They Eat Read online

  “I’m sorry, ma,” I said into the red kitchen.

  *****

  I stumbled onto the back porch and took the warm, fall air into my lungs. I never thought I’d appreciate the outdoors more than the confines of my ass groove in the couch, but stranger things have happened.

  Right?

  I guess you can agree with me now.

  The red jug of gasoline mom kept by the shed stood out like the blood in the kitchen.

  Hitting my mom over the head with a frying pan was one thing, but I couldn’t bring myself to do the same to my dad.

  I stood in front of our house, the thick smell of gasoline invading my nostrils, and lit a match.

  The flames traveled the unsteady line of gasoline that ran from the back door and out the front.

  “Sorry, Dad,” I said to the heat as I backed away and walked down the block.

  I rounded the corner that lead to the alley, knowing this was the last time I would ever see Crystal Waters Drive again.

  What a way to be kicked out of the nest.

  4 casey

  Every day was a regular day, filled with regular shit.

  Regular boring shit, like my dad’s non-stop rambling about being responsible and finally learning some independence.

  What the hell did he think I was doing when he worked from sun up to sun up again?

  Since my mother died, that’s all he did.

  “Give him some time,” my aunt told me when he left for work right after my mom’s funeral.

  I did.

  But then all of the other people left too; all of the distant cousins that kissed me on the forehead and whispered “everything will be ok”; all of the family friends that told me “she’s in a better place now”. They crawled back into the holes they came out of after my mother’s attorney went over the details of her estate and who inherited what. It was like a magic trick. He told them they weren’t getting anything and POOF they all disappeared.

  My mom was a smart woman. The smartest I ever knew and will know. She left a couple of dollars to my dad (I mean, he was her husband after all), but the rest went to me -- all $40 million!

  And there I was, 15-years-old and rich as fuck.

  Most people said they wished they were me, but of course I thought my life was shit. I was at the height of puberty with my breasts pushing from by rib cage and my butt from my back with no mom to tell me what to do and no dad to tell what not to.

  On the rare occasion when Daddy would consider it important to actually come home from work, he’d hand me money and stumble into his room, the smell of vomit and liquor following him down the hallway.

  I tried to talk to him at first. But I stopped the day I asked him if he missed Mom and he answered me with an open hand to my face.

  I quickly learned how to try to block out all thoughts of my mother. On those rare occasions when the weight of suppressing the memories of her soft-spoken tenderness became too much, I’d speak her name to beckon father’s touch. I just wanted to feel something. And while I could have thought of a million different ways for him to put his hands on his daughter, I settled in on not caring if I was slapped or hugged occasionally.

  As the years passed, the numbness set itself further and further into my skin. By the time I turned 18 and the money my mom left me was released into my account, I exploded into the world, with my middle finger to caution, restraint, and my father, as I ran, smoked, and fucked whatever I wanted.

  “Life is too short,” I’d scream before swallowing a handful of multi-colored pills I didn’t know the name of. I was hell bent on living like I could die any minute.

  *****

  I got accepted into college after high school, but landed on academic probation after the first semester of freshman year.

  I honestly think it was the party I threw in the dorms – complete with stripper poles, midget (ahem, little people) bartenders, and that whore I flew in from Mexico to do “that thing” with “that donkey” in the lobby that sealed the deal and got me kicked out for good.

  My dad had no choice but to pay attention when he saw me crashing and burning … at least that’s how he saw things when he finally emerged from his protective alcoholic cocoon.

  That’s when the “Casey, you really have to get your life together” speeches started. Every time he’d get started on one of those kicks, I’d smile internally at the irony. It was exactly what he should have been telling himself when he decided that trying to drink himself to death was more important than consoling his grieving daughter.

  “Your mother didn’t leave you all that money for you to just waste it away, Casey,” he’d say as he stared at me with the yellowed whites of his eyes trying to fight their way back to white.

  Oh, now you want to talk about mom.

  “Casey, you should really reconsider your choice of hair color,” he’d whisper between puffs of his thousandth cigarette, a habit he picked up from AA.

  Oh, what? Electric blue doesn’t match my brown skin? Up until the donkey show, I hadn’t seen you in so long I thought you forgot what I looked like.

  “You know, Casey, There are other schools you can look into … Maybe one with a nice arts program,” he’d mumble almost incoherently from the kitchen floor on the few days when he relapsed.

  Oh, they do donkey shows too?

  “Casey, are you listening to me?” His deep mocha, leathered skin clinging to the chiseled, but wavering bone structure of his face.

  “Yea, pop. I’m listening.”

  But we both knew the truth.

  So yeah, like I was saying, every day was just a regular day filled with a bunch of boring, regular shit.

  *****

  The sun was setting when my phone rang. I would have never bothered to even roll over, let alone actually accept a call that woke me from my sleep, but it was Becks. And Becks was the closest thing I had to a friend. The fact that I liked to bury my face in her crotch every now and again was irrelevant. She never asked me for anything and that was enough to make her “someone” in my book.

  “Get out the fuckin’ bed, bitch,” she laughed into the phone. “We got a party to go to.”

  She hung up the phone after the last word rolled out of her mouth, both of us knowing she didn’t need to say anything else.

  I walked into my closet and stood there naked as I tried to shake off the left over effects of the party the night before. The last thing I could remember was Becks’ hand on my ass and her tongue in my mouth. The fact that I couldn’t remember much else only confirmed the legendary fun we had.

  That didn’t mean I wasn’t still feeling the giant bubble of alcohol swimming in my stomach or the dull ache of the pills I swallowed.

  But I was in no way, shape, or form a quitter!

  I scanned my closet desperately trying to find a sweatshirt with a hood big enough to hide my eyes, but fitted in the body enough to fall softly over my wide hips and round ass.

  The crazy white news reporter lady was on the TV playing in the background screaming about some nonsense happening downtown. While my male friends found her to be “hot” (whatever the hell that meant since it seemed to change from hour to hour with them), I found her and her sing songy pitch and ridiculously tight clothes desperate and annoying.

  I ran back into my room just to turn the TV off.

  She didn’t come on all of the time – she was usually filling in when one of the other reporters was sick, but even a little bit of her was too much, in my opinion.

  I slipped the crumpled paper out of my sneakers and slipped my feet in, knowing I would only be able to wear them a few more times before the creasing at the toe box made them garbage.

  My reflection in the mirror wasn’t perfect, but it was still better than most, even for a tomboy day. Hell, if I wasn’t me, I would have “done” me. I blew myself a kiss, lips full and shining from my favorite $50 tube of gloss and swung my box braids over my shoulder just as Becks skidded to a stop in from of my house and blew
the horn. The evening sky burned orange, begging, coaxing me out of the house. And I gladly accepted the challenge.

  *****

  We pulled up I front of the large house in the middle of the Hiltonia section of Trenton. It was where the rich and powerful of the once bustling city lived in isolation, but just blocks away from where the poor and helpless lived in desperation. As I looked up at the unnecessarily large house, I tried to put my finger on what was bothering me. It wasn’t that these people had more money than God, because I wasn’t too far from that myself. There was just something off about the night, the air, the darkness.

  I sighed.

  “What’s wrong?” Becks asked sincerely. She’d just cut her long brown hair to her shoulders. A cute bob with fringe bangs that framed the beige skin on her face to perfection. Her smile was wide, genuine as she spoke to me, brushing the tips of her fingers across my hand.

  “Nothing,” I said, stomping my flirtation with depression back into my stomach.

  Becks jumped slightly in the driver’s seat like she’d just gotten the greatest idea known to man and turned to the backseat where she rummaged through her purse. I stared hungrily at the small patch of exposed skin of her thigh as her shirt creeped slowly upward. I was seconds away from touching her, kissing her softly until she exploded, right there in the car parked outside the biggest house on the block when she turned around suddenly.

  “Your choice.”

  The two double stacks of ecstasy sat in her palm, lighting up my life like two tiny beams of sunlight on a cloudy day. I’d have to wait to fall into Becks, but with the added stimulants between the both of us and the requited look in her eyes; it would be worth the wait.

  Pill.

  Water.

  Swallow.

  “Let’s go.”

  We strutted up the driveway hand-in-hand as the music blared, throbbing the expensive windows inside the illuminated house.

  She squeezed my hand tighter when the door opened. I gave her the same smile she’d given me in the car and we walked in.

  There were people everywhere, from the living room to the kitchen. They all bopped to the bass heavy beat as some random rapper cursed and fussed about having too many bitches and too much money. The notion was ridiculous to me. “How could you ever have too much money,” I thought to myself as Becks lead me through the crowd. My high started taking off and the way the sweat squished between our palms, I knew hers was too. It moved slowly through my limbs until I swayed like everyone else. Becks swayed with me.

  I closed my eyes and let “it” take me.

  Oh, if you could see me now, Ma.

  The crowd pushed Becks’ body into mine.

  I welcomed it, pulled it close until our breasts met.

  She throbbed through me in the haze. I ran my fingers up the front of her ribbed tank top, over her small breasts, up to her shoulders, and back down her arm. Her skin felt like melting butter under my warm touch.

  Becks kissed me hard, her full lips pressing into mine with urgency. I almost let her passion overwhelm me, but I caught myself just before falling over the edge. I grabbed her by the back of her neck and pulled her just a breath away from my face, then kissed her back, just as fiercely as she’d done me.

  I felt her hands moving under my hoodie, lifting it up and over my head. My feet stepped in twos; hers followed closely behind. Becks grabbed my ample breasts with both hands and squeezed them until it almost hurt. The muscles in my box tightened.

  I was being taken to climax by her touch when I felt another body pressing into my back.

  It was hard, rough.

  He, whoever he was, reached his long arms around me, grabbed Becks’ ass with both hands and pulled us all together like a drug induced, fuck sandwich.

  Becks buried her face in my cleavage and ground her hips into mine as our strange, new companion pushed his large and hard into my ass.

  We danced and pulsated together while we slid each other’s clothing to the floor. I turned, facing the stranger, Becks on my back, the taste of the salt from his skin on my tongue as the crowd continued to move around us.

  My fingers traveled my own surface as I watched him push the empty beer bottles on the floor and enter Becks.

  “Doesn’t he feel good,” I whispered into her ear.

  I know she would have said yes, but I put my tongue in her mouth.

  She was hot to the touch …

  And so was I.

  He climbed off Becks and his eyes told me it was my turn. I lay on the cold wet floor and even it, in its disgusting stickiness, made me feel whole. I could feel every atom; every molecule of his warm juice splash inside me when he climaxed.

  He fell asleep on top of me as Becks stroked my hair to the beat of the music taking us to pitch black heights.

  *****

  The sun blasted through the open door with an intensity that felt like my retinas were on fire.

  I kicked the man I’d so passionately made love to the night before until the annoying crunching sound he was making stopped.

  “You keep grinding your teeth like that there’s not going to be anything left but nubs,” I said to his limp body as I rolled myself off the ground and began scanning the room, the sights I took in prompting the warmth of my own urine to fall down my leg like a summer storm.

  There were always lifeless bodies around when I woke up after nights of fucking, music, and drugs.

  But that morning, some of these lifeless bodies weren’t lying around anymore. They were up on their feet, sinking their teeth those that were; tearing off hunks of flesh, smacking and slurping like cows in a pasture as the pieces of the living slid down their throats. Their teeth were large and whiter than they should have been considering how many cigarettes I saw smoked. Some of their faces were mangled beyond recognition, not that I would have known what they looked like before. Others were bleeding from what looked like giant bite marks in their arms, faces, and necks. There were a few with stomachs so full of what I could only assume were pieces of others that their guts swelled and sagged.

  “Becks?!”

  I looked down at the floor at Becks was on her knees, hunched over the man we’d given ourselves to, chewing on his dick.

  She took large chunks of his manhood into her mouth and pulled her head back until the skin and muscle snapped from his body, sending specks of blood flying around the room.

  “Becks?”

  She looked through me quickly and went back to her meal. I wanted to grab her and slap the shit out of her in hopes that it would snap her out of whatever high she was riding, but the crowded room started moving toward me, the ones with the biggest dangling stomachs sauntering purposefully in the front.

  I crept backward.

  “Easy, guys.”

  They crept closer.

  I turned to run, but my mind was more ambitious than my body.

  The dead mob flashed their collective set of white teeth and snapped at the air around me. I swung out at the one closest to me: a girl I remembered seeing just before I started rolling. She was short, thin, and blonde, but the huge chunks of missing skin on her face and head told me that she was also very dead. When I last saw her, she had her face planted in some guy’s mouth and her hands, knuckle deep in the ass of another man standing next to her. Her tryst obviously didn’t end as well as mine had.

  My fist connected with one of the bloody craters in her head, but slipped off before it could do any damage.

  The last girl I hit that hard had to beg daddy for a nose job when it was all said and done. This one stumbled back a few paces, regained her footing and kept coming.

  My mind started swimming.

  The ten lost souls salivating over the warmth of my blood turned into twenty in my double vision. Multi-colored spots entered my field of vision as they drew closer. “This is it,” I thought. “This is how I’m going to go out.”

  I fell to my knees and did something I hadn’t done since before my mom died.


  I prayed.

  Dear God: I humbly ask for your forgiveness. You’ve watched over me as I sinned, went against your word while I knew what was your will.

  The girl with the half missing head grabbed my arm.

  She was stronger than I thought she should have been. I let her raise my arm to her mouth, realizing at that moment that I’d wasted my life. I should have been angry, full of regret, but the only way I can describe what I was feeling is to say I was peaceful.

  The sound of her teeth clapping at the air between us should have scared me, but I relaxed in her arms.

  I’m sorry, God. Please give me the peace in death you could not give me in life.

  The first loud bang set off the ringing in my ears.

  My arm went slack and fell to my side.

  The second loud bang brought the rainbow colored flecks to my field of vision.

  The third sent me to the floor and into a fetal position.

  I lost count after that. It was like Independence Day inside the once lavish home. Flashes of light turned the place behind my tightly closed eyes first white, then red before dying out.

  The thick smell of gun powder made its presence known, just as the silence fell on the room.

  The air was tense, but somehow relaxed. One of those feelings you can’t really describe, but know if when you feel it.

  A large hand touched my shoulder as the familiar voice of a man filled the air.

  “Casey? Are you OK?”

  “Daddy?”

  5 tammy collins

  The van sped around the corner in a giant screech of burning rubber.

  “What the fuck was that, Gus?” Tammy stared wide-eyed at the empty road. “Please tell me what the fuck we just saw.”

  Gus gripped the steering wheel at 10 and 2, his knuckles ashen and bulging.

  The fire of Crystal Waters Drive had long ago disappeared from their van’s mirrors, but was permanently burned in their minds.

  “Gus?

  Gus!”

  Tammy cried out to her longtime friend, but his foot pressed down harder on the gas pedal.