Reginald Jenkins, who
had never in his 47 years of life gone by Reggie, awoke promptly at 9
o'clock Sunday morning. He was not, by his nature, a fastidious man,
but he did like a good ritual. He set about his morning routine that
day with the same determination that he did every other day, leaving
his wife to sleep a little longer, which he usually did on the
weekend. His wife, Edina, had awakened several hours before and had
immediately set herself to the task of going back to sleep. She
usually went along with her husband’s rituals because, though she
was not a particularly big fan of rituals herself, it was easier to
play along than to deal with his dour mood when she didn't. Sunday,
she had insisted long ago, was the exception.
Reginald went into
the bathroom and looked himself over in the mirror, ultimately
arriving at a verdict of “not too bad all things considered”. He
splashed some water on his face, brushed his teeth thoroughly, and
swallowed a handful of vitamins and supplements. He did not notice
the small pile of broken tiles lying on the floor, nor did he notice
the smallish hole in the floor next to it. It was hardly his fault
though. The hole was almost completely behind the toilet after all.
You really had to look to see it.
For the past several
months Reginald had endeavored to be healthier. He did not consider
himself to be an unhealthy person but he had decided that he could
stand to put a little more effort into it. He'd hoped that by doing
so he would start to feel better, maybe lose a little of his extra
weight around the middle, and have a bit more energy for doing
whatever needed doing. He was somewhat disappointed. If anything he
felt worse than ever. His muscles ached, he often felt rundown and
tired, and he found he had to use the bathroom with a great deal more
frequency… and urgency. He'd read that, initially, this was to be
expected, but as time went on he became more and more disheartened by
his apparent lack of progress. It was true that he had lost a little
of the excess weight, and he'd noticed a slight increase in his
strength, but these things were negligible in contrast to his
discomfort. He had considered the possibility that he might simply be
too old to embark on such an undertaking, at least to the degree he
was attempting, but he had dismissed such thoughts as soon as they
had arisen. Those were the thoughts of quitters. Reginald Jenkins was
many things but a quitter was not one of them.
Reginald had also
deliberately neglected to consult his doctor before embarking on his
new adventure, believing that doctors were one of the biggest rackets
on the face of the earth, advising you to consult them for every damn
thing they could think of. If he had, his doctor might have
discovered the previously undetected defect in the wall of Reginald's
heart. This oversight, ironically, would prove exceedingly fortunate
for Reginald in the immediate future.
After a series of
stretches and simple exercise Reginald went downstairs and set about
the next order of business that morning: breakfast. Eating healthier
was another part of his regimen and it was easily his least favorite,
but he wasn't one for doing things half ass. For the sake of
efficiency Reginald had taken to blending his various fruits and
juices into one, easily consumed beverage, a feat he accomplished
with the assistance of his somewhat old and worse for wear blender.
Reginald always made sure to cut the fruit into small pieces because
he was convinced that his blender, old as it was, would not stand for
chopping up a whole piece of fruit. It was a little extra effort but
Reginald was not one to waste things. If a little extra effort meant
his aging blender would hang on for a little while longer then it was
a small price to pay.
As he was blending
Reginald failed to notice the two parallel rows of small, oddly
shaped footprints tracked across the kitchen floor. This too was
hardly his fault. Their color blended in almost perfectly with floor
and whatever had made them had cunningly remained close to the wall.
The footprints disappeared into the lower cupboard where Edina stored
her pots and pans, the door to which was now ajar, which Reginald
really should have notice, if he’d been paying proper attention.
Reginald dropped the
last handful of sliced bananas into the swirling vortex of the
running blender, as he always did, relishing the moist chopping
sound, as he always did, then put the top on and left it to run for a
few minutes while he washed his hands and rinsed off the knife, as he
always did. Then, in a radical departure from usual procedure,
Reginald's left leg erupted in a storm of agony as something tore
into the flesh just above his heel. Tiny, white-hot needles of pain
shredded his ankle, slicing effortlessly through his achilles tendon,
and the leg buckled. He opened his mouth to cry out when his heart,
it's weakened structure unable to withstand the sudden strain,
exploded spectacularly in his chest. Reginald was, mercifully, quite
dead as he collapsed to floor and did not have to suffer through the
horror of being burrowed into and having his insides devoured by the
thing that had bitten him.
Both Edina, asleep in
her bed, and her son Archie, asleep on the deck, awoke to a
disturbingly harsh, metallic whine. This was followed by a series of,
equally harsh, ratcheting clunks that signaled the death of the
blender, which up to that point had been running ceaselessly for over
an hour. If Archie had not awakened in considerable pain, both in his
back (from sleeping on the deck chair) and his head (from lack of
alcohol), he might not have wasted several crucial minutes mustering
the will to get up. Subsequently he almost certainly would have made
it to the kitchen before his mother did. If he had then his mother
would have been afforded the opportunity to see her son one last time
in her life, albeit not under the best of circumstances. But he did,
which meant he didn't, and so she wasn't.
Edina entered the
doorway and saw Reginald, surrounded by an enormous pool of blood,
lying on the floor. She had just enough time to feel the icy fingers
of fear slip over her heart when, failing to notice the brownish
green shape darting towards her from the far corner of the room, she
quite unexpectedly joined him. Edina, like her husband, attempted to
scream, just as the brownish green thing, with its unearthly white
teeth, tore out her throat.
So it was that Archie
stumbled sleepily toward the kitchen with absolutely no idea of the
unpleasant fate that awaited him.
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