C. LaSart: Ad Nauseam: 13 Tales of Extreme Horror

A stained pair of men’s boxers lay crumpled on the ground, next to a pile of intestines. Part of a pale organ, heavily veined in blue, protruded from a hole in the ground that was easily the size of her thigh. Alarmed, but still painfully aroused, and now starting to feel light headed, Charlene inspected the heap of guts, nudging it with her foot, unmindful of the fact that she wore only a pair of flip-flops. Her mouth opened in an ooooh! of surprise.

Charlene’s foot began to tingle.

Dang it!

Susan swatted the back of her neck, responding to the sudden, searing pain. Her hand squashed something crunchy and soft. Sticky guts squirted between her fingers, causing her stomach to lurch. She slowly brought her hand up before her eyes.

Not a spider, anything but a spider, she thought .

She examined the crumpled black body and green gobs of insides stuck to her fingers. It was indeed a spider. Susan shuddered, repeatedly wiping her hand on a cardboard box to remove the mess.

The back of her neck still stinging, Susan slumped onto a nearby box. Tears filled her eyes.

I can’t even clean the basement without drama! she thought. Oh how Bill would chuckle at me if he could see this, crying over a spider bite.

Waves of revulsion and self-pity sent shivers through her body. Bill didn’t understand. He would never get it. He wasn’t a mother.

“It’s a clear cut case of Empty Nest Syndrome.” Bill had asserted in a smug tone that made Susan want to kick him in the shin. He’d been the first to notice the signs of depression as they had taken their toll on Susan, and he was quick to diagnose, as well. “You should find a hobby.”

For over twenty years, Susan had dedicated her life to the raising of their two children. Bill made enough money for her to stay home. Twenty-two years of cooking for, cleaning up after, and doing laundry for those children. Soccer games and dance classes, parent teacher conferences and school performances. She had wiped every nose, every tear, and their little butts when they were babies. Broken bones, first periods, first dates and first broken hearts had all been her domain.

Bill had dealt with none of it.

Their youngest daughter had followed in her sister’s footsteps and left for college a few months ago, leaving Susan with nothing to do and too much time on her hands. The big house and all its silence echoed faintly with memories. Her kids had been her whole life, and now she felt as empty as the house. She had nothing.

No purpose.

It became her mission. What will you do with yourself today, Susan? What is your purpose?

Bill had his purpose in every day life. Oh, sure he did. He had his job to go to five days a week with meetings and phone conversations. He had his football games on the weekends, which he watched while propped in his armchair relaxing after such a hard work week. He had his drinking as well, empty beer bottles and the occasional pint of hard stuff taking up more space in the garbage can lately. Of course, he also had that little slut at the office. The one he had been having an affair with for years.

Susan had known for a while now. The many nights that he worked late, only to come home smelling of perfume. Credit card receipts for mystery gifts that had never shown up under the Christmas tree. She hadn’t considered divorcing him. The embarrassment for both her and the girls would be too much to bear; besides, she was comfortable where she was.

She had everything she could possibly want, except a purpose.

Bill lay snoring next to her when Susan awoke late in the night, her body soaked in sweat and wracked with chills. Her head pounded fiercely and waves of fever washed over her. The muscles spasmed in her neck, clenching into knots, as she scurried to the bathroom. She barely made it in time before heaving her dinner into the toilet, then further suffering an attack of diarrhea like she had never known.

Please let me die, she thought as she sat on the pot with her face in the garbage can, losing fluids from both ends simultaneously.

After several minutes, the vomiting seemed to subside and there was nothing left within her to excrete, so Susan drew a warm bath. Weak and thoroughly spent, she climbed over the edge of the antique, claw-foot tub into the tepid water and settled in slowly. When the back of her neck touched the edge of the tub, she sat back up with a gasp.

Ouch!

Susan fingered the tender lump on her neck. The spider bite had swollen into a large, hard boil, throbbing beneath the skin. Careful not to slip, she got out of the tub and found her makeup mirror. Angling it so she could see her back reflected in the larger one above the sink, she examined the lump. It was an angry red around the edges, with a head of festering puss that looked as though it may burst at any moment, the skin stretched thin like the surface of an overinflated balloon.

Hmmmm, Susan thought. All this from a silly spider bite? I think I’m going to have to get this looked at by a doctor in the morning.

Some time during the early hours of morning, the boil on Susan’s neck burst, leaking foul yellow pus onto the ivory sheets. As the wound oozed, her fever broke and she traded in the fitful slumber of illness for a much more restful sleep.

Susan slept through the rustling of the sheets and the sound of Bill’s electric razor as he started his morning. She even slept through a full hour of her alarm’s blare later, before it finally gave up and shut itself off. It wasn’t until after lunch that Susan awoke, feeling, not groggy, but as refreshed as if she had just returned home from a long trip to the spa.

Her depression seemed to have lifted, as well. With a renewed energy and vitality that she hadn’t felt since her twenties, she got out of bed humming the tune of Whistle While You Work , a song from her daughter’s childhood that she hadn’t thought about in years, as she tucked the sheet corners under the mattress and smoothed the rumples in the blankets on the bed. And best of all, the pain her neck was gone.

Susan attacked the house with manic energy, cleaning and cooking at an almost frenzied pace. She busied herself with chores that she had put off for too long, things that weren’t part of her every week routine such as washing curtains and organizing closets. Then she baked muffins and cookies and breads, enjoying the task more than caring who would eat them. She felt a satisfaction in the work that had been missing for some time.

When Bill returned from work, late that evening, she met him at the door eagerly.

Ha! Work indeed! she thought, as she caught the scent of soap on his skin. She could detect the musk of another woman as well. It was faint, but she could still smell it, and she felt her anger glow hot. She hadn’t cared about the affairs for a long time now, but tonight she wanted to rip his head off.

Bill stopped short when he saw the fury in her eyes. “What’s going on, Hon?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” Susan forced a civil tone and tight smile. “I made your favorite dinner, stroganoff. Hurry, it’s getting cold.”

Dinner was a quiet affair, Bill complimenting Susan on a delicious meal, while she stared back across the table, her look inscrutable. Her appetite was gone. Come to think of it, she hadn’t eaten anything all day. It was of no concern, she wasn’t even hungry. Susan stood to clear the table and load the dishwasher.

“Good Christ Susan! What happened to your neck?” Bill grabbed her shoulder and leaned in for a closer look.