The Taste of Lobster

I heard the crowd murmur. Men stood outside, drinking coffee, smoking, laughing, reminiscing. Inside woman fawned over fresh babies and children, gossiped and ate lemon cake. It was as if no one had died. They were happy, pleasantness waved over the packed funeral. Still people continued to pour in. The director stood by the front doors in his best baby blue suit, greeting each new person with a handshake. An older man, dressed identical, creeped from behind before tapping his shoulder.

“What are you doing out old man?” The director asked, giving a half hug before turning back to the new people.

“Like I’d miss Drive in Tim’s funeral, whole towns come out for it. Plus, I figured you could use a hand if nothing else.” His father said, greeting an old couple as they hobbled by on walkers.

“Well thank you Daddy, I appreciate it.” The director said as he joyfully waggled a finger in the face of a baby, making it and the mother smile. “I knew it’d be a decent turn out, but I can’t remember us ever having one like this. Parking lots filled and they’ve covered the street. I got wondering on the numbers, so I peeked down the road a few minutes ago. They’re parked for five blocks out and still coming, most of the county’s got to be here. Did you ever have a turn out this big?” His words shook his father’s head, as he greeted a lone man wearing an eyepatch.

“We’ve had them packed like sardines a few times, but this is something else. It’s like the super bowl out here!” He turned and smiled, greeting a young woman and her husband. Patting them on the back as they passed. In that moment, I saw a glimmer of something in the director’s eye. They turned glossy, almost fishlike. He looked around holding his head, startled, confused, as if he didn’t know where he was before he turned back to his father.

“Daddy, can I ask you something?” The director smacked his lips, his eyes flickered.

“Shoot son”

“Is there something about Drive in Tim that I’m missing?” The director held a constipated look that made him squint in the sunlight. As if he had just walked out of a dark room with a bad migraine.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I heard he had a Burger stand by the lake but… I guess I’m asking why the whole county decided to come out to his funeral? Did this Tim guy ever do anything important?” His father laughed a little louder than what was appropriate, as if he’d just been told the funniest joke of the day.

“Son… this is Drive in Tim we’re talking about here! He owned the Lobster Hut! You know that!” He nudged his son, who waved at a woman before helping an old man up the steps inside.

“I know he had the burger stand Daddy, but… that’s it? He didn’t do anything else? Did he ever save a kid from a burning building or fight in a war?” The director’s tone changed, talking as if he’d stumbled on some great mystery.

“Well son, Drive in Tim… he did… well he sure was a…” his father went quiet, then got the same look, he was confused too, sweating a bit at the off feeling I could see brewing in his guts.

I watched them struggle for little while, while my cigarette burned. Wondering if they’d understand the full scope and go insane. If they’d be able to free themselves. If I had any hope of the same or if I was still doomed. The two men sat in silence with concentrated crunched faces, trying to recall anything about the mystery man who packed their funeral home today. After my cigarette died, I flicked it to the ground and started towards the doors myself.

I could tell no one felt comfortable around me. They didn’t speak it, but I could see the vile in their faces. I’m not clean. I look like the idea of a man who’d rob you at a gas station or try to cop a feel for a girl in public. I’m decrepit, dirty, unwashed. I haven’t shaved in a long time, my scraggly beard, overgrown mustache, greasy curly black hair, and my baggy, dirty clothes. I knew they could smell me. I hate being so disgusting, but it’s the only way people can notice me. The only way I can exist to them, is as this filthy maggot.

As I approached the front row, I took a seat in the family section. It was strangely empty for such a packed funeral. Several chairs with no persons. I expected it, but to see it myself hurt deeply. Outside of me, Tim didn’t have any other family. Which means I don’t either. I am the last one. If I think too long on it I’ll cry, but there’s no time for crying now. I have to go up there and tell them all. This is my one chance to break out. I watched the director step up to the podium. Part of him still mulling over the truth as what controlled all of us wrestled within him like God and Satan.

“Good afternoon everyone, due to the volume of people we’re going to start right away, first with family speaking about the deceased, but first some scripture.” As the director lectured, I prepared myself to stand. He preached on about God and life well lived. I was listening, I could feel it, in my head making me dissociate, making me want to run back to my prison, pulling my chain.
I tried to focus on something, then I noticed the open casket, even though it was several feet away, I saw what was left of Tim.
Tim did not die in a way that was fit to be on public display. His head was a pile of brains and skull fragments. The blood had soaked through the caskets white bedding, creating a red bowl of meaty chunks for what was left of his head to sit. The rest of the body was lifeless, pale. Not well even for a corpse. A pile of meat, rubbery meat, that’s what he was. I wanted to be sick, but I felt my mouth watering. I had to focus, to remember who I was and how that damn thing took over my world and made me this.
#
It started years ago. I used to get treated badly by my old man. I won’t talk about the worst things he did. How I managed to survive him past my childhood, I couldn’t tell you. This all changed when he committed suicide, social services got involved. I thought I was going to a foster home when my worker said things changed. I would be going to my uncle Tim, who lived by the lake outside of town a county over. This would’ve been better, if I had any idea who they were talking about.

I didn’t know I had an uncle, but at least I would be somewhere familiar. I knew the lake he lived by well. Dad wasn’t much of a parent, but he was a good fisherman. He took me mostly so I could help him pack his stuff. However, it was still the only time me and him got along, really the only time he actually treated me partly decent. The worker drove me to the lake. After I got my suitcase out, she pointed at a food stand on the other side of the water, it was called:

“The Lobster Hut”

It didn’t look like much. The place was a little yellow building made of concrete blocks, 4 walls, just big enough for the grill, a fridge, a fryer, and a guy or two to work inside. Above it was a wooden sign carved like a lobster with a burger in its claw. A little on the nose but it had charm. I’d seen the place before with Dad, we never ate there, I never asked why. The place was like was like a big old tree that somehow nobody ever chopped down. Something you’d never notice unless fate or circumstance made you.

My worker waved me off and left. It was hot that day, felt like July even though it was May. I could see mosquitos buzzing over the lake in thick dark swarms. Dragon flies dipping. Fish jumped to catch them. Frogs croaked, birds tweeted and the rest of the critters buzzed constantly as God had made them to. Everyone who actually fished, fished far away from the Lobster Hut, where the shade was. I was hoping for some air conditioning, so I hurried. Hugging the water’s edge under tree limbs as I got closer. I tried to use my phone, when I noticed that it kept getting slower. Only I was lucky enough to be moved to a dead zone.

When I got to the sitting area just in front of the Lobster Hut, I could hear music. It was 80s rock, either ACDC or Gun N’ Roses I can’t remember. A speaker roared through the woods like a siren calling me home. I could smell food. Seasoned, greasy, good food and someone was puffing on a roach nearby.

Coming around the corner of a miniature pine grove, I saw the Lobster Hut up close in all its glory. 80s rock with a sizzling grill, it almost made me hopeful, it defiantly made me hungry. I walked to the open window and saw a man with long blonde hair cooking. Then I rang the bell.

“Ya’ll are a little early, what’ll you be having?” A man with a deep voice asked without looking, smoke puffed from around his head.

“I uhm… I think I’m your nephew, are you Tim Smith?”
The man turned groggily. He was high. The first thing I noticed was that he didn’t look a thing like dad. They might’ve been around the same age, but that was it. There was a range of colors about him. His skin alone was 3 of them. A dark tan on his arms, his face was a shade of red, his chest somehow paper white. Wavey blonde hair down past his shoulders with black eyebrows, then a strip of ginger in his mustache and finally patches of curly white hair on both his shoulders. I saw that some of his teeth were missing. And on that set of blonde hair, was an American flag bandanna where a pair of black sunglasses rested on top.

“So… you’re my nephew?” he asked. Tim blinked for a moment, slow, frog-like. I could tell this was ruining his high.

“Yea… the worker said you were taking me?” I said, he froze and then his brain started to work a little before it finally clicked.

“Oh oh oh, yea I remember talking to her, so you’re Dustin?”

“Yea I guess”

“Alright then, let’s sit for a spell,” Tim wiped his hands on his dirty overalls and walked out of the food stand through a side door. As he turned, I saw that he was barefoot. He ushered me to a picnic table where he sat across.

“Can I have some food?” I asked, hungry from the smell.

“Not right now, we’ll eat later,” he said.

“But can I?” I asked again but he was firm.

“No kid, we’ll eat later trust me, first things first. Before I tell you how things are going to be, do you have any questions?”

“No, I guess”

“My help moved on to better things, so there’s an opening at the Hut here. As long as you live here, you’ll work here too. We’ll do a walkthrough here in a second. You do what I say. If I ask you to do something, it’s best you do it, or they’ll be consequences. If you have questions, ask, if you don’t just keep working. That’s the thing here, keep busy, keep your head down. Got anything for me kid?”

“No”

“Good, now introductions, my names Tim, Tim Smith, some people call me Drive in Tim. You won’t. Call me Sir, Mr, or Tim. I’ll call you Kid or Dustin.” As he spoke I thought on him. My dad wouldn’t stand for anyone to bark orders like this. Me though, I felt a level of respect I’d never gotten before. Tim acknowledged me, I liked it. Then a question burned a hole through my mouth.

“So where do I sleep? For some reason Tim looked at me bizarrely, as if I asked him if we were flying to the moon.

“Sleep?” he said, confused. As if the concept was a foreign thing he’d never heard of till now.

“Yea, do I get a bed?”

“Sleep… that’s funny,” he smirked and then stood before walking back towards the Hut. Not sure what he meant, but I followed him inside and I did whatever looked like needed to be done. Tim, despite the introduction wasn’t big on orders, he did his thing and expected you to pitch in where you saw it needed without telling you. We worked for awhile without getting customers and mostly spent the time just talking or working in silence.

“So how long have you been working here?” I asked as I wiped the counter. Tim was filling paper packs with plastic utensils.

“Awhile longer than you’ve been alive,” he said, packing another one.

“What happened to your other help who worked here?” I finished and started moving some boxes.

“You ask a lot of questions kid”

“I’m just trying to make conversation,” I said.

“He killed himself,” Tim admitted as he adjusted the deep fryer.

“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to pry”

“Don’t feel bad, he was selfish. Knew him for twenty years and then he decided to check out. You think you know a guy, but I guess didn’t. I always thought it’d be me who’d ditch him.” Tim shook his head.

“Do you know why he did it?” I asked.

“Yep,” there was awkward pause.

“You going to tell me?”

“Nope”

The rest of the day went by with no people. I was beginning to wonder how on earth this place was staying open. No customers for an entire day but the hut was packed with supplies, boxes, tons of things to do even with no one coming. We worked even as the sun went down. I expected Tim to call it quits but he didn’t, he just kept going, and I did too.
#
Soon it was dark, a greasy clock hanging over the side door said it was 11pm. The lake was empty, a fog had creeped over, faint rain occasionally tapped against the tin roof of the stand. I couldn’t see the stars for the clouds. A lone light pole over the sitting area was what kept the dark off us. Tim had been busy all day and didn’t slow down for a moment. If burgers had sat for too long, he’d toss them out and grill more. Everything had to be fresh, ready for a flow of customers which I was sure was never coming.

“What time do we close?” I asked, watching a frog hopping by the water.

“You’ll find out,” Tim replied.

“But I’m tired,” I said.

“No you’re not,” Tim smirked, making his moustache bulge like a walrus.

“I’ve been working all day,” I whined.

“I know, but you’re not tired,” Tim laughed again. I scoffed at him and then realized that he was right. I wasn’t tired. I’d been working all day and felt fine, good even. It was then that I noticed I also wasn’t hungry anymore, I hadn’t eaten since before the worker brought me. I hadn’t even sat down or used the bathroom in several hours.

At the time I guess I thought… well I didn’t know why, I didn’t really think about it then. There wasn’t time for me to think on it, because that was when we got our first customer. Appearing out of the darkness. A man, sluggish and ugly looking. His face was covered in meth sores.

“Hey, let me get a uhm, burger and some fries.” He said, taking out a wadded five-dollar bill and random bundle of coins which raddled against the metal counter. I looked at the pile for a second and then to him. In the moment I guess I hesitated too long because Tim walked beside me and nudged with his arm.

“Get to work,” his mustache hairs scratched my ear as he turned towards the guy.

“Have a seat sir, we’ll have it right out to you,” Tim said as I quickly counted the man’s change and tried to hand it back to him. He didn’t pick it up. The guy went to a picnic table and sat with his head in his hands, his leg shaking like shitting dog. I saw Tim putting a fresh patty on the grill, while several other meals had already been made.

“Why not just give him one of those?” I asked. Tim didn’t speak for a moment, he let the sizzling spread, turning the pink meat brown.

“It’s the least I can do for him, it’s his last meal after all.” Tim’s words hung in the air like dead bird on a wire.

“Last meal?” I asked, suddenly worried about the man’s life.

“Last meal, you’ll be the one to do it,” Tim casually reached into his overalls and produced a single shot hunting pistol. Handing it to me as if it were an extra napkin.

“What? What are you talking about this is crazy!” I shook my head. Tim grasped my shoulder.

“Lower your voice, you might tip him off, tuck that behind you. Once he gets eating good pop him in the back of the head and I’ll tell you what to do from there.” Tim let go, and continued grilling. I held the gun in my hands carefully. Feeling the wooden grip and the roughness of the cracked stock covered in duct tape. I barely had time to register what was happening as a paper bag was thrusted into my stomach.

“Take it to him, do as I say,” Tim was deliberate. His voice was deeper then, almost angry. I thought he might kill me instead if I didn’t do what he told me. I turned and walked to the man sitting at the picnic table. I started looking at him more closely. He had more meth sores on his arms, he was high right now, off in his own little world, he probably didn’t know where he was. Did that make him less human? I held out the bag, he snatched it, then began devouring his burger like a rabid dog. Then I realized judging if a man should live or die based on how fucked up he looked was more than I was okay with.

“Go” I said. the man didn’t pay attention to me.

“Didn’t you hear me? Go!” I shouted at him, then I showed him the pistol.

“Hey kid, take it easy!” he jumped, knocking his food into the mud he ran towards the dark.

“Dustin!” I hear shouting behind me. I turned, seeing Tim, expecting anger or another gun pointed at me. Instead it was horror, he was terrified.

“The Boss!”

It happened so fast, but slowly. The world flowed like a lava lamp, except for what was larger than the entire Lobster Hut itself. So fast that I didn’t hear the rushing of water as it breached. The light above only shined against part of it. Leaving the rest for the dark. I saw scuttling, jagged armored legs, drenched in water and hanging moss, taller as myself. Ahead was a prickly blue claw going impossibly fast. Cutting through the fog.

If it wanted me, I could never have outran it. It got that poor man almost instantly. The claw cracked loudly, like a widow maker earning its name, cleaving off the man’s legs then consuming then. Shoes and pants and all. Its mouth opened down the middle, almost vaginally as rows of teeth appeared and small pincers the size of my own arms pulled the flesh in.

I froze, watching murder. That man didn’t scream when he died. I hear a whimper of pain, a wince of air leaving through clenched teeth. Sounded like fire being dowsed by water. I felt Tim’s arms hugging around me. Not running, he held me close, protectively.

As the thing turned to us. Its jagged blue shell reflected an armored crustation body. Small, bulbous black eyes the size of baseballs flickered and wiped themselves. It looked at us. In the blue claw, it held the dead upper half of the man. Something slithered and pierced up into his guts. The body postured, twitched unnaturally, then dead blind eyes opened.

“Pet’s feed,” it was dead guttural vibrations that I felt inside my eyes.

“He’s new Boss, don’t worry, I’ll teach him better, next one will go by smooth,” Tim said. The creature, who I now knew as Boss. Watched with various appendages along on its cluttered face, then wiggled in agreement, as it circled back towards the lake. Never taking its eyes off me.

“Pets feed, feed or be food,” then it disappeared back into the black water of the lake. Sinking until there was no evidence that it ever existed. I saw the man’s body leave last, sinking into the fogged black water. Tim guided me back to the Lobster Hut and sat me down in the corner.

“I told you to kill him! It would’ve made it easier, now the Boss’s mad at both of us!” Tim shoved my shoulder, knocking me back into reality.

“What the fuck is going on?” I looked towards Tim, whose sympathy was all but gone. He had the eyes of a man whose been tortured.

“I’ve been trapped here for years. Long enough to know my place. The Boss lures people, outcasts, nobody’s like you and me and that poor feller in the lake. We are supposed to process the bodies. Then we pile them by the lake, Boss eats them, we eat what’s left and take what he gives. We do this everyday. You can’t call for help, no one ever notices. They only smell the bodies. Boss controls everything, we’re pets. It don’t need us to live, it just likes to have us around. It keeps us to look at and to carry its food. If we don’t, it can do things to you, hurt you and you won’t die. All I want in the world is to die, that and a big funeral. Sit however long you need to and then get back to work. It’s going to be a long night kid.” Tim went back to his routine of grilling and throwing away old burgers.
#
One by one, I watched people come. Tim would take the orders, cook, then bring them out to the picnic tables. I’d hear the bag crinkle. They’d be given enough time to scarf it down. Then a gun shot rang. Tim would drag them out of sight behind the Lobster Hut. Six people died before Tim tapped me on the shoulder.

“I need help,” he said. I didn’t talk back; I stood and nodded. Tim started to go through their pockets. I didn’t help him with that. He acted annoyed and scoffed as I looked at him queerly.

“It’s the only way we get anything besides food,” Tim said. He fumbled through a woman’s bra and found a pack of cigarettes before tucking them away in his pocket. Once he was finished looting, we stripped their clothes. I helped him lay the bodies in one misshaped pile in the lake, where it was shallow. He burned the clothes in a barrel, then we took seats at the picnic tables. Watched the fog roll over the water for a while. Tim organized his haul, fiddling a bag of weed then an old cellphone which he skipped over the water like a stone.

“Why didn’t you try calling someone?” I asked.

“Already told you, no point, Boss screws with anything electric. Can’t call nobody, even if you could he wouldn’t let you talk.” Tim put a cigarette into his mouth and offered me one which I took, ironically it was my first. We sat there for while, under the overhead light, hearing frogs croak and fish splash. Tim got through the pack and started another.

“What are we waiting for?” I asked.

“Dinner,” Tim said, disappointed. In a moment before I could ask what he meant, the Boss came. Breaching from the water. Still holding that corpse in the same blue claw. I noticed the skin had greyed, and the flesh bloated from sitting at the bottom of the lake. Raising the other claw, it came down hard on the bodies. Crushing the bones, popping the guts and blood and eyes out. It crushed them a few times before it started to feed from the pile of visceral. Using pincers covered in algae, they shoved various pieces into the split mouth’s rows of teeth. The Boss ate most of the corpses before it stopped and approached us.

Tim didn’t move so neither did I. We watched with some gross fascination as the creature began something I can only call as retching. The way it’s body was made vs how it moved shouldn’t have let it do that. It stood stiffly built. Chundering a disgusting pile of green and yellow vomit. Tim and I watched, him unfazed, while I tried not recreate it. The grey, slightly decomposed corpse it held in its claw, perked and faced us, then began to speak.

“Earned,” the body said before it too was devoured whole. The Boss slinked backwards into the lake just as the sun began to rise. Tim kneeled by the pile of vomit and began to dig though with his bare hands, making slimy slushy sounds.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked. Tim didn’t speak, he just began throwing pieces to the side, which I noticed glimmered in the rising sun. One shined my eyes, a reflection of sparkling yellow. That’s when I noticed that Tim was digging through a pile of gold nuggets inside the vomit.

“What is that?” I approached, holding my nose for the smell of rotting kyarn.

“Boss likes to reward us with what he thinks we want. He’d be right about the gold but we can’t leave, if you dig you can find useful stuff.” I didn’t realize what Tim meant until I saw him get excited. Giddy for a block of vomit covered cheese, a head of lettuce, tomatoes, buns, and a couple of bullets for the gun. Never mind that the food I craved came from monster vomit.

“This can’t get any worse,” I said, lightheaded from the smell. Tim watched me, not speaking but saying much more. He stood from the pile of vomit and faced the remains of the people in the water. I saw him pull a knife from his overalls. I looked at him, then the remains, and the knife again.

“No… no God no!”

“Go have a seat, I’ll be done in a bit,” Tim patted my back then went to work on the meatiest body parts. Not wanting to see, I sat at the furthest away picnic table that I could. I saw him carrying bloody hunks by the arm full to the Lobster Hut. I heard the sizzle, then I smelled the seasoning. Soon he brought a fresh double cheeseburger and sat it on the table in front of me. I watched my meal as if it would beg me not to eat it. Tim ate his hungrily, moaning and enjoying it.

“Just imagine it’s lobster kid,” he said, a toothy grin covered in spittle and cheese. I wanted to scream, run, die, anything but this. I was trapped here. There was no way I could run, no future in which I’d escape.

“I have to get out of here,” I said out loud.

“You and me both kid,” Tim replied, licking his fingers, mouth full of greasy meat.

“Please, there has to be a way out! I’ll do anything!” I said, begging at that point. Tim paused eating.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Anything!” I said, I was crying as Tim put the burger down.

“Even if it’s evil?” He asked.

“Anything! God anything!” Then Tim smiled.
#
“There might just be a way out. If we can trick the Boss. I’ve been around for awhile; noticed some things. For one, I don’t think he can tell people apart. That means, if we can get two other people that look about like we do, then maybe we can leave them and sneak off before it realizes. It’s a big maybe, and we’ll only get one shot. We’re going to have to be patient and wait for the right moment.” Tim’s words kept me sane for years to come.

We followed the same plan every night. There were a few times when I’d find a guy who resembled Tim. Other times, there were teenagers about my size. Never together at the same time though. I considered just doing a dummy for me, and leaving Tim. Then I figured he would probably screw me over if I tried, shoot me in the back. Just like I would to him if the situation were reversed.

Over time, Tim and I turned from guide and protégé to cellmates. I learned Tim, slowly, gathering bits and pieces from what he’d slip up and spill. I knew Tim Smith better than anyone. He was insane, he ate and murdered people everyday for longer than I’ve been alive. Trapped here by things beyond us, beyond what’s possible in this world. Tim would have never let me leave without him. He would have murdered me himself.

I couldn’t risk him thinking he could get over on me. So over time, I changed into someone Tim could be weary enough to not screw over. I killed and ate people too, first just for show, then for routine. We were equals in that. Using our shared distrust to keep each other honest. One year we stopped getting bullets, had to use our hands on them. I did things to people that break men. Things that should have broke me. Why didn’t I go insane? Why didn’t I kill Tim? I guess the Boss wouldn’t allow it.

One night, it was Christmas I think, it happened. In the bitter cold, a brown eyed teenager who had my curly black hair stumbled out for lunch. I watched Tim break his neck. Imagining him doing the same to me. A few more came and we killed them, before his showed up last. A dirty blonde who I bashed over the head with a rock. We set them up in the hut. Leaning them against the yellow walls with sticks for support.

“Well… this is it,” Tim said.

“I guess so, so where are you going to go?” I asked while adjusting a body.

“Nowhere you’ll see,” Tim said. Which made me nervous.

“What are you talking about?” I turned, noticing then that Tim was pointing the gun at me.

“You don’t have bullets,” I said, before Tim smiled and let me know that I was wrong. I didn’t feel it at first, but then it came in a wave. Burning through my stomach. Tim had shot me in the gut. I fell clutching by belly.

“You bastard!” I groaned. Tim didn’t speak, instead grasping my ankle and pulled me outside by my foot, over the freezing ground. I felt the water, my back chipping the ice as he dragged me over it. I was freezing, my body went still as he slung me over the bodies we piled.

“What the fuck Tim?”

“Goodbye Dustin, you don’t deserve this, but I do.” Tim walked towards the Hut. leaving me freezing on the pile of bodies. I laid for longer than I should have lived through. My teeth chattered. I felt the chain then, just before I slip away, I’d get pulled, just enough life to keep going. I waved between living and dead until I heard the Boss breach from the water, cracking through the ice. It saw me. And with the same claw that held the corpse all those years ago, it lifted me to those black eyes. Then its small arms began to dig into my stomach.

“Fuck! Tim help!” I tried the thrash, I was too cold, too weak. Its pinchers opened my flesh and pulled at my organs. Out of all that pain, I could feel Tim watching. He hadn’t left, he was watching it operate on me.

“Tim shoot me! Kill me! Kill me for the love of God it’s distracted, end this!” Then it stopped. A little lone claw held the bullet. Right after that moment I heard the pistol, but it didn’t shoot me. Both the Boss and I snapped our attention back towards the Hut, where I saw a red splatter plastered over a yellow wall. The Boss dropped me back into the freezing water, gutted, disemboweled yet still alive. Before scuttling over towards Tim, it shrieked in anger and sorrow over its favorite pet.

As I laid in the frozen water, it all made sense to me. Tim let me distract it while he wrestled control over his mind and took the only real way out. Our way wasn’t guaranteed, neither was his. Luckily for him, I learned the Boss can’t raise the dead. Tim was wrong about some things. The Boss could tell us apart, it knew it’s favorite pet and it knew what that pet always wanted.
#
“We’re going to start our openings with Drive in Tim’s nephew, Dustin Smith, who knew him best.” The director stepped aside towards the casket. He was happy again, which confirmed all my fears. It had taken back hold. I reflected on all the tortures it inflicted on me when Tim died. The flaying, bugs under my skin. It blamed me completely. Pulling things out over and over and over again. I had its full attention now. It wouldn’t give me a chance. I am alone in this world. The only one who knows the truth and it’s up to me to tell everyone. Ignoring Tim’s body, I swallowed and spoke.

“Tim was a pet. Just like I am. I will never escape the prison which it has made for me. Today I am only leashed far enough to come to the funeral. I’m going to have to go back soon. Please, please don’t ignore me, none of you will see me otherwise. The only way I could make sure you noticed was if I smelled like rotten meat. I did it so you’d look at me! Please, please someone do something! Help me!” I begged the crowd who was silent for a moment. I had hoped that they had heard me. For a moment, I had hope and then they started laughing. Men, woman, children, young, old, standing, sitting, laughing as hard they could. The director approached me, nearly in tears.

“Ain’t you a jokester! Best I ever heard!” And he laughed, they all laughed so loud it shook the walls.

“Torture! Torture! Please don’t let it bring me back!” I screamed and no one heard, they only laughed. I heaved and started to vomit, then remembering Tim’s advice. I imagined that I was tasting lobster.

Credit: Bryan Holly

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