But then, when Mitch’s parents won the lottery, his luck really started turning around. He got corrective laser surgery on his eyes. He started working out five times a week. He switched out his retro clothing for modern fashions, like polo shirts and khakis. Heck, over the last few years, he’d been downright good looking!
Yet she’d been blind to it, set on pursuing the captain of the football team. What did Blaine have in common with her, though? What did he? And did he even truly know who she was on the inside, or was he only concerned with the stunning good looks she used to have before she became a horse?
“Wake up, child,” Cunningham said, stroking her mane. “It’s time to get some work done now.”
Getting to her feet, the world’s first unicorn trotted into the science laboratory. She helped the doctor for several hours with his experiments. Then, they were out in the field for many hours, harvesting the grapes. Finally, the doctor guided her down the staircase into the cellar. She knew it was finally time for the doctor to realize the flaw in his scheme: it had been a full year, and now she was to open the Cabernet bottle.
Walking over to it, she slid her corkscrew into the cork, and turned her head forty-five degrees to the left. She then stood still and sighed, knowing the doctor was realizing his bungle.
The doctor was silent for a handful of moments. Finally, speaking, he said, “You knew. All this time, you knew. Didn’t you?”
Carrie unscrewed herself from the cork. She turned to the doctor and sighed again.
The doctor stared at her. There, across the room from him, stood a symbol of his own failure. Of the thoughtlessness that had repeatedly sent his career careening off the tracks. That tremendous corker sticking from that horses head seemed to be saying to him, “You’ll never do anything that matters.”
Pointing toward the door, Cunningham said, “Go. Get out.”
Carrie had expected him to be upset, but hadn’t anticipated this kind of treatment. Nonetheless, she walked toward the door slowly, her head bowed down, hoping he would feel sorry for her. Invite her to stay. At the least, give her a few carrots for the road. Instead, he just watched, gritting his teeth, as Carrie walked out the door of his wine cellar, through his house, and out into the cold, blustery night, snow attacking her face, attempting to freeze the tears in her eyes.
Chapter 4
Carrie trudged through the snow, which was burying her up to her ankles. She couldn’t feel her hooves, but she didn’t care; she was dead inside.
She marched down the winding dirt road that led to the winery and out onto Highway 1. The lonely clap of her hooves on the asphalt only reminded her of just how alone she was in the world. She sighed heavily, tendrils of steam rising from her nostrils. Absentmindedly, she used her tail to swipe at flies that weren’t there, evidence that she was all too willing to compound her suffering. As she watched the cars drive by, she found herself wishing she was human again. She used to love driving in cars.
The thought made a sudden feeling of anger flare within her: Blaine. If it wasn’t for him and his carelessness, she’d still be a human today instead of a horse freak. Suddenly, she hated him with an intense passion she’d never before felt. It was as if a branding iron had suddenly taken shape in her brain.
Quickly, though, she pushed the thought away. It wasn’t his fault. Blaine was Blaine. She’d known he was an asshat when she first started going out with him. Her friends had all warned her that all he liked to do was drink, text, and screw, and he was only doing two of those things on the night that she died.
It was a depressing thought. He hadn’t paid her one iota of special attention in their short time together, not anything more than he’d given to the hordes of girls he’d been through that year, anyway. And in the one thing that made her special, her death, he hadn’t even done everything he could to kill her. Her death was happenstance, something that just seemed to have occurred. She was a blip on the radar and she knew it. In all likelihood, Blaine probably didn’t even remember what had happened. She felt certain that he wouldn’t remember her.
If he and I ran into each other right now, she thought. He wouldn’t even recognize me. I’ll I ever was to him was a pair of spread-legs and a nagging voice.
She swallowed hard. Reality could be brutal. Some people were special, maybe, but those people would never be her. Not in a million years.
Up ahead, she saw the familiar lights of a town. San Francisco. She’d always wanted to see the city, but never had. It had always been her dream for Dr. Cunningham to ride her through the streets so she could see the trolleys and homeless people without getting picked up by the animal control or being spray painted by vandals. The idea of wandering through the streets on her own on this snowy night was less than exciting. She’d do it anyway, though, because what else was there to do? If she got picked up by the animal control, at least she’d have a warm place to sleep.
She walked the rest of the way in silence, making an effort to step on really thick snowy patches to muffle the sound of her thunderous feet.
Why couldn’t the doctor have put me into the body of a penguin? she wondered. Penguins were much better suited to the harsh San Franciscan winters.
The streets, once she crossed the Golden Gate Bridge and entered the city, were mostly uninhabited. It was well into the night by then and most people with homes were enjoying them. Those few who were outside like her were huddled around barrels filled with burning debris, doing what they could to keep themselves from freezing. They, too, had lost their homes, lives and families. In their own way, they were lost screwnicorns, just as sure as she was a transient herself.
Her heart felt a tingle that felt almost foreign to her, it had been so long since she’d felt it. Her identity was malleable, she realized. She didn’t need the doctor, necessarily; she just needed someone. These homeless folks would do just fine.
She strolled up to the nearest flaming can and stepped up to it, warming her long face. The three figures standing there looked up at her and exchanged glances with one another, but didn’t say anything. They were all meth addicts and weren’t sure if the screwnicorn was a hallucination or not. Carrie’s presence made them all twitch and strongly desire a fix.
“Does anyone else see that?” Stinky Jimmy asked, no longer caring if anyone thought he was on smack. His companions nodded. “What is it?”
The other two shook their heads from side to side, indicating that they weren’t sure what to make of the screwnicorn in their midst. Carrie smiled inside, pretty happy with how things were going. She gave Stinky Jimmy a meaningful look, intended to set him at ease, and went back to warming herself by the light of the burning trash.
“Looks like a horse,” he said after a few moments. His companions, once again, nodded. “You can eat horse.”
Carrie’s eyes widened and she shook her giant head frantically, trying to convey that, while one might technically be able to eat the flesh of horses, they probably shouldn’t partake of hers. Quick as a rattlesnake, Stinky Jimmy pulled a long, thin prison-style shank from his tattered cargo pants. It appeared to have been fashioned out of a kabob skewer, as it was long and pointed. Carrie stepped back and the homeless man advanced on here.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, smiling menacingly.
Yes, you are! Carrie mind-shouted, which caused the man to smile even more widely, exposing rotten teeth and the fragrant steam of his bad breath. Carrie quickened her pace, but it isn’t natural for horses to walk backwards. Normal horses can’t even do it; it was only because of Carrie’s special organs that she was able to master that all-to-human maneuver.
Carrie felt the unforgiving pressure of brick on her tail and rear hooves. Her generously proportioned backside was pressed against a wall! She had nowhere to go! The maniac continued in his demented march toward her, his stinking breath polluting the sky, an ugly and obvious erection pressing at the front of his dingy trousers. Though it had been a while since Carrie had seen a penis, sh
e still remembered what it was.
Against her will, her animal mind thrust her into the recesses of terrible memory: she was back in the car with Blaine. Parked in an empty mall parking lot. There were empty cans of beer on the floor.
“Come on, baby,” Blaine was saying. “Don’t be a bitch.”
Carrie felt sickened. Not so much by the request, but, rather, by how she was being asked. It was as if she wasn’t even a human being. More like an animal.
“Take me home, Blaine,” she said, staring defiantly out the window.
“Look,” Blaine said with sickening sweetness as he unzipped his fly. “If you don’t do it, Lisa will.”
Carrie inhaled sharply. She hated Lisa. Lisa had been brazenly pining after Blaine for months. It was all she could do to keep her hold on her boyfriend with that evil slut always coming around.
“It’s what girlfriends do,” he explained. “You want to be my girlfriend still, don’t you?”
Grudgingly, she’d lowered her head and performed as requested. But she’d never felt worse in her life. The feelings were compounded by the rumors she’d heard in the halls at school, that Blaine had followed through on his threat, even though she’d fulfilled her half of the bargain. The shame and pain ate away at her, but she lacked the power to do anything about it. Blaine simply denied the allegations and left her with no recourse. It was a terrible girlfriend who believed locker room talk at school, he reasoned. And, logically, she couldn’t argue. If she loved him, she had to trust him. And she did. The only problem was she wasn’t sure if he loved her.
The one-sidedness of their relationship and the foul taste in her mouth the recollection conjured up filled her with animal fury. She came back to reality and to the asshole coming to eat her.
Fuck you! she thought and let out a fierce whinny. Lowering her head, she charged the hobo.
Her eyes met his surprised ones as her corkscrew pushed its way through his soft midsection. She didn’t need to turn her head to skewer him; the force was enough to impale the bastard. Using her strong neck, she lifted him up into the air and shook him side to side, relishing in the feel of his blood pouring over her face and and mane. She shook until his screams subsided and his body hung limp. She could hear the sound of footsteps beating out a tattoo in retreat. Blindly, she raced after them.
She came across the first man a quarter mile away. He’d made a valiant effort, but his puny human legs were no match for her four strong ones. She gored him between the shoulder blades, charging forth like a bull attempting to end the life of a cocky matador. When she felt the screw catch on his vertebrae, she quickly bucked her head upwards and, with tremendous force, split the man in half, sending from about the upper-middle portion of his back up into the darkness of the city sky. By the time his head, arms, and shoulders hit the pavement, the lower, larger half of him was spraying blood into the air like one of those fountains where the fish spits water.
Chapter 5
“Look, MaryMae, it don’t matter which way you cut ‘em. If it’s a pile of potatoes on a plate with some eggs, it’s hashed browns.” Lou sat at the bar with a Winston tucked between his lips, the smoke rising up to the brim of his dirty baseball cap. He sucked on it as he waited for the waitress to respond; he loved starting arguments with her because she got so animated when she was arguing. Her cheeks got red, too, which was hot.
MaryMae turned around to face him, brushing some of her red hair back from her face. “Dammit, Lou, I’ve been cooking hash browns for six years, ever since I started workin’ here, and you’re telling me you know more about hash browns than I do?”
Lou’s shoulders rose and fell in a silent chuckle. “Girl, I was eatin’ hashed browns for decades before you was even your daddy’s spermatezoa. And I call these potatoes on my plate hashed browns.”
MaryMae sat the steaming plate down in front of Lou: a pair of scrambled eggs, a couple sausage links, a bowl of grits, and the potato product in question. Lou admired the gold cross hanging from her necklace as she leaned forward. Lou never could figure out whether she was the religious type, or just wanted something shiny to attract attention to her tits. If that was her reasoning, she didn’t need to go to the extra effort: they attracted plenty of attention, from Lou at least.
“Lou, you’re an old fool. There ain’t no such thing as ‘hashed browns,’ not the way you say it. ‘Hash’ is an adjective, not a verb. The food is called hash, you can’t hash something.”
“Yeah, you can. These browns have been hashed! Look at ‘em!”
She shook her head and sighed. “You old coot, you can’t even speak English proper. You don’t even know the name of the shit on your plate.”
“I wouldn’t call it shit, MaryMae,” he said, forking some fried potatoes in his mouth. “I know English well enough to know nothing you make tastes anything like shit.”
MaryMae blushed. She wasn’t used to getting her meals complemented. After all, she just followed the Waffle Hut recipes. It tasted the same damned way it had since 1923 when the first Waffle Hut opened up in Boise. Ever since, the chain of Waffle Huts had expanded, slowly creeping across the Midwest. After a brief period in the fifties when business was bad because of a string of deaths related to undercooked pork, Waffle Hut had been remarkably successful, eventually spreading westward to this small Nevada town.
Lou chewed and swallowed. “Damn, MaryMae, these are some tasty hashed browns. I think you’ve reached a new plateau as a cook.”
MaryMae giggled. “Now I know you’re just tuggin’ my leg.”
Lou stubbed out his cigarette and pulled another out from behind ear. “I wouldn’t dare tug your leg, girl. If I had the chance to touch them legs, there wouldn’t be no tuggin’ involved.”
MaryMae raised an eyebrow in his direction. “How old are you, Lou? You look at least ninety four.”
“I haven’t aged well. I’m actually just forty two.”
“So no wonder you like my food,” MaryMae said. “Your mouth is so full of bullshit you can’t taste it anyway.”
Lou rolled his sleeves up. “That was a good joke you just told, MaryMae. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ve gotta get back home and start plowin’ the field, since I’m a farmer.”
“Alright, Lou,” MaryMae said, trying to sound like she didn’t care one way or another. The truth was, she liked Lou. He was like the grandfather she’d never had, since her own grandfather died tragically when she was very young. So had her other grandfather. They both died tragically, one in a tractor accident, and the other from tripping. He landed on his neck, right on the silverware compartment in the open door of the dishwasher. Broke the dishwasher, too. Both deaths happened when she was very young, and she got worried every time she saw Lou on his tractor out in the fields with a whiskey bottle in his hand.
He said he only liked drinking when he was working, but she knew the truth: he was an alcoholic.
“Ma’am,” he said, the Winston in his mouth flipping like a diving board that someone had just jumped from. He walked out the door, the door shutting behind him. He climbed back onto his tractor and started off down the freeway.
“Lou, you dirty old man,” MaryMae said, cleaning up his dishes and looking down at the napkin where he’d once again scrawled his cell phone number. He’d finally stopped asking her on dates, but that didn’t stop him from his sad attempts at seeing her outside of work. She knew he didn’t think of her as a granddaughter, and this put strain on their relationship.
She carried the dishes into the back of the restaurant and dropped them into the sink. She didn’t know where Pierre, the dishwasher, was, but he certainly wasn’t washing dishes. It smelled like something was being fried, so maybe he was cooking a surprise meal for her. He did that sometimes. There were benefits to being the only single woman within fifty miles, even if the only population in that region came to about 140. That’s still a lot of men to choose from. MaryMae was in no hurry to choose, either. Although her religion kept her from admitting it
even to herself, she was in fact a lesbian.
Walking to the bathroom, she peed. Since she was at work, she washed her hands, then looked in the mirror. She picked her nose quickly, listening for the bell above the door in case anyone came in. She went back out to check on Pierre once she was finished with that.
On the floor by the fryer was Pierre’s charred carcass. It looked as if many bites had been taken from it with big, dull teeth. What the hell had come into Waffle Hut, then cooked and partially eaten Pierre? Everyone in the area liked Pierre and his funny French accent. Why anyone would want to eat him she was unaware.
Meanwhile, hiding in the closet, Carrie looked out. She saw the young waitress, who looked so much like she had when she’d been human. It was ridiculous how much she wanted her old body back now that she’d lost it. Back then, she had been insecure about her looks. How ironic that she’d be trapped in the body of a monstrosity, and suddenly realize how hot she’d been back in her human days.
The waitress began screaming hysterically, then fainted. Carrie used her horn to push the door to the pantry back open, then walked over to the Frenchman. She crouched down and began eating again, her urge to eat the flesh of men who looked somewhat like Blaine still unsatiated, even after eating those homeless men in San Francisco and making her way out to the countryside. If anything, her desire to eat the flesh of men was getting stronger. She didn’t know if this urge would be satiated by anything short of eating Blaine himself.
As the waitress began to wake up, Carrie galloped out of the kitchen and back through the front door, her horn shattering the upper half of the door as she did so.
MaryMae woke up and looked down, seeing that Pierre was now so eaten that he could no longer be recognized. His face was entirely gone, a bare skull smiling at her on the floor beside her. His legs and feet still had their flesh on them, but the cruel devourer left nothing else. Other than bones, that is.
Double Feature Page 7