants me to do. Eventually, she turns away from the stroller, but remains squatting next to it, one hand on the back of the seat, as if reassuring the doll of her presence.
"Mrs. Paulos?" I ask her again.
"Please," I hear a cracked voice from the stroller say, and my eyes dart to its occupant, whose eyes are now fixed on mine. "Call me Babygoat."
"I...I...er," I stammer, and then squeak out a cough, trying to regain my composure.
"I apologize for being asleep when you came in," the faun-thing says. "It is good my nurse came in when she did."
I glance to the woman squatting next to the stroller, but she doesn't look at me.
"Oh," I say, "no problem at all. I was thinking of taking a nap myself."
The doll-small eyes stare at me, and I realize I can't read her expression in the slightest.
"You are joking, I think?" the Doll-Grandma asks.
"Yes, er...sorry," I say, embarrassed that I am being intimidated by a two-foot old woman. Then I remember the goat legs, and forgive myself.
"You have something to ask me, Mister....?" she continues.
"Yes! Oh, right," I say. "Sorry. My name is Dave, er, David Evans."
I stick out my hand by force of introduction habit, and Ellen's grandmother just stares at it from her stroller.
"Yes, so, anyway," I stumble, dropping my hand to my side. "I wanted to ask for Ellen's, er, her...um...hand in marriage."
"You will have it," the tiny woman says.
"I will? Oh, great! That'll be great! Just wait until..." I blather, interrupted suddenly by the faun-thing shrieking. When I stop, she does.
"I have not finished," she says. "I will give you my blessing, once you have done me a service."
"A service?" I ask.
"A simple one," she says.
"Oh...okay," I say.
"You will take a cushion from that couch," she says, "and smother me with it. Smother me with it until I am dead."
"What?" I ask, and feel my body temperature drop a good five degrees.
"You will kill me, Mr. Evans," she says. "My nurse here has refused, and I would never dream of making little Ellen do it. So you are the obvious choice."
I stare at my hands, because they seem like the only safe thing to look at.
"Do we have an agreement, David?" she asks. "Quickly, now. I am an old woman in pain and cannot afford to dawdle."
"Okay," I whisper.
"I could not hear you," says the thing in the stroller.
"Okay!" I shout. "I'll do it."
"Very good," she says. "And use that anger. Hate me, if you can. It will make it easier."
I pick up one of the cushions and hold it in front of me. My hands are shaking.
"Do it!" the Thing screams. "I am an abomination! Destroy me!"
I thrust the pillow into the stroller, and feel It twitch beneath my hands for a long time. When I finally pull the pillow away, I realize I am crying. The nurse stands and looks at me with red eyes, an expression of horror on her face.
"I..." I start to say, and she runs from the room, flinging open the door.
I hear her screaming "He's killed her! He's killed her!" as she runs further down the hallway.
I stumble toward the door and out into the light of the hallway. Ellen is there, her back to me, staring in the direction of the screaming woman.
I reach out my hand to touch her, but draw back suddenly, realizing I've just killed someone with that hand.
I gasp, trying to get control of myself, and Ellen spins around, a huge smile beaming across her face.
"Wow!" she shouts. "I think she really liked you!"
I stare, opening and closing my mouth several times, but never quite able to speak.
"Did you talk to her dummy?" she asks, looking into the room. "She loves it when people talk to it. Says it shows respect for the Ventriloquist Art."
"Yes," I say, coughing. "Yes, I talked to the dummy."