Everyone Dies in the End #61
Susan
It was beautiful. Eerily so, Susan thought. The places were set at the long table in the dining room, the table that they had passed on their way to their rooms. Candles gleamed, their flames reflecting on the polished plates and silverware. Eight sets. But there were only five of them. Strange stuff, but typical stuff for the little white house that the apocalypse had passed by. Susan could feel things; she had always been able to feel things. Life flowed around her, flowed through her, like a river. She could feel the eddies, the fluctuating temperature, the soft currents on her skin, the roaring rapids, and at some point had found that she could alter those currents, slow the rapids, heal the pain both physical and emotional caused by life’s passage.
And she knew that the flowing in this house was not good. She had lied to the boys in the upstairs hall. She did feel something and it wasn’t the normalcy. She felt pain, but sought to shelter the men from it. They could use a real meal, and a full nights sleep on a real bed. There was nothing to be worried about she told herself. The pain that this house exuded was probably nothing more than the torn heart of this poor mother who had lost her husband to this crazy world’s insatiable appetite for blood.
“What are you thinking about?” Artemis sat directly across from her and was looking pretty darn good. It had been a while since she had seen him washed and freshly shaved, let alone in clean clothes. The mother had brought the cotton shirt and jeans; they had been her husband’s. She said that he would want someone to get use from them.
Next to Arty sat Todd, similarly scrubbed and clothed. He looked drawn, worried, but then he always looked worried. He needed a good night’s rest.
She smiled and shook her head. “Nothing really. Just thinking.”
In addition to the large table, the room included a china cabinet at the kitchen entrance end, and a buffet along the wall across from Susan. Both were made of old, dark wood. Well maintained, the earthy scent of the wood mixing with a hint of lemon furniture polish, the type of furniture passed from generation to generation. Two windows adorned the wall opposite the china cabinet, their curtains drawn against the night. Todd had stacked his shotgun in that corner, and Arty an assault rifle. Susan’s revolver was holstered on her hip. Guns at dinner, guns in bed, guns wherever and whenever. It still felt wrong to Susan, but she had learned that it didn’t feel wrong to everyone else, and if you didn’t bring your guns to dinner, and Mr. Bandit choose that moment to drop in on the pretty white house in Henry, Virginia, you would regret it for the rest of your life. A life that probably wouldn’t last that much longer.
The smell of food drifted in from the kitchen, Susan could hear plates clink and the mother speaking with Akasia. Across from her Arty cocked a querying eyebrow. Susan smiled. “A real, home cooked meal. When was the last time you had one of those?”
He cocked his head to the side. Something that Susan noticed he did whenever he concentrated. A smile broke over his face. “We’ll I can tell when that would have been. No problem.”
“Oh brother,” Todd broke in,” I can’t think of anything that would be less interesting.”
“Cram it,” Arty quipped, not taking his eyes off Susan or dropping the smile.” “It was the last night before I left for summer session,” recounted Artemis, referring to the summer school at University of North Carolina-Charlotte. “It was a big cookout in our back yard. Kind of a big deal, all my friends were their and Mom made…”
He stopped in mid-sentence, and Susan was immediately sorry that she had asked. Arty was from Atlanta Atlanta
“Here we are!” The mother swept into the room, Akasia on her heels, both bearing trays filled with steaming bowls of soup. Whether she didn’t sense Arty’s distress or choose to ignore it Susan didn’t know, but within a minute a large bowl of soup appeared in front of each of them. The aroma enticed her, a blend of spices, and meat. Meat? When was the last time they had had honest to God meat? The type of meat Susan couldn’t place. The chunks drifting in the large white bowls might have been chicken, but then again they might not. She wouldn’t know till she tasted them. The mother sat at the head of the table, and Akasia took a seta beside Susan, across from the boys.
Todd picked up the large silver spoon next to his bowl without a word. “Shall we say grace?” the mother asked? Todd frowned; the mother smiled sweetly, and Todd placed the spoon on the table. Akasia giggled and Susan gave her a wink. Akasia’s mother folded her hands and spoke, her head bowed reverently.
“Thank you Lord for placing this food at out table, and for bringing us these guests. Amen.”
The others droned an “Amen,” and dove in.
It was delicious, perhaps the most delicious soup that she had ever tasted. Then again, as Shakespeare wrote, “Hunger makes the best sauce.”
“How is it?” Akasia’s mom regarded Susan expectantly, her own spoon hovering just before her lips. Susan thought for a moment, and then realized she was having trouble thinking. But that didn’t matter. The soup was delicious, but she needed to answer that mother, the mother with the cleavage, the mother with the hots for Todd. She needed to answer her, didn’t she? The mother was still looking at her wasn’t she? Susan tried to look, but her eyelids were drooping, she couldn’t raise them. She wanted to answer, wanted to talk, she tried to say that the soup was fine, but all that came out was “Fshnn.”
The mother laughed. “That’s the succinycholine talking.” Across the table Artemis collapsed into his soup. The bowl flipped, spilling the contents onto the table.
“Shit,” the mother spat, a word that seemed alien to her demure façade. “I just washed that table cloth.”
“Rnnn,” Todd slurred and slipped sideways to the table, the side of his face coming to rest in the spreading wetness of Arty’s soup, unmoving, but his eyes open, focused, staring at Susan.
Susan didn’t slump, she wasn’t sure why. Her chin fell to her chest and she lacked the strength to lift her head. Hell, she lacked the strength to lift her eyes lids any further than half-mast.
“They call it Sux, for short,” the mother continued. “As in ‘Gee, this sucks, I can’t seem to move a muscle.’” She laughed again, a warm, full, genuine, sick sound, and to her right Susan heard Akasia join in.
The mother’s chair scrapped across the hard wood floor. A couple of seconds later she swam into view, standing between Artemis and Todd. “Small doses, such as the dash I put in you and your friends’ soup, paralyze the victim, but leave them conscious.” She was stroking Todd’s hair, softly, lovingly. “Leaves them fresh.”
“Why?” Susan screamed. At least that was the command she sent her vocal chords, but they weren’t taking orders right now. “Wuhf,” was the sound that her lips made. Inside she felt her muscles relax, like a rubber band loosing tension. No, no! She wouldn’t let herself go. Outside she felt nothing. Her hand rested in the bowl of soup, the spoon loosely clutched, steam from the hot brew condensing on her pale skin. That’s got to hurt. That’s got to burn, she thought, but she felt nothing.
“We love them fresh, I love them fresh.” The mother reached behind her, and when her hand returned, it held a knife, but not any knife. It was a gleaming, 12-inch broad butcher’s knife. The held it up to the light from the chandelier, smiling at the sparkling reflection in the spotless blade. Neither Todd nor Arty moved, but see could see Todd’s flare at the sight of the knife.
The mother at smiled at Susan. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Should I get the others? Momma” Susan heard Akasia’s voice beside her, and her mother’s gaze shifted to her.
“No, honey. Not just yet. Don’t you want the first piece?”
“Yes, yes.” Akasia squealed.
Oh my God! And then Susan knew. Knew why this mother and this child were so healthy, so robust, in the middle the post-apocalyptic paucity of food. And she knew that she had to do something was the only one who could do something.
“Leg or wing, honey?” the mother asked, and both mother and daughter giggled.
She lowered the knife to Todd’s arm. “Don’t anyone move a muscle.” They giggled again.
Susan focused on the knife, but folded her thoughts into herself, focusing on her Yi, her place of peace, her place of strength. I must do something, I’m the only one who can do something. But she was wrong.
The blade bit into Todd’s arm, blood welled around the edge, Todd’s eyes widened, Akasia clapped, and Arty—poor, chubby, geeky, but impossibly brave Arty—moved. Somehow he overcame the Sux enough to move his hand, to grab the mother’s wrist, but there it ended.
“I SAID DON”T MOVE A MUSCLE!” the mother screamed. In one, fluid motion, she grabbed a handful of Arty’s hair, yanked his head back, and ran the blade across his exposed throat.
Comments