Supper: The Horror Short Story You've Been Craving

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Afterword

Other Works by Carolyn
McCray

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Copyright Information

Table of Contents

Delia tried to move the tip of her finger, but it, too,
refused to budge. The effort it took to simply keep her diaphragm moving up and
down, up and down, required all of her focus.

“I can’t see…” Megan moaned next to her.

Struggling, Delia raised her eyelids, squinting against the
harsh, late-afternoon sun. Once she saw Megan’s leathery skin, stretched gaunt
over her cheekbones, putrefied fat oozing from the cracks, Delia wished she
hadn’t bothered.

“It’s going to be okay,” Delia tried to reassure her friend,
but Megan just sobbed, the tears sliding patches of skin off with them. Nothing
was going to be okay. Ever again.

How had a stupid end-of-summer road trip ended like this?
How could anything ever end like this?

Flies buzzed around them in a swarm, all giddy that they’d
hit the human remains jackpot. One landed on Megan’s cheek, and then crawled up
her face and onto her eyeball. Megan didn’t even blink.

Next to her “sat” Neko. Only with half the tissue gone from
her face and jawbone protruding out, Delia didn’t think Neko really “did” much
of anything anymore. Then, poor Roberto. The flies and maggots had nearly
picked his skeleton clean.

“Yah, yah, yah!” Ruf chanted, clapping his big fat hands
together as he skipped around the adult-sized “playpen.” He leaned over into
the overgrown weeds and picked up a moldy soccer ball and threw it. At over six
feet tall and three hundred pounds, Ruf sent the ball zinging toward them.

Delia tried to duck, but with her paralysis, she couldn’t
even flinch as the ball hit her in the shoulder and then bounced against Neko’s
skull, knocking Neko’s head from her shoulders. The ball and skull rolled
around at Delia’s feet.

“Oopsy!” Ruf giggled as he leaned over the side of the
playpen and grabbed Neko’s skull. “Bad, Neko, bad!”

He tossed the skull in the air, and then kicked it toward
the squat and squalid house. The head tumbled under a truck up on blocks. Even
out of gas, how had she and her friends not taken one look at this place and
not realized that evil lived inside? They should have risked the walk in the
dark down that long, lonely country road.

“Oh, God! oh, God!” Megan cried as she lifted up an arm and
her fingers melted off.

Delia knew that she should be nauseated, but after five days
of this? The torment had blurred into a black hole in her heart. If anything,
Megan and the rest had been lucky to go out to the smoke shed when they did.
Delia had been kept in the house. What Ruf and his sibling had done to her…

She squeezed her eyes shut against the memories. At least
they’d tired of her and put her “out back” to tenderize. Soon, she too would
melt away. It was probably better that way. Her hair already smelled of hickory
chips and piss. After another night in the shack, she wouldn’t be able to smell
anything or feel anything.

Like poor Megan simply dripping away.

Delia heard the porch door slam open. She pushed her
eyeballs over as far as she could, catching only part of the thin, knobby-jointed
brother, Cliver, that stepped out from the house. Her muscles rebelled against
drugs in her system, vainly trying to get her legs moving, to run far, far
away, but the most they could do was tremble.

“Ruf! A car’s comin’! Get yer mess cleaned up!”

As Ruf picked up Neko’s head and casually tossed it into the
playpen, Delia’s mind screamed, “No!” but all that came out was a strand of
spittle.

Stacey sat in the backseat watching Jonathan and Tamra, with
her blonde locks and big boobs, giggle about something that Stacey couldn’t
even hear. Next to her, Leo chuckled as well, sharing in the joke she missed.
This was
not
how this trip was supposed to go.

Fantasies of Jonathan actually giving her a second look were
evaporating like spilt milk on a hot summer day. Couldn’t he see that Tamra was
nothing but vapid? The only reason she came on this trip was to giggle her way
through it.

It was supposed to be Stacey up in that front seat, being
Jonathan’s navigator. They had decided that since, you know, Stacey knew the
difference between north and south on a map, unlike Miss
if-we-are-going-uphill-we-must-be-going-north. Yet somehow, while Stacey helped
pack the trunk, Tamra miraculously was already sitting in the front seat. When
Stacey had protested, Jonathan had patted her shoulder and told her “not to be
like that.”

Not to be like what? Fair?

Frustrated, Stacey crossed her arms, giving Tamra a good
glare while she was at it, even though the blonde would never even glance back
to see it.

“I feel your pain,” Leo said as he patted her knee. His dark
hand stark against her extremely pale leg. The reflection off her pasty-white
legs could be literally used as a first-strike weapon.

Stacey glanced at Tamra’s golden-brown shoulder. Maybe
Stacey should have used a spray-on tan before leaving. But even that would
never have compared to Tamra’s natural glow. Stacey tugged her walking shorts
down to cover her knees. She wasn’t wearing short-shorts like Tamra. Those weren’t
even Daisy Dukes. They were Daisy-I-hope-you-got-a-Brazilian-yesterday-Dukes.

But she couldn’t be angry with Leo. He was as fascinated
with Jonathan as she was. At least she had the fact that Jonathan batted for
her team going for her. Poor Leo could only hope to pine away as Jonathan
bounced from bimbo to bimbo.

Actually, Stacey and Leo might as well be in the same boat.
They both had exactly the same chance of getting laid this weekend. Looking
over at Leo’s rippling muscles, close-cropped hair, and perfect onyx skin,
Stacey sighed. More than likely if Jonathan had to pick, he’d go with Leo.
Hell,
she’d
go with Leo.

Fed up with what was happening
inside
the car,
Stacey’s eyes scanned the trees as they drove by. They weren’t normal trees, or
at least none like she’d seen before. Their branches were gnarled, and they
dripped with moss or algae or fungus, or whatever the hell made the tree look
like it was bleeding. Despite the sweltering heat, Stacey rubbed a hand up and
down her arm, trying to chase away the chill that had descended.

How many eyes were there out in those woods? Ever since
making the stupid left turn, she had felt that someone was watching them.
Tracking them. Like the car was the rabbit and the “watcher” the wolf. But that
was stupid, right?

She had to shake it off. The whole point of this trip was to
explore “strange” places, wasn’t it? That’s what coeds did, right?

Stacey feared that she was wrong in both circumstances.

“Is that a gas station up ahead?” Jonathan asked.

Tamra shook her head, sending a golden cascade into motion,
her hair catching the waning light, nearly blinding the car with its radiance.
Either that, or the sun just hit the hood of the car as they entered a clearing
in the forest.

“No, I think it’s a house,” Tamra answered.

“Well, it had better be something,” Jonathan stated. “We’ve
been on empty for seven miles.”

“But the sign said ‘gas station,’ ” Leo said, leaning
forward between the seats.

He was right. After miles of lonely road, that little sign
had promised gasoline, but after about half an hour of windy road filled with
switchbacks, they had only found this lonesome house.

The car jumped and lurched as they suddenly hit dirt road.
Stacey looked out of the window. The pavement had just stopped. No warning. No
sign.

“Sorry!” Jonathan said as he slowed the car to barely a
crawl.

Still, rocks and sticks popped under the tires. This sedan
was not exactly off-road material. But at this point, after three hours stuck
in the car with Miss Ample Bosom, and Jonathan barely able to keep his eyes on
the road, Stacey was ready to get out and walk the distance to the house.

Anything
had to be better than this.

* * *

Cliver smelled the soup. Somethin’ was missing.

“Ruf!” Cliver bellowed as he stirred the huge pot. They were
gonna have guests. They had to do this right.

He heard the huge lummox of a brother coming up the back
porch steps long before Cliver saw him. The house shook with the pounding of
his feet.

“Ya, Cliver?” Ruf asked puffing from the exertion.

“Did ya put away your toys?” Cliver asked.

Ruf nodded vigorously.

He better have. Ma would have another stroke if Ruf left a
head lying around again.

“Did you bring the meat?”

Ruf again nodded his head up and down like a bobblehead
doll.

“Well?” Cliver asked as he scraped a little burnt material
from the bottle of the pot.

“Well, what?” Ruf asked.

“Do you have it?”

“Oh yeah!” Ruf exclaimed, pulling a partially decomposed
foot from his pocket.

“Damn it, Ruf!” Cliver yelled, clanging the spoon on the
cast iron pot. His brother was a great butcher. He was just not so clear on
what he was supposed to be butchering.  “I
told
you, a hand.” When his
brother’s thick brows pinched together in confusion, Cliver put his own hand
out. “A hand, Ruf. Not a foot!”

Ruf laughed, though, hearty and loud, his fat stomach
quaking in mirth. “Oh, I thought you meant give you a ‘hand,’ like help out
with the soup!” His brother’s eyes teared up as he laughed again. “Want me to
go out and get you one?”

Cliver snatched the foot from Ruf. “No, we don’t have time.
Give it here.”