AFTERTASTE

by Scott, Kyle M.

  Or dark as night.

  Dad would never be a broken man, he had too much love for his children to ever allow himself to fall so far, but he was a scarred man; an echo of his former self.

  Many were the nights, she would hear him crying quietly in the supposed sanctity of his own bedroom, once shared with the woman he adored above all else, believing no one could hear him. So many times, she’d wanted to go to him, to comfort him, but Slim knew that the one thing keeping him sane and moving forward was the belief that his kids still needed him; that whatever strength he yet possessed was the glue that kept this fragile ship from breaking apart and sinking to the depths.

  In his mind, it was his place to comfort them, not the other way around.

  Slim knew different, but would never reveal her insight.

  So when he’d stood on the threshold of her bedroom, smiling like a child with pleading eyes and clasping hands, she couldn’t resist.

  He just wanted to spend some time with his kids, and who was she to take that from him?

  Her hatred for fast-food restaurants, and all that these chains stood for, was easily eclipsed by her love for her father. She didn’t have to eat any of the damn stuff, she just had to spend a half an hour there with him, while he ate.

  It seemed so unimportant, but Slim knew the reason behind his desire to spend a short while at Waldo’s.

  The family had always spent one evening a week driving out of town to the burger joint over in Westmont. All four of them.

  Preston, herself, Dad...

  ...and Mom.

  Such a small thing could take on the dimensions of a mountain in the heart of a ruined soul.

  She had quickly pulled on a shawl, and together they had left.

  Preston, of course, had come, too, but now seemed more concerned with finding his girlfriend than hanging with the family.

  She could hardly blame him.

  Well...you’re here, so why not check the place out.

  Slim took a good, long look at her surroundings.

  Waldo’s Burger Emporium was depressingly familiar in its décor and atmosphere. Reds and yellows seemed to be the law in this consumer’s paradise. Each and every table boasted the same sterile design that could be found in a hundred franchises in a thousand towns. Bubble-like tables with soft edges, so the kids you brought along to poison wouldn’t break their bones as they hopped and hollered. Round yellow seats that spun on their axis, custom made for the overweight client who just had to scan the room and acknowledge his or her fellow gluttons. Little brown trays on which the food was sat, each one prepared with a small play-sheet for children, depicting a variety of cute furry animals playing in a vibrant woodland while eating, of course, Waldo’s Kid’s Meals.

  Slim screwed her face up as she took in the image.

  “What you scowling at, young lady?” Dad asked, torn between his bemusement at her cynicism and his desire to dive into his meal.

  “I’m just wondering if these cute little critters should really be nestled in nature’s bosom, eating fast food. It seems a little...factually inconsistent...with what we know about the natural world.”

  “Ah, see that’s where you’re wrong, sugar-cube.” Her dad paused to take a long slurp of his diet-cola through the bright yellow straw that pierced the cup’s plastic top like a flagpole. “You see, the North American woodland critter has a long established penchant for the finer things in life, junk food, MSG, Miller-Lite, Monsanto...”

  “Reality television,” Preston added, still eyeballing the restaurant floor for his peers.

  Dad clapped his hands, “That, too! Methinks you haven’t been watching enough of the discovery channel, young lady. It’s time you boned up, got yourself an education.”

  Slim sighed, amused despite herself. It was nice to see him so light-hearted.

  “I know. I'm a huge disappointment to you.”

  “That's what I've been saying! You gotta invest less time in world events and more time in the stuff that really matters,” he eyed his quarter-pounder. “Like this, right here...nature.”

  Slim knew her old man was kidding. She knew he was proud as punch of her, and her life choices, even if he wasn’t in full agreement with them. He and Mom had raised both herself and her brother to be independent thinkers, able to discern and break down the world around them, and come to their own conclusions about any and all subjects. Mom had been a lot like she was, self-determined and fiercely political, though a lot less - as her father would put it - paranoid.

  He just liked to wind her up, was all.

  And seeing him beaming from across the table with that boyish grin, well, she couldn’t possibly bring herself to get upset, never mind challenge his comments. There was a time for serious discussions on the damage inflicted by corporate entities and their products, and a time for hanging out with your dad, and this was a time for the latter.

  That said, she was getting really hungry looking at that huge burger sat before the old lug..

  Maybe just a cheeseburger...

  No! Fuck that! Not a chance. Stick to your guns.

  It’s not like there’s actually any meat in the damn thing...

  That doesn’t make it any better!

  Slim pulled her eyes from the tower of meat, cheese, lettuce and gherkins, that threatened to topple from its tray and onto her dad’s lap at any moment..

  Where the hell is Meg when I need her?

  Het attention was caught by a young boy laughing to her left, sat at the next table with a woman too old to be his mother. Slim figured the kind looking lady was most likely the spritely young boy’s grandmother. She had that familiar burning love twinkling just behind the eyes that only a grandparent had for their offspring; a wellspring of patience that never ran dry, and one that no parent could ever seem to muster for their own young.

  Torn as she was by her surroundings, Slim took real pleasure in watching the kid open his meal-box, skip right past the boring food within, and grab at the toy housed inside with a gleeful verve.

  It looked like his toy was a little car, probably too small for a kid his age, he looked around two or three years old.

  Careful you don’t swallow that thing, kid. It’ll kill you faster than the garbage your gran just bought you for dinner.

  Maybe...

  Preston’s voice drew Slim back to her own table.

  “Dad, you mind if I skip out? Just gonna make a call. See if I can find she who must be obeyed.”

  Dad grinned, “Ah, young love. Go do what you must, son. Just hurry back. You’re food’ll get cold. Or I’ll eat it. One or the other.”

  Preston laughed, “You’d better not touch it! I'm starved.”

  “I make no promises.”

  “He means it.” Slim jumped in.

  “Be right back, folks.” Preston hopped from his chair and made for the door, drawing his IPhone from his pocket as he did so.

  “The boy likes his privacy,” Dad said, placing his drink on the garish tray.

  “That he does.”

  Without another word, her father lifted his quarter pounder with both hands. Slim marvelled that the damn thing didn’t fall apart like a demolished building. Some sort of sauce oozed from the burger’s side, but it held strong. Her old man opened his mouth wide as he could, and bit down with a satisfied groan.

  “Delicious,” he moaned. “You sure you won’t even have some French-Fries, sweetheart?”

  “No thanks, Dad. You go ahead.”

  His expression became serious, “Sandra, I just want you to know that I’m pretty damn aware how much you hate these places, and I really do appreciate you coming along. We won’t stay long, and I’ll cook you the best damned meal you ever tasted soon as we get home, okay?”

  “It’s fine, pop. I’m glad to be here.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m with you, aren’t I?”

  Slim watched, with her heart breaking, as a single tear trickled from his eye and ran down his cheek. He reache
d over the table and placed his hand on her face, tender and loving, “You look so much like your mom, honey. If she was here, she’d be so...”

  And then something happened.

  The love and warmth behind her father’s eyes submerged; cast out like the sun behind rushing clouds, and in its place...

  What?

  Hunger?

  Drool formed on his lower lip, threatening to overspill as would a child’s. His smile crumbled, replaced by a ravenous grimace.

  He never finished his sentence.

  Instead, all her father’s attention was on his tray.

  On the meat that rested there, like half-chewed road-kill dressed up to look like cuisine.

  Without another word, he clutched the burger in his fists and stuffed its remains in his mouth. Lettuce clung to his cheeks, sauce pebbled his beard, and his moans...

  His moans sounded almost orgasmic.

  Slim’s insides roiled.

  He finished the burger in two more bites, wolfing it down like an animal; his eyes closed in alien rapture.

  Then, opening them, he reached for Preston’s meal.

  “I told him I’d eat it,” he whispered, more to himself than to Slim.

  He tore apart the burger wrapping like a kid dismantling the paper on a Christmas present.

  She turned away, embarrassed and shocked by her dad’s gluttony.

  Her vision fell on the cute young boy, and his kindly grandmother.

  Grandmother didn’t look so kindly anymore.

  Slim gulped as she watched the old woman grab the boy’s cherished toy from his small hands, and pull him forward, her feeble hand clasped behind his neck as she drew him towards her. The boy wasn’t crying, but only because a fear held him in its cold embrace. Slim could see the terror in his eyes, as his gran became something else.

  “You’ll eat your food or I’ll ram this toy car up your asshole, boy,” the old woman hissed.

  Slim was out her seat and ready to confront the old woman in seconds, momentarily forgetting about her father’s behaviour in lieu of this new outrage, when a hand feel on her shoulder.

  She turned, almost lashing out.

  Preston looked pale, sickly. “I have to go, guys. Something’s went down over at Macy’s. I’m really sorry.”

  Torn between the old lady’s vicious betrayal of the child’s love, and her brother’s dire expression, she asked, “Is everything okay?”

  “I-I don’t know. Macy sounded terrible. I gotta go.” He turned to their father, who was chocking down the remains of Preston’s barely touched meal, without a care in the world.

  Slim caught the frown on her brother’s face.

  He’s seeing this, too.

  Something’s very wrong here.

  “Dad?” her brother asked. “Are you okay? Did you hear me? I have to go.”

  Dad muttered around his mouthful of meat and bread, “Then go.”

  Preston turned on his heels and was gone in an instant. Slim watched his back as he jogged for the thick glass doors, and as he made his way outside, she saw a familiar face peering in the windows; his hands clasped up above his eye line so to see into the restaurant with more clarity.

  It was her friend, John.

  She thought of Sam, John’s best friend in all the world, and someone she herself held dear.

  He was hospitalised yesterday evening, after...

  After eating here.

  John looked apprehensive about entering Waldo’s.

  What the hell?

  His eyes met hers, and held them.

  She had been wrong, he wasn’t apprehensive.

  He was petrified.

  With a tip of his head, she realised he was urging her to come out; to talk with him.

  “I have to go, Dad,” Slim said over her shoulder.

  Dad said nothing.

  She made for the door, feeling eyes on her all the way.

  As she passed the neighbouring table, she looked down at the young boy. His tears were drying up already, as he bit into his cheeseburger.

  His grandmother’s face was a picture of maternal pride.

  Feeling discombobulated, Slim pushed open the doors, and headed into the welcoming sun.

  She could have sworn she heard a voice behind her.

  Dad’s voice?

  It was hard to tell over the symphony of talking, laughing and eating.

  It had sounded like Dad, though.

  “Fuck off, then,” it said.

  The tall man sat before the bank of monitors in his cold office, a cup of coffee sat on the desk before him as he scanned the five screens - one on the kitchen, one that panned back and forth across the restaurant’s dining area, one surveying the building’s exterior, taking in the wooden dining tables and the adjacent parking spaces, and one camera, hidden from view behind a rooftop vent, in each of the public urinals.

  His attention drifted from screen to screen, focusing in on the restaurant’s restrooms, as he perused the images before him.

  There had been no further anomalies in the plan that had led to the situation with the Stevens boy, and the urinal displays had since been good for only one thing...studying the fine contours of the young boys and girls who used the facilities.

  He took some pleasure in watching them strain on the porcelain seats, finding fascination in the immediate dispersion of civility as the customers seated themselves, and evacuated their bowels. Many would squint in pleasure as they shat, others spent their entire time in the cubicles with their fingers pushed as far as possible up their noses, hooking out great green globs of snot and smearing them on the white walls only after studying the material on the tips of their fingers.

  Some would even masturbate.

  Usually young men or women - whom he’d previously watched sitting with their dates - no doubt overcome with lust and want. They publicly presented the object of their desire with the best version of themselves possible, but behind closed doors, and inhaling the stink of shit...

  A whole different tale to tell.

  There was something beautiful in the scenes he’d witnessed in there; something perfectly, horribly human about these vile creatures, in the revealing of small glimpses of their depravity.

  Humans were so false; so unable to show their nasty little habits in public, yet so eager to revel in the shit when they were alone.

  The tall man supped from his tepid black coffee as he watched a young woman sniff her fingers after wiping her ass. She was dressed in the finest business suit, no doubt a higher-up in a bank, or a manager in a store. Here, though, with her panties round her ankles and her fingers pressed to her dainty, snub nose, she was no more than an animal.

  A monkey fallen from her tree.

  A refuse bag; stuffed with bones and made of flesh.

  The tall man watched as she stood, pulled up her panties and pulled down her skirt, opened the cubicle door and made for the sink without flushing. Her shit sat there amidst the sodden toilet paper like a chocolate brownie in a wrapper. She washed her hands, fixed her hair, and made for the exit, content that the world would see the businesswoman, the success, the well-mannered lady.

  The tall man mused on small depravities, as he turned his attention back to the screen displaying the restaurant floor.

  All was going as planned, and though he expected a few more hiccups like the Stevens boy had presented, he had high hopes that anyone else to whom the Lyxar didn’t take, would do their dying at home, or at least far from his restaurant.

  By this time tomorrow, it wouldn’t matter.

  The people of Plainfield were all too happy to stuff the infested meat down their throats.

  Nothing, it seemed, could keep these small-town people from their junk food.

  Exactly as he had assumed, had known it would be.

  Of course, there were some who would never set foot in the building, and others who maybe hadn’t found the time to investigate their town’s latest topic of gossip, but those were in the minority.<
br />
  Besides, they would give his customers something juicy to focus on, as the Lyxar took hold.

  He grinned a black grin as he studied the screen. Almost every table was occupied, and every one boasted either a family or a couple. Fast food was clearly not a spectator sport.

  Gluttony truly did love company.

  He leaned closer, till his black eyes reflected the images on the monitor in cruel pupils.

  Without fail, most of the customers were hooked on the meat.

  Vacant stares lingered in a hundred faces, as they mindlessly ploughed more of the ‘food’ down swollen gullets. Conversation had all but stopped at many of the tables, as the taint took hold and all that mattered became obsolete.

  Then he spotted her.

  A girl, vile in her prettiness, with long brown hair, that caught the sunlight through the window as she walked from her table.

  Her eyes were clear.

  Even frightened.

  The tall man looked to her table. The elderly man she had been seated with, her parent, most likely, was already lost to the dark flavours, but the girl...

  She was very aware.

  “And where are you going, my darling?” he whispered as he followed her to the doors and out into the blistering summer sun.

  Sliding his chair to his left, the tall man got up close to the security screen that panned the exterior. It took a moment to spot the girl, but she stood out, dressed as she was in what could be called ‘alternative’ garb. She was standing with a young man, around the same age by the looks of him.

  The tall man had seen the boy with his face pressed to the window minutes ago, and had thought nothing of it, being more concerned at the time with the well-to-do lady shitting in the bathroom.

  Now, as the girl and the boy stood talking, the tall man found himself far more interested.

  He reached forward for the monitor control and pushed forward on the small stick, zooming in on the boy until he could make out the finer details of his features.

  “Well, look what we have here...” he said to the screen, as though the two untainted youths could hear his cold voice through the veil of the visual display.

  It was the boy from yesterday.

  The friend of the unfortunate Sam Stevens.

  He’d made quite a scene the previous night, and here he was again, lurking on the periphery of the restaurant like some bargain-basement detective sniffing for a lead; a junkyard dog sniffing at shit.