His thin ginger hair was matted down with grease.
“Oh... Well. Hello, Claude.” Landford didn’t quite know what to say. But at last his sense of responsibility as a host kicked in. “Won’t you come in?”
Claude grunted and shambled through the door, followed by Zuzie. She crept in timidly, staring at the floor.
“He insisted,” she said hoarsely. “I told him to stay home but he insisted.” She shuffled to the couch and plopped down into the cushions.
Claude’s lips curved into a crooked, yellow-toothed smile. “What’s tuh eat?” he said. His voice sounded stupid, Landford thought. Stupid in a mean sort of way—and oddly hollow. Like a cannibal in a cave, grunting for raw guts to gnaw on.
The guests simply stared. Nicole crossed to the liquor cabinet and poured herself a brandy, splashing a good portion of her drink on the counter. Mrs. Green made the sign of the cross repeatedly.
Landford checked his watch—six fifty-five—then cleared his throat. “Dinner was going to be at seven, but I think our new...guests...Zuzie and Claude Bawls, need a moment to...” He looked to Nicole for help, but she was busy refilling her glass. “...to socialize. And to try some of Mrs. Green’s delicious cheese puffs.”
Everyone watched as Claude marched up to the hors d’oeuvres and lowered his face into the nearest plate.
Nicole stumbled to Landford’s side. “We’ve got to call the police,” she hissed.
“Why? Because he’s hogging the cheese puffs?” he whispered.
“Well, do something.”
Landford moved closer to Claude. The fat man was voraciously working puff after puff into his mouth with his tongue.
“We were all really sorry to hear about your accident,” Landford said. “Are you...feeling better...?”
Claude grinned up at him with cheese-smeared lips. “Oh, yeah. I used tuh hurt a lot, but they took care of me. They sure did.”
Zuzie sat up on the couch. “Remember, Claude. Don’t bore the nice people with all the details of your treatment.”
Claude sucked up another cheese puff. “Can I tell them ’bout the House of the Ankh?”
Zuzie looked daggers. “No, you may not.”
“How ’bout the Red Nurse?”
“Again, no.”
Claude cocked his head to one side. “The leeches? The Moon Scarab? The Cat Man? How ’bout—”
“No, no, NO!” Zuzie flew across the room and began stuffing eggrolls into her husband’s mouth. “Just eat, Claude. Please. Just. Eat.”
A movement by the patio doors caught Landford’s eye. Nicole had opened the doors for some night air, and now the cat, Pickles, was creeping into the living room. Her paws were covered with dirt, and in her mouth she carried one of her dead kittens.
Landford hoped no one would see Pickles. He hoped the cat would simply carry its horrible burden to its blanket in the shadows under the piano and go to sleep. But then Peg said—
“Oh my God. That cat just carried in a dead kitten.”
Everyone’s attention turned from Claude to the cat. Pickles carried the kitten to the piano. Instead of curling up in the blanket, Pickles jumped on top of the piano and began to lick the kitten clean.
“Enough!” Mrs. Green screamed. “I can’t stand it! I’ve got to get out of this devil house!” As she ran out the door, she shouted, “I’ll send you my bill, you—you monsters!”
Landford ran to the threshold. “But we hired you for the whole evening! You can’t—”
That was when he heard it.
It would echo in his dreams for the rest of his life.
The medley.
The cheery strains of Alley Cat, intertwined with Kitten on the Keys, and Memories from that musical, the one he’d seen with Nicole a few months earlier. CATS.
Slowly Landford turned around. Claude was seated at the piano, his back to the party. His playing was—Inspired. Lively. Bubbling with enthusiasm.
Landford looked at the arm stumps, hanging down like deli salamis on each side of the fat man, and wondered: What the hell is he PLAYING with?
Zuzie began to sob. “I told him to stay home. I told him I told him I told him I told him...”
The guests stared at the raving woman. Then Mrs. Finlay poked an elbow into her husband’s ribs and nodded toward the door.
Mr. Finlay walked up to Landford. “It’s been an interesting evening, Isaac. But we’ve got to be going. You understand.”
Mr. Dietrich and Mr. Henderson moved forward. “It’s getting kind of late,” Dietrich said. Henderson just nodded frantically.
In a moment, all the guests were rushing out the door. Marla and Peg grabbed hands and sped out by way of the patio.
By now Zuzie was sobbing so loudly that it echoed off the glassware with a slight brrringggg. “They said he’d be all right! And I believed them. Pets are good for you, you know. They said he’d be as right as rain...” She blew her nose on a corner of the couch cover.
Landford slowly walked up to the pianist. He looked over the fat man’s shoulder. A moment later, he wondered why he was feeling so dizzy. It dawned on him: the sight before him had temporarily made him forget to breathe. He gasped for air and sucked in a whiff of Claude’s putrid stench.
Claude’s sweatshirt had been pulled up—or more probably, pushed back—over his protruding gut, to reveal a raw, gaping opening. Three orange cats had crawled out of the opening, but they hadn’t gone far. They were attached to Claude by thickly veined umbilical cords. The cats were capering merrily on the piano keys, pounding out the feline hits. A couple of them wore slime-streaked miniature tuxedoes. The third wore a black velvet evening gown. All of them had bulging eyes, heavy brows, and jagged yellow teeth.
A loop of slithering tissue spooled out of the opening and wrapped around Pickle’s dead kitten, pulling it into Claude’s belly.
“Pets good. Soooo good,” Claude whispered. “Come to Papa.”
I’ve Got Those Synthetic-Zombie-Penis/Andy-Warhol-Came-from-Venus/Cha-Cha-Dancin’-Headless-Movie-Mama Blues
THE FATE OF HUMANKIND HANGS IN THE BALANCE
One two chopchopchop:
B-movies told us that Mars needed women, but in reality, it was the citizens of Venus who had a mighty fierce hankerin’ for MEN: big sweaty stallion-butt hunky guys like the ones in old prison movies. The thing is, they didn’t want the whole guy. Just the cock. Venusians liked to cook up Earth cocks for dinner. They liked to fry ’em up in a fiendish alien compound that tasted a lot like the substance known to Earthlings as garlic butter.
You
