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Home for the Holidays
Last update 3/6/07
by Lorenzo Wang
Stepping out of the front door and into the cold Thanksgiving driveway, George peered through the dim porchlight and saw, quite distinctly, a corpse in his car. He quailed. The thought of picking Mary up fought desperately with the hideous, cackled-out corpse that sat in the passenger seat of his beige Volvo. Bone-beige, he thought madly, and for just a moment a flash of anger passed through him borne of indignation.
He edged closer, and sure enough it was dead and half decomposed, dressed in what looked like the remnants of a cheap tux. Curious out of fright, George debated chancing the drive. What if it's still alive, he thought wildly, and's just there waiting to eat my brains because I was stupid enough to get into the car... oh God why now... Mary is gonna kill me... If only he could see clearly into the car, but it was rather dark.
Suddenly decisive, George whipped around and headed straight back into the warmth and drab yellowness of the house. He had not walked more than a few steps in when, to his right, in the far corner shadows where his big brown barco-lounger sat, he saw another one. Another fucking corpse, christ… and this one even had the leg rest up and something greasy was coming out from between its jeans and sweater.
"Hey waitaminit goddammit!!!"
George yelped and dashed forward at the corpse, but came to just in time to stop himself from grabbing his damn sweater back from it. George glared at it, but was too afraid to take back his favorite sweater, the soft red cardigan Mary had knit for him the last Christmas.
Backing away slowly and reluctantly, George glared one more time but the corpse grinned on, oblivious to his discomfort. Might as well turn the oven off, George told himself, looks like I'll have to wait a bit before I go pick Mary up. Man she's gonna be pissed… that's my best damn sweater, dammit.
Flustered, he decided he'd head upstairs, take a shower, and then maybe the corpses would be gone. Or at least be wandering somewhere else so he could get to his car. A good warm shower and his hands would stop shaking, it would be all good…
"Shit!!!"
George flicked on the bathroom switch and had the crap scared out of him by the ugliest, grisliest corpse he could even imagine being reflected in the huge bathroom mirror. It barely had a face, and what he first thought was black dreads of hair turned out to be a disgusting heap of feeding festering beetles chewing their way into its skinless red body. Quickly, he flicked off the switch and trembled his way out of the bathroom, nearly falling backwards.
"G-G-G-Goddam stupid corpses keep-keep fuckin' botherin' me jesus…"
George kicked the stair rail and headed to the bedroom. Maybe he'd just call Mary and tell her to find a ride. She'd be angry, but she'd understand; there were dead bodies everywhere, it wasn't like he could just waltz around and go about his usual business. Mary was practical.
He sat down on his bed, picked up the phone, and called her cell phone. It rung several times, no answer, so after her sweet voice told callers to leave a message or be forgotten, he said "Mary, I-I can't pick you up, there's a… ah… uh… and infestation of some sort so if you can find a ride and…" George realized that the phone had no response, the hollow dial-tone rolling its eyes. Mary's voice mail was full… she had probably gotten less than half his message, if any.
Swearing violently to himself, he slammed the phone down and got up. There was a severely mutilated body with bright, lucid eyes staring at him from under his blankets on his bed, and it had been behind him the whole time. He leapt back in almost comic fashion, slapping himself randomly, and screamed the most unmanly scream. Goddam corpses, goddammit and goddamm sleeping in my blanket too, goddam bastards! Took my sweater, hell, took my car, dammit now you got my bed too and my blanket goddammit! And my fucking reading glasses dammit!
His whole body shaking in almost spastic cycles, he ran out of his room nearly slipping on the blood that now slicked his stairs. With the stair rail as his crutch, he scrambled downstairs and grabbed his key-chain. Looking up, he saw, through the glass-door to his backyard, a mob of corpses pushed up against the glass, like children who try to make faces on car windows, the pressure of the many bodies made it look like an aquarium of flesh and eyes and teeth in grins and splayed hands rotting in suspended animation.
"Fuck you guys!" he screamed, face red, and stomped wildly for a few seconds. George ran out the front door again, not even bothering to close it, and the Thanksgiving night was still there, still seductively at the brink of wet. He ran to his car, splashing the blackish bile on the driveway, and that first damn body was still there. He jumped in the car, slammed the door shut, and shoved the corpse over as he revved the engine.
As he sat there letting it warm up, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He was going to pick up Mary, because she would know what to do with these bastards. Mary would tell them they were being assholes and that they needed to go home. Opening his eyes slowly, he turned to look at the ghastly thing next to him, and said "Buddy, happy holidays, but I'm having turkey tonight, and I am bringing Mary home for the holidays, so screw you."
The corpse replied with a blank, offended stare. He carefully began pulling out of the driveway, tears streaming. The car had not even passed the curb halfway when an awful howl was heard tearing down the street; for the rest of the night, the car's engine sat running and humming expectantly, the open car door chiming cheerfully, waiting for its driver to come back to pick Mary up for the holidays.
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