by Lee Pletzers
I look up an around. Da utility room is only a dozen or so feet away. If I can make it to da microwave...
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Between “Topsy” and Stephen King’s “Survivor Type”, I blithely assumed that nothing more horrific could be written on the subject of eating disorders. Was I ever wrong. When Lee sent me this story from Scott Goriscak (the author of ‘Home Sweet Home’ from the first MASTERS OF HORROR anthology), I wrote back: Oh. My. God.
Fair warning: if you’ve just now finished a decent meal, skip ahead to one of the other stories before reading…
EASY TO DIGEST
By Scott M. Goriscak
Jake wasn’t the best looking guy in school: he was tall, gaunt, and pale but he could always be found in the middle of a crowded room surrounded by the ladies. His popularity could be attributed to the fact his parents traveled often leaving him home alone, which gave him the perfect opportunity to throw all the parties he wanted; and these gatherings were legendary. Everyone in school quickly gravitated to the young man for this very reason. His parties replaced the empty void that used to be—a weekend at home replaced with a place to go and socialize with their classmates. They thought that Jake was great for providing his classmates a haven for them to gather, party, and socialize. He was the perfect host, greeting everyone at the front door of his house armed with cold mugs of beer in his hands, a table brimming with food, and an endless selection of beautiful ladies. This may have seemed like the perfect way to spend the evening but Jake had ulterior motives for hosting these gatherings.
Tonight was no different. The music was loud and the beer was flowing freely. The ladies moved provocatively on the dance floor as the alcohol pickled their inhibitions. Jake roamed the party filling empty glasses and serving food—the perfect host. After he made his rounds Jake would always return to the company of the ladies, sometimes expanding on his duties if one of them needed to have her hair held back as she vomited in the community puke barrel.
The puke barrel was the one rule that guests were required to obey. All party-goers, new or veteran, needed to know what it was, where it was, and why it existed. It was a fifty gallon barrel that resided on the patio. If anyone was going to be sick they were expected to use the barrel and not the bathroom. The bathroom was farther away than the open back door. The party-goers didn’t seem to have an issue with the only rule of the party. They had been to too many parties before where the person attempting make it to the bathroom ended up either christening everything on the way or showered the bathroom in vomit. This rule was a small concession to abide by in exchange for a place to have a good time. It was easy to relate to their host’s concerns since they had either witnessed someone or had been that anxious person at a previous party running across the crowded room in search of the restroom. Some parties when Jake wasn’t hanging with the women he was out back watching over the puke barrel. Most people thought this was his way to make sure that no one dumped the horrible swill across the patio. At one party a few volunteers decided to help clean up after everyone went home and while moving the heavy barrel they accidently spilled it. Jake looked both angry and tearful at the sight of the gelatinous soup splashing across the patio into the grass. Thinking that they were responding properly to their clumsiness they grabbed a garden hose and flooded the surface to wash the remainder of the smelly fluid from settling into the brick and sand. Jake fought to hold back the tears as he watched the fruits of his labors wash away. He was careful to never let that happen again. At the end of each party he refused any and all offers to help clean up, tonight was no different. As he was escorting everyone out the front door he would politely turn down any offer of help until the last person exited and he closed the door behind them. This is the time of the night that Jake looked forward to. He walked outside to the barrel on the patio. There he stood looking down into the half filled barrel of foam, lumps of food and beer. His mouth watered.
He grabbed a half filled mug of beer from the ground abandoned by one of his guests. He turned it over pouring out the remaining beer from it into the grass. He took the mug and submerged it into the barrel of vomit filling it to the top. He raised it to his mouth heartily drinking it till the mug was empty. He refilled his mug and continued to consume the swill until he could feel the nourishing effect fill his belly. When he finished the second mug full of regurgitated slime he went back inside and sat down at the dining room table to feed. He had waited for this all week. He ate until his shirt grew tight around his belly. He leaned back in his chair and in a quiet voice said, “Ah.” He was full and his belly happily accepted his vile sacrificial potion so in return it allowed him to keep the food that followed.
Everyone envied the life Jake appeared to be living, if they only knew the personal hell he was living and what his real motive was for being the life of the party.
Three years earlier, Jake had been a healthy young man. He was active in many school clubs and participated in a sport every season. One day at lunch in the cafeteria Jake’s life changed forever. He had just finished eating his lunch when he felt his stomach rumble. He paid no attention to it until it transformed into painful cramping. The pain developed into a feeling he had never experienced before. He belched loudly and his friends laughed thinking that he was showing off. He doubled over placing his forehead on the table. His friends grew concerned and came in close asking him if he was all right. Jake lifted his head and vomited violently across the table. Unfortunately his projectile vomit drenched his friend that sat directly across from him from head to toe in Jake’s masticated spaghetti and meatballs. Everyone was shocked for the moment, but then broke out in laughter as they saw the kid with puke dripping from his face. The laughter stopped abruptly as Jake passed out and fell backwards off his stool. The next thing Jake remembered was waking up in the hospital, lying in bed wired to beeping monitors and tubes to intravenous bags, surrounded by doctors and his parents. They seemed very concerned with how hard he had hit his head when he had fallen as they pelted him with questions about how he felt. His response was, “hungry.” Relieved smiles came across their faces. Moments later an orderly entered the room carrying a food tray. He placed it on a small rolling table and placed it over Jake’s lap as he adjusted the bed for him to sit upright. Jake was so hungry he could feel the emptiness in his belly from not having retained his lunch and now it being so late in the day. He devoured his meal, ignoring his mother’s plea to slow down. He finished his meal and was beginning to eat the green jello dessert when he suddenly felt the familiar rumbling and cramping growing in his innards. Looking at his painful expression his mother asked him what was wrong. His answer came in the form of a loud violent fountain of vomit. His mother went to the doorway and called out for the doctor to return. The nurses and doctor returned to find Jake bathed in his own vomit. From that lunch forward Jake’s body rejected all forms of solid food.
Over the next week Jake underwent every test imaginable to find an answer to his body’s inability to digest food to no avail. The only option left was to keep Jake on intravenous nourishment, which kept him alive but caused him to shed his athletic body and grow thin.
Weeks passed and Jake was released from the hospital. He was put on a stringent diet of fluids, all given to him through the tube in his arm. He quickly got tired of being at home and returned to school. Not much was different except lunch time. When all his friends went to the cafeteria for lunch he went to the nurse’s office to have his liquid lunch poured through is feeding apparatus. He hated his existence.
It wasn’t until he made his peace with God and accepted the reality that he wasn’t going to live to see his twenty-first birthday that he had an epiphany of his life to come.
He was babysitting his ten month old nephew when he had just finished feeding him his lunch of formula mixed with oatmeal. He burped the baby over his shoulder then went over to the couch with his nephew. Jake lay on his back while he held his nephew above him. The baby squealed out in gleeful
laughter as he looked down on his uncle. Jake began to press the child up and then down to his chest. The more Jake lifted and lowered the baby, the more they both giggled until the child became ill. Jake was mid-laugh when the infant’s projectile vomit rained downward. The mixture of formula and oatmeal flooded his mouth in a way that he had no choice but to swallow the stream of goo, choke, or suffocate. He assumed that he would be choking or gagging the meal that he had just been forced fed.
Jake quickly sat up, still holding the child in his arms and unable to react normally to what had just happened fearing a quick response could injure his nephew accidently. He thought rationally and calmly. He placed the child on the floor and being thoroughly grossed out by what had just happened made a beeline for the bathroom. There he stood over the toilet expecting his body to reject the baby vomit but it didn’t. His body oddly embraced the meal without the expected nausea or cramping. He was puzzled by the warm feeling in his belly that had escaped him for so long. He vaguely remembered this satisfying feeling from when he was able to eat normally.
He felt good, but how? He asked himself.
What was happening?
He collected his nephew and sat him in a high chair at the kitchen table while he searched the cabinets for more of the baby’s food. He pulled the infant oatmeal box from the cupboard, opened the refrigerator, and retrieved a large bottle of formula. He mixed the two together in a bowl. He took a spoonful of the cereal and paused. He waited for the feeling then he took another spoonful in his mouth. He continued eating without any ill effects. He was able to eat the entire bowl without getting sick. He felt reborn after consuming the mushy concoction. He was happy to have eaten but was still hesitant to share with anyone the embarrassing way it came about. Before going home Jake hid a can of formula and a box of the oatmeal his back pack and took it home.
The following morning he sat down at the kitchen table and filled the bowl with the powdered oatmeal and mixed the formula together. He was anxious for his first mouthful. He scooped up a hearty spoonful and placed it in his mouth. He wasn’t excited by the bland flavor of his meal but he enjoyed the feeling of eating again. But the bliss of his meal was short-lived as moments later the familiar pain in his abdomen returned. He tried to ignore it, hoping that it would go away. He felt the spasm just before he heaved all over the table.
His mother responded to the sounds of his retching by rushing into the room. She looked at the splattered remains of his attempt at breakfast. She asked him what he was thinking. Stating that he knew better than to eat solid foods, Jake grew angry, not because of his mother’s comments, but from the disappointment that he had not overcome his affliction as he had thought. The thought that he still couldn’t eat fed his anger and he stormed away from the table to get cleaned up for school.
While walking to school Jake delved into thought about how he had been able to eat the night before and not this morning. Thinking aloud, he asked himself, “What do I have to do to be able to eat a normal meal again? I guess I have to get a baby to throw up in my mouth every time I want to eat?” The bright light bulb in his head lit up brightly with a far-fetched but that sounded oddly also made perfect sense. The only difference between the two scenarios was the vomit factor, but how could he put this hypothesis’s to the test? He had thought about returning to his nephew’s house for another round of feed-the-baby-and-toss-him-into-the-air-until-he-vomits, but he didn’t have the heart to do that to the baby. Then he thought about what would be the simplest way to make someone throw up. He could wait till someone was ill. No that would take too long to wait for a friend to become ill and hover over their toilet waiting to collect what they spewed. He could invite a friend over to eat something that was perhaps spoiled from the refrigerator. No, that didn’t seem reasonable. Then it came to him—alcohol! Alcohol always makes people do stupid things. He could encourage his friends to imbibe beyond their capacity and wait for them to hurl. Perfect.
Jake invited his friend Greg over the next night his parents went away. Jake offered Greg a drink. Greg accepted and was happily surprised when Jake carried a case of beer out of the kitchen. With abandon common to teens, Greg drank can after can of beer, continuing even as his speech slurred. Always the accommodating host, Jake went to get a large soup pot from the kitchen. He instructed Greg that if he was going to be sick that he should use the pot instead of the bathroom. Well, minutes later Greg was violently vomiting into the stainless steel pot. Greg stopped puking when his stomach was empty and the pot was half full. Jake took the pot into the kitchen. Jake returned to a sleeping Greg on the couch. When he was certain that Greg was comatose for the night Jake returned to the kitchen. He stared down into the pot of frothy soup. He peeked out the doorway to see if Greg had moved. He hadn’t. When Jake was satisfied that Greg would not wake up, he returned to the pot to test his theory.
Jake lifted the rim of the pot to his lips and drank. The sour stench was horrid. He continued to drink the warm vile, thick, slimy, syrupy, sour cocktail. He put the pot down expecting his body to revolt against this offering and just as with the baby’s vomit, it didn’t. He went to the pantry and grabbed a package of chocolate cupcakes—something he had craved ever since he became ill. He ate the two in single bites and then waited nervously for his body to reject them. But they didn’t! He went back to the pantry and continued to eat and sample everything that he’d been craving for months.
Then he went back for seconds…
And thirds…
Until he was full. He was full! He couldn’t believe that he was experiencing being satisfied by food again. He was so happy and proud of his solution!
He found his own cure when all those doctors failed him and had predicted a short life attached to an intravenous bag. He cleaned up the pot and the wrappers from his feeding frenzy and settled down in the chair in the living room next to where Greg lay passed out. He thought about what had happened with his nephew and now again tonight. If he were going to survive with his affliction he needed to continue to consume the regurgitation of others. He needed to devise a guise that would allow him to do this, and this is how the parties came to be. He was never going to return to the mercy of just surviving on fluids again. He was going to be damned if he did or dead if he didn’t. He chose the drinking of the vile fluid instead of the slow wasting death of the intravenous bag.
In the months that followed he devised a more pleasant way to make the liquid deposits from his party guests more palatable for consumption. He began to create menus for his guests that would alter their contribution so as to increase their appetites and his cravings. Many nights his friends would arrive to a table full of delectable chocolate treats—chocolate cakes, pies, éclairs, and puddings. In return Jake would reap the benefits of the menu served. After the party he sat down to his feast with a mug full of the frothy chocolaty flavored vomit. He would change the menu every week to satisfy his cravings. One week he only served fruit and enjoyed a fruity “vomit smoothie” with his meal. Other times he went the ethnic route.
Jake was able to continue the pattern for about three months when something in his body changed. Food digestion that would normally require one or two mugs of regurgitation was now taking eight to ten full mugs. He consumed increasing quantities of vomit and less food during a feeding, resulting in taking in fewer usable nutrients as each week passed! Jake continued the daily intravenous sessions but without real food he felt himself withering away. He wasn’t sure how to increase the potency in the stomach acids which he was stealing from the vomit. He continued to throw the weekly parties, only to get less and less satisfaction from his feedings. His illness reached a new high when after the last party his feast he lasted only three mouthfuls before he vomited. Attempting to soothe his stomach he drank another mug full. He consumed nearly twelve helpings of the puke before he rendered himself too full to eat anything else. He went to bed that evening hungry for the first time. He didn’t know what to do. He attended school during the week
hoping in some strange way that his condition might reverse, allowing him to resume the vomit shakes to digest his food. He waited anxiously for the weekend to arrive.
The party-goers came puked and left. Jake was anxious to attempt to eat something. When he thought the house was empty he headed to the patio to feed from the barrel but he was distracted by the sound of snoring. He turned and found Jodi, a girl he knew from science class, asleep on the couch. He liked her and thought she was both funny and attractive. She had told him that her parents were getting a divorce and she was going through a rough time. She had started to attend his parties to drown her sorrows in alcohol. The ache in his belly reminded him that it was time to eat. It also reminded him of his problem of getting less and less satisfaction from the contents of the barrel. He convinced himself that drinking directly from someone without their stomach contents being diluted in the “community” barrel could provide a chance to eat normally again. He went to the basement and gathered rope and duct tape. He gently tied the girl’s hands and feet to the couch. Then moved quickly and placed the tape over her mouth to keep her silent during his meal. She awoke as Jake applied the tape to her lips. Her eyes widened as she found herself bound and gagged as well. In an attempt to scream,
She was only able to muster out a low-pitched moan. She struggled at her bindings only to have Jake tighten them accordingly as he noticed her movements loosen their grip.
