Troubles and Treats

by Tara Sivec

  I let out four rapid sneezes right in a row and apologize to the ladies, asking them to follow me to another display so I can show them a few things for beginners.

  As I’m holding up a bullet with a cock ring attachment, I feel my eyes start to itch and I’m wondering if I’m suddenly getting allergies or something. The three girls are so embarrassed they are barely even listening to what I’m saying, and I feel like my sex intelligence is wasted on them. I’m holding the bullet and I’m rubbing my eyes furiously now since they won’t stop itching.

  “Oh my God, my eyes are so itchy,” one of the women complain.

  From behind me, I hear hacking coughs and I turn to see what’s going on with Jim and Carter but my eyes are watering so bad I can barely see them.

  Next to me, two of the women start coughing and complaining that their throats itch.

  What the fuck is going on?! Is this the fucking zombie apocalypse? Are we all infected with something that’s going to make us foam at the mouth and eat people’s faces??!

  “Fuck! Did you guys eat bath salts tonight? Did you breathe bath salts on me or something?” I ask the women as I too start coughing and tears run down my cheeks.

  My eyes are starting to burn and itch at the same time, and I feel like I can’t cough hard enough or long enough to stop my throat from itching.

  “Drew!” Jim yells between hacking coughs from the counter.

  I drop the bullet and cock ring on the floor and tell the women not to move which is pointless because two of them are now sitting on the floor clawing at their eyes while the other one is leaning against a display case sneezing over and over.

  I scramble back to the counter as best I can since my eyes are watering so badly that everything is blurry. My coughing gets worse the closer I get to Jim and Carter, and I see they are having the same problems I am. Carter is sitting on the floor behind the counter digging his fists in his eyes while he sneezes and Jim is dry heaving in between coughs.

  “What the fuck is going on?!” Jim yells as I stumble behind the counter and sneeze six times in a row.

  “It’s the fucking zombie virus! Son of a bitch, I told you this day was coming! No one believed me and you all laughed. Well, who the fuck is laughing now?! If I go first, you kill me before I eat ANYONE’S face off, do you hear me?” I scream at Jim.

  A hand clamps around my ankle, and I scream like a girl and jump up onto the counter. I look down and see Carter staring up at me with a scared look on his face.

  “I don’t want to eat people either! Don’t let me eat people! They say it tastes like chicken but I don’t believe them. PEOPLE TASTE LIKE PEOPLE NOT CHICKEN!”

  I nod my head, too busy coughing and wiping the tears out of my eyes to do much else. I glance behind me to check on the three women and see them crawling on all fours to get to the front door.

  “NOOOOOOO! YOU CAN’T LEAVE! THE ZOMBIES!” I scream.

  They can’t go outside. The streets are probably overrun with creepy bloody people chewing on arms and toes.

  The women scream at the top of their lungs and are half crawling, half running as they try to get up off of the floor. They are coughing and crying and screaming and shoving displays and each other out of their way to get to the door. They don’t listen to my shouts of warning at all, and before I know it, they are out the door and lost to the zombies.

  “It’s so sad. They were so pretty. Now we won’t even be able to recognize them the next time we see them,” Jim says sadly as I continue to cough.

  “I need to call Jenny and tell her I love her,” I say between sneezes as I reach for the phone on the counter.

  I dial our home number and she answers on the first ring but she sounds funny.

  “Mmmmmm, mmmmfffuh”

  Oh my god, has she been turned already?!

  “NOOOOO! Jenny! Baby! Did they get to you already? Are you already a zombie? Oh my God!” I scream into the phone.

  “What? Jenny’s a zombie?” Jim asks from behind me before dissolving into another coughing fit. “Shit! I need to call Liz.”

  I hear a cough on the other end of the phone and I know that if Jenny isn’t a zombie yet, she will be soon.

  “Fight the virus, baby, FIGHT IT!” I scream.

  “Drew? What the hell are you talking about? I was taking a nap. What time is it?” she asks.

  “IT’S ZOMBIE TIME! Lock the doors, baby. Don’t let them eat your face!” I tell her.

  “MY FACE IS BURNING!” Carter yells from the floor as he scratches his cheeks.

  “We need an antidote! What the fuck is an antidote for zombies?” I yell to Jim.

  “What the hell does your Aunt Dottie have to do with zombies?” Jenny asks through the phone line. “Did you eat pot cookies again? You know what those do to you.”

  A flash of blue and red lights catches my attention, and I turn around and look out the front window.

  “It’s the cops. They’ve come to save us,” I say.

  “Or they’re really zombie cops and they’ve come to eat our legs,” Jim adds.

  ~

  “Yes, officer. I’ll make sure they are never left unsupervised again,” Liz tells the cop as he gets in his cruiser and then takes off.

  Jim, Carter, and I are all sitting on the curb outside of the store with wet towels pressed to our eyes and bottles of water clutched in our hands.

  Even though we can’t see right now, we can tell that Liz is looking at each one of us like she wants to murder us.

  “What in the fucking hell were you guys thinking?” she asks.

  I can hear her shoes tapping on the concrete right in front of us, and I close my legs to protect my nuts, just in case.

  “You three morons thought you would spray mace in the porn room because it was a closed room. And yet somehow, during the planning of this stellar idea, you failed to remember this little thing called a VENTILATION SYSTEM. And you know, since it’s winter and all, the heat is on, pushing air and MACE from the fucking VENTILATION SYSTEM out into the entire store,” Liz explains angrily.

  I remove the wet towel from my eyes and chance a look at her.

  “Yeah, we didn’t really think that part through,” I admit.

  “Oh gee, you think? Those three women went running down the street screaming about crazy men and flesh eating zombies that had taken over my store. And Jenny called me in a panic, freaking out because someone knocked on her door, and she thought zombies were going to break into the house to eat your kids. She threw a blender, the toaster, and a lamp at the door before I could convince her that it was my mother dropping off a present for Billy,” Liz tells me.

  “Which lamp? It wasn’t my Ohio State one, was it?” I ask in horror.

  “That is so not the fucking point, Drew!”

  I look over at Carter and Jim and realize they are much smarter than I am. They are both sitting with their heads down, not making eye contact.

  “You three are in time-out! No playing together for the rest of the week!” Liz yells before stomping past us and into the store.

  “Yes ma’am,” we all mumble.

  After we hear the door close, we all finally look at each other.

  “Next time we’re allowed to play together, we are so coming up with a zombie antidote,” Jim states.

  Chapter 24 – I Love Your Mom’s Clam

  “Tell me again why we’re spending our Friday night with your parents?” Drew asks for the tenth time tonight.

  “I told you, my mom wants to show us some reward she got from a group she’s in.”

  “Reward or Award?” Drew asks.

  “I’m not sure. Whatever the one is where you get a trophy or something.”

  I don’t know why Drew is making a fuss about going to dinner at my parents’ house. They love him. I think maybe more than they do me.

  “My mom said she was making something you mentioned liking a while ago. I tried to get her to tell me what it was, but she said it was a surprise,” I say with a shr
ug.

  I can practically see Drew’s eyes light up with happiness. My mom is a very good cook. If you ask Drew what three things he would want with him if he was stranded on a desert island, he’d say the July 1990 issue of Playboy, me, and my mom’s homemade chicken pot pie. He’s been grumpy ever since he was grounded from hanging out with the boys. Hopefully this dinner will put him in a good mood.

  When we pull into my parents' driveway, Drew is out of the car and running through their front door before I’m even unbuckled. No matter what kind of a mood he’s in, there’s no way his stomach can deny him my mom’s cooking.

  I get the kids out of the car and make my way into the house. Of course, as soon as I enter I see my parents pawning all over Drew, hugging him and squeezing his cheeks and asking him a million questions, like they haven’t just seen him a week ago.

  “Oooooooh, give me that grandson of mine!” my mother squeals, running over to take Billy out of my arms. She presses kisses all over his cheeks while I bend down to help Veronica out of her coat.

  “Give Gammy a kiss,” my mom says, bending down to Veronica’s level.

  “You’re a stinkin’ dumb stupid head,” Veronica tells her.

  “Awww, isn’t she sweet? I could just eat her up!” my mom says with a smile, standing back up and shifting Billy to her other arm.

  My mom has a hard time understanding Veronica when she talks. She had thought it was rude to ask Veronica to repeat something or tell her she didn’t understand her, so instead she just sort of tunes her out and pretends like she gets what she’s saying. It’s almost like that dog whistle thingy that only dogs can hear. Except, Veronica is the thingy and my mom is the dog. Wait, no. Would the thingy be the dog? Or would my mom be the whistle?

  I've told her she needs to stop doing that. Just last week Veronica had asked her if she could paint on the walls, and Mom just smiled at her and told her she was a good little girl. My parents now have a lovely drawing of a giant pink blob on their living room wall.

  “It smells awesome in here, Ma. What did you make for dinner?” Drew asks as my dad walks up next to him with the business section of the newspaper. A year ago, Drew had watched some stockbroker movie and when my parents stopped over that night, he started quoting the movie randomly throughout the night. My dad now thinks he’s a Wall Street genius and has Drew give him stock tips each week. I still don’t understand why Drew keeps going along with it.

  “Well, remember that conversation we had a few weeks ago and you said something about how a bearded clam was your favorite thing to eat?” my mom asks in answer to Drew’s question about dinner.

  I throw an angry look over at Drew, but he’s too busy snort-laughing with his hands over his face.

  “I tried to use the Ga-Google thingy on the computer to search for: How to make a bearded clam. All that came up were some really disturbing pictures, so I decided to just wing it and make something else. I hope it tastes as good as the bearded clam,” my mom tells him, passing Billy off to my dad as she walks by him to get to the kitchen.

  “Daddy, I wanna eat a beardy clam,” Veronica says.

  “Veronica, don’t say that,” I tell her softly while Drew snorts even louder.

  “I wanna eat a beardy clam, you stinkin’ dumb stupid head!” Veronica shouts.

  “Oh, that’s it! Time out!” I tell her. “Not another word for five minutes.”

  Veronica stomps her feet angrily into the kitchen with my mother, probably hoping for some sympathy when she tells her I’m mean. Unfortunately for Veronica, my mom will probably think she's said, “I’m so clean!”

  “Okay, dinner is served!” my mom yells from the dining room.

  My dad turns to head that way, and I whisper angrily at Drew while we follow. “Seriously, Drew? You told my mom you liked to eat bearded clam?”

  Drew giggles and covers it up with a cough.

  “I assumed she knew what that was and we’d get a good laugh about it. How was I supposed to know she’d go on Google looking for a recipe?” he whispers back. “Oh Jesus, your mom would have been sitting at her computer in her housecoat and slippers with curlers in her hair looking at pictures of furry pussies! This day is full of win!”

  I smack him in the arm as we walk into the dining room and take our seats.

  As soon as we’re seated, my mom takes the cover off of the pan in the middle of the table.

  “Drew, I hope stuffed clams are as good as bearded clams!” she says with a smile.

  “That’s going to be tough because Jenny has the most DELICIOUS bearded clam, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed,” Drew says, trying to keep the laugh in with is hand tightly covering his mouth, but it was no use.

  “Jenny, I didn’t know you made a bearded clam before. “Does it have mustard in it?” my mom asks.

  “Only if you’re doing it in the parking lot of a baseball game,” Drew snickers.

  “So, Mom, what’s this award you were telling me about?” I ask, changing the subject as far away from my clam as possible as she goes around the table to serve everyone.

  “Oh! I was voted Most Caring at the KC Club this year!” she says excitedly as she gets back to her seat.

  “Why does Kasey have a club?” Drew asks through a mouthful of food.

  “No, not Kasey, KC Club,” my mom explains.

  “I know. But who is this Kasey chick and why does she have her own club?” Drew questions.

  “KC, for kindness and caring. Get it? KC Club,” my mom tries again.

  “Who decided Kasey was kind and caring? I seriously want to know what the deal is with this bitch. I don’t get it.”

  My mom just continues to try and explain it to him while I help Veronica with her food, trying not to roll my eyes or make them stop.

  “No, no, no. KC. Capital 'K', capital 'C',” my mom says.

  “That’s the dumbest spelling of Kasey I’ve ever heard of,” Drew tells her.

  This just keeps getting worse.

  “Hey, Dad, did you and Mom ever go to marriage counseling?” I blurt out.

  Drew flicks my thigh with his finger and looks at me funny.

  He’s probably not happy I’m bringing this up because he doesn’t want anyone to know about the marriage counselor thing. I don’t know what the big deal is. When we got home and Drew asked if he could hug my vagina, I told him no and he started sobbing. He can’t say marriage counseling didn’t work on him. Look at how he wasn’t afraid to show his emotions? That’s a total breakthrough. I’m just curious to see if my parents ever went through hard times with each other.

  “Nonsense! That crap is for sissies and girly-men. If you can’t fix your own marriage, how the hell can anyone else? What those quacks charge in an hour could feed a small country for year,” he complains.

  “Seriously? A whole country? Like, which one? Texas?” Drew asks in astonishment.

  “Drew, you silly! Texas isn’t a country!” my mom says with a laugh. “It’s a consonant.”

  My dad continues to complain about how young people now-a-days can’t even wipe their own ass without help and how the institution of marriage is going down the shitter. Obviously asking this question hadn't been the best idea.

  “Here’s another question for you. Have you ever fallen asleep during sex?” Drew asks, looking over at me with one eyebrow raised.

  I look away from him because I know exactly why he's asked that question. I’m still living by the fake-it-till you make rule, and I had wanted to try and do something for Drew, so when he got home from work the other night, I asked him if I could give him a hand job. I don’t mean to brag or anything, but I’m kind of awesome at hand jobs. Just the right amount of pressure mixed with the right amount of lotion and he’s done in fifteen point seven seconds. I really hadn't meant to fall asleep in the middle of it the other night, but come on! Drew gets home from work at four in the morning. I've been exhausted. One minute I’m stroking away and Drew is loving it, and the next, he’s shaking me awake,
yelling because in my sleep, my grip tightened on his penis and it was cutting off his circulation.

  “Please don’t ask my parents about sex at the dinner table. I’m trying to eat here!” I whisper to Drew.

  “I’m still trying to get over the fact that my penis put you to sleep!” Drew argues back in a loud whisper.

  Luckily, my dad had got distracted by Billy spitting up in his arms and the question is forgotten. I don’t want to have to hear anything that has the words “my parents” and “sex” in the same sentence, but I kind of wish I would have heard my dad’s answer. I cannot possibly be the only woman who has fallen asleep during a hand job.

  “Ma, what kind of seafood did you stuff this thing with? It’s amazing,” Drew tells her.

  “A little crab and some lobster. I wanted to put salmon in it, but I’m confused by salmon. I mean, what part of the fish is salmon cut from? I asked the guy at the fish market but he didn’t know either. I wonder if salmon is a fancy word for stomach or fin. They should just call it stomach or fin. All these different words for things are weird,” she explains.

  We finish dinner and then move into the living room for coffee.

  My dad puts a blanket down on the floor for Billy and is sitting next to him making funny faces.

  “Gammy, I feel pukey. Your food sucks,” Veronica tells her.

  “That’s nice, dear!” my mom replies as she pats her on the head.

  “Do you really not feel well, sweetie?” I ask as I lift her up onto my lap and feel her forehead.

  “I shoulda never, never ate Gammy’s clam,” Veronica tells me, resting her head on my shoulder.

  “There are so many things wrong with that statement,” Drew whispers.

  We spend a few more minutes chatting with my parents until Veronica starts crying that her tummy hurts. We pack up the kids and head home, but not before Drew tells my dad to buy low, sell high and to watch his bottom line before the market closes or the risk capital will be higher than the profit sharing.

  My dad shakes Drew’s hand and tells him that without him, he and my mom would be broke.