Some of them were old. Some of them were young. Some of them were tall. Some of them had to wear platforms with aggressive six-inch spikes to reach five feet. Some were pale. Some were dark. Some understood the signs right away. Some were baffled by the first tingling sensations but ignored them until the situation enveloped their needs, enveloped their lives, drove them from their homes.
—
Daisy sat in the outhouse with the door open for light. She’d been annoyed the trip was likely going to coincide with her period. No running water made her feel dirty as it was, adding this in was like kicking a horse after it had already been shot. The only hope she’d harbored—after the hope that her period would show some sympathy and reschedule had died away—was that her sorrow would be so great she’d ignore that irritating bodily function.
Instead, things compounded, and she sobbed quietly over the spotty paper. The applicator dropped down the hole, and the tampon was inside her. Later, she’d have to bring some water with her to the outhouse. She stood, took a deep breath, and sighed out an exhalation as she pawed at her damp eyes.
It was a bright, bright morning in August and for the last week, what remained of the Maris family had been staying in a rented, though familiar, hunting cabin in the woods a quarter mile from Finger Lake and sixteen miles from Highway #1, thirty-nine miles from the nearest town. The family unit had cracked. Marissa Maris had left unexpectedly, her simple explanation scratched in ballpoint pen on a to-do list page with cats batting around a yarn ball on the top:
THIS CAN’T BE EVERYTHING
I NEED MORE
Mom to Daisy and Jacob. Wife to Grant. Marissa had called once, a week after she’d gone, and apologized to the kids, adding, “I can’t be a mother anymore.” She didn’t apologize to Grant, but said, “Being a wife was never what I wanted from life.”
Four months later, Grant received a different call. Marissa was in a coma with a large, inoperable tumor on her brain. The family forgave her as they watched her between seizures before one of the seizures took away her life, leaving behind only confusion and anger and pain. She wanted to be cremated, Grant knew that. She wanted her ashes spread in the forest at the cabin by Finger Lake; her will had instructed.
It rained heavily, steadily as they drove the four hours into nowhere. It rained until the following morning after they’d arrived in the cabin. For the next three days they’d taken the steel urn around to different locales, sprinkling the mother of their family unit by the handful. On the fourth morning, after swimming in the lake, Grant tipped the remainder of the urn into the water while the family took turns saying what Marissa meant to them.
“When I was little, she took me—just me—to the fair and we did bumper cars and ate hot dogs and she won me a bear at the shooting game and let me go on the tea cups and rollercoaster as much as I wanted,” Jacob said. He was nine, his memory was from less than two years prior.
“She always listened and never made me feel dumb about dumb things,” Daisy said. She was fifteen.
“Marissa, you were my best friend,” Grant said and turned away from the water and the ashes riding its surf, steadily drifting and sinking.
Daisy thought of her words, as well as the words of her father and brother, as she headed back to the cabin. Her father was already cooking bacon on the iron woodstove and the smell permeated in the outdoors like a welcome call. Since they’d been there, they’d seen two bears, one wolf, and an endless string of raccoon eyes reflecting flashlight beams in the night.
At the doorway, basking in the heaps of scent, Daisy put a hand to her rumbling tummy. She was suddenly starving, feeling famished, lightheaded even. She stumbled to the old dining set and plopped down onto a chair, its maple feet squeaking against the rough cedar floor.
“How hungry are you?” Grant said.
“Very,” Daisy said without pause. She was fidgety, her hands were purposeless, empty—way out there where the cell signals did not roam.
“Good. No sense taking a full cooler back with us.”
They’d eaten less than normal. Being in the wild was endlessly tiring, and for that they’d all slept well, even if their appetites had left them and their minds raced around misery’s track.
Jacob kicked out from beneath the blankets of a bunkbed in the corner of the open space. He stumbled sleepily toward the door. He slipped his feet into his Nikes and walked directly to the first tree and began pissing. Daisy watched his back, feeling a twinge of envy. She had been using the bug-ridden outhouse since they’d arrived.
“You want more, just say,” Grant said as he passed over a plate of two pancakes and four pieces of bacon.
“I’m pretty hungry,” Daisy said, her guts begging to be fed. She dumped a helping of Aunt Jemima faux syrup—the bottle looked many years old—onto the cakes and the bacon, and quickly began to shovel fat hunks into her mouth. “I never been so hungry,” she mumbled around a mouthful.
Grant let out a monosyllabic laugh with his back turned to her and Jacob as he reentered. He kicked off his shoes and stepped to the table. He watched Daisy and Daisy watched her quickly disappearing food. Once the plate was clean, she let out a great belch, loud enough to make Jacob jerk back.
After a moment, Grant brought over a plate for Jacob. “Done already? Be a couple minutes for more,” he said to Daisy.
Daisy nodded, eyes glued on her brother’s plate. He poured the syrup without squeezing the bottle, letting it drizzle, before he began cutting tiny pieces from a pancake and then putting them into his mouth individually, chewing slowly. Saliva inched over the corner of Daisy’s mouth and down her lower lip. She sucked it back with a great, wet slurp. Her guts rumbled loudly enough that Jacob frowned with more than just his eyebrows.
“I…” Daisy said, trailing. She reached across the table and snatched an entire pancake and folded it into her mouth. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled around the fluffy yellow mound.
—
Some set out right away. Some ignored the need as long as they could, leaving well into the night. Some were confused. Some were scared. Some busied their hands with mundane tasks while their minds screamed for movement. Some could not move at all, paralyzed by the realization. Some turned their backs on their families and started away, food in the oven, laundry in the washer, patients in the waiting room, customers in line. Some took up razorblades and ran bathwater, unwilling to make the pilgrimage.
—
Her mother was on Daisy’s thoughts anew, but not in the same way she had been. The sickness and the death were hard, though accepted, pieces to her life moving forward. What she hadn’t considered until that moment, again in the outhouse, this time with a distended belly, rock hard with gas, was the absence of feminine advice. She’d pushed. She’d rocked. She’d groaned. The pressure refused to vent at all until only a high squeak of air left her—short-lived as that moment before a full balloon’s knot was secured. Still, that minute sum gave hope for more to come. A growl played up Daisy’s throat as she pushed, pushed, PUSHED! The gas remained, but her tampon was now half in and half out.
“Mommy,” Daisy moaned as she pulled the tampon the rest of the way and viscous green/yellow fluid globbed free like chunky milk. The scent was putrid: rotten meat, iron, and low tide.
This exhalation of bodily fluid did not free space, in fact, this seemed to increase the pressure and her belly grew, bulging the bunched material of her tee shirt smooth at her waist. She was already crying over the pain when things got worse.
The outhouse faced away from the cottage, and she sat with the door open—there was a mailbox flag on the side that they all knew to look for before heading out. Thick woods started not ten feet away. At the cusp of those tall, tall trees sat a bear, her cubs playing only a few yards from her side. This was a different bear from the ones they’d seen in the days preceding.
“Go…ah…way,” Daisy said through a hitching whine.
The bear pushed to her fours and started toward the outhouse. It was moving slowly enough that Daisy came to a flash decision. She yanked at the toilet paper roll and snatched off five and a half tickets. She wadded them high between her thighs and then pulled up her pants. The bear was maybe three feet from the door when she burst forth, waddling and screaming against the pain of it all.
“Holy crow!” Jacob said from the side of the house.
Daisy did not see him. She was looking over her shoulder. The bear continued after her, matching her speed. A window screeched open in its swollen wooden frame. Still, Daisy was looking behind her. A shot rang out, booming against the serenity of nature. Daisy looked away from the bear then, but not to the open window where the shot had come from. Her eyes stopped mid-way. There, ten feet to her left was a wolf and two pups. The wolf stepped nearer, in no hurry, unperturbed by the shot—the pups sat in the grass not far behind her. Another shot rang out and the wolf paused.
Daisy leapt, gasping, wide-eyed as hands clamped down on her wrists. Jacob had her and was trying to guide her around the cabin. He was clumsy and staggering—her belly bulged huge before her, vacating his wherewithal at the close-up sight of it. Another shot rang out, this time from the front of the cabin.
“Get her inside!” Grant said, suddenly next to them, aiming the rifle, though not directly at anything that might bleed.
Their feet shuffled and crunched over the walking path gravel. Into the cabin, everything still smelled like bacon and maple syrup. Daisy had her hands beneath her bulbous belly, holding it up, relieving a fraction of the strain against her lowest organs. The door slammed behind them.
“Lie down on the couch,” Grant said as he shot a fresh glance out the window. There were the bear and her cubs and the wolf and her pups, but there were also deer and rabbits and a beaver. “It’s the meat smell.”
“Daddy?” Daisy wailed.
She’d pulled her pants to below her belly to relent that much more of the pressure.
“What’s wrong with her?” Jacob said, crying now too.
Daisy had her hands around her belly, which had gone pale white and streaky with blue and red vein squiggles. Her bellybutton stood out almost an inch—it had been an inny not an hour ago.
“Is she having a baby?” Jacob said. He was young and ignorant to some things, but it was only panic that had him guessing at what was biologically impossible.
“No. She’s sick,” Grant said.
“Like Mom?” Jacob said.
Daisy wailed louder.
The light coming through the windows dimmed subtly. All the animals were peering into the cabin. Grant gripped the rifle tighter.
“I’m going to bring the car right to the door. Get her ready.” Grant crossed the room.
“Daddy, it hurts so bad!” Daisy said. Sweat oozed out of her pores in yellowy dollops and her pants were soaked dark.
“Get her six Tylenol,” Grant said a moment before swinging open the door and firing into the air. He slammed the door behind him.
Jacob was up and running toward the bathroom. He grabbed the red pill bottle as he filled the rinse cup from next to the toothbrush carousel with tap water. He unscrewed the lid as he walked, stumbling and dropping a handful of pills as Daisy screamed at a fresh stab of pain.
“Here! Here!” he said and pushed six pills between her clenched lips. “Drink!” He poured the water into her mouth. She gagged but got it down.
An engine flared outside, and Jacob ran to the window. Their father was driving the fifty feet from the parking lot attached to the cabin’s walking trail. Behind him, coming quickly, was a tall blue truck. It was blotchy with orange rust and shadowy holes. When Grant tried to stop by the door, the truck nailed into the side of the car, exploding a series of airbags and sending Grant rattling like dice in a Yahtzee cup.
Behind the wheel of the old truck was a blonde woman. She had glazed eyes and wore something like a smile.
—
Some walked and ran and crawled when their legs no longer had the strength to hold them. Some left home by car. Some took trains. Some took flights that had stops in Fort Worth, Columbus, Toronto, Vancouver. Some brought their children. Most came alone. Some thought they knew what they came to see. Some absolutely knew what they came to see. Some understood that everything before this moment was pointless. Some knew the future was now.
—
“Dad!” Jacob ran out the door as Daisy continued wailing on the couch. He bypassed the watchful animals and the woman stepping toward the cabin—she had both hands over her mouth and tears streamed down her face. He reefed against the car’s door handle, but the door refused to budge. “Dad!” he shouted again as he banged his palms against the driver’s window.
Grant looked at his son dumbly. Blood oozed down his face from his hairline. His gaze was uncomprehending.
Jacob spotted the strange woman entering the cabin and burned after her. The woman reached the couch and bent down before Daisy. Both arms stretched, she hid her face and pressed her hands against Daisy’s strained belly.
“Ow!” Daisy jerked against the touch, looked at the woman with a mix of panic and terror.
Outside, the din of more engines arriving filled the cabin as fully as the bacon scent had. Jacob ran to the couch and shoved the woman away from his sister. The woman rolled to her back and began wailing, as if in agony, her hands high above her.
“We have to get Dad,” Jacob said.
Daisy nodded. She was now just as scared as she was pained—the Tylenol was also greying out the edges some. Jacob helped her to her feet and a fresh deluge of thick, sticky, stinking liquid barreled out of her body and into her already sopping pants—not an iota of pressure relented with this evacuation.
Three women filled the doorway. Two of them dropped to their knees, their hands clasped before their chests, muttering words that made no sense to the Maris children. The third woman remained standing, hyperventilating great useless gulps of air until she fainted dead away, clearing a space to pass through the doorway.
Outside, vehicles were rushing toward the cabin. More than a dozen had already parked nearby. Two had slammed into trees, the women behind the wheels unconscious and bloody. Grant was no longer in the car, had instead been laid out on the hood. Women were tugging at his clothes and flesh, tearing away bits and pieces like celebrity keepsakes.
“What’s happening,” Jacob said, sobbing.
Daisy was the elder sibling, and despite her state, it appeared she now had to find the way out of this. “Help us!” she said. “You have to take my dad to the hospital…and me!”
The women all screeched vowel cries without forming words. Many began running their long fingernails down their cheeks. Others beat at their chests. Some made fists so tight it was as if they were suffering sudden stigmata, blood oozing down their forearms.
“What…ill…we…do?” Jacob said through racking sobs and hitching breaths.
Daisy wailed again, “Help us!”
They’d been stumbling slowly toward the driveway. Vehicles continued pulling onto what should’ve been a barren path—they were so far from anything.
One woman, in nursing scrubs, rushed toward Daisy and reached into her hair. She yanked free several strands and held them up like a tossed wedding bouquet. Some of the others cheered.
“Leave her alone!” Jacob shoved the woman.
She turned, sneering at him. She then bent and snatched up a rock the size of a softball. She reared back before pitching it forward without letting go. The thump was meaty and wet. Daisy tripped and nearly fell as Jacob dropped. The woman pounced on his splayed body and pounded the rock against his skull, over and over and over. The women watching moaned or cried or cheered.
Daisy gripped her belly, standing in a sea of converging women of all shapes, sizes, and economic groups. A circle formed and began tightening.
“Somebody, help us!” Daisy had her hands beneath her straining belly.
A woman reached out and grabbed Daisy by the t-shirt, using both hands to tear it to strips. Another woman pulled down her pants. She then tugged them so hard that Daisy’s feet shot out from beneath her. The woman pulled the soiled pants to her face and began breathing through them. Another woman tried to wrestle the pants away.
“Ow, Maw-meee!” Daisy cried out, her voice drowned by the mass of women converging upon her.
One woman put her hands on Daisy’s belly. Then another. And another. Another. The pressure against the bloated gut increased with each fresh hand.
“Get away!” Daisy screamed into loose clothing and armpits and knees and crotches.
One woman could wait no longer and leaned down to the patch of flesh she’d claimed with her hand and bit into Daisy. Daisy squirmed and screamed, but the woman had that flesh. The flesh let go when the woman refused. She tumbled backwards with her mouthful. The others grew jealous, and mouths were planted onto the belly. The women began feasting upon the flesh.
Daisy went numb, her fluids spilling around her like a bodily halo.
When the first spindly foot kicked free, the feasting women straightened, went silent. With each passing moment, more and more women quieted, watching. A second spindly foot poked through the ruined flesh, a third, a fourth. Two antennae pushed free, followed by a hideous brown face. A woman put her hand out and clutched at the massive cockroach and began sliding it out of Daisy—unattested by the other women.
Once freed, the kicking and jerking cockroach—about the size of a large house cat—was lifted high. The women cheered. The bears growled. The wolves howled.
Daisy watched in drunken fascination as her life quickly drained away.
—
Some took clothes. Some took trinkets. Some took pieces of the cabin. Some took flesh. One used pliers to remove the Virgin Daisy’s teeth from her head. One ate and ate and ate of the Maris family until she vomited, only to scoop at what came up to swallow it down anew. Some took the immaculate roach and used nine-inch spikes to pin its limbs to trees. Some sobbed as they pelted the roach with pebbles, playing their part. Some grew impatient with crucifixion and stabbed and punched and bit at the roach. Some were only just arriving at the scene as the roach perished. Some would get there tomorrow. All would sit and wait for the roach to rise from the dead and demand their love. All would give that love once the moment came. To do otherwise was to be damned.
XX
Bio: In August 1984, Eddie Generous was born into a family born to shit the bed. He has a print-journalism diploma from a community college, which is important if he ever accepts one of the job offers to rewrite articles vomited out by AI technology. He was the first of his household to go to college—and first child to avoid institutionalization, thus far.
Currently, Eddie lives on the west coast of Canada with his wife and their three cats. He is the author of close to 40 standalone books, has edited 6 anthologies, and put together 19 issues of Unnerving Magazine.
More than 100 of his short stories have seen print in anthologies or magazines. He created and operates Unnerving, a small press responsible for publishing 85 titles and counting. He enjoys getting stoned and dancing around his living room.
For more about Eddie Generous, visit jiffypopandhorror.com
*BLOAT first appeared in Salvation in Wild Dreaming (2023)
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.
No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.
BLOAT © Eddie Generous