I gazed through the glass out over the estate. It was still the same shithole it had been when I was growing up here. Nothing ever changed. People got older, people died, and others, like my wife, just seemed to live forever.
I could hear her singing in the living room; the drink had finally kicked home. I knew, without seeing her, that she would be dancing in front of the little stereo system near the window. We had had it for years. I think it was a wedding gift from one of her asshole brothers, obviously nicked from a neighbour. I had one vinyl in all that time, ‘The Best of Madness’, but Doreen had thrown it at the cat one time and it had broken in two. I can remember every Christmas, opening the sock-shaped parcel and praying for a replacement. It never happened.
These days I spent all my time in the kitchen, looking out the window mostly and watching the world go by. Doreen would come in now and again when her bottle was empty and grab another. It was awful to watch someone you once loved kill themselves slowly with the drink. If I could, I would have stopped her, but I couldn’t. I could only watch. And those rare times that we actually got close, I could never find the words.
There was a knock at the door and Doreen killed the music. Her bare feet padded up the tiled hall and I could hear the clicking of the many locks as she opened them. Doreen trusted nobody.
It was a male voice. Selling something, most probably. Laughter, a few words exchanged and the slamming of the front door. Doreen walked into the kitchen. I adjusted myself and stared at her. She ignored me and went straight to the cupboard.
“When you get behind closed doors and she lets her hair hang low… ”
That bloody song again. The glass banged hard on the worktop beside me. I turned away. The vodka splashed all the way up to halfway and the dash of coke hardly coloured it at all. I felt some pity for her habit, but not that much. It would be better for both of us if she just choked to death on her own vomit one of these nights. The thing was, my wife just wasn’t that rock and roll.
I held my breath as she turned to stare at me. Her eyes were barely visible, sunken so deep into her troubled skull. She left the kitchen without speaking. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least I think I did.
It got dark pretty quick and the music still played from the living room. I guessed she had passed out on the couch. The record would play to finish, the needle would lift up and return home. Just one more song and then I could get some sleep. I changed position and looked back out over the estate. Darkness had fallen. The street lamps— or at least those that worked—came on. Hooded creatures lurked in the shadows, young ones with beer and glue, getting wasted and breaking into houses. It’s just how things worked around here. I closed my eyes and hoped Doreen would sleep through .
The postman woke me the next morning. The wave of bills and adverts fell upon the hallway carpet. I listened, could hear snoring from the living room. It was asleep, sound asleep. I looked at the little clock on the windowsill and it read 10.30am, Wednesday. It was Doreen’s signing on day. She would be gone for most of the morning. She didn’t drive and, since I was incapable these days, she had to take a bus from the estate and a taxi when she got to town. I didn’t envy the poor guy or girl who would take care of her at the dole office. Her breath in the morning was enough to cut through glass. I had until just after lunchtime to do what I wanted. I could relax in those few hours. I could tidy myself up a little without the constant fear of criticism on my appearance. I was what I was. Nothing could change that.
I closed my eyes as she entered the kitchen. She never spoke. I was glad. I knew by the amount she had downed last night that her head would be in pieces, and by the sounds coming from underneath her gown that she was moments away from shitting herself. She filled half a glass, drunk most of it, and then ran—or staggered quickly—to the stairs. It was one habit I could not abide. How could people use the toilet and not have the decency to lock or at least close the door behind them? I sat there and heard the whole thing, every splash, groan, and fart. It sounded like a slaughterhouse. I waited for the flush that never came. She was off to get ready and make herself presentable. I was tired. My eyelids fell heavy over my eyes and I tried to get some sleep. I made myself as comfortable as I could in a bed that was well overdue a change of sheets. I couldn’t do it myself, and Doreen had obviously forgotten about it. I had to make do with lying in my own mess and filth in a room that was far too small. Sometimes I thought of death and the comfort it would bring. I eventually fell into a deep slumber.
I was dreaming of gentle walks in the countryside with our old dog Ben—a collie type, all tan and black—when I felt something prodding me. The dream disappeared and I opened my eyes. Doreen was inches away from me with a stupid grin on her wrinkled face. The years were definitely not being kind to her. I was glad. At least, incapacitated like I was, it meant I wouldn’t have to endure watching her or hearing her with other men. All through our marriage, and most likely because I worked shifts at the factory, she had many affairs and one-night-stands all under my nose. I’m sure even our neighbours around the estate knew of her sexual exploits and had had a good laugh at my expense. If they could see me now I wonder would they laugh. Knowing the people of this estate, they probably would.
“Have you been sleeping all this time, you lazy fucker?” she said as she went about putting the groceries in the various cupboards, slamming each door in turn. I didn’t respond, just licked my lips and hoped she would leave as soon as possible.
“Well, while you were lying around on your fat arse all day, I have been busy. You remember busy, don’t you, George?” she said, smirking. Her last bag contained several bottles of wine. She lifted them out one by one, inspecting the labels as she did. Who was she kidding? She knew fuck all about wine. I have to admit I would have killed for even one sip of Chardonnay, but my drinking days were long gone.
Her stash was under the sink. For years she had used the place to hide her booze behind the various unopened bottles and sprays of cleaning materials.
She left one bottle on the kitchen table, took off her coat, and threw it out into the hall in the hope of reaching the bannister. It fell short and landed on the floor. I watched as she unscrewed the bottle of wine and tossed the top into the sink. She grabbed a fresh glass and filled it to the brim, took a sip and sat at the table. I had that sinking feeling in my ample belly that it was going to be a really long night.
“So, Georgie boy, as I was saying, I have been busy today. Don’t you want to know how I got on uptown? Shit, that reminds me, I picked up a few things for you as well. Aren’t I so good to you?” she said, sipping from the glass and plundering in her handbag.
She pulled out a few small bags. I adjusted myself. I had been too concerned with her comings and goings that I had forgotten about eating. I wasn’t able to eat on my own and I needed Doreen’s help for that. I actually felt a tinge of guilt about running her down so much. I was still alive. She fed me. She talked with me when I was feeling up to it. I suppose in her own strange way she still loved me.
She held the food between her nicotine-stained fingers, not far from my face, and it was my cue to open my mouth. She dropped it in and I swallowed as quick as I could. I wasn’t allowed cooked food anymore, and the stuff that had been recommended was tasteless and cold, but who was I to complain? Doreen kept feeding me with one hand and tipping her glass with the other. It was always a nice moment. I preferred the kind Doreen to the one that would surely make an appearance later on when the wine kicked in. I closed my mouth and blinked my eyes. It was my way of telling her that I was done. I had had my fill. I belched and she actually cracked a smile.
“Greedy big bastard, aren’t you, George? Now, I’ll let you digest that before I clean up your mess. In the meantime, I have to make myself presentable. Old Doreen has a date tonight.” With that, she went upstairs. I was hoping she would keep her promise of cleaning me up. I had been sitting in my own piss and shit for a few days now. I was beyond caring about my own cleanliness, but I’m sure she wouldn’t want her new boyfriend having to stick the smell. Although, usually when she had ‘friends’ over, she would shut the door and keep me out of sight. I would busy myself with life out on the estate while she busied herself in the bedroom upstairs. I would try my best to drown the sounds out, but she was loud when she was in the mood. Thankfully she hadn’t shown any sexual interest in me lately. I wasn’t the man she had married. I was just an ugly, deformed creature, more a burden than anything else. I hated her for letting me live like this. I had nothing left to offer the world. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep off the mood.
There she stood in an old flowery dress, the one I had bought her one day in the city, back when things were different and money was really not a problem. “What you think, George, the old lady still got it?”
I tried to nod, but the way my neck and spine were these days, I couldn’t manage it. I blinked instead.
She looked at the clock and smiled. “Time for a wee drink before he arrives. Don’t worry, I’ll clean you up when I get back. Okay, Georgie?” She reached down and stroked my face. “Oh dear! Your skin’s all dried up. I’ll have to Google that and see what’s up. Remind me in the morning, but not too early,” she said with a wink.
A car horn blared outside in the street. She went to the window and waved, drank straight from the wine bottle, wiped her mouth and blew me a kiss. She was gone. I had peace. I actually hoped she would find me dead when she got back. A car engine revved as it sped off. I was alone.
A few hours passed and something woke me. A strange tickling sensation around the top of my head. I opened my sticky eyes. I saw a leg dangling down, trying to find its footing. I licked my lips. I knew who it was. It was the damned spider that had been torturing me for days now. Doreen was petrified by them. I didn’t mind them at all. I sat still and waited. He was was mine this time.
His thin legs crawled all over my face, and still I waited. Further down he climbed until several of his legs actually rested on my closed mouth. I took a breath, opened wide, and with one gulp I took him in my mouth.
He wriggled and crawled around, trying desperately to escape. There was no escape, not this time. I let him suffer in the darkness, making up for the many nights he had spun webs upon me as I slept. When I finally got bored, I swallowed once and he was gone.
The front door crashed open and I heard a heavy thud on the hall floor. I adjusted myself and watched. A hand appeared around the edge of the doorframe, followed by the rest of Doreen. She was a mess. It took her a few minutes to actually make it to her feet. It was a scene I had had to endure many times, but tonight she looked different. She actually looked scared. Her long hair was wet and plastered to her face. Her makeup was a mess and her mouth was bleeding. Blood splashed on the tiles as she spat. She cursed and mumbled as she finally got to her feet and staggered towards the kitchen worktop.
It was times like this I wish I was human. I just wanted to cry out and ask her what was wrong and what had happened? Regardless of what I was, she was still my wife. She lifted the bottle she had opened hours before and drank from it, washing the stale wine around her mouth and spitting down into the sink. Something small and yellow rolled about the sink like a roulette ball before stopping.
It was a front tooth.
“Fuck,” she screamed and picked it up. She caught me watching. “The fuck are you looking at?” I moved back into the corner of my tank.
“Yeah, you know what happened, George. You want to know how my date went?” she said, ripping the front of her dress down.
There were bitemarks and bruises all around her neck and chest. She stood there swaying in front of me. Her eyes burned right through the glass tank and into me. I was frightened. I had been wary of drunk Doreen before; even when I was human she was a fearful drunk, but now I was shaking in my lumpy green skin.
The chair scraped along the floor as she sat down, grabbed the bottle, and drank from it. She hadn’t adjusted herself and her tits hung out from the ripped dress, sagging mounds of dead flesh. But who was I to judge appearances? I was a dirty fat toad with skin problems and bad eyes.
Doreen sat in silence, playing with the top of her wine bottles. Her yellow finger circled the top, peeled the label from it, leaving the bits in the ashtray beside the cigarette that was almost burnt to the butt. I would have killed for the last few drags from that cigarette, or any cigarette for that matter. I really thought the cravings and human feelings would have long since vanished, but it seemed whatever had happened to me, whatever Doreen had done to me, hadn’t been a complete transformation. It was times like this that I wish it had been.
A thump on the door stirred me from my thoughts. Doreen’s head shot up from its slump.
“Hey, Doreen, let me talk to you, please?” said a male voice from out on the balcony. I watched as she pulled on an old cardigan, which had been hanging over the radiator, and covered herself up. I knew exactly who it was.
Her date.
I stuck my big tongue out and licked my lips. It was the only way I had of expressing myself. Fuck, it was frustrating. She glanced over at me. Her eyes were wide and bloodshot. She looked old and vulnerable. Her hands shook as she clung to the front of the cardigan. The door really rattled this time. I thought it might crash open with the force of the guy behind it.
“Open the fucking door. I won’t let you do this to me. I have my wife and kids to think about. OPEN THIS FUCKING DOOR.”
Doreen walked to the window, leaning over my tank as she did. I turned.
The guy’s face appeared at the window. He saw her and raised his hand, as if threatening to break the window. Doreen stepped back, her face pale. The guy’s fist just stopped short of the glass. I hoped he would leave. He didn’t. He moved away from the window, and then I heard our rusty letterbox open.
“Doreen, at least talk to me. You owe me that, at least?” He spoke in a softer tone. Doreen moved towards the kitchen door and hung around it. I didn’t like where this was going.
“Just leave me alone, what’s done is done. I won’t tell anyone. Just go, please?” she said. Her voice was strong, at least. I didn’t want her to cry in front of this bastard.
“I won’t take the blame for this. I mean, who are they gonna believe? I’m a respected shop owner and, well, you’re… you’re you?” I could tell by his voice he was smiling. My blood boiled.
“You fucking attacked me. I have the marks all over my body to prove it. How about I call the police now and show them? How would that suit you and your wife and kids? They’d like that, wouldn’t they?” she screamed out into the hall.
The door banged three, maybe four times really hard. This was it. He was coming in to finish what he had started.
Doreen jumped back and ran to the rack of knives on the wall. My heart sunk when I saw that she had picked the smallest one available. She wasn’t thinking straight. Two more thumps at the door and then silence. He was gone, for now. Doreen was breathing heavily, but moved to the window and gazed out. She sighed before looking down at me. She smiled at me.
It was over.
“I think we need a drink, George. You fancy a wee drink? Like the old days?” she whispered. I did, but that wasn’t going to happen. She left the kitchen, switched on lights all over the house, and made her way to the living room.
A few moments later, Charlie Rich was singing about a Sunday kind of woman. I knew this song, lyric by lyric, chord by chord, but after what had happened this evening, I couldn’t deny the lady her guilty pleasure.
She turned it up and then appeared in the doorway. “Just going upstairs, Georgie. I want to get out of these clothes. It will help me feel better. Don’t go anywhere, okay, hun?”
Okay, this was weird. She hadn’t called me Georgie or hun in such a long time. I was worried. I moved to the cleanest corner of the tank and made myself comfortable. My piss and shit almost covered half the base of the glass tank. I would soon have to hop up onto the little wooden hut she had bought the other week, although I wasn’t sure I could manage it. Tomorrow was another day, I would try then.
I settled down to sleep. I knew Doreen well enough to know that she had crashed on the bed and would sleep until morning. Charlie was now singing about taking it all home. He would quit soon enough.
I felt cold fingers pressing into my underbelly. Something sharp poked into my side. I tried to look but I was suddenly floating up from my filthy tank.
Doreen had me cupped in her hands, close to her face. I could smell the stale wine and bad breath warm against my cold skin. She smiled. Pieces of the meal she had had earlier were stuck between her front teeth. She began to walk backwards from the kitchen.
I have to admit it felt good to be out of the tank for a change. I can only recall being out once before, the one time she had actually cleaned my tank. She had set me down beside the dirty dishes. While she changed my bedding and popped in the new wooden hut thing, I had busied myself, licking the dry food from the plates. It wasn’t much, but it made a change from the dried worms from the pet store.
Charlie was really going for it now, and Doreen set me down on the little glass table at the centre of the living room. An opened packet of fags and an overspilling ashtray sat beside me. Doreen, now wearing her best dressing gown—a black number with a cat embroidered on the sleeve—went to the stereo, lifted the needle and placed it back at the start of the record.
Charlie was off again. I didn’t know what to do with myself, although the ashtray smelt really good. There were some really half-smoked healthy looking butts in there. Doreen picked me up again and began to sway gently to the sultry tones of the silver fox. I’m sure the neighbours were sick of him.
Doreen had me in her hands, facing her, about a foot from her face. Those wrinkles. I hadn’t seen her this close up in months, and it wasn’t pretty. It seemed the little lip hair that she was always so self-conscious of had become an afterthought. Black hairs crawled out from the caked on makeup. Her lips were dry and her cheekbones poked out with a purpose. She was so very far from the beautiful blonde I had married all those years before.
“Isn’t this nice, hun? Does it feel good to be out ?” she said, trying to make herself heard above the fox.
I wanted to speak. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was for what she had become. I want to apologise for not being a good husband. I wanted to speak, but all I could do was blink and roll my tongue around my mouth.
Doreen brought me slowly towards her chest. I wasn’t liking what I saw. Loose, almost grey goose-pimpled skin. A fact only I knew, Doreen goose-pimpled when she got horny.
I didn’t like this one bit.
She had me pressed belly down against the area just shy of her drooping tits. It felt awful. The more she danced the tighter she squeezed. She sang along softly with the record, so unaware of how uncomfortable I was.
This was it, this was how my life would end, squashed to death on her chest. Thankfully she eased up when the track finished and took a seat on the sofa.
After opening her dressing gown a little she placed me on her big milky thigh. Because of her size, I could relax without falling off. While she was lighting a cigarette, I looked around. On the opposite thigh, there were some bruises and what looked like scratches. I thought of the guy.
I bet he was at home now, drunk, snuggled up behind his wife and whispering sweet nothings.
Doreen flicked her ash onto the floor between her legs. “Did she dance as good as I do, George? You can tell me the truth. I don’t care anymore.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I mean, after all these years, she asks me something like that. I looked up at her as she sucked hard on the cigarette, wrinkled lips almost touching together. I blinked once and hoped that she would take that as a no. She blew the smoke in my direction. I blinked again. The glowing end of the cigarette was drawing very close to me now, and I shuffled back on her thigh.
There was a look in her eyes now.
“Your silence worries me, George. I’m not liking it. It gets me thinking about what else she was good at. You can tell me anything now. It’s all in the past,” she said, holding the cigarette right next to my head. I could feel its heat against my face. I eased back some more and then lost my footing. I felt myself falling to the floor.
She caught me. Held me in one hand and smoked with the other, never once taking her mad drunk eyes off me until she stubbed her butt out in the ashtray. I saw a glimmer of a smile crease on her mouth. Her left hand reached down to her chest and revealed a breast. It hung flat and lifeless on her overweight stomach.
“I know you sit in that tank, George, and think of me and how things used to be. I know you watch me and have your dirty little thoughts. I’m still beautiful, I can’t fault you for that.” She held me up to her face and licked my head. The smell from her mouth was like shit and death. I knew something awful was happening inside that drunken stomach of hers.
“You like that, don’t you?” she whispered. I didn’t. I closed my eyes. I felt her dry tongue run all across the top of my head and down my back. For a moment I swore she was going to take a bite out of me. “Oh, George, you taste so good. You always did.”
I felt like throwing up all the crap she had fed me earlier. My stomach gurgled. Her hand squeezed my sides. She licked me again and, as she pulled away, saliva dripped from the corner of her mouth. She groaned.
I watched as her free hand slid down her belly and disappeared.
Oh fuck, Doreen, what are you doing?
She began to writhe on the sofa and moved me towards the exposed saggy tit. I couldn’t do it.
The hairs around her brown nipples were millimetres from my face. “Lick me, George, the way you used to. I don’t even care if you think about her. Do it, honey, do it for Doreen.”
The front door crashed opened. She dropped me onto the sofa. I landed on my back and struggled to turn over. The cushions moved back into position as she stood up.
A shadow stood swaying in the hallway. We both knew who it was. Doreen stood in the middle of the living room. I finally managed to get on my belly again. He moved into the light.
His face was bloodied. He was smiling. “Alright, Doreen, I thought I would let myself in. Let’s have a drink. What you say?” he slurred.
“Get out of here. I will call the police. I will tell them what you did to me. Leave. Now.”
He uttered what sounded like a laugh and rushed her. She fell back into the fireplace, and the crack of her skull on the tiles was sickening.
I crawled to the edge of the sofa. I wanted to jump down and get to her before he did, but what use would I be?
I sat there, blinking, tongue rolling out over my mouth, and watched as he rained down blow after blow into Doreen’s face.
She wasn’t moving by the time he spat in her face and gathered himself off her. I was waiting for him to notice me. Who wouldn’t notice a toad on someone’s sofa? He didn’t and, after checking her pulse with a bloodied hand, he left.
When I was sure he had left for good, I took my chances.
Just below me were a bunch of old magazines and some used hankies. Hopefully, they would break my fall. If they didn’t? Well, I was ready. I jumped.
With the amount of shit and rubbish on the living room floor, it took me a while to get to Doreen. Her broken face stared at me. It was pulp. I couldn’t look at it and hopped around her bloodsoaked hair, out of sight of her dead eyes. I could do nothing but stay with her until someone came. They would take her to the morgue and take me to a pet shop. I hoped they would, but I didn’t care.
Nobody did come. I spent my days eating anything that I could find on the floor; there were some dried up flies under the sofa and a couple of dead spiders in the hall. I was weak with hunger. The only fluids I had ingested were the drips from Doreen’s wounds, but that was days ago. I had lost track of time.
The flies gathered not long after she had died. It was a pet hate of mine, how she would leave the windows open all the fucking time, but I was thankful for it now.
They had come in ones and twos to start with, but as her corpse started to smell, they came in bunches. I stayed close to the wound at the back of her head and did pretty well. I caught a couple of fat ones behind her ear, but the others were too fast. I had to give up eventually and let them have their prize.
I sat beside her—what was left of her—and watched the morning sun stream through the blinds. Something caught my eye.
It wasn’t big but it was white, fresh, and crawling from the hole in Doreen’s head. Another appeared, and then many more poured from the wound. My tongue darted in and out of my mouth. I snapped a couple up. They tasted glorious.
Before diving into that feast of maggots, I took a few moments and thought of Doreen, but I couldn’t even picture her face. For me now, she was just a means of survival.
She would have liked that. She would have found that funny.
[bctt tweet=”OCTOBER TERROR 2018 Short Story Award – Entry #52 ‘George’ by Daryl Duncan – Enjoy all this terrific, disturbing material you have in your hands, lots of horror stories at your disposal for your dark delight and vote!” username=”theboldmom”]
On October 23rd we’ll close submissions and open a poll for the readers to choose their favourite one! You’ll have a week to make your choice and on October 31st we’ll announce the winner!!!
