Lavalas

That morning he had gone to school like any other day. Classes were boring as usual, and besides from his homeroom teacher slipping on a piece of paper in the middle of class, nothing outstanding had happened all day. After class he decided to walk back home. The days were brighter and given that it had rained the night before, the air was fresh and the sunset had looked inviting. That much he recalled.

But when he got home, nothing. Nothing different, nothing out of the ordinary struck him. He should have seen the signs. The lights were off but his father's car was in the driveway. Maybe he had fallen asleep after having dinner by himself. As he got in, he paid no attention to the fact his father was sitting on his favorite couch while staring blankly at the television. Nothing worth of notice. It would have not been the first time this had happened and normally it meant that his father had had a difficult day and needed the TV to shut his brain off of reliving the same events over and over. His father was an over thinker like no other after all.

Thinking that his dad needed some space he just announced his arrival and mentioned he'd be in his room reading. He stopped by the kitchen to fix himself a sandwich before going up the stairs. There was always something in the fridge to piece together into a quick dinner, and since it was just the two of them, it was most days he would eat alone in his room. They did have proper dinners at the table with well prepared home meals, but the longer time passed, the easier it became to respect each other's private space and understand that sometimes they just needed a quick bite and time to be alone. They were two lonely men after all.

When he opened the fridge it hit him. Something smelled funky. Attributing the smell to something turned rancid in the fridge he promised he would clean it in the morning, and proceeded to fix himself a quick sandwich with a few slices of cold cuts, and a little bit of mustard. "There's something bad in the fridge" — he warned his father as he climbed up the stairs of the house, but his words bounced about the walls and found no one on the other end.

At 2 AM he woke up on top of his bed. His ribs hurt and he was cold. He had not only fallen asleep with his clothes on but he had turned on his side and landed on top of the empty plate that he had used to bring his sandwich on earlier. A dry stain of mustard crowned his waist. He reincorporated himself, put the plate on his desk, changed into clean pajamas, and got in bed immediately, hoping not to fully wake up so as not to ruin the rest of his night. But he was too cold and the bed was going to take a while to warm up fully. So he laid there, thinking about the upcoming camping trip and how this was now their tradition. Father and son bonding over rocks and plants. It was a tradition he looked forward to, but it was one he would happily give up on for good.

It was not the first time that his mother failed to come back. But this time it was taking her way too long to show up again. He never had the courage to ask any of them why would his mom not come home for weeks on end at times. At first he thought it was something all mothers did but as he grew up, he realized this was a very unusual thing for a mother to do. Leaving both her husband and young son alone. He never dared bringing it up, and no one even mentioned it, not even when she would return. It was all part of the family dynamics they had. It was who they were. Some families like to decorate their Christmas tree together, others go to the beach and build sand castles, and his family had this thing where his mother would disappear one day and then his father would take him on camping trips.

This time though, she was taking a lot longer to show back up. Something felt out of place, something fishy was in the air.

Thinking like that, he recognized the smell that he had felt earlier coming out of the fridge when he got home. He wondered if he had left the refrigerator's door open and now the smell was seizing the house, inhabiting room by room, and making its way up the stairs, creeping up to the last corner of the house. He pondered if he should go downstairs to check the smell but decided it could wait until the morning. His body was finally warming up and he could still hear the television mumbling something down there. "Dad must still be watching a movie or something. He probably opened the fridge to grab a bite too. I'll clean it in the morning for sure."

And with that, he let himself go.

He dreamed of having his feet tied up and having to go through a full day of school like that, with his ankles touching each other, skipping from class to class, being looked at by everyone, singled out for being the only one in this situation. The weird kid in school, the odd one out.

In his dream he would sheepishly smile at people when they discovered him like that, and would say it was a bet he had lost. Although no one asked him about the bet and who he had lost it to, he had a whole story prepared — or so he believed. In the dream he could not recall it at all. As if he had forgotten it somehow, he just had the certainty there was a story to tell. And every time someone was brave enough to approach him and ask, he would start sweating trying to remember the alibi. But no one ever asked him and the stress of not remembering was worse than actually having his feet tied and being the laughing stock of the whole school. At the end of the dream, he found himself in a bathroom stall, trying to figure a way to sit on the toilet with his heels pressing each other, when one of his classmates — a girl — entered his stall. She did not say anything and started kissing him on the neck. He was utterly confused. Had he entered the girl's room or had she entered the boy's? And why was he concerned about that — Nataly was on his neck and he had his pants down for fuck sake, what was wrong with him.

That's when he woke up. With an erection and a dry mouth.

Reaching out to his night table he realized that he not only had not prepared a glass of water the night before, but also it was almost too bright for it to be early morning. His phone had not charged at all and his alarm never went off. He had an exam first thing in the morning and for sure he had already missed that class entirely. He jumped out of bed and tried the house lights. The whole house had no electricity — so it really was not his fault. He'd only need his dad to vouch for him now. Just needed to wait for this erection to go away.

"Dad?" — his parent's room door was open and the bed untouched. "Daaad?" — going down the stairs with an erection was an ordeal. His stupid dick wagging left to right like a gun pointed around in the dark. "Are you there, dad?" And that's when it hit him. He forgot about his genital stiffness right away and went to cover his nose and mouth with his right hand while the left helped him hold onto the stair rail. The smell that he had felt the night before coming from the refrigerator was in full force, like a hundred years had passed in that electric box of cold and ice. It smelled like a dead animal had puked in the house, eaten it, and pooped it all over again.

In the presence of that smell, his dry mouth became a bigger issue. Fearing the refrigerator, he went to the bathroom and drank directly from the tap. The wall clock said it was 9:45 in the morning. He had definitely missed the exam. "Daaaad?"

He washed his face and beelined for the TV room where he had last seen his dad. And the smell was not coming from the refrigerator after all — it was his dad that stunk. He was still there where he had left him, watching TV, the only difference was that there was no image on the screen.

Not being able to get any closer, he stood at the door frame. "The power went off, do you know what happened?" — nothing. The man did not move a muscle. "Dad, I missed my exam, could you please write me a note?" — nothing still. His eyes were not closed at all, he was just lost somewhere else. A bad feeling started creeping up on him. His chest tightened. "Dad, you ok?" Braving the smell, he took a few steps forward and when he was about to touch his father's shoulder, he noticed his skin had become greenish, viscous even.

"What the —?"

And the man leaped forward. Going from a slouching gargoyle on the armchair to a ferocious feline in less than a second, he missed his son by a few millimeters. Such was the force with which he jumped that he overshot the distance and hit his head on the wall next to the door. A horrible cracking sound that chilled his spine. The man dropped limp on the floor immediately.

Was he dead? What the fuck had just happened? He looked at where his father had head-butted the wall and a mixture of blood and goo had made a splash. Frozen for a couple of seconds he raced through a thousand thoughts, then started to move out of the room to try and get help — when his ankles were both grabbed by his father's cold, slimy hands.

And he hit the ground. His nose was bleeding. But there was not much time to dwell on the tragedy of a blood-leaking nose. His father's slimy hands still had him by the ankles — how could someone who had but a few seconds ago left a piece of their skull on the wall have the strength to get such a grip?

He tried and tried, but he could not shake his old man. Speechless and terrified, he turned to see his father's face. His skin had turned a shiny greenish tint, something that more resembled a frog than a human being. He sounded like one too. One of those that croak a loud and deep, guttural call. It was less his father and more like a…

…a zombie?

No fucking way.