Eat This!

Part 3: Meeting the parents.

OK guys, here's a long one! Buckle up!

So here we are, I’m driving through the town as Geoffrey is talking me through his vast collection of hats on Team Fortress 2 and I realise two things: Geoff is the only person who would benefit socially by having his vocal chords ripped out violently, thrown in the thrash and accompanied with two or three hand grenades; and that the usual busy Friday night scene is devoid of any life-forms at all – it’s a creepy atmosphere to say the least. I scrunch up my face as I attempt to make normal conversation with Geoff.

“It’s Jeremy, by the way.” I said calmly, taking him by surprise as I cut off his relentless rant about shit nobody has time for. He takes his time with a response; surely this is a record for the longest time another human being has cared to exchange small talk with him for.

“W-What?” Came the feeble response as he looked at me and adjusted his bulky, thick-rimmed black glasses. That was quickly becoming a pet peeve of mine. It’s up there with people saying literally without actually saying something considered literal. Oh yes, she literally had me on the floor crying! No, she didn’t, you use that term in the wrong way one more time and I will literally carve out your intestine and feed it to a monster.

“You called me ‘Jezzy’ earlier” I made sure I added heavy emphasis on ‘Jezzy’ so he knew not to go there – ever – again. “The name’s Jeremy. You call me ‘Jezzy’ ever again and I will pick you up by your scrotum and eat you, so help me god.” The words came out like casual, beautiful poetry as I tapped my hand in an off-beat rhythm against the steering wheel. He looked at me and nodded, he turned his head to look out of the passenger seat window.

“It’s the next right,” he whimpered, resembling a puppy that’s just been scolded for shitting in your suitcase. “Thank you for this, Jeremy. As a token of my appreciation you could stay for a spot of dinner courtesy of my mother… I mean, if you like.” Food. I was bloody starving so I figured I could take him up on his offer before I got the hell out of his cavern, hell, if this radio warning was correct it could be my last warm meal. I swerved the car right until we reached an estate of houses. Banoi Boulevard. “Number 15.”

“My last supper with the G-man and his folks, sounds like bliss. Sure, I’m in. Don’t go telling anyone you took me home to meet your parents though,” I looked at him and smiled and I was met by a surprised look, I liked him a lot better when he wasn’t talking about Final Fantasy or whatever it was.

I locked up the car and we headed out, I undid the top button of my shirt and slackened my tie as Geoff stood in his blazer and tucked in shirt. He rang the doorbell and I turned to him “You don’t have a key?”

“No, they haven’t trusted me with one yet – they say I can have one when I bring a girlfriend home ya’know,” I shook my head in disbelief, poor guy. I’m about to meet the only woman that has ever made contact with him. A few seconds passed, I checked out the neighbourhood, this place was a lot more decent then mine. There was even a garden across the road that had the hedges trimmed to resemble animals like giant dinosaurs and platypuses. I laughed to myself. Impressive.

The door swung open and a shivering voice followed “Hello pumpkin we’ve been ever so worried… Who’s this handsome young man?” She said as she looked toward me, I took her hand and planted a kiss on it. She had the face of a wrinkled old muffin with little crab eyes, her hair was beginning to grey ever so slightly and strands of hair flopped over her blue eyes.

 “Hello honey, the name is Jeremy Cooper,” I said in my smoothest voice, as I brought her hand up and kissed it again – I licked her wrinkly hand a little and she let out a soft ‘oop’ noise, and I gave her a wink.

Completely oblivious to me romancing his mother, Geoff cleared his throat “He drove me home after we heard the warning messages of the Super Flu on the radio, I invited him to stay for dinner if that’s ok?” His mother obliged and welcomed us in; I followed Geoff into the hallway of his house. The hallway walls had various paintings of the city throughout the ages and the wallpaper was an old fashioned brown and white, horizontally striped and visibly aged with slight draining of colour. I could smell a welcoming scent coming from the kitchen, the type only a mother could conjure up.

“Where’s dad?” Geoff asked.

“He’s in the bedroom, he isn’t feeling well – it’s a shame really, I was looking forward to – “

Geoff quickly butted in. “Mum, don’t even finish that sentence!” His mother giggles. What a backward family, and yet I’m not surprised at all.

“Dinner will be ready soon boys, how about you take a seat at the table?” She smiled at us. We took our seats in the dining room – It looked very old fashioned, again filled with paintings on the wall, complete with a muted looking colour scheme to the walls and floor, and tons of books in a royal looking bookcase. Old damask fabric coats the dining seats; it felt as if I’d been time warped to the forties. Time passed and small talk was exchanged until the strangest dinner I have ever seen in my life comes flaunting in the room in the scrunched hands of Geoff’s mum. We had what can only be described as a barbeque cheese salad, a devilled chicken and some sweet-sour carrots. Needless to say my picky nature hated this queer menu, but I pressed on and ate it for the greater good. We were halfway through eating when Geoff asked what was wrong with his dad. “Oh Geoffrey, it really is quite horrendous, I think it may be linked to this Super Flu they’ve been talking about on the news. He’s got dreadful discolouring in his skin and his veins are a quite unique purple colour, you can almost see them throbbing out of his body, I think the root of the problems was a horrid looking bite wound he told me got from a hunting trip. He came back with it bandaged up, I had a look as I was changing the bandages it was horrifying, plus he wouldn’t stop moaning. I called up a doctor but they were dreadfully busy – They advised me to strap him down!”

I tried to lighten up the atmosphere “Kinky.” Tough crowd, I went back to eating the monstrosity in front of me.

“I didn’t quite have the heart to do that, I thought it couldn’t be so serious I had to strap him down, that’s ridiculous!” Her hands started to tremble as she picked up a bottle of Shiraz and poured a glass of wine; she took a sip and let out a sigh. “Jolly good wine this; did you know the grapes used to make this wine are from Iran?” Very cultured, Geoff’s mum.

“Mother, if he’s showing symptoms of the Super Flu shown on the news then you should probably strap him down, they say the infected turn very hostile and start attacking others.” I looked up from my dinner at the sound of these words; I thought I could hear a banging in my head until it got louder and louder. There was a loud cracking noise of a door being bust open coming from upstairs, almost on cue with Geoff’s words. All three of us shot up from out seats instantaneously, and I grabbed a fork in case we needed the firepower. I looked over to Geoff, a lanky man with skinny limbs, he doesn’t look like he’s ever done a bit of exercise in his life, that kid who always fakes shitting himself just to get out of Physical Education lessons. Brilliant – one of these infected blokes is probably going to attack us and on my side is a stick insect and Dora the Explorer’s grandmother.

The man got down the staircase in almost super-human speed, turning the corner to the opening of the dining room, he stood and looked straight at us – it was almost as if he was calculating a battle plan. Whatever this infection was had badly distorted his shirtless body, you could see the blood soaked through the bandage just below the shoulder of his left arm, there was dirty coloured blood seeping from his mouth. His pupils were the most disturbing feature, bright red; he looked crazed and ready to strike with his veins throbbing violently.

“Dad…?” Geoff gasped as he sized up his father, whom was roughly the same frame as his son. I was fairly muscular so I knew I could take him if it came down to, but for now I wanted to see how this would all play out. This shit was getting serious far too quickly, I suddenly missed eating my horrific meal and I sure as hell didn’t want to die in this horrid throw-back-to-the-forties house. Geoff’s mum approached her husband slowly, cautiously, ignoring Geoff’s calls for her to stay back.

“Graham, honey… Let’s get you back to bed now…” 

I gripped my fork.