Warren Murphy: The Ultimate Death

Milly just got more beautiful with every passing year. She had to be eighteen now, but she looked at least twenty-one. Her hair was light and loose, her face unblemished and alive, her body firm and shapely. Best of all, she was unconcerned with how the others reacted to her. It didn't affect her naturalness in the least. She played and laughed without concern.

She wore cutoff denim shorts, sneakers, and a loose white shirt. Every time she jumped, her upper body moved in a most exciting way. Whenever the volleyball wasn't near him, Ted watched with interest. Then, every time a side lost a point, he'd watch as the players shifted to their new positions and shouted in unison, "Rotate!"

It was what the move was called, and they'd all shouted it whenever they played, from grammar school on. Milly's side lost a point, and they shifted. Ted's side lost a point, and he shifted parallel to her. Milly's side lost another point, then Ted's side again. Ted lost two in a row, pulling him farther and farther away from the object of his attention, but he played extra hard until Milly's side lost two more.

Each side made more points, and then Ted and Milly were facing each other from just the other side of the net. "Hi, Milly," he said.

She looked back, her eyes sparkling. "Hi, Ted." Her voice was husky from effort. He stared at her a second more, and her eyes smoldered before she lowered her head. Then the ball was served from his side of the net.

Everyone tensed as it bounced from hand to fist to hand. Then it came to Milly. She leaped up, her shirt rising to reveal her flat, smooth stomach, and tried to spike the ball straight down over the net. But Ted was up, his arms raised, and he batted the ball just as it came off her hand.

It spun to the side, practically rolling along the top of the net, as their fingers touched. They both felt an electric shock between them, and were distracted from the game.

Ted landed heavily on his feet, his eyes wide and staring into hers as she landed nimbly. The volley ball continued to fly over their heads as they looked deep into each other's eyes. Something had passed between them, something more than static.

She had always known he liked her, and she was attracted to him for reasons she couldn't begin to understand. Maybe it was chemical, or hormonal, but for whatever reason she had been fascinated by him from the moment they had met years ago.

But now she was of legal age. Now, it didn't matter to her if he was married and had kids. Now she could pursue her interest without being defined as "jailbait." And she knew he was interested in her, too. No matter what happened, at least he couldn't be threatened with arrest. Divorce, yes. Arrest, no.

She idly opened her next shirt button, as if it were too hot.

Then, when the volley ball hit the ground, she took advantage of the teams' jostling and banter to lean over, giving Ted a nice view. For his part he seemed mesmerized, his expression one of incredulous disbelief.

"So," she said breathily. "What are you doing after the game?"

It was like a dream come true for Ted Cahill.

He opened his mouth to answer-and threw up on her chest.

And Ted Cahill was only the first.

Little Johnny Cahill disgorged on the kickball, splattering his aunts and uncles as it spun around the pole. Alicia Cahill vomited on her badminton racket. Little Mickey Cahill puked into the Jell-O molds.

And then the Cahill family started dropping.

Doris Cahill's legs slipped out from beneath her and she cracked the back of her head on a freshly painted picnic table, spilling her husband Neil's beer. Neil would have been more upset about the beer than his wife, had he not collapsed a moment before near their Gatorade-filled cooler.

Old Mother Cahill careened face-first into her portable deep-frier, and began to sizzle.

Milly LeClare landed squarely atop Ted Cahill beneath the volleyball net, one breast sliding free of her loose-fitting T-shirt onto Ted's shoulder.

But Ted couldn't enjoy it. Like Milly and the other Cahills, his tongue had sprouted, bloated and white, from his slack mouth, and his vacant eyes stared heavenward.

All around the field the Cahills got sick, en masse. In fact, everyone who had eaten some of Old Mother Cahill's chicken succumbed to a fast, powerful, deadly food poisoning.

The few Cahills left standing sobbed and screamed and pushed at the lifeless corpses of loved ones.

The sour stench of stomach acid wafted up into the crisp spring air.

Then it started to rain.

Bob Harrison had found himself while he was still in high school.

He had been kidded mercilessly by the other kids at Exeter (New Hampshire) High since that first day when he had strapped on the red and white-striped apron and placed the red ball cap with the golden TBC logo on the front on his greasy black hair, and assumed his first and ultimate position in life-that of a counter boy.

The kidding had always come down to one thing.

"Hey, Bob! What's the major's super-secret recipe?"

Back in those days Americans were a lot less health-conscious, and so Major Scandills, founder of TBC, had loaded his famous barbecued chicken with more preservatives than the ancient Egyptians used on their deceased pharaohs.

Times had changed, though. Old Major Scandills passed away. The large company was taken over by eager young executives, who began testing alternatives to the overly spicy super secret recipe. Even the name of the restaurant chain, Tennessee Barbecued Chicken, had been updated and shortened to TBC, as if to avoid the entire cholesterol controversy.

But Bob Harrison still hovered behind the counter. One constant in an ever-changing universe.

Truth was, Bob had neither the intelligence nor the ambition to move any farther up TBC's chain of command. He became a counter boy the day he was hired, and he remained a counter boy to the day he died.

On that latter day, Bob was dragging a soppy rag across the immaculate counter top when he noticed someone grazing in the "all-you-can-eat" salad bar. That was the only way to describe what the woman was doing. She had her face planted firmly in the bucket of croutons, and her hands were hanging limply at her sides. Bob noticed an upended plate of lettuce and carrot shavings dumped near the woman's motionless feet.

That was too much! TBC had rules. The board of health had made them put sneeze-guards around the salad bar area, so they were certain to frown on people actually putting their faces in the food.

Bob was just about to go out on the floor and wield some of his awesome counter-boy authority when he saw another patron out in the restaurant area vomiting on his formica table top. A split-second later, the same customer clutched at his throat and slid to the mock-brick linoleum floor.

This was too much for Bob. They had opened the doors of the Exeter TBC not half an hour before, so the only people working were Bob, the cook, and the manager. He was certain that neither the cook nor the manager would clean up the mess.

Bob was about to go over and complain to the man beneath the table when another patron vomited, then another. These customers, too, dropped to the shiny floor.

A sudden, horrible thought occurred to Bob Harrison: What if there's something wrong with the chicken? But that couldn't be-he had filched a piece from the kitchen not ten minutes before and he was feeling just fine, thank you.

Bob managed only one step further before a lump of bile and stomach acid launched up his esophagus and splattered the photo of Major Scandills, a memorial that hung in perpetuity in the foyer of all TBC restaurants. The Major didn't seem to mind. Nor did Bob Harrison. His white, distended tongue was pressed lifelessly against the red linoleum floor, held down by his inert head.