Haunted by the Past (Original)

Chapter 11

To no one's surprise, as soon as I mentioned that the fridge needed to be cleaned before getting all of the groceries away, Eli fled the kitchen claiming he had more important matters to tend to. Quite honestly, it was probably for the best. It allowed me the ability to dump whatever leftover food containers I found without remorse. If I had accidentally thrown something he wanted, it was his own damn fault for not managing his fridge better. Most seemed to be evolving into another species though.

From the fridge, I continued onto the rest of the kitchenette before I started working on dinner using electric hotplates. Dinner was to be spaghetti with my grandmother's tomato sauce recipe. Simple, but hardy with lots of nutrients for my malnourished friend. It took me a lot longer than I would have liked, but in the end I was pleased with what I accomplished in what was a kitchen crawling with untold horrors earlier that morning. Once I had it served at the table, I called Eli back.

"Finally," Eli huffed as he sat down at the table.

"Finally?" I raised my eyebrow, giving him a stink eye as I raised my fork. "This would've been a lot faster with help."

"I'm sorry, but some things are more important than playing house," he scoffed.

"Eat your dinner," I glared. "And those green things next to your spaghetti? They're called green beans. Eat them too."

"What are you going to do if I don't eat them?" he teased.

"I'm going to reach across this table, pry your jaw open with my fingers and shove the hot spaghetti down your throat!" I hissed.

Eli clicked his tongue, "You'd use brute force? I expected better of you. Anchorage it is."

"What do you mean?" I narrowed my eyes.

"Brute force isn't going to work on the Triple-6," he explained. "You need to think more tactfully."

"You didn't say it was a test," I argued.

"Neither will the Triple-6," he shrugged. "He will expect brute force. You need to learn to think more creatively."

"It's fucking pasta," I rolled my eyes.

"And? How would you get me to open my mouth to eat it? What other ways can you think of?" he questioned.

I glanced down at the pasta, but the only method that came to mind was seduction, "I could lean forward and flaunt my tits at you."

Eli chuckled, "That's the second most expected course of action. And, by the way, if it won't work on me, it won't work on him either."

I raised my eyebrow, "What makes you so sure of that?"

"Because I live on the internet," he laughed. "And he's a psychopath. He won't be swayed by tits."

"How would you force me to eat the pasta then?" I countered.

"Could try a classic bait and switch. Offer you chocolate cake and at the last second I'd stick my long, thick green bean into your mouth," he smirked.

"Green bean?" I narrowed my eyes.

"What did you think I was going to say?" he teased. "Exactly where was your head just then?"

I rolled my eyes, "I highly doubt he would be interested in chocolate cake. Or of phallic objects."

"No, but that's not the point of that tactic. The point is to fool the victim," Eli spun his fork around on his plate spaghetti innocently.

"The fake breadcrumbs you mentioned earlier," I thought back.

"Exactly," he said before putting a forkful of spaghetti into his mouth. "Oh, this is actually good."