by Noel Merczel
"That's how God made me!" Byron quipped.
God, this girl was obvious. That's okay, though. She was just what Byron needed. Someone cheap and easy to get his mind off his fucking cheating wife.
The girl's polo shirt, crisp white shorts, and sneakers did lend her a rich sporty look that appealed to Byron; aside from the buck teeth, oozing cleavage, and black roots. Plus, she was wearing a single pearl in each of her milky white earlobes. Probably not real, but a nice touch, nonetheless.
The girl was at least trying to be classy. He gave her an A+ for effort.
Idly, Byron wondered how old she was. He couldn't ask her...she looked young, but old enough...
At least he hoped.
Lucy. Sounded like the name of an old lady. The name didn't suit her. Lucy. I Love Lucy. The contradiction of an old fashioned name on such a sexy young girl was intriguing. Lucy...
Once upon a time, Byron thought the name "Daniella" was interesting...
Not anymore.
"What time do you get off, Lucy?" Byron asked suggestively, leaning on the bar counter. No one else was in the club house It was just the two of them.
Byron felt the urge to scratch that damn mosquito bite, but resisted. He was well aware that scratching himself at this pivotal moment of The Flirt would not come across as being very sexy.
Just then, an older woman entered the clubhouse. She was heavy-set with obviously fake curly blonde hair extensions poking out of her shoulder length stick-straight hair.
The woman had a giant mosquito bite on the side of her nose. Byron thought this was an odd coincidence, but quickly filed the information away as irrelevant.
"As a matter of fact, Mr. Blackwell...right this second!" Lucy exclaimed, walking out from behind the bar.
Well, well, well...Byran thought. The girl has style...
Daniella used to have style. But she seemed to have lost it all. Now all she cared about was writing that dumb book...
"It's all yours, Candice!" Lucy informed the older woman, who just stood there smiling blankly.
"Okay hon!" the woman said, eyeing Byron curiously.
Byron shot the pudgy broad a big grin which caused the woman's sun-worn face to blush a deep crimson. Hell, he probably just made her day!
"Are you ready?" Lucy asked Byron, in a come-and-get-me tone.
"Yes Ma'm!" Byron responded, feeling a flush of sexual attraction like he hadn't felt in ages. "Let's go play some golf!"
Lucy sashayed out of the clubhouse in front of him, her firm young ass wiggling suggestively under her crisp white cotton shorts. Only, Byron wasn't seeing the shorts any more. He was picturing the girl's buttocks stark naked; poised for him to grab them and squeeeeze...
Maybe he could pull those damn shorts down and boink her right on the golf course....
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Daniella was hungry....so hungry....
She saw fresh delicious meat, right in front of her....beckoning ....so tempting...
Nothing else mattered but succulent sweet flesh....she was salivating in anticipation...she could taste it already......
Suddenly, Daniella became aware of an unpleasant metallic taste in her mouth, like blood...
She stopped in her tracks and swallowed.
Yes. It was definitely blood.
What? Was this some kind of dream?
Where was she?
Food. She needed food.
She tried to talk.
"Let's eat food!" she wanted to say.
But it didn't come out that way.
What was going on? She didn't feel like herself.
Where was Brookie?
She tried to find out.
"Brooo....?"
But that didn't come out right, either.
Had she suffered a stroke?
Was that Byron standing there?
No, it wasn't Byron. It was some short bald-headed man.
Did she know him?
He looked vaguely familiar.
Why was he holding a hammer?
Was he a repairman?
Was something wrong with the deck?
Wait a minute. This wasn't her yard...that wasn't her deck or her house...she knew this house, but...
Suddenly, the bald headed man with the hammer was hurtling insults at her.
"Bitch!" he spat. "Fuckin diseased skank!"
Daniella was taken aback. No one had ever called her those words before. Not even back in New Jersey!
Why would someone say that to her?
Who was this jerk?
What the hell was going on?
Did she have a lapse of memory?
Then it started to come back to her....the sickness...the weird hallucinations.....the desire to eat her daughter and her cat.
Daniella gasped at this preposterous memory.
Calling Byron's Mom....walking out the door....that was when her memory stopped cold.
Where was she?
It was night-time and she was standing in someone's backyard.
Daniella looked around. There was a shed and a swing set. This looked like a backyard from the Shady Oaks neighborhood. But whose? Was it Sandy’s backyard? No...
Was she at a party? How did she get here?
The bald guy was standing right in front of her.
Who was he?
He looked so angry and he was wielding that hammer like it was a weapon.
Why had he spoken to her in that way?
Was this guy drunk?
Did she get drunk, and that’s why she couldn’t remember anything?
Getting drunk was not Daniella's style. Not anymore, anyway. Getting drunk was for low-lifes and losers. She knew how to control her drinking.
Besides, she’d been so sick. She would never have accepted a party invitation, and the only person she was friendly enough to socialize with in the neighborhood so far, was Sandy.
Should she yell?
For some reason, she seemed to be having trouble forming coherent words.
Should she run?
Where was her cell phone?
It wasn't in her...wait...where was her purse? She never left the house without her purse!
"Where am I?" she finally asked.
Luckily, the words came out right.
But the bald-headed man with the hammer didn't answer.
It was so late!
Was the rest of her family here, somewhere?
What if they weren’t?
What if she had been kidnapped?
What if this guy was a rapist?
Where was her family?
They would be so worried!
Byron had probably called the police by now. And what about poor Brookie...and who would feed Tippy....and how would she ever finish her children's book....and who would cook dinner and clean out the litter box.....
Did the bald headed guy mean to kill her? And if so...why?
"What time is it?” she asked.
Again, there was no response.
Then she tried again. "Who are you? Are you a contractor? Why are you holding that hammer that way?"
Daniella felt awash in panic.
This was like some kind of nightmare!
Maybe it was a nightmare...
That's when the bald headed guy said, "Damn. Time to go."
He swung away from her and flung open the door of the shed. Then he kicked something out of his way and came out hugging a young girl who had her head down and was whimpering. The girl was wearing a frilly nightie, short shorts, and no shoes.
Was this guy a pedophile and he was afraid Daniella would rat him out?
But what was she doing out here in the first place?
She watched them scurry off as though they were afraid of her.
"Waaaaaa..." Daniella said.
Oh no! The words weren't coming out right again!
"I HEAR HER! SHE'S STILL ALIVE!" Daniella
heard the young girl scream.
"It's okay. She'll be dead soon," the bald guy assured the girl.
"Dead?" Daniella managed to croak.
She probably looked terrible!
Was that why they said that? Did she look that bad?
And if they thought she was sick, why weren't they calling an ambulance?
Where was her purse? She never went anywhere without her purse. Her cellphone...
Something was buzzing in her pocket. Her cellphone!
Daniella took the phone out of her pocket. There were a million calls from Byron....more calls from Byron's Mom.....a call from Sandy.....
Then Daniella saw a snake coming towards her. A glow-in-the-dark snake? Like those glow-in-the-dark lizards they sell at The Rainforest Café... only giant-sized...
Would she ever be able to go to The Rainforest Cafe again?
Only, wait. This wasn't a snake. This was a giant garden hose with a green rubber head like a snake.
Oh no! More hallucinations!
Daniella dropped the cell phone onto the ground.
The snake wrapped its long glowing sinuous body around Daniella's legs. She couldn't move. She struggled to break free. She wanted those people to stop being afraid of her.
She needed their help.
She tried to get their attention.
"HELLLLLL..."
She screamed. But they didn't stop. What a terrible nightmare...needing help and nobody around to give it to you.
She would call 9-1-1.
Yes! That's what she would do.
But as soon as Daniella looked down, the ground beneath her turned into a giant bowl of spaghetti.
The strands of spaghetti wrapped themselves around her ankles in a sinister way.
Who ever thought spaghetti could be so scary? Daniella used to love spaghetti. Or "sgetti" as Brooklyn always called it.
The strands of spaghetti tickled her bare feet and ankles.
Danielle giggled.
But it didn't come out sounding like a giggle. It sounded more like a snarl. A beast, snarling...
Who would feed the cat?
Brookie needs her mommy!
Suddenly the tomato sauce in the spaghetti turned to blood. How did she know? Because it was thicker and darker....with bits of flesh and brain matter mixed in....and a finger tip there, and an eyeball over there...
Daniella felt hungry again. So hungry.
The bloody spaghetti suddenly disappeared, and she saw someone else.
New flesh! She was so hungry. Flesh...sweet.....good...just like the spaghetti, only better...
Daniella started shuffling towards the new delicious sweet meat, all thoughts of her previous life gone.
She shuffled past the discarded hammer, not even seeing it there in the freshly mown lawn.
She needed to take a bite.....just one bite....
CHAPTER TWENTY
Roger was in a state of shock. He tried 9-1-1 again, but the call still didn't go through.
Who ever heard of 9-1-1 not working?
What the hell was the point of an emergency system if it didn't work?
And what the hell happened to his wife?
He needed something to drink. His mouth felt so dry.
He was rushing back to his house. He didn't know what else to do. He would try calling the local police from there.
His wife was attacked! Yea, she'd been acting like a crazy neurotic bitch lately. But that didn't matter. She was still his wife, dammit!
Or at least...she was.
As Roger raced down the dark street, his fevered brain flashed on the mug Mimi gave him for Christmas. The mug bore the words, I'LL ALWAYS LOVE YOU BABY written in big block letters, along with a picture of a dog wearing heart-shaped glasses.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. Then Roger heard what sounded like a rifle a few blocks over. Sounded like a 22...
Jesus Christ! Pandemonium! He felt like he was trapped inside of a horror movie...
Granted, it would make a damn good movie....
God, he was so thirsty....
A word came to Roger, but it seemed way too preposterous a word to even to think..
Okay...the word was "zombie," dammit!
Zombie!
There. He admitted it.
But he didn't believe in that crap. Oh sure, it was great for movies.....or that really popular show, Dead Heads. But this was the real world.
Unless...
Roger flew into his house and did a quick check, just in case anyone had broken in.
Unless this was some band of crazies dressing up as zombies, since zombies were so damn popular lately (just like vampires had been five years ago) and then going out and committing murders.
Anything was possible, and that made a lot more sense than believing this was an honest-to-God zombie outbreak, as in dead people coming back to life; their only purpose being to eat people's brains....
But that didn't explain what happened after his wife had been attacked...
Roger grabbed an Arizona iced tea out of the refrigerator and flopped down on the new chocolate brown sofa he and Mimi had recently purchased...well, really he purchased, since Mimi didn't seem to care which sofa they bought. She was too busy staring at her reflection in a mirror in the store.
He needed a moment to digest what had happened...the horror he had just witnessed...
He flipped open the tab and took a huge swig of the cold sweet liquid.
Ahhh...that was good.....he needed more...more...
Roger closed his eyes, sunk back into the couch, and imagined he was at the beach...his absolute favorite place to be.
He had gone on vacation in Nantucket as a kid, and he could still hear the sound of the surf pounding in his head...the calming sight of the lighthouse at night shining a beacon of warmth for weary sailors to follow...so peaceful...so relaxing...
Oh God he wanted to escape this madness! He just wanted to escape...
Then he opened his eyes and faced, not the blue of the water stretching out endlessly into the horizon, but rather the turkey feather stretched out on the mantle; a trophy from last season's hunt.
And then there was the wedding picture... Mimi's head bowed down as usual, with a forgotten blush of love on her cheeks...
What the hell happened to her?
Okay, so Roger knew he was a hot dude...better than average looking...which meant he could get a hot woman, as his friends would say...a hot woman like...oh, who was hot these days? Jennifer Lawrence...Emma Thompson.
But was it his damn fault he was so damn hot?
And yea...he know that society demanded a lot of women these days, causing a whole crap-load of insecurity in someone like Mimi who didn't measure up to the media's standards of what an attractive woman should look like...
But he didn't care about that shit. He'd had enough of so-called hot women when he was dating. They were all super narcissistic and incredibly materialistic with an attitude that proclaimed, What can you do for me?
Most of them hated the outdoors, preferring the surroundings of Forever 21 with their choke-hold on Roger wielding the credit card.
Like his girlfriend before Mimi. Maryland was her name. Maryland, like the state.
Maryland had everything going for her; long thick dark hair, a cute round angelic face with big velvet brown eyes...and a penchant for public nudity. Sure Maryland liked the outdoors... but only for sexual purposes!
She would go to the park with Roger wearing a super short dress with no panties underneath...then she'd sit on top of a picnic table, sitting in such a way that she would be slightly exposed...but only slightly....just a sliver of space left between her legs that would drive men crazy - men who would try, surreptitiously, to peek up her dress to see what was there...