Beach Blanket Zombie. Mark McLaughlin
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Alone with her cats.
But still... Friends? He hoped at least one of these friends knew something about medicine.
* * * *
Months passed, and Zuzie never mentioned Claude’s condition again. When coworkers asked about him, she just walked away.
Zuzie already had been considered the office eccentric, and that title was shifting into ‘office weirdo’ territory. Even so, when Landford decided to throw a dinner party, he invited her, figuring she simply wouldn’t show up.
On the day of the party, he returned home from work to find his wife Nicole drowning newborn kittens in a bucket of water. This was the third litter in the past two years she had finished off.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he said. “We can just give them away. And besides, did you have to do that today?”
Nicole nodded toward Pickles, their tabby, who was watching from behind a rose bush. “I didn’t want Pickles to get used to them. That would be just too sad, separating a mother from her babies.” She prodded the kittens with a yellow pencil. Then she picked up the shovel by her side and began digging a hole by her favorite lilac bush.
Landford returned to the living room. There the caterer, Mrs. Green, was waiting for him.
“What your wife is doing is just awful.” The plump, iron-haired woman brushed some sugar off of her sleeves. “She’s a very nice lady, but she has some very disturbing ideas about God’s good creatures. Poor blessed angels. I hope their tiny angel souls can forgive her.”
“Nicole never had pets when she was little,” Landford said, hoping a little white lie might smooth things over. “She doesn’t really know much about animals. Not as much as you, Mrs. Green.” That, at least, was probably true: the old woman had a menagerie of stray dogs and cats.
Mrs. Green smiled. “Dinner will be ready by seven. I’ll start setting out the hors d’oeuvres.”
Nicole entered the living room. Landford noticed she had a smear of mud under her right eye, and he wiped it off. Mrs. Green stared at Nicole.
The Hendersons from next door showed up shortly after six, followed by the Finlays and the Dietrichs. Nicole had put on her best green dress and she looked fabulous. Landford wondered for the millionth time how such a beautiful woman had fallen for him. He wasn’t the handsomest guy in the world—he always thought he looked like Winnie the Pooh—but he knew that, unlikely as it seemed, some women actually liked teddy bear guys.
Marla and Peg showed up together. Landford didn’t understand why they hung around together. Their conversation usually ended with Marla shooting down the younger woman’s silly comments.
The guests were a standard middle-class mix, and that was fine with Landford. Middle class was just fine for a teddy bear guy. They had invited ten people: he had complained that might be too many, but Nicole reminded him that Zuzie and Claude would be definite no-shows. Every now and then, one of the guests sat down at their piano and pounded out a snippet of tune—usually Chopsticks.
“So. Is everybody here?” Marla asked Landford.
“Everyone except Zuzie and Claude.”
“Do you think they’ll show up?” Peg said, eyes wide. “God, has anyone seen Claude since the accident?”
“Of course not,” Marla said. “I heard he was mangled. People like that don’t walk around in broad daylight, let alone go to dinner parties. Really, Peg.”
Landford sampled Mrs. Green’s cheese puffs and eggrolls—commonplace but delicious. Good, solid teddy bear food.
At about six-fifty, the doorbell rang. Wine glass in hand, Landford answered the door.
The middle-aged man standing at the threshold was tall, pale and obese, and dressed in a filthy sweat-suit. His feet were bare, and his hands—
Weren’t there.
His arms ended at the elbows. His face was covered with long, deep scars. His thin ginger hair was matted down with grease.
“Oh... Well. Hello, Claude.” Landford didn’t quite know what to say. But at last his sense of responsibility as a host kicked in. “Won’t you come in?”
Claude grunted and shambled through the door, followed by Zuzie. She crept in timidly, staring at the floor.
“He insisted,” she said hoarsely. “I told him to stay home but he insisted.” She shuffled to the couch and plopped down into the cushions.
Claude’s lips curved into a crooked, yellow-toothed smile. “What’s tuh eat?” he said. His voice sounded stupid, Landford thought. Stupid in a mean sort of way—and oddly hollow. Like a cannibal in a cave, grunting for raw guts to gnaw on.
The guests simply stared. Nicole crossed to the liquor cabinet and poured herself a brandy, splashing a good portion of her drink on the counter. Mrs. Green made the sign of the cross repeatedly.
Landford checked his watch—six fifty-five—then cleared his throat. “Dinner was going to be at seven, but I think our new...guests...Zuzie and Claude Bawls, need a moment to...” He looked to Nicole for help, but she was busy refilling her glass. “...to socialize. And to try some of Mrs. Green’s delicious cheese puffs.”
Everyone watched as Claude marched up to the hors d’oeuvres and lowered his face into the nearest plate.
Nicole stumbled to Landford’s side. “We’ve got to call the police,” she hissed.
“Why? Because he’s hogging the cheese puffs?” he whispered.
“Well, do something.”
Landford moved closer to Claude. The fat man was voraciously working puff after puff into his mouth with his tongue.
“We were all really sorry to hear about your accident,” Landford said. “Are you...feeling better...?”
Claude grinned up at him with cheese-smeared lips. “Oh, yeah. I used tuh hurt a lot, but they took care of me. They sure did.”
Zuzie sat up on the couch. “Remember, Claude. Don’t bore the nice people with all the details of your treatment.”
Claude sucked up another cheese puff. “Can I tell them ’bout the House of the Ankh?”
Zuzie looked daggers. “No, you may not.”
“How ’bout the Red Nurse?”
“Again, no.”
Claude cocked his head to one side. “The leeches? The Moon Scarab? The Cat Man? How ’bout—”
“No, no, NO!” Zuzie flew across the room and began stuffing eggrolls into her husband’s mouth. “Just eat, Claude. Please. Just. Eat.”
A movement by the patio doors caught Landford’s eye. Nicole had opened the doors for some night air, and now the cat, Pickles, was creeping into the living room. Her paws were covered with dirt, and in her mouth she carried one of her dead kittens.
Landford hoped no one would see Pickles. He hoped the cat would simply carry its horrible burden to its blanket in the shadows under the piano and go to sleep. But then Peg said—
“Oh my God. That cat just carried in a dead kitten.”
Everyone’s attention turned from Claude to the cat. Pickles carried the kitten to the piano. Instead of curling up in the blanket, Pickles jumped on top of the piano and began to lick the kitten clean.
“Enough!” Mrs. Green screamed. “I can’t stand it! I’ve got to get out of this devil house!” As she ran out the door, she shouted, “I’ll send you my bill, you—you monsters!”
Landford ran to the threshold. “But we hired you for the whole evening! You can’t—”
That was when he heard it.
It