Death and Candy

by David Maloney

  It was clear that Marla had lost it.

  We parted ways after that, but something in my head kept nagging at me. What if I really was sick? I went to the doctor the next week just to rule it out. When my blood tests came back I got an urgent call to make another appointment as soon as possible. I found out at that appointment that by all estimations I should’ve been dead three months ago. An MRI revealed that the cancer, a rare and aggressive form, had spread all throughout my body. Within a couple days I could no longer walk and barely sit up. I was done for.

  I gave Marla a call, just to say goodbye. I started to tell her what hospital I was at when she cut me off.

  “I know where you are,” she said. “I can smell you.”

  She was there in five minutes flat. She pulled the privacy curtains around the bed and started to undo my pants. I appreciated her enthusiasm, but I knew there was no way I could muster up the required vigor. But I was wrong, and soon she had gone to work. I fell asleep right after, like I always did. I woke up to the sound of vomiting and flushing, and to my surprise I felt just like I had before I’d gotten sick.

  Marla came out of the bathroom and sat at the foot of my bed, reapplying her lipstick.

  “Most vampires steal life,” she explained. “I steal sickness. But I’ve gotta get rid of the bad parts. That’s where the vomit comes from.”

  “I don’t get it.” I said. “You can only keep me alive by sucking my dick?”

  “What?” she said in surprise. “No, that’s ridiculous. I suck the sickness out with your blood when you’re asleep. I just suck your dick because the smell of death turns me on.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah… ” Marla stared up at the ceiling. “Want a cigarette?”

  “Okay.”

  I’ve been with Marla ever since, and we’ve baffled every doctor we’ve ever come across. She still hasn’t aged a day, and I still have yet to die. I graduated college, we got married and moved to a little apartment next to a hospital, where she visits patients to feed.

  I used to think the best things in life were all four letter words, but ‘Marla’ has five.

  Marla says ‘suck’ has four, though.

  7

  God is a Waitress in Vegas

  I first met God at the end of a string of bad luck in Vegas that left me with just enough money for a cup of coffee and some eggs at a twenty-four hour diner that the locals had nicknamed ‘The Food Poisoning Cafe.’

  It was one of those places where the fluorescent light fixtures are filled with dead bugs and you don’t order cream with your coffee unless you want cottage cheese. It was four in the morning and even the drunks had gone home, leaving just me and God alone in the empty diner.

  God was the epitome of a Vegas waitress, a woman who had probably been pretty a decade prior, but whose face was now lined by cigarette smoke and years of hard living in the desert sun. The first words she spoke to me were after she’d refilled my coffee for the third time.

  “How’s the coffee?” she asked.

  “It’s good,” I said. “But I wish it were wine.”

  God smiled at me and picked the cup up to examine it. When she set it back down it was full of what looked like red wine.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Try it.”

  I took a sip and my tongue was hit by the familiar taste of fermented grapes.

  “How did you do that?” I asked.

  “It’s easy when you’re God,” she said, sitting down in the chair across from me.

  At this point I probably should have freaked out, but there was something calming about the waitress’s presence that set me at ease.

  “You’re God?” I said. “What are you doing working at a Vegas diner?”

  “I’m a people person, I guess,” she said. “Feels like Vegas is the perfect place to see people at their worst.”

  “Why do you want to see people at their worst?” I asked.

  God conjured a cup of black tea and a couple of sugar cubes of thin air. She stirred the cubes into her drink with my spoon.

  “Flaws are what define humanity,” she said. “Well, that and free will, both of which the angels lack. That’s what makes humans so interesting, and angels so god-damned boring.”

  “If people are so flawed, why did you make us that way?” I asked.

  God stared wistfully down into her tea for a moment before she raised her eyes back up to mine.

  “I didn’t mean to,” she said. “You just sort of turned out that way. Side-effect of too much free will.”

  “Why don’t you fix us?” I asked.

  God shook her head and put on a wry smile as she looked up at the dead bugs in the fluorescent light above the table.

  “I can’t,” she replied. “At least not anymore.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  She took a sip of her tea and then sighed.

  “Do you really want to know?” she asked.

  “At this point I think I have to,” I said.

  “Well,” she began, “the other gods took away my ability to create when they cast me out of Heaven.”

  “Wait a second,” I said. “There are other gods?”

  “Of course,” she said. “They’re the ones that created all the different races of angels.”

  I leaned back in my seat and took a deep breath as I processed what she had just told me.

  “So why did they cast you out?” I asked.

  God took another sip of her tea and wrinkled her lips into a frown.

  “Because I broke the cardinal rule of the gods,” she said. “You never endow a lesser being with free will.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  God finished her tea, and then the cup filled back up. She materialized a few more sugar cubes and stirred them in.

  “Why do you think?” she said. “Just look around you. Look at this place. It’s full of desperation and suffering. It’s full of crushed dreams and hopes for a better future that are never realized. And once people get tired of that, they come to this side of town to drown themselves in a bottle.”

  “That’s a bleak outlook,” I replied.

  “You only say that because you know don’t know what I know,” said God.

  I took a sip of my wine and frowned.

  “Well what is it that you know?” I asked.

  “The forbidden knowledge,” she said. “Trust me, you’re better off in ignorance.”

  “You’re probably right, but tell me anyway.”

  A shadow passed over God’s face, and for the first time I could sense an unease in the diner. She took a deep breath and continued on.

  “I’m not the first god to fail,” she said. “There have been other gods before me—ancient gods with cruel and twisted motivations. They created creatures of nightmare and horror, dark things that exist only to hurt, consume, and kill.”

  I could feel goosebumps prickling up my arms.

  “Where are these creatures now?” I asked.

  “They’re down below,” she said. “Where all the failed gods and their broken creatures are cast away after death—the eternal lake of fire.”

  My heart sank into my stomach.

  “So is that where we all go when we die then?” I asked. “Straight to Hell? There’s no chance for redemption?”

  “No chance for redemption,” said God. “Only more pain than you can possibly imagine.”

  We sat in silence for a while, listening to the sounds of the diner: the steady hum of the fluorescent lights, the slow drip of the coffee machine, and the occasional rush of a car whizzing by on the highway outside.

  “I shouldn’t have sat down across from you,” said God. “But sometimes I get lonely. I’m a people person after all.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I guess if I’m going to Hell it’s better to know.”

  God shook her head.

  “No it’s not,” she said.

  She pushed herself up from her chair and went behind the counter to turn
off the coffee machine.

  “Your meal is on the house,” she said. “Why don’t you take the money down to the casino down the road and put it on twenty-six black. That ought to get you enough money for a proper meal at least.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  I got up to leave, yet when I got to the door I stopped. I took one last look at God, busying herself by cleaning the counter. I thought about saying goodbye, but I didn’t. God’s advice turned out to be right, and I ended my string of bad luck at the casino down the road.

  I never forgot what she told me, and I still wonder what horrors await me when I die. Yet even though I know she was right, that it was better not to know, I cannot help but feel glad that she told me—I’m only human, after all.

  8

  The Door in the Woods

  “What the hell?—”

  “What is it, honey?” I heard my wife call out from behind me.

  “It’s a door.”

  She laughed.

  “Did you break into the mushrooms early? We’re in the middle of the woods, why would there be a—oh, huh.”

  Ellen stopped when she saw it, and we stood shoulder to shoulder looking at it, an old wooden door built into the side of a hill in the middle of nowhere.

  “It really is crazy what you can find out on these expeditions sometimes, huh honey?” she said, smiling. “Should we knock?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’m not really sure I want to meet the kind of person that lives inside a hill in the woods.”

  “Oh come on.” Ellen punched my shoulder. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  Ellen strode up to the door and gave it a polite knock.

  “Hello, I’m looking for a Mister Beard, a Mister Tree Beard?”

  I chuckled and shook my head. Ellen never let me forget the little wonderful things about her that had made me fall in love with her. She turned to me in mock disappointment.

  “I don’t think anybody’s home, honey,” she said.

  “Alright, come on,” I said. “We’ve got enough shrooms for now, let’s find a good place to trip.”

  “Are you kidding? God, I married the most boring man in the universe! We’ve got to go inside!”

  “What if someone lives there?”

  “What if somebody lives in a hill in the woods?” said Ellen. “I think the man who built his house underground in a forest will be understanding if we offer to share some of our weed with him.”

  “You assume that just because he lives in a hill he smokes weed? I don’t know, Ellen, that’s pretty racist.”

  “Racist? Against who?”

  “Tree people, obviously. Who else?”

  Ellen laughed and punched me in the shoulder again. I feigned being hurt, though I loved it when she did that.

  “Alright,” I finally agreed. “After all, if I didn’t completely ignore common sense sometimes, I wouldn’t be married to you in the first place.”

  “You’re really funny,” she shot back. “After I kick you out of the house maybe you can live with Mr. Tree Beard out here in the woods.”

  I chuckled and tried the knob. The door was unlocked. As we pushed it open we were greeted by a damp, mossy smell. The room inside was pitch black, but it seemed to be made entirely of rock, not dirt like I had expected.

  “Hold on a second,” I said, sliding my pack off onto the ground and fumbling around inside for the flashlight.

  I flipped it on and scanned the walls.

  “What the…”

  The walls were all covered in some sort of nonsensical carvings. It reminded me of when we’d studied Egyptian hieroglyphics in school.

  “Whoa,” said Ellen. “What do you think it means?”

  I didn’t answer. I had gotten the sudden feeling that I was being watched. I swung the flashlight to the back wall, only to discover that there wasn’t one. The passage continued downward until the flashlight beam ended on the ceiling about thirty feet away.

  “Ellen, I think we should—”

  “Hold on, what’s that?”

  Ellen pointed to a dark spot on the floor, and I pointed the flashlight down to illuminate it. It was some kind of black liquid.

  “Motor oil?” I joked. But Ellen’s wasn’t joking around. She knelt down to look at the puddle.

  “It’s blood, Danny,” she said. “And look, it’s leading down inside.”

  I tilted the flashlight up. She was right, there was a blood trail leading deeper into the cavern.

  “It’s probably just an animal,” I said. “We should go.” But Ellen was already tying her hair up the way she did at work. She cupped her hands to her mouth.

  “Hello!” she called out. Judging by the call’s echo, the chamber must have been much larger than I had originally thought. “Is anybody down there?”

  Silence. But then, a barely audible call answered.

  …h-help…

  The call sounded like it was coming from deep within the cavern. When I heard it all the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and there was a sinking feeling in my chest. My every instinct screamed at me to turn around and get as far away from this place as I could.

  “Ellen, it could be some sort of trap,” I said. “Let’s call the park rangers and then get the fuck out of here.”

  “Somebody’s hurt down there, Danny,” she said sternly. But then her expression softened a bit. “Sorry, honey, this is what you got yourself into when you decided to marry a nurse.”

  I sighed. I knew there was no stopping Ellen once she had set her mind to do something, but I kept a tight grip on the heavy Mag flashlight as we proceeded down the passageway.

  The blood trail got thinner as we walked deeper into the cavern. Whoever it was must have lost most of their blood in the antechamber.

  But if they were hurt out there, why had they retreated further into the cavern? Why not go outside where they had a chance of being found?

  It didn’t make any sense.

  The air grew hotter and more humid as we went further down the increasingly steep slope, and a pungent smell of mold invaded our nostrils. I coughed as I breathed the horrid air. Where had all this dust come from? As my flashlight beam swept over the stone walls of the cave, I could see that they had been cracked open by tree roots.

  “What the fuck is this place?” I whispered to Ellen.

  “Maybe some sort of makeshift survival bunker?” she guessed. She cupped her hands to her mouth again. “HELLO-O!”

  Her shout echoed down the hallway. “If you can hear us stay calm! We’re going to help you get out to safety!”

  “…h-help….”

  The voice was a little louder this time. We must be getting closer, I thought. But the sense of revulsion I felt on hearing the voice only got worse. Did she not feel it?

  As we went deeper inside we found where the blood trail ended. There was a long smear of it on the ground. It looked like somebody had been dragged across the floor while bleeding heavily. And then it just stopped. Not even a drop after that. The walls of the cavern had now been almost completely overrun by roots, and breathing was getting ever more difficult as the air had grown hotter and more choked with dust.

  “…h…help….”

  The voice was very close now, and I could make it out more clearly. It sounded strange, all breathy and raspy, like a crude imitation of what a person should sound like. The floor had become so steep it was impossible to go any further without risking a fall into God-knows-what.

  “We’ve got to get down to him somehow,” Ellen wheezed. She must have been having even more trouble breathing than I was.

  “I’ve got it,” I said. “You step back.”

  I pulled out the length of rope we’d brought in our emergency gear and tied it to one of the thick roots springing through the walls of the cave. I gave it a few firm tugs to make sure it was secure, before tying the other end around my waist. I’d never wanted to turn around and go home so badly, but I knew there was no way Ellen wo
uld leave without seeing this through. I started the climb down carefully, leaning over and moving the flashlight around to try to see what was going on without slipping and falling. I could see the vague outline of a man in the darkness, and I swung the flashlight beam over him.

  My blood went cold.

  “Ellen… run.”

  “What?”

  “RUN!”

  My breath was knocked out as the rope yanked back against my waist. I hoped it was Ellen pulling, but I knew it wasn’t. She wasn’t that strong. I landed on the ground hard, and the rope continued to pull me backwards.

  “Danny, what the fuck is-”

  “RUN GOD DAMN IT!”

  She started to back away as the roots on the walls began to move, slowly snaking their way towards us. I sawed through the rope with my pocket knife and stumbled forward into a sprint, yanking Ellen along with me. She wouldn’t have hesitated if she’d seen what I had. At the bottom of the cavern a man had been suspended above the ground in a giant web of roots that were writhing and sliding through him. Little bulges were moving slowly up the roots that led away from his collapsed and shriveled body, one root jutting into his throat and twisting around every time he called for help, working his voice box like a puppet.

  We abandoned our flashlight and gear bag in the cave behind us as we sprinted towards the exit in total darkness, hacking and coughing as the moldy, dusty air of the cavern filled our lungs. I could feel myself tripping on roots that had not been there on the way in. I felt a yank on my hand as Ellen fell, and we both tumbled down onto the writhing tentacle-like mass which circled around our limbs and began to drag us backwards. I started hacking desperately at them with my survival knife. The roots recoiled as I struck them, and I managed to free my legs. I pulled at Ellen’s hands, but the roots were stronger than I was.

  “Just leave me!” she shouted at me.

  “Fuck no!” I swung blindly at her legs, and the knife connected with a sick thud. I swung a dozen more times, slashing her legs a few times by mistake before she was loose enough to yank free.

  We kept running towards the door, and I could feel the air getting cooler and fresher, and the floor beginning to level out. We had almost made it. Now I could see the outline of light around the door. We ran full force into it, ricocheting off and bouncing back onto the ground. I scrambled up.