Max Booth III - We Need to Do Something

“Oh my god,” I shriek without opening my mouth, gripping my cell phone so tight I’m afraid it’s going to break. The alert won’t stop blaring. I turn it off and a new one takes its place. “ Why won’t it stop? ” I finally open my mouth and blood pours down my chin like red paint from a tipped-over can.

Dad uncaps his thermos and hovers it under my jaw, letting the blood fill the container. “Just give it a second, would you?” Once it’s full, he pops the lid back on and takes a long, pleasurable gulp through the mouth hole. He smiles and his teeth are red and he’s never looked more content in his life.

Mom snaps her fingers until I look away from his teeth. The blanket’s in the tub now, on top of Bobby, who’s suddenly decided to take a nap. “Where were you? You should have been home by six.”

“Mom, I don’t feel good.”

“Why weren’t you answering my calls?”

“My stomach hurts, Mom. I think… I think something’s wrong.” I clutch my gut and double over, slowly lowering myself to the floor. An intense cramp burns inside me and it hurts to breathe. What is happening to me?

“You need to answer your phone when I call. That’s why we pay for it every month.”

“Mom, I think something’s inside of me.”

“Not good enough.”

“We’re all going to die because of you,” Dad whispers, standing next to the closed bathroom door. His lips are red with my blood.

Mom turns to him. “What?”

“You didn’t know your own daughter was a witch? Some fuckin’ mother you are.”

She looks back down at me. “Is this true, Mel?”

“Mom…” I raise my shirt up so they can see what I’m feeling. Something inside my stomach. Something moving back and forth. A small lump presses against my flesh. “Mom, help, please help.”

“Don’t,” Dad says. “It’s a trap. One of her witch traps. You try to help and she’ll curse you.”

“Something’s wrong! ” I scream, and grab the lump with both hands and squeeze and pull and my flesh begins ripping and blood erupts like a volcano from a fresh hole above my bellybutton and in my hands between my fingers the tongue I hunted and swallowed now writhes and attempts to flee, but I refuse to pardon it. “Where are you going?” I ask it, as blood continues gushing out of my stomach. “Where do you think you’re going? You’re mine. I caught you and now you’re mine.”

The tongue makes a noise like a tea kettle shrieking.

The tongue, I know this tongue like my own. It’s Amy’s tongue. I hunted it down and swallowed it up. She gave it to me and I refused to return it and now it’s mine mine mine. If she really wants it back she’ll have to personally come ask me.

Dad and Mom collapse to the floor and press their faces against my stomach, greedily slurping up the endless blood streaming out of me. They’re so hungry, so thirsty, so desperate. I hold Amy’s tongue above them and squeeze its juices into their hair. “This is my gift to you,” I tell them. “This is my everything.”

Behind us, in the bathtub, Bobby sits up and moans, “I think it’s an EF5. I think it’s an EF5. I think it’s an EF5. I think it’s—”

Somewhere outside, wind howls. Somewhere outside, thunder cracks. Somewhere outside, a tree falls, and it falls and it falls and it falls and it never, ever lands.

My stomach convulses violently as I vomit into the toilet. Behind me Mom holds my hair and rubs my back and promises everything is going to be okay. I swear to god a tongue splashes into the water and swims around like a fish that’s finally returned home. When we flush it, the tongue screams with laughter and escapes the bathroom. Something we’ll never be able to accomplish. Not now. Not ever. Unless the tongue sends help, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

“Drink more water, honey. Please. You need to stay hydrated.”

The three of us lay flat on our backs across the bathroom floor, staring at the ceiling, holding our stomachs. We look like shit. We smell like shit. We feel like shit. We are nothing but shit.

Then Dad says the unthinkable:

“We have to eat him.”

Another long silence passes before Mom responds. “Go back to sleep.”

“Either we eat him or we die.”

“Then we die.”

More nothingness.

Then Dad says, “I think I’m blind.”

“What do you mean?” Mom asks.

“I can’t fucking see anything anymore.”

“What do you see?”

“Nothing. Fucking nothing.”

“Oh.” Mom sighs, half-awake. “It’s probably those alcohol wipes. They can make you go blind if you ingest them.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Would you have cared?”

Dad struggles to sit up. Mom and I remain on our backs. He stands and approaches the tub, unwrapping the top of the blanket and grimacing as the scent intensifies. I start gagging but I’m too weak to do anything about it. He reaches down and feels around the body, although it’s hard to decipher what exactly he’s touching. Then he’s gagging harder than I am and he backs away, hand over his mouth and nose.

Somehow Mom’s already standing. “Leave him alone.”

“It’s our only choice,” Dad says, eyes watery, voice cracking.

“Like hell it is.”

“We have to.”

He approaches the sink and touches the various items scattered along the sink counter, but it’s obvious he can’t see anything, not really. “Goddammit, where is it?”

“What are you doing?” Mom asks.

“We need something… something to cut open the flesh. The razor. What did you do with it?”

“Don’t you fucking touch him.”

Dad pauses and side-glances toward her, clearly annoyed. A thin stream of blood leaks out of his left eyeball. “Oh, will you stop acting so hysterical?”

He resumes his search awhile longer while Mom stares at him from across the bathroom, baffled. Finally, he gives up and takes off his shirt, at this point drenched with sweat and various other fluids. He wraps it around his fist and punches the mirror. Glass shatters into the sink basin and along the countertop. He cautiously feels around the glass, taking his time but also anxious, then wraps the T-shirt around the handle of a particularly long, thick shard.

He turns back toward the tub and Mom attempts to block his path but quickly retreats against the wall the moment he threatens her with his new weapon. Despite being blind, he can still sense her presence. He side-steps into the tub and crouches over the body, gripping the glass shard in one hand, holding it out, unsure how to proceed. He snarls at both of us like a cornered animal.

“If any of you… fucking witches … try to stop me… I won’t… I don’t know… we need to eat. Okay? We need to eat… we need to eat.”

Dad cuts into Bobby’s stomach and starts ripping out unrecognizable organs and eating them raw, taking huge animalistic bites and gagging as he chews. Mom and I remain on the opposite side of the bathroom, witnessing this atrocity and feeling totally helpless. I keep glancing at Bobby’s face waiting for him to react.

But, of course, he doesn’t react.

He can’t.

And for that, I’m grateful.

Half a minute later, Dad’s gagging gets out of control and he leaps out of the tub, landing in the center of the bathroom on all fours and vomits all over the floor. Blood and gore masks his face and finally we see his true form. He tries standing but slips in his own puke. More sickness projectiles out of his mouth as he screams. He gets up again and tackles the door, bounces off, lands in the puke again. Starts acting fully fucking crazy by standing, jumping at the door, falling, and doing it all over again for a long time, all the while spraying blood and vomit from his mouth. After several unsuccessful tackles, he crawls back to the door, pressing his face against the crack.