Suzette's Dead Brother

Suzette peeled the label from an empty bottle of sleeping pills, rolled off her mattress, and started for the living room. She touched off the kindling in her fireplace, watching the flames flicker in midnight's windows. Her ocelots, Shiksa and Ben-Gurion, joined her at the fire. October's wind moaned through the roof flashing and the surrounding silage fields. She pulled on a cardigan, then walked to a window and gazed into the moonlit night, a crush of stars reflecting in her eyes.

"If sleep would only seek me out," she whispered. "I would dream of castle towers and fallen ladies, but I am nothing earthly now." 

A star streaked across the sky. An ember exploded as she touched the chill windowpane, dragging her fingertips.

***

Earlier that evening, she’d fallen into a deep slumber, taken a somnambulist’s journey, walking empty hallways, passing bedrooms unoccupied before reaching a staircase to the house’s lower level, an L-shaped expanse with a library at one end and a home theater at the other. She locked French doors and drew the curtains. Her ocelots charged down the stairs. 

"Don't chase!" she scolded. "Bad cats!"

They followed as Suzette headed for the home theater, pulling a ceremonial opening ribbon off the theater door and reading the playbill: The Postman Always Rings Twice. Inside, she rotated a dimmer switch, bringing sunset-colored light to the recessed fixtures. She sat in a luxurious leather chair, remembering her last conversation with her father, an interview she'd called the Silverman Chronicles. And then she'd heard the tapping.

What the fuck?

She glanced at her watch: 6:24 a.m. She slipped past the theater's door and listened. My closest neighbor is half a mile away. Her exotic felines crouched low with widened eyes. Suzette hurried upstairs, pulled back a shade, and scanned the patio. It was Ray, standing barefoot in the moonlight, wearing the suit he'd been buried in three months before. Down the stairs she ran, swallowing her revulsion as she threw the French doors open.

Ray pushed past her, letting go with a horrifying wail. The undertaker's putty was gone from his face. Gruesome crash injuries, shattering windshields, the clang of breaking axles. He stank. A squirming maggot dropped from his cheek. Ray was a fucking zombie, and Suzette had a problem. He stumbled to the library to his baby grand piano and pulled the door behind him. Ok, thought Suzette.

She sat in a chair beside the library door and trembled while Ray played a sonata. Mustering her nerve, she threw the door open wide.

"Jesus, Ray, you're dead as fuck... but you're still family. I'm gonna be honest with you, Ray. You look fucked up."

Ray gnashed his teeth.

"Can I get you anything?" she said, waving a hand to brush away the stench. Ray jacked his mouth open and pointed to it.

"Oh, sick," she said, looking away.

She grabbed a can of disinfecting spray from the utility closet and returned.

"Stop pointing at the fucking hole of a mouth, Ray! I don't know what you want."

She directed a long blast of aerosol in his direction.

"Are you hungry for something? I guess that would make sense…you are a zombie, after all."

He shook violently.

"Is that zombie-speak for, yes?"

"B-B, Brains," he moaned.

"What the fuck, Ray! After all the shit I've put up with around here. You kill yourself and our parents by driving into an oncoming cement truck, and now you show up dead and wanting brains! My God, Ray, what's happened to you—apart from the obvious?"

Suzette hesitated, then smiled cruelly. 

"Ray, do you remember those emotional support rabbits you used to bring to the senior center?"

"Snowball," Ray said with a crooked smile.

"That's right, Ray, Snowball, she was everybody's favorite. Oh, Ray, you two were so adorable together."

"Snowball!"

"Ok, hold your horses, Ray; she's in the hutch. I'll be right back."

Suzette returned a moment later with Snowball. Ray reached for his squirming friend.

"Gently, Ray."

"Snowball! B…B…Brains!"

Ray grabbed Snowball and bit her head off. He chewed it up and sneezed rabbit brains out of his nose.

"Oh, so now you're making egg salad?" said Suzette, disgusted, "That's the limit, Ray. Next time you need something.…go dig up our dead mother if it's the service you're looking for?"

She bounced the aerosol can off his head and burst into tears.

"She was a debutant at the Waldorf Astoria. Perfect…right? Only she wouldn't give me the time of day. She was too busy fawning over your…. your…. your fucking aptitude!"

She slammed the library door. 

"Stay in there, you bastard; what goes around comes around. Isn't that what they say? What's good for the sheep is bound to be bad for the wolf?" She yanked the door open, saying sweetly, "We'll deal with this later. Try to understand that I'm conflicted here. And Ray… I'm sorry for what's happened to us both."

She went upstairs and stood under the shower.

A week went by.

Suzette was out of support rabbits. Ray had gobbled up all forty-seven of them and more. She was doing everything she could, but he was voracious. He devoured anything he could chew. Dead, alive, rotten, it didn't matter so long as he could sink his rotting teeth into it. 

The cleanup was hell, primarily because of the zombie shit. A lumpy, decaying, putrid mash sprayed out of him, often containing knots of hair and eyeballs that had missed mastication. She'd put plastic sheeting on the floor to catch the gore. She'd gone in every few days, first yelling him into a corner, then rolling up the plastic along with the feathers, fur, and roadkill paws. She'd replace the plastic sheeting, then used a shop vac for any overspill. 

"Get the fuck back, Ray, back!" she'd yell. But then she'd feel horrible for mistreating him, for his ghastly breath and broken attempts at communication; she wasn't sure he even understood her, but she spoke to him as though he did.

***

She'd stood in the kitchen tapping her nails on the granite counter. Where would she get Ray's next meal?

Cutie Niels had happened along, and Suzette saw an opportunity. She started down the driveway as Cutie leaned her swollen body on the mailbox, scratching her ass and smacking her lips salaciously while admiring the swing of Suzette's hips. Cutie's upper lip had wiry hairs. Her mouth was wet in the corners, and she had a skin disorder, little bumps just under the skin that made Suzette think of spider eggs in barn corners.

"Expecting a box today, Suzette? You get boxes almost every day, isn't that so? No wonder a pretty thing like you gets everything she wants."

"I don't know what you mean," said Suzette, stepping up to the mailbox and yanking the lid open.

"I'll bet those delivery boys get ideas about you." With that, Cutie laughed and wheezed until a tear dripped from one of her eyes. "Oh, God," she coughed, "I wish I had your backside. You're built just like a young mare. I get warm as toast just from looking. I swing both ways, honeypot, but nobody wants me because of my years."

"I have to go."

"Did I see you collecting roadkill a couple of days back? Strange."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Suzette, noticing that Cutie had stuffed her hands deep into the pockets of her overalls and was rubbing the tops of her thighs.

"You sure are pretty, Miss Suzette," said Cutie lasciviously. "I'd pay for it."

Suzette thinks you'll pay for it, especially when you meet Ray. "Are you propositioning me, Cutie? It's four hundred, and I don't do anything back."

"You've got yourself a deal, sugar tits. But I get to take my time with it for that kind of money."

"Cash."

"Well, I don't have that on me."

"Not my problem. Go get it."

Suzette's doorbell rang an hour later.

Cutie showed her the cash. "I'm sorry if I've seemed unkind in the past, Suzette, and I'm sorry about your family."

"Should I freshen up?" asked Suzette, plucking the cash out of Cutie's hand.

"I like it sticky, Nail-Cakes."

"Follow me," said Suzette, turning and heading for the stairs.

"Your bedroom's down there?" asked Cutie, suddenly suspicious.

"You don't want to now?"

"Whoa, I didn't say that, Twatsy, lead the way."

Suzette turned, headed down the stairs ahead of Cutie, stepped out of her jeans, and dropped her panties. Cutie followed, slowly making her way down the stairs. An expression of dumb adoration spread over her face as she reached the lower level and saw Suzette's young twat.

"Come over here and eat it all up, Cutie."

Cutie started forward but stopped and trembled.

"Why, it smells of death down here, girl. What is this? I think I should go now."

She tried to retreat. Suzette stepped quickly forward, striking Cutie behind the ear with a head-stupifying punch. Cutie went down hard, and before she could cry out, Suzette put her weight behind a sledgehammer kick. The air rushed out of Cutie's lungs.

"Nobody can save you now, CUNT!"

She dragged Cutie into the library and slammed the door. Ray shambled forward, digging his fingers into Cutie's throat, eating the side of her face off while Cutie's jaws opened and closed like squashed spider's legs. Cutie drew a breath, shit herself, and croaked. 

"How do you like me now, Twatsy!" shouted Suzette. 

She glanced at Ray, sucking Cutie's gore off his fingers and staring greedily at Suzette's pussy.

"Oh, no, you don't, Ray. I see what you're thinking." She attempted half-heartedly to get around him, but he grabbed her ass and stuck his decaying face in her business. She slapped the top of his head.

 "Gross!" 

But the rush weakened her legs as Ray's tongue searched her bunghole.

"Cut it out, Ray," she panted. "I'm not sucking your dead cock if that's what you think, but you can fuck me." 

She stood in the shower later, washing pieces of Cutie down the drain.

***

Several days passed.

Suzette watched her soaps while trying to ignore the rancid air wafting up from the lower level. Meanwhile, Ray picked Cutie over.

I’ve had my fill of this stench, thought Suzette. She marched down the stairs and pushed the library door open. Ben-Gurion rushed past her, swatted at Ray, and then scampered out. Ray stayed focused on the bits of meat still clinging to Cutie's ribcage.

"We gotta clean this up, Ray. Do you understand?"

Ray gnawed Cutie's skull.

"This is pathetic, Ray. Do you need help getting her brain out or something?"

Ray jumped up and performed a coltish jig at the mention of brains.

"Ok, Ray, I can break her skull open if you want, but she must go after that. I'll need the sledgehammer and that eight-inch block of railway tie. After you've had your brain, I think it's time we got you cleaned up a little. I can hose you off on the patio."

With the splitting of Cutie's skull, her brain tumbled out like blackened walnut meat. Ray grabbed it up but hesitated, extending a piece toward Suzette. She held up a hand.

"I'm all good, Ray. Have at it."

He was eating slower than usual.

"How's it tasting, Ray?" He shrugged, then shook his head to say, "Don't ask."

"Not so fresh, eh?"

"T--T--Twaat!" he moaned, crawling towards Suzette on all fours.

"Don't get playful, Ray. What is it with you? As soon as you get one thing, you want another. Ok, well, maybe later. But we need to dispose of Cutie. Here's the plan, I'll back the truck up to the patio doors when it's dark; we'll load her up and dump her someplace. I'll get you cleaned up, and then we'll see about the...."

"Cuuuunt!"

"Jesus, Ray, hold it down."

Suzette went upstairs and watched Lost reruns until sunset. She backed the truck in and yelled for Ray. They piled Cutie's remains into the back of the truck, then dumped them in the Little Thompson River.

They returned just after midnight. Suzette set the pressure washer on the patio and instructed Ray to remove his clothing.

"I'll have you sparkling clean in no time, Ray!" She set the pressure to low, but the water stream cut both of Ray's ears off on the first pass. She dropped the pressure wand and covered her mouth, "Oh, my God, Ray, I'm so sorry."

Ray held his hand and motioned Suzette to follow him through the patio doors. He led her into the library, grabbed a music sheet, and wrote on the back. He handed it to Suzette: Not your fault. I'm dying again. This time forever.

"Oh, shit," said Suzette.

She removed her jeans and lay on the floor. Ray, already fading, crawled to her, and she guided his face between her legs. But Ray's tongue wound to a stop.

"I almost came, Ray...almost," whispered Suzette.

It was their last exhilarating moment together; Ray held the reins of their chariot as it hurtled across eternity. She slid her arm inside his elbow and looked at Ray with affection.

"I love you, Ray Ray."

But there is no such grandeur in the recesses of her unconscious. Lost within the confines of her sunken fortress, Suzette did not sense the sun-drenched landscapes or the Pacific sprays. There was immutable silence, the tiara she wore on her brow, a parchment with a poem rolled and tied and fallen from her hand. She did not dream of escaping, nor would she ever.

End