Lottie's Teeth
By Zombie Joe
Text Copyright © 2012 Zombie Joe
All Rights Reserved
Lottie's birthday occurred the day
before the apocalypse began. The day of her birthday was just like
any other day. She had went for a walk in the park and messed around
in her tiny garden for a while. Her husband did mumble a “Happy
Birthday” to her toward the end of the day.
At seventy-one years old she was
still slim and very active. Lottie's husband Frank was just the
opposite. He seldom moved from his chair in the den, drinking beer
and smoking an occasional cigar. Frank was older than her at eighty
and had become very slow in his old age. They seldom spoke to each
other anymore.
Lottie first met Frank at a church
picnic on a beautiful spring day. She was just sixteen at the time
and was wearing a new dress that her Mom had made for her. Her long
reddish-brown hair contrasted perfectly with the color and floral
pattern of her dress. When she was introduced to Frank, he was with
another girl. Frank was a tall skinny guy with short brown hair and a
slight limp. Lottie's mother told her that he had been injured while
fighting in Korea. She couldn't help but notice that Frank kept
looking at her instead of his date. She started to feel a little
tingle every time he caught her eye.
Soon enough the other girl was
forgotten. Frank and Lottie were married the very next spring at the
very same church where they had met. It was another beautiful spring
day. They bought a house and settled in to start a family. After
having their daughter, Lottie found herself in a very happy place in
her life. Things were great for years. Frank moved steadily up the
ladder at the refinery where he worked. Their daughter Sadie was
thriving and Lottie seemed to glow with happiness. Her and Frank were
very close then. They were all happy. Then things changed abruptly.
Sadie had gone to the park on yet
another beautiful spring day. The park was just three blocks from
their little house. She never returned home. The police questioned
everyone and looked everywhere, but she was never found. Beautiful
spring days became a curse for Lottie.
Frank and Lottie quickly became
distant. They both started drinking heavily. After a few years of
this Lottie got some help to get sober. Frank just kept on drinking
and getting meaner. It was clear that he blamed Lottie somewhat for
Sadie's disappearance. When Lottie sobered up she started doing
things to get back in shape. The years of drinking and a poor diet
had aged her. Her teeth had gotten so bad that she'd had what was
left of them pulled out. She had replaced them with a set of
dentures. Lottie slowly got her body back in shape, but her heart
still ached with loss.
On the day after Lottie's 71st
birthday, she went for her daily walk through the park. In the back
of her mind there was always a faint hope of finding some signs of
Sadie. If she could somehow find out what happened to her then just
maybe she could find some closure.
An apparently homeless guy at the park
approached Lottie and abruptly attacked her. He just walked right up
and bit her on her shoulder. The bite barely broke the skin and she
pushed him hard enough to knock him down. Flight quickly trumped
fight though, and Lottie ran as fast as she could. When she looked
back, she saw that the guy had gotten up, but he was then heading in
another direction toward some joggers. She slowed to a walk when she
couldn't run anymore. She had dropped her cell phone in the scuffle,
but did not want to go back for it.
Lottie had calmed down some and had
decided to go on home and call the police from there. As she walked
she heard sirens in the distance. The noise was coming from downtown.
Then Lottie was relieved to see a friendly face coming toward her. It
was her next door neighbor Henry. He would have a cell phone and
would help her home. Henry was a life long bachelor who had moved in
about a year before Sadie went missing. He had been very helpful to
Frank and Lottie during their initial grief.
“Are you okay Lottie?”, Henry
asked as the smile left his face.
Lottie explained what had happened
to her in the park.
“Could you please walk me home and
would you call the police for me Henry?”
“Of course Lottie,” he told her
and they started walking the last two blocks to her house.
Along the way Henry tried several
times to reach 911 on his phone. The line was busy every time. They
could both hear the sirens now.
They arrived at her house and Henry
helped her to a seat in the den. She explained to Frank about what
had happened to her. His response was less than helpful.
“Good...you're far too old to be
walking in the park alone anyway,” he said as he took a swig of his
cheap beer and put his nose back into his newspaper.
At that moment Lottie noticed the
images on the huge LED that Frank had installed on the wall last
year. She grabbed the remote from Frank's lap and turned up the
volume. Henry handed her a glass of water that he'd retrieved from
the kitchen. They listened for a few minutes to reports of apparent
rioting that was spreading out rapidly from most major cities in the
country. Lottie tried again to call 911 using the land line, but all
she got was the same busy signal.
Henry got up and said, ”I'm going
to go home and keep trying to call from there. I'll come back and
check on you later Lottie.”
Lottie nodded her head and mumbled a
yes though her eyes were glued to the images of violence. She snapped
out of it soon after Henry left though. She went into the bathroom to
shower and clean the bite. When she inspected the wound she noticed
that it really was more of a tiny scratch. It was pretty sore though
and it looked like it might be getting infected. She felt slightly
feverish and extremely tired.
After Lottie showered and dressed her
wound, she went straight to bed. Her gums were sore, so she took her
dentures out and put them on the nightstand. She was in a deep sleep
before her pillow could settle.
A couple of hours later she woke to
some yelling.
“What are you making for lunch?”,
Frank hollered at her from the den.
Lottie woke up, but she felt stiff
and her head felt all foggy. Her mouth was rough and dry like
sandpaper. She tried to gather her thoughts as she slowly got up. As
she heard Frank yell about food again, her stomach started to grumble
loudly. It quickly turned into a burning need. Lottie swayed on her
feet as she realized what she was craving. Thoughts of blood, flesh
and brains flooded her rapidly failing mind.
By the time she attacked Frank only a
tiny bit of her mind realized how wrong it was to want to eat him. In
the struggle he fell out of his chair and cracked his forehead on the
coffee table. He was still alive, but unconscious as Lottie fell on
him to sate her hunger.
She greedily licked at the blood that
oozed from his forehead. It tasted so good, but when she tried to
bite him anywhere she became frustrated. Without her teeth all she
could do was gum him. She moaned with hunger as she stood up. The
bleeding had even stopped flowing from the small gash on his
forehead.
Lottie had to concentrate real hard
on her situation. Something was missing. She knew that she needed to
do something if she wanted to eat. She wandered about the house for
awhile until she reached the bedroom. Her now milky-white dead eyes
spotted the set of teeth on the nightstand.
She still had a dim memory of what
they were for as she reached for them. Lottie put her dentures in.
They didn't feel quite right so she switched them around. At that
moment the hunger grew more intense.
Blood poured from what was left of
Frank's nose as she bit the tip of it right off. It tasted wonderful
to Lottie as she chewed and swallowed Frank's flesh. She soon found
that her jaws seemed to be getting stronger as she ate more of his
soft tissue. She wanted something more though.
“Brains,” she muttered as she
started to gnaw on his forehead.
After several minutes of biting she
finally cracked his skull open enough to begin pulling pieces of
brain tissue out of the hole that she was creating with her teeth.
Her first taste of Frank's brains sent waves of ecstasy throughout
her body. This was what she really craved.
Something else was happening in her
mind though, as she lapped up the gray matter. She started to see
images and scenes of their life together from Frank's point of view.
Every mouthful of brains brought forth more of these images. What was
left of Lottie's mind could still remember and be saddened at the
scenes that involved Sadie. They were all so happy then. If only
things had been different. She found that she craved the images as
much as the brains. The memories made her feel alive in some way.
Lottie heard a gasp from behind her
while she was trying to scoop out the last of Frank's brains. When
she looked around she saw that it was Henry with his eyes wide open
and his hand over his mouth. He had returned to check on her as he'd
promised.
She was on him before he could say
anything. He tried to fight back at first, but her strength had
increased from her previous grisly meal. Once she had him down she
began to gnaw on his forehead as she'd done to Frank. As she ate the
first bite of Henry's brains, images again exploded in her dim mind. She paused as scenes involving Sadie
began to manifest in her mind. From Henry's point of view she saw him
watching Sadie. As Lottie ate more the scenes started to change from
Henry watching Sadie to Henry doing other things to her. Lottie was
still conscious enough to be filled with hatred at what she was
seeing.
Henry was torturing Sadie. Lottie
could even weep some at the scenes of him ultimately killing Sadie
with a big hunting knife. It was Henry who had taken Sadie from them.
Lottie finally knew what happened to
Sadie on that beautiful spring day. She stood up and looked down at
what was left of Henry, having lost the taste for his brains. Soon
the hatred turned into something like satisfaction. Lottie had
finally found closure.
She noticed that Henry had left the
front door open. Lottie stepped out into the afternoon sunshine in
search of more brains. Hopefully she would find brains with better
memories to enjoy.
It was a beautiful spring day
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