Читать книгу Beach Blanket Zombie - Mark McLaughlin - Страница 7

The Agony of Claude Bawls

The Muzak played Alley Cat as Landford stepped off the elevator.

Instantly he knew something was up. Everybody in the office had that deer-in-the-headlights look—a look no one likes to see at work. He was a half-hour late, and for a frantic second he wondered if some crisis had taken place which had required his attention. But no: the fright-eyes weren’t focused on him.

He dropped off his valise and coat at his office and headed for the staff lounge. If gossip was on the wing, that was where it would eventually go to roost.

He found Marla, the receptionist, and Peg, an intern from the community college, by a plate of jelly doughnuts, exchanging sotto voce comments. He tried to maintain his most serious, concerned expression as he snatched a raspberry doughnut. “Everything all right?” he said.

Peg turned to him with a grimace of a smile. “Oh, Isaac. You haven’t heard? It’s so—” She rolled her eyes, as if searching her brain for the right word. “—freaky. In a bad sort of way.”

Marla stepped closer to him. “It’s Zuzie’s husband. Claude.”

Zuzie Bawls was Landford’s supervisor, a fiftyish, dark-haired woman who wore black blazers and loud, flowing scarves. “Claude? The piano teacher?” he said. He had a quick mental image of a keyboard lid slamming down on plump fingers. He pushed the thought out of his mind.

“It’s just so freaky. Really.” Peg whispered.

“Yes, dear, we know.” Marla gave the girl a withering glance, then turned to Landford. “He was walking down Caslon Street last night. You know that area? Hilly, with steep lawns?”

“Yeah...” He couldn’t imagine what the terrain had to do with anything.

“Someone was cutting their lawn by lowering the mower down the hill with a rope. Claude was walking by at the base of the hill when...” She gulped—visibly, audibly. “When the rope came loose.”

“My God.” In his surprise, Landford squeezed his doughnut, slopping a bit of raspberry jelly on his silk tie.

“That’ll never come out,” Peg said, dabbing his tie with a napkin. “Claude’s hurt real bad. Zuzie told us what happened and then shut herself in her office. She’s still in there.”

He exhaled slowly. He didn’t know Zuzie very well, but as office relations went, he was her best friend in the company. “I guess I’d better go say something to her.”

The two women nodded in synchronized sympathy.

As he walked to Zuzie’s office, he heard the bee-buzz of employee whispers. Here and there he caught a few words: terrible...what about his hands?...I heard...tried to push it off and...

He knocked on Zuzie’s door. “Zu? It’s Zack.” he smiled at that. Zu and Zack: sounded like a comedy team.

“Oh! Oh, Isaac.” Her warm voice cracked. “Yes, come in, please.”

He opened the door to what he called Cat Land: Zuzie had dozens of cat statuettes scattered on shelves on each wall. Cats of jade, glass, silver... wooden tabbies, chintzy plastic Siamese kittens...even a china collector’s figurine of Felix the Cat.

Zuzie had mentioned that she had twenty-seven cats at home, and that she liked to read to them. And cook gourmet meals for them. And sew little costumes for their special kitty parties. As she put it, “Pets are good for you.”

Zuzie stared up at him with puffy, reddened eyes. She was clutching a cat figurine he had never seen before. It was about eight inches tall and carved, very badly, out of dark red stone.

“You shouldn’t have come to work,” Landford said. “I mean, the bank would understand if...” His words trailed off. Zuzie wasn’t paying attention. She simply moaned and ran her fingers over the stone cat.

He moved a little closer. “Do you want me to drive you home, Zuzie? I’d be happy to. Really, no problem. You should get some rest.”

“Rest?” She glared up at him. “We have three pianos in the house. How can I rest, seeing those pianos, knowing he will never—”

“Claude’s going to be okay, right?”

“He’ll live. But it won’t be much of a life.” Zuzie set down the stone cat.

Landford got his first clear view of the red cat’s face, and it was—horrible. Huge round eyes, topped with heavy brows. A mouthful of jagged teeth, surrounding a thick tongue that protruded in a viciously comic expression.

“What hospital is Claude at?”

Zuzie turned away from him to stare out the office window. “He’s not in a hospital. He’s with friends.”

“Friends? Just how badly is he hurt?”

He waited for her to reply—to even turn back toward him—but after a minute, he decided that perhaps she needed to be alone. Alone with her cats.

But still... Friends? He hoped at least one of these friends knew something about medicine.

* * * *

Months passed, and Zuzie never mentioned Claude’s condition again. When coworkers asked about him, she just walked away.

Zuzie already had been considered the office eccentric, and that title was shifting into ‘office weirdo’ territory. Even so, when Landford decided to throw a dinner party, he invited her, figuring she simply wouldn’t show up.

On the day of the party, he returned home from work to find his wife Nicole drowning newborn kittens in a bucket of water. This was the third litter in the past two years she had finished off.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he said. “We can just give them away. And besides, did you have to do that today?”

Nicole nodded toward Pickles, their tabby, who was watching from behind a rose bush. “I didn’t want Pickles to get used to them. That would be just too sad, separating a mother from her babies.” She prodded the kittens with a yellow pencil. Then she picked up the shovel by her side and began digging a hole by her favorite lilac bush.

Landford returned to the living room. There the caterer, Mrs. Green, was waiting for him.

“What your wife is doing is just awful.” The plump, iron-haired woman brushed some sugar off of her sleeves. “She’s a very nice lady, but she has some very disturbing ideas about God’s good creatures. Poor blessed angels. I hope their tiny angel souls can forgive her.”

“Nicole never had pets when she was little,” Landford said, hoping a little white lie might smooth things over. “She doesn’t really know much about animals. Not as much as you, Mrs. Green.” That, at least, was probably true: the old woman had a menagerie of stray dogs and cats.

Mrs. Green smiled. “Dinner will be ready by seven. I’ll start setting out the hors d’oeuvres.”

Nicole entered the living room. Landford noticed she had a smear of mud under her right eye, and he wiped it off. Mrs. Green stared at Nicole.

The Hendersons from next door showed up shortly after six, followed by the Finlays and the Dietrichs. Nicole had put on her best green dress and she looked fabulous. Landford wondered for the millionth time how such a beautiful woman had fallen for him. He wasn’t the handsomest guy in the world—he always thought he looked like Winnie the Pooh—but he knew that, unlikely as it seemed, some women actually liked teddy bear guys.

Marla and Peg showed up together. Landford didn’t understand why they hung around together. Their conversation usually ended with Marla shooting down the younger woman’s silly comments.

The guests were a standard middle-class mix, and that was fine with Landford. Middle class was just fine for a teddy bear guy. They had invited ten people: he had complained that might be too many, but Nicole reminded him that Zuzie and Claude would be definite no-shows. Every now and then, one of the guests sat down at their piano and pounded out a snippet of tune—usually Chopsticks.

“So. Is everybody here?” Marla asked Landford.

“Everyone except Zuzie and Claude.”

“Do you think they’ll show up?” Peg said, eyes wide. “God, has anyone seen Claude since the accident?”

“Of course not,” Marla said. “I heard he was mangled. People like that don’t walk around in broad daylight, let alone go to dinner parties. Really, Peg.”

Landford sampled Mrs. Green’s cheese puffs and eggrolls—commonplace but delicious. Good, solid teddy bear food.

At about six-fifty, the doorbell rang. Wine glass in hand, Landford answered the door.

The middle-aged man standing at the threshold was tall, pale and obese, and dressed in a filthy sweat-suit. His feet were bare, and his hands—

Weren’t there.

His arms ended at the elbows. His face was covered with long, deep scars. His thin ginger hair was matted down with grease.

“Oh... Well. Hello, Claude.” Landford didn’t quite know what to say. But at last his sense of responsibility as a host kicked in. “Won’t you come in?”

Claude grunted and shambled through the door, followed by Zuzie. She crept in timidly, staring at the floor.

“He insisted,” she said hoarsely. “I told him to stay home but he insisted.” She shuffled to the couch and plopped down into the cushions.

Claude’s lips curved into a crooked, yellow-toothed smile. “What’s tuh eat?” he said. His voice sounded stupid, Landford thought. Stupid in a mean sort of way—and oddly hollow. Like a cannibal in a cave, grunting for raw guts to gnaw on.

The guests simply stared. Nicole crossed to the liquor cabinet and poured herself a brandy, splashing a good portion of her drink on the counter. Mrs. Green made the sign of the cross repeatedly.

Landford checked his watch—six fifty-five—then cleared his throat. “Dinner was going to be at seven, but I think our new...guests...Zuzie and Claude Bawls, need a moment to...” He looked to Nicole for help, but she was busy refilling her glass. “...to socialize. And to try some of Mrs. Green’s delicious cheese puffs.”

Everyone watched as Claude marched up to the hors d’oeuvres and lowered his face into the nearest plate.

Nicole stumbled to Landford’s side. “We’ve got to call the police,” she hissed.

“Why? Because he’s hogging the cheese puffs?” he whispered.

“Well, do something.”

Landford moved closer to Claude. The fat man was voraciously working puff after puff into his mouth with his tongue.

“We were all really sorry to hear about your accident,” Landford said. “Are you...feeling better...?”

Claude grinned up at him with cheese-smeared lips. “Oh, yeah. I used tuh hurt a lot, but they took care of me. They sure did.”

Zuzie sat up on the couch. “Remember, Claude. Don’t bore the nice people with all the details of your treatment.”

Claude sucked up another cheese puff. “Can I tell them ’bout the House of the Ankh?”

Zuzie looked daggers. “No, you may not.”

“How ’bout the Red Nurse?”

“Again, no.”

Claude cocked his head to one side. “The leeches? The Moon Scarab? The Cat Man? How ’bout—”

“No, no, NO!” Zuzie flew across the room and began stuffing eggrolls into her husband’s mouth. “Just eat, Claude. Please. Just. Eat.”

A movement by the patio doors caught Landford’s eye. Nicole had opened the doors for some night air, and now the cat, Pickles, was creeping into the living room. Her paws were covered with dirt, and in her mouth she carried one of her dead kittens.

Landford hoped no one would see Pickles. He hoped the cat would simply carry its horrible burden to its blanket in the shadows under the piano and go to sleep. But then Peg said—

“Oh my God. That cat just carried in a dead kitten.”

Everyone’s attention turned from Claude to the cat. Pickles carried the kitten to the piano. Instead of curling up in the blanket, Pickles jumped on top of the piano and began to lick the kitten clean.

“Enough!” Mrs. Green screamed. “I can’t stand it! I’ve got to get out of this devil house!” As she ran out the door, she shouted, “I’ll send you my bill, you—you monsters!”

Landford ran to the threshold. “But we hired you for the whole evening! You can’t—”

That was when he heard it.

It would echo in his dreams for the rest of his life.

The medley.

The cheery strains of Alley Cat, intertwined with Kitten on the Keys, and Memories from that musical, the one he’d seen with Nicole a few months earlier. CATS.

Slowly Landford turned around. Claude was seated at the piano, his back to the party. His playing was—Inspired. Lively. Bubbling with enthusiasm.

Landford looked at the arm stumps, hanging down like deli salamis on each side of the fat man, and wondered: What the hell is he PLAYING with?

Zuzie began to sob. “I told him to stay home. I told him I told him I told him I told him...”

The guests stared at the raving woman. Then Mrs. Finlay poked an elbow into her husband’s ribs and nodded toward the door.

Mr. Finlay walked up to Landford. “It’s been an interesting evening, Isaac. But we’ve got to be going. You understand.”

Mr. Dietrich and Mr. Henderson moved forward. “It’s getting kind of late,” Dietrich said. Henderson just nodded frantically.

In a moment, all the guests were rushing out the door. Marla and Peg grabbed hands and sped out by way of the patio.

By now Zuzie was sobbing so loudly that it echoed off the glassware with a slight brrringggg. “They said he’d be all right! And I believed them. Pets are good for you, you know. They said he’d be as right as rain...” She blew her nose on a corner of the couch cover.

Landford slowly walked up to the pianist. He looked over the fat man’s shoulder. A moment later, he wondered why he was feeling so dizzy. It dawned on him: the sight before him had temporarily made him forget to breathe. He gasped for air and sucked in a whiff of Claude’s putrid stench.

Claude’s sweatshirt had been pulled up—or more probably, pushed back—over his protruding gut, to reveal a raw, gaping opening. Three orange cats had crawled out of the opening, but they hadn’t gone far. They were attached to Claude by thickly veined umbilical cords. The cats were capering merrily on the piano keys, pounding out the feline hits. A couple of them wore slime-streaked miniature tuxedoes. The third wore a black velvet evening gown. All of them had bulging eyes, heavy brows, and jagged yellow teeth.

A loop of slithering tissue spooled out of the opening and wrapped around Pickle’s dead kitten, pulling it into Claude’s belly.

“Pets good. Soooo good,” Claude whispered. “Come to Papa.”