Supper: The Horror Short Story You've Been Craving (2 page)

A foot did not release the same bouquet as a hand, but what
were they to do? Their guests would arrive any minute. He tapped the foot on
the counter to knock most of the dirt and straw off of it, and then dropped it
into the deep pot.

He turned back around to find his brother still giggling.
“Hand…”

“Did you put the live one back in the smokehouse?”

“Sure enough,” Ruf said but you could tell he still wanted
to giggle.

“The
live
one?” Cliver asked again. You had to stay
on top of Ruf or well, you got a foot instead of a hand.

But his brother nodded again. “Yep. Had to gag her and
everything.”

Well, that did give Cliver some hope that Ruf had gotten it
right. “Okay, then go get Ma cleaned up. We’ve got company coming.”

Ruf clapped his hands and awkwardly skipped off down the
hallway.

Cliver heard footsteps above his head. Bitsy was coming down
from the attic. His sister hurried into the kitchen, wiping her dirty hands on
her skirt.

“They’re nearly here. Dinner ready?”

“Will be,” Cliver answered, looking at her stringy hair and
bony body. If only Ma would let him marry Bitsy. He was getting tired of those
outsiders. With all the crying and hysterics. Then if you paralyzed ’em. they
just lay there. Why couldn’t his mother let him have what she and Pa had?

“And Ruf?” Bitsy asked. “Is he getting Ma?”

Cliver scowled. Who did Bitsy think she was? He’d been doing
this since before she was born. Just because she was the baby of the family and
she and her twin sister got all the looks didn’t mean she was the boss of him.

“Of course,” he snarled, suddenly pining for Bitsy’s twin,
Betsy. Why’d she have to go off and leave anyway? He bet Ma would let him marry
Betsy. Who else was she going to marry? Ruf?

“And he fed the rest of the bodies to the pigs?” his sister
pressed.

“Bitsy!” Cliver exclaimed, although honestly he had
forgotten to ask Ruf that. Still, what nerve did she have?

“You know how special Ma thinks this next one is, right?”
Bitsy asked, her hands on her hips.

Cliver rolled his eyes. Ma had one of her visions. That
finally they would find the missing piece to their family. She predicted a
wedding within the fortnight. Bitsy and Ruf were impressed. Cliver wondered if
it weren’t a bit of another stroke. Why would Ma think they needed another man
around the house?

Stirring the pot, spreading the flavor of the foot into the
stock, Cliver wondered what any man in that car had that he didn’t.

* * *

Leo got out of the car and stretched his legs. The farmhouse
looked like something out of an old, stained Civil War picture. He was sure the
thick. gnarled trees had supported plenty of nooses in their day.

Crinkling his nose, Leo wondered what in the world that
stench was. He could see a thin trail of smoke snaking up into the sky from
behind the house. Behind that it looked like a bunch of pigpens. A dull, rusted
sign announced “Tullock Family Farm: The best- tasting pork in the state.”

Leo doubted that very, very much.

The others got out as well, although Stacey made sure to
walk to the other side of the car, as far away from Tamra as possible. He had
to give the blonde credit, though. God had given that girl some amazing assets,
and he wasn’t just talking about her ta-tas, and Tamra used them to her
greatest advantage. How she could squish those babies together, push them up,
and tilt her head invitingly at the same time was simply amazing.

But then again, how Jonathan wore a pair of chinos was
pretty sublime as well.

The porch door opened, and a mousy little woman came out.
She laid her hand above her eyes, shielding them from the glow of the setting
sun.

“You folks lost?”

Leo grinned. She tried to act like she was surprised that
they were here. Come on. How many other cars came down that godforsaken road?

“No,” Jonathan answered. “Well not originally,” he
corrected.

Dear Lord, could Jonathan get any cuter?

“But now we are out of gas,” Jonathan finished.

“Ya don’t have enough to get back to the main road? There’s
a station just a few miles south.”

Leo glanced over to see Stacey gritting her teeth. The words
“I told you so,” were practically stamped on her forehead. She had been the
sole voice to continue down the highway instead of turning down the narrow
road.

“Nope,” Jonathan said. “We got here on fumes.”

Another figure emerged from the doorway. Barely taller than
the woman, the man seemed hunched over, and his joints were malformed. Dark
eyes peered out of thick, horn-rimmed glasses.

Seriously, all they needed was a banjo playing. Given Leo’s
skin color, and if they found out his sexual preference? Oh boy, this looked to
be a lynching kind of place.

“What have we got here, Bitsy?” the man asked.

Tamra stepped forward. “The sign said ‘gas,’ but I don’t see
any gas.”

The man looked down on Tamra from the porch, squinting as if
trying to see if a lost chick, out of gas, was really being that rude to the
people who might be able to help them.

“We’ve told ’em a thousand times to take the sign down,” the
man replied.  “But you know the government.”

Um, Leo was pretty sure these people didn’t have much
contact with the “government.” If they paid taxes, Leo was Liberace’s son.
Although, Leo did have to admit, they both looked fabulous in sequins.

Tamra stomped her little foot. “So what are we supposed to
do?”

“Well,” The man looked at the setting sun, then to Bitsy,
and then back to Tamra “You’ll never make the main road before nightfall. You
might as well come on in for supper.”

Jonathan glanced around the yard with the half dozen cars up
on blocks. “That is so generous and all, but you guys don’t have any gas lying
around? We’ll pay you whatever you want for a few gallons.”

Bitsy shrugged. “Look at ’em. Pa’s been saying he’ll fix
them up for years. The only good truck is with him.”

“He took some hogs up to the market and won’t be back until
the morning,” the man added.

Tamra grinned a pretty wicked grin. “I say we send Stacey to
hike out and get the gas.”

“What?” Stacey stammered. “Why me?”

“I just thought you needed the exercise,” Tamra said,
straight-faced, although Leo thought he caught a little spark in her eye. The
one she always got when she jerked Stacey’s chain.

Stacey shook her head, as if trying to wrap her head around
the blonde’s logic. “You seriously want me to head out onto that road, in the
dark, by myself?”

Tamra shrugged. “Take Leo with you, then.”

“Leo, what?” he said now invested in the conversation.

Yes, that was a
great
idea. Send the virgin brunette
and the black guy out onto a deserted road in the south. Brilliant, Tamra. Just
brilliant.

Bitsy intervened. “There’s all manner of creature running
around after dark. No, you should have some supper then spend the night.”

Right about now, Leo’s aunt Leykisha would be screaming for
him to run. Forget the dark road. Forget the creatures. Forget manners. Just
run. And his nine-times-a-week at-the-gym conditioned legs wanted to, but Leo
did not want to give those two on the porch the satisfaction.

Besides, how bad could dinner be?

* * *

Stacey hesitated at the threshold. Leo held the door open
for her. Jonathan had, of course, already disappeared into the house with
Tamra. The inside was cloaked in cobwebs. People
did
live here, right?

She glanced back down the long road as the sun set, casting
fingerlike shadows. There was no going back in that direction. Stacey looked
up. Leo gave her a reassuring smile, although the edges of his lips seemed to
quiver a bit.

Having to endure another meal with Tamra would do that to
you.

“Don’t let the flies in, girl!” the man said, hobbling over.

He reached a hand out to hurry her along, but Stacey
awkwardly leaned to the side to avoid his touch. Who knew where those hands had
been? The man guided them through a living room where all the furniture had
dusty cloths draped over it. And the wallpaper? Though it was stained and
shabby, Stacey thought she could make out the faintest pattern of an old
English garden.

Um, that was about the exact opposite of this dingy, sad
farmhouse. Newspapers, yellowed with age, sat stacked up against the fireplace
and even inside of it. Again, they
lived
here, right?

“Don’t get many
outsiders
in these parts,” he
explained as he nodded toward the furniture… and not much cause to use the good
furniture. Not with Ma…”

The man didn’t finish his sentence. Instead, he gulped and
gimped his way into the kitchen. Stacey almost felt sorry for him.
Almost
.

By the time they got into the kitchen, Jonathan and Tamra
were already seated, right next to one another, probably playing footsy under
the table. Great. She had to admit though that dinner, sorry,
supper,
did smell delicious. It was like the whole room was infused with its aroma.
Sometimes down-home cooking was the best.

Unlike the living room, which felt stagnant and burdened
with years of disuse, this kitchen seemed well traveled. And the kitchen table?
It was set as if royalty were dining. Bitsy scurried about the room, getting
extra place settings, aligning them perfectly on the bright, flowery place
mats.

“Cliver, get some extra chairs from the porch,” Bitsy
instructed the man. “Ruf is bringing Ma.”

He nodded awkwardly, like he was trying to almost bow or
something.
Weirdo
.

Quickly, though, as Stacey and Leo sat down opposite their
friends, Cliver came back into the kitchen with a chair in each hand. He placed
them next to the chair at the head of the table.

But wait. That would make a total of ten chairs. But even
with the absent Ruf and Ma, that left two chairs unaccounted for. Who were the
other two people?

Tamra’s asinine giggling brought Stacey’s gaze back to the
table. Already, wilted greens, buns, and fried okra were set on the table. A
large bowl sat ready for what Stacey could only assume was going to be soup.
Her stomach rumbled. How long ago had she eaten the pepperoni stick? Three
hundred miles ago? Well before they turned down that long-abandoned road—that
was for sure.

Jonathan and Tamra had their heads bent together sharing
some completely titillating secret. Make that heavy on the “tit” part, as Tamra
pushed them together so that they formed a shelf practically under Jonathan’s
nose. How very convenient. He didn’t even have to bend over to stare at them.

“Ruf!” Cliver called down the hallway. “Supper is on, and we
don’t want our guests waiting on you!”

He turned back to the group, readjusting his horn-rimmed
glasses and smiling apologetically.

“I’m comin’!” a loud voice announced from out of view.

Then the house groaned under a footfall. Then another. With
one hand, Stacey grabbed the edge of the table. With the other, she felt for
the purse she had set down at her feet. Finding it, she brought the handbag
onto her lap. She liked the weight of the pepper spray inside of it. Because
right now it sounded like an elephant was coming down that hallway.

And if it turned out that they had to knock out a
wildebeest, she wanted to be prepared. But what lurched around the corner was
no wild animal. It was
way
freakier than that. A Clydesdale-version of a
man, she could only assume it was the aforementioned, “Ruf,” lumbered into the
room carrying what must have been a five- hundred-pound woman. If her girth
wasn’t exaggerated enough, she was dressed in a white and yellow polka-dotted
muumuu.

That couldn’t be a real person, could it?

Everyone at the table sat shocked as Ruf haltingly, one
booming step at a time, crossed the room, and then set his mother down on a
chair. The wood complained so loudly that Stacey feared that the legs would
smash beneath the woman. Bitsy clearly held the same fears.

“Cliver! The chairs!”

The man rushed over and lifted several rolls of fat from
Ma’s right side and put a chair under them, and then repeated the process on
the other side.

Oh, my God.
Stacey thought. Those chairs weren’t for
two extra people, but for two extra sides of Ma.

Then Ruf leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

There was something so incredibly sweet about the gesture,
juxtapositioned against the absurdity of the scene, that made Stacey feel
vaguely guilty about judging the poor woman and her family.

Clearly, Ma was ill. Her left eyelid drooped nearly down to
the corner of her nose and that side of her mouth sagged and pooled with thick
saliva.

Stroke
. Stacey had seen it in her grandfather. At
least Bitsy, Cliver, and Ruf were taking care of their invalid mother. Hell,
her parents had put Grandpa Ralph into a home faster than you could say
“additional care needed.”

Maybe she
had
misjudged this family.

“Ruf, can you get the bowl?” Bitsy asked from the stove.

Once her brother brought over the enormous dish, the woman
began ladling out the soup. Stacey could smell oregano, potatoes, parsley, and
another ingredient she couldn’t identify. Whatever it was, it was
mouthwatering.

Ruf brought the filled bowl over and set it into the center
of the table. As their hosts took their seats, Tamra reached for the ladle, but
Cliver frowned.

“Around these parts we always say grace first.”

Tamra blushed, but Stacey didn’t think it was from
embarrassment. Turning her cheeks red was just one of the many weapons that
Tamra had in her arsenal to disarm men.

“I am so sorry!” she said averting her eyes. “I’m just
starving.”