California roll

“Ah to hell with it”, my wife spat and threw her fork on the ground.

“Darling”, I cry out and watch in both astonishment and horror as she trudges past me, her shoulders set forward and her heels clicking.

“Don’t darling me. Cut the crap. You know you and I will not survive this”, She whipped around and spat. Her teeth were bared at me, their perfect straightness and blaring whiteness seemed unnatural when she wasn’t smiling. The way her nose was tensed with wrinkles exposed just how ancient her skin really was under her makeup.

“W-what ever do you mean”? I sputter and glance past her down the hall. They were coming, I could hear it. Her attitude would certainly get us both killed.

“Has ANY of the last three years penetrated your thick skull? Once they are in your home there is no hope. The virus is too potent. We already have it if they do”, my wife roared, flailing her arms around halfway between me and the sounds from the dining room. The screeches of our maid, Lou, still came from that direction.

“My darling, we can fix this”, I plead, “I will talk to the head of disease control, slip him something to make this go away. We are not doomed. We can simply go to the house in Milan and forget all of this, now come on”.

“And is there a point”, she sniffed and faced the sounds, her legs stiff in a dominant pose. In her red glittery dress her back was exposed, painted in sensual charcoal. So soft and biteable, despite her age. She wouldn’t last a minute against those things.

“A point”?

“I know about Lou. You pay her far too much for just being a maid. To think… All this time you… YOU NEVER LOVED ME”, she sobbed.

“Oh, Oh Antionette, Oh my dearest”, I sputtered between sorrow, shame, and relief, “It’s not what you think”.

“Oh what is it then? Are you conveniently paying that girl 400% above normal rate just so you can dutifully ignore her skinny little legs in that short skirt of hers”, She shrieked and whipped around. Her makeup was ruined, dark streaks running down her face. Her nose was still crinkled and her midnight eyes were deeper than outer space.

It wasn’t her fault. I should not be quick to anger at the comment. After all she didn’t know. All this time. All of the silent dinners of cabbage and vegetable patties for two whole years, all of those little condescending “hmms” and “ughs” were all about this? I do believe I regret my choice.

“YES. absolutely. That is my job. I…”

“Oh I believe that! Even now you lie to me, just as you did before. Are there more little chicks you are keeping out of sight? The girl at the gas station perhaps? The delivery woman. Huh? Are you sleeping with them as well”, She sobbed.

Around her stick thin legs something plopped onto the carpet. It rolled across the perfectly aligned wool pieces, sweeping in a turn and went straight for us. I froze in terror. I heard my wife hiccup into silence and she too watched it roll closer and closer and closer. Slower and slower and slower.

It rolled right up to her and settled down flat on the floor, its face staring up at my wife. It was a california roll, a piece of sushi filled with crab and cream with a single slice of avocado placed neatly on the top of the rice wrapped around it. Held together by the freshest seaweed, it almost looked enticing if it had not picked up hair and dirt from the carpet.

My breathing caught and my wife held her hands to her face. We waited and it didn’t move. It leapt up from the floor with more force than I would have expected and splattered on my wife’s dress. Its crab meat writhed and shifted, now mixed with the avocado and rice. It reached out a slimy appendage from its body and grabbed forward at my wife’s dress.

She shrieked and hit the roll off of her dress where it could barely hold itself upright and fell to the floor with a splat. It tried to rise again, no longer a sushi role, but an abomination. My wife slammed the heel of her shoe straight into it, the heel went right through. She yelled and stomped on it, taking it apart bit by bit with the heel of her Louis Vittans. White splattered the red underside of the soles and all over the cheetah print outside.

I gaped at the spot of ruined carpet. My hands were shaking, I was shaking. I patted my balding head with my pocket square.

“I-I thought they exterminated all of the undead. I thought the zombie apocalypse was over”, I sputtered and pointed my finger at it.

“It was going to get us sooner or later”, She kicked one last time for good measure, “Hiding in the mountains with all of our money would never be enough. The zombies would get to us someday. We have been lucky so far”.

“This is lucky”? I cry.

“Lucky our dinner came back to life to try and kill us. Very lucky”, She insisted with a dark look at me, “I say good. I suppose I deserve this, and you especially”.

“Darling, I was never sleeping with Lou. I will explain it to you later”, I attempt to soothe her. Some of the sushi must have gone in my eye. I scratch it away and attempt a smile.

She spit at my foot and glowered over me. Her lips were shut tight. There was no budging her. She was quite the stubborn woman and honestly very annoying. Still… a world without her.

“Oh fine. She isn’t my mistress, dear. She is my… She’s my illegitimate daughter”, I told her.

“What”? My wife asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I-I-I had a child- long ago… out of wedlock. I-It was before I had even met you in that Yacht club. Back when I was only a boy. Lou came to me a two years ago… to meet me of course, but she specifically said she wants nothing to do with me. I gave her the job as a way for her to pay for her college without charity”.

My eye itches again and I scratch it without separating my gaze from hers. She must understand I am telling the truth. She must.

My wife gasped and her snarl faded away. She was once again beautiful as always.

“Yes and since… you know… she didn’t want to get in the way of our family, make things complicated, we didn’t tell anyone. She would be just the maid. I would never EVER cheat on you my ange….”

A spine shot straight for me from around the corner. It was inches from my face. It halted as my eyes stared straight down the sharp white bones of a fish skeleton. The other half was in my wife’s hand. She had stopped it from reaching me. She crushed it in her hands and let it fall to the floor. It writhed uselessly.

“I am so sorry”, She cried and wrapped me in a hug. We fit like we were made in a factory, my roundness against her bonyness.

“I LOVE you”, I growl in her gaze and pull her tight to me, “You are the only woman for me”.

Our lips met. Hers tasted sharp and savory, like soy sauce. Our lips moved together, sucking and sliding. Her tongue slithered in against mine. The suckers pressed against my teeth and pecked my tongue.

Wait a minute… Suckers?

I pull back only to feel the tentacle lock tight into my throat. I look down at the small purple line between my mouth and my wife’s. It's an octopus tentacle, hanging by tendons with chewed white flesh blossoming along its rubbery back. My wife’s face is tense and her eyes had rolled back.

I try to speak, but the tentacle is around my tongue and nothing understandable comes out of my mouth. I strain to look around at the hallway.

Tempura bits spilled onto the floor and are crunched under a mass of red and orange and undulating white and green. It filled the hallway and shifted. It had left most of its rice flesh behind, few still clung to the alaskan salmon and blue fin tuna. It’s form shot towards us, but fell short and clung to the carpet.

I tried to move away, but the tentacle from my wife’s mouth held tight. She was starting to turn blue. The pull was stronger as she became heavier and her hands began to lose their purchase on my shoulders.

I wrapped my arm around her and hauled her weight onto mine. I was finally able to turn and stumble the way to freedom, to the front foyer where the door to sunshine was. My wife was heavy, my blood was ice cold, and the mass of zombified sushi was charging at me.

The fish slapped beside my italian leather shoe and spread for me. I stomped on it. It made a popping squelch sound and I nearly slipped. The top part of it was soft, but the sushi underneath had turned into fused muscle. The soft parts reached up my socks and tightened with the strength of a marlin.

I cried out in terror, I couldn’t move anymore. The slimy flesh was crawling up my leg and tightening around my ankle and leg hair. It had gotten me. I was so close too. I could see the glitter of my chandelier now and where the entrance turned to marble floors. I just needed to get a couple more feet… and ……………………………….

“So, you are a relative of the victims”, The police officer asked the young man, so oddly out of place in a cheap t shirt and fine dress pants. The officers surrounding the mansion had uniforms after all, the discombobulation of the young man’s clothing only adding to the oddity of him being there.

Yellow tape snapped and thrashed in the wind around the mansion which had once lacked the unattractive color. It cordoned off the windows and front doors, separated the large armored vehicles and the heavy duty equipment used by the police. It was scarily scant protection from whatever was slamming into the door of the house. The door feebly clung to its place with all of the strength its former tree had bestowed it. A mix of, pink and green slipped through the cracks, mostly red.

“I am their son”, the young man insisted, “In definition alone”.

The cop eyed the young man warily and the young man acted as if he never saw it.

“And what does that mean”, the cop asked.

“Oh family drama aside, I am their son. Though my father would say otherwise”, the young man answered.

“Ah. So hopefully nothing too sad, right”? The cop asked playfully.

The young man raised an eyebrow. The cop’s smile began to melt away when the young man grew one of his own.

“My mother, yes, but I have no respect for my father”, the young man said, “It's fitting he’s dying this way really, the scum”.

“Oh…” The cop swallowed awkwardly, “At least you will be inheriting all this”.

“Oh NO”, the young man laughed, “No my father is bestowing his wealth to his mistress, Lou”.

“His mistress”? The cop asked, “You are absolutely sure”?

“Oh yes. My father is a good liar, but I can always tell because when he is lying about something powerful, he gets an itch in his eye. Some kind tick he has”.

“Ah”, the cop nodded and shifted in a silence with the young man. His eyes traveled over the property, its cactuses and red stones. The dust devils that pawed at the yellow tape.

“And… this thing is a zombie, correct? Shouldn’t there be more… power for fighting it”, the young man asked and eyed the cops who were far too nonchalant and miserable looking to be taking the slamming and slushing sound seriously. Many leaned on their vehicles, fanning themselves with the collars of their heavy armor. The heat seemed like a bigger threat than the zombie.

“Nah…” the cop shrugged.

Then the door fell. The hinges still held tight to its charge, clinging to wood that had become four pieces instead of two. The young man watched on in surprise at a giant mass of pink and green. It was as tall as the doorway, glistening and slimy. Fresh, large human bones lined its front, caked in blood and clinging red flesh. It undulated, shifting the bones into a giant maw which roared with a pressing silence.

The young man gasped and stepped back towards the vehicle he came up the dusty hill with. The creature was grotesque and drenched in blood. It had been hours and the avacado tied in its flesh had turned brown and its fishy smell was just beginning to fester.

The officers on the other hand didn’t seem too concerned. Hands on their guns, eyes alert, yet still leaning, they waited.

The monster charged off of the front of the house and onto the marble stairs. It slithered down, aiming for the closest person behind the yellow tape. The moment it touched the round about driveway, it began to sizzle. A delightful smell filled the air like a barbecue and gentle smoke rose from where the flesh touched the ground. The sun, touching down on its back made the slick on its flesh bubble and melt. The thing slowed instantaneously and reached for the officer so tauntily close to it. It tore down the tape and pulled itself forward, leaving a cooked trail behind it. It shrank as it attempted to reach the humans, the bones inside it became more prominent and numerous. Then as it turned golden brown and white. It stopped moving and collapsed.

“What in the…” The young man swore and squinted at the steaming pile of meat.

“What did you expect? It’s LA. There is no way that thing would last long in this heat”.

“So all my father had to do was make it out the front door”? the young man asked.

“Pretty much”.

“It's almost tragic really”, The young man said. He turned away from the scene and smiled to himself. From his pocket he pulled the tail from a piece of tempura shrimp.