The Indignities

by Christine Lajewski

I was cutting down the personal care aisle, my cart full of raw meat and kale, towards the checkout when I felt that strange prickling in my gut. Shit. This shouldn’t be happening —not so soon. Hobbled by missing toes and limping, I sped up to get away from the shoppers blocking my path.

Wet was seeping through my sweater from my navel to my groin. I buttoned my black coat and hunched over the handle of the shopping cart. If that bought me a little time, the blooming odor did not. Heads jerked up, twisted this way and that, searching for the source.

A package of adult diapers sailed through the air and landed on top of the meat. “There ya go, Boomer,” said the lumpy stock boy who had been shelving goods for the weak of bladder.

“Jesus, Dan, shut up,” hissed the young man working with him. “What’s wrong with you?”

No use trying to be invisible now. I stared at that big moon face, memorizing the details. I felt nictitating membranes slide over my irises. I blinked them back but not before Dan glimpsed their pewter sheen. His face drained of color, and with equally pallid bravado he sneered, “What are you looking at, Grandma?”

“I’m studying you,” I said. “So I’ll remember.” Then I hurried around the corner. I stuffed a few trays of raw beef under my jacket, abandoned my cart and rushed to my car. No one stopped me.

I am not incontinent. Aging is filled with indignities, just the same. This humiliation was so cruel, it was breathtaking. I fought back tears as I unlocked my car.

I would have to find a new supermarket. This one was twenty miles from my house. I didn’t want my neighbors seeing how I shopped—pounds and pounds of raw meat and a few bags of leafy greens, How much farther would I need to travel? As I drove, tiny breaks spread across the stiff skin of my abdomen, all dripping fluid with an awful sweet-sour smell not unlike formaldehyde. Even as it soaked my clothes through to the car upholstery, I gnawed on a raw steak, trying to properly fuel the change that was bearing down on me much too quickly.

Once I reached the safety of home, I left the empty meat trays in the car and hobbled down to the hollow chiseled out behind the furnace: dark, warm, and private. Wiping away the burning sting in my eyes, reliving my mortification at the hands of that awful boy, I shed every piece of clothing and squeezed into the space. Just in time, too. Two lacerations rent both sides of my torso, and everything oozed out. Pieces of skin fell away. A thin rind formed on my wet organs and bones, then quickly hardened into a chrysalis of sorts.

Inside the brittle shell, everything was white. My eyes, barely attached to my brain, bobbed in a broth of amino acids, watching bits of myself—teeth, fingers, liver and heart—float by. Little blue spheres that had formed from my tears rotated as they drifted past. They would alter the mix as my body reformed, as would my bitterness and rage. It was best to let oneself hover in a lucid dream, a pleasant one that anticipated renewed life. But every tiny sapphire orb spinning in that white slough reminded me of that blobby young face and his nasty, flapping mouth.

Finally, I felt something like a cool, damp sheet settling and forming a new skin over my refurbished organs, nerves and muscles. It was actually a flexible sort of carapace, and it was growing thinner with each molt. When it had toughened and dried, I emerged from the alcove and viewed myself in an old full-length mirror. I had already lost all the toes on my left foot during a previous metamorphosis. I had to style my long gray hair so that it covered the chemically amputated ear lobes on either side of my head. This time, I found my body had carried out a mastectomy on itself: my right breast was missing. So was the little finger on my right hand. I was down to one killing claw.

I trudged up the stairs to find my daughter waiting for me. Lisa’s eyes were red from weeping as she wrapped my bathrobe around my body. She guided me to the dining room table, served me tea and brought out a plate of honey and sesame seed candy. “This one took two days. You lost a breast this time,” she said. “And this is only supposed to happen once a year. This is the third time in what—eight months? Nine months?”

“Nine,” I said. My voice sounded thin and whispy. The change was supposed to be a renewal. I felt so diminished, so damned tired.

Lisa continued, “Please don’t be hurt. I have to say this. No one in our clan has ever lived to see seventy. Our men never make it past fifty.”

“I know. I know.”

“I miss Daddy every day. I will miss you every day. But you keep hunting, and for humans, too.”

“Not for a long time, actually. I haven’t been all that successful,” I sighed. She was right. I no longer hunted within our clan, even though our own kind provided the best support for our transformations. The last time I ate one of our own was eight years ago, when a certain mechanic cheated me. I picked up my car just as he was closing, bit off his head and gnawed the rest of him down to his shoes, right in the service bay.

I’m slower than I used to be, however, and that meant I could easily have the tables turned on me. It also seemed that I was a test case for what, if anything, supported my deteriorating DNA in my advanced years.

Lisa reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “I know your generation did things differently. You took the head off your first mate.”

 “He was such an asshole.” I didn’t elaborate, nor did I share that I also ate every one of her half-brothers and sisters long before Lisa was ever born. They were growing up to be jerks, too.

“It’s not like that anymore. I mean, you don’t want some female doing that to Paul, do you?”

“Of course not.” However, my son, like all males of our kind, was smaller and weaker than his mate. The women of Lisa’s generation were not as strong as her forebears, either. Counting on animals for fresh kills and a greater reliance on human food took its toll over the course of a lifetime.

“Mom, it’s painful to watch what you’re going through. I know you’re not happy. Why are you hanging on?”

“What else is there?”

She fussed over me, suggested I see our doctor. But our physicians are not like human doctors. I know mine, a middle-aged male, would look me over and calculate how easy it would be to take down a wizened old female.

Before I went back to the supermarket, I paid a visit to the burial grove where my mother, my aunt, and some of my cousins had gone to die. It was a cold November night, but I took off my shoes and socks, sank my nails into the bark of a white pine, and climbed to the top. I sat on a branch opposite the one where Mother’s fragile husk still hung, fluttering and twisting in the wind. She had curled up in a fetal position, so the shell resembled a giant locust with a human head.

I have human friends. When we go out to lunch, I eat rare burgers and steak tips. Many of these women are old with their share of ailments. They like to talk about their spiritual beliefs. “I miss my dad so much,” they might say, “but I feel him watching over me.” Or “I know my sister’s waiting for me.” They like to describe their ideas of heaven or reincarnation. It all sounds so lovely, so full of hope. Here in the death grove, I asked Mom and Aunt Frances and Cousin Barbara if they could hear me, if there was anything they could tell me about death. I heard nothing but the rattle of frail husks of what they once were.

“I’m so afraid,” I whispered. “I don’t want to die.”

I climbed down the trunk, headfirst, and drove to the supermarket where I suffered my great humiliation. I didn’t know Blobby Boy’s work schedule, but I would return as often as I needed to. I drove into a field near the store, crept to a tree that hung over the roof of the building and climbed high enough to survey the parking lot and the dumpsters in the back.

I was in luck. Young Daniel came out the rear door, laden with flattened boxes for recycling. After he reentered the store, I snuck down to the dumpster, undressed, and hid. I would have to overcome him with only one killing claw. That meant less venom and more time needed to incapacitate him. He looked like he spent all his free time in a chair, playing games and binge watching something or other. Even so, one good punch through my flexible but thinning carapace could cave in my sternum and rib cage. On the other hand, I would get to watch the dawning dread on his fat face as I stretched open my jaws.

The door opened again, and Dan emerged with his young friend, the kind boy who had called him out on his cruelty. I waited for the boy to dump his trash and turn away, then I shivered violently, which made my arms, fingers and legs rasp like a giant cicada.

“Hey, hear that? What is it?” the boy called to his friend, but he was already back inside the store. As Dan peeked around the corner of the dumpster, I stepped forward. He gaped at my naked body: the stringy muscle of my thighs, my chest with one breast sagging, the other completely missing. Nictitating membranes slid over my eyes as I swung my left arm, clawed finger extended, against his neck. Phlegm gurgled in his throat, his eyes widened, and he sagged heavily. Even in my decrepitude, I was stronger than a sedentary human.  I caught him under the arms, gritted my teeth and dragged him into the trees behind the store. There was a kettle hole where I had bundled my clothes. I released the boy’s body and let it roll to the bottom.

His friend called from the rear door, “Hey, Dan, you coming over? Dan?” He waited a few beats then said, “Don’t screw around. I’ll see you there.” Moments later, I heard the cars departing, then silence.

I straddled my prey, enjoying the terror shining through his tears. His breath was turning wheezy and shallow. “Anything you want to say to this Boomer?” I asked. I dropped my lower jaw, stretching the cartilage binding the mandibles. The tough mouth parts lowered over my anthropoidal teeth as the orifice yawned impossibly large. I fit the entirety of Dan’s big head inside and snapped it off as easily as shearing dandelion tops.

I’d read somewhere that a decapitated head is aware of its surroundings for nearly thirty seconds before the lights go out. I hoped that was true. My throat widened to accommodate that first mouthful.  Then I turned my attention to gnawing away the rest of his body.

It took hours. The distension of my stomach made me look eight months pregnant. I lay back in a bed of dead leaves, listening to my gut purr as it digested. It had been months since I’d had a meal this satisfying. I could have slept for days, but as the moon set, I bathed in the black water pooled at the bottom of the kettle hole, wiped my body free of blood with Dan’s shirt, dressed and crept through the woods, mindful to avoid the cameras mounted at the corners of the grocery store. I found my hidden car and drove home.

Danny boy had provided a huge quantity of luxuriously fresh and nutritious meat. I took more than a week to digest it all. I felt more vigorous and alive than I had in a long time. I followed the news about his disappearance. His car was still parked in the store lot when the manager opened up the next morning. Police found his torn and bloody clothes in the kettle hole; testing found Dan’s DNA alone. No doubt they’d traces of some nonhuman saliva, if they bothered to look.

The search expanded to local ponds and swamps. On the day it was called off, I heard a knock at my door. On my front porch stood Dan’s friend, the other stock boy from the supermarket.

“Mrs. Webber?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied, “but how did you…”

“I’m sorry. My name is Jamal. I wanted to talk to you before you left the store last week. I felt so awful for what my friend did. You took off so quickly I just had time to grab a photo of your license plate. I found your information at the RMV web site.” He paused, waiting to hear what I had to say.

“Why did you do that? You had no right. I really don’t want to talk about that day.”

“I know. It was wrong, but I just wanted to do a wellness check. I could see you weren’t well and felt someone owed it to you.” Jamal’s eyes filled with tears. “I want to make you an offer. Danny’s my friend. He’s a good guy. He really is… but sometimes he’s an idiot. I wanted him to apologize. But now…” He paused and took a few deep breaths. “…now he’s missing. No one can figure out what happened. And it just seemed important to make things right with you in case he…”

“In case he never can?” I could feel my indignation softening.

Jamal nodded. “I wanted to do something for you. Like if I do the right thing, maybe it helps Danny… somehow. Maybe we’ll find him.”

He was a young human with a simple, earnest faith. If he did enough good deeds, God would return Dan, dead or alive, to his loved ones. It was touching. “All right. What did you have in mind?” I asked.

“I noticed you have a lot of leaves in your yard.”

I watched from the window as he spent several hours raking and bagging leaves. Although slight of build, he was strong and tireless, like most active teens. He took off his jacket as he worked up a sweat, and I could see how muscular he was. I offered to pay him, which he refused, then ordered a delivery of pizza and soda, which he happily consumed. He asked polite questions about my children and grandchildren. “My dad died young, too,” he said. His eyes misted over, and so did mine.

“I’ll come back soon, finish any yard cleanup that needs to be done,” Jamal said, wiping grease off his mouth as he rose to leave.

“No, you’ve already done too much,” I protested.

He waved my protests away. “You remind me of my grandma. I used to help her all the time.” I watched him drive away, weighing how easily I could take him if I let him come back, continue to see me as a frail old woman, trust me as utterly harmless. Sizing him up as a potential meal did not make me proud. Most predators don’t live side-by-side with prey that they genuinely like.

Jamal returned two weeks later, just as I was on my way out to meet Lisa.

“I can finish up the yard work while you’re away, if you’re okay with that,” he said.

“Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving,” I said. “Doesn’t your mom need you to run errands or something?”

Jamal laughed. “We’re a big brood in my house. I’m the baby. If I annoy everyone else enough, they’ll tell me to get out of the way.”

“Is that by design?”

The boy grinned. “I’ll never say. Are you having company tomorrow?”

“I’ll be at my daughter’s house with my son and his family. Also a big brood.” I didn’t tell him that our Thanksgiving included a roast turkey with yams and stuffing. (Lisa and Eric wanted their children to be exposed to the traditions of their human schoolmates and friends.) But the star of the feast would be an entire haunch of raw beef, meat sliced thin and piled high on an enormous platter. It gave the family the basic nutrition they needed to grow. However, my grandchildren, even the girls, were spindly, weak and pallid—like veal calves. My daughter and son-in-law, like most of their generation, insisted the old ways were dead. I kept my mouth shut, but I grieved, knowing this could well be the end of us.

I returned from my outing with a nice autumn bouquet for Jamal to give to his mother. I asked him for news on his missing friend.

Jamal shook his head. “He’s vanished without a trace. If it wasn’t for the bloody clothes, you’d think he’d been abducted.” He sighed. “Dan is dead.”

“I’m so sorry, Jamal,” I said. I extended my hand and thanked him.

“I’ll come again if it snows.”

I didn’t protest this time. As much as I liked the young man, I knew by the first snow, my body would need a fresh kill to keep going.

Why did he have to be such a sweetheart?

Early in December, there was a six-inch snowfall. I could drive over it to run errands, but I didn’t look forward to shoveling it. I came home to find the walkway had been cleared, and my front door was wide open. There were footprints in the flower bed where I hid an extra key under a rock. The key was where it belonged, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t used it. I knew I had locked the door. When I stepped back on the paving stones, my foot slipped right out from under me. I landed hard on my back, banging both elbows against the ground. I must have cried out because suddenly Jamal bolted out my front door, a bag of ice melt in his arms.

“Wow, I’m so sorry,” he stammered. “You left your door unlocked. I came in to see if you had any salt for your walkway. I found some in the basement.”

I had locked the door. I knew I had but kept my suspicions to myself.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, extending a hand and helping me to my feet.

I winced but shook my head. I eased my arms out of my coat sleeves. The carapace on one forearm bore a finely webbed crack, almost like an eggshell. A trickle of plasma leaked through the abrasion. Jamal stared at it, his brow furrowed. I quickly pressed a damp towel to it and went on the offensive.

“What were you doing in my house?” I asked.

“I was wrong,” he faltered. “I thought it would be a nice surprise if I had everything shoveled and salted by the time you got home.”

“Where else did you go besides the basement?” I wanted to ask what he had seen down there, such as a cozy, dark alcove chiseled into the foundation behind the furnace, just the right size for an adult to sit cross-legged, or maybe a trail of dried, flaky body fluids from my most recent molt.

“Only the basement, Mrs. Webber. I promise, I wasn’t snooping. There was no salt in the shed, so I thought I would check inside. Like I said, the door was unlocked.

I didn’t contradict him. I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “It’s okay, Jamal. I appreciate all you’ve done.” My anger evaporated, although I still felt uneasy. I really liked this boy; his kindness was so touching. Just the other day, I had resolved not to eat him after all. I realized now I could not let him live.

He went outside to finish the shoveling. I set out cookies and made some cocoa, inviting him to sit at my dining room table when he came back in. Jamal sat across from me, gave me an appraising look as I raised my own mug.

“What happened to your little finger?” he asked.

“I never had one,” I lied.

“I shouldn’t have asked. Sorry.”

“Not a problem. Would you mind helping me with one more thing? I want to bring my Christmas lights down from the attic.”

“Sure,” he replied. “I’ll put them up for you if you like.”

“No, no, Jamal. You’re doing too much. I’m sure your mom has plenty of things you could help with.”

I pulled down the attic ladder and climbed up, Jamal following. As I pulled boxes toward the entrance, he said, “Why don’t you do your molts up here rather than in the basement?”

Stunned, I whirled around. There was a pewter sheen in his eyes. My heart thudded as I raised my one killing claw. I swiped at the air, missed the boy completely, and stumbled forward, falling to my knees. He slapped both fists against either side of my neck. His killing claws delivered a pair of hornet stings, then all sensation bled into the floor.

“You?” I gasped. “You’re nothing like. . .”

“All the males you know?” he finished. He squatted in front of me. “As soon as I saw what was happening to you in the supermarket, I knew what you were. You’re one of those Boomers holding on to your place in the world, taking everything you can from the younger generation. You’re living in such misery, but you won’t just go somewhere and die.” There was pity in his eyes even though his smile was a sneer of contempt.

My muscles were growing slack. It was all I could do to raise my eyes to his.

Jamal continued, “My parents rejected the old ways, hunting only animals and buying from the butcher shop. They’re wasting away. But my brothers, my friends, we want to go back to our roots. Just not exactly the way you all did.”

I wanted to ask the details, how he grew to be so robust a hunter who was the equal of any future mate. My mouth cracked open, but no sound came out.

 “The best prey is our own kind. But my girlfriend doesn’t want to mate with me just to bite my head off. She wants someone who can go kill for kill with her while we raise a strong brood of nymphs. So how can we do that?”

I suspected I knew, but Jamal was eager to tell me anyway.

“There’s a lot of you Boomers out there. We’re eating your generation to guarantee we don’t go extinct. Seriously, you should have offered yourself to us a long time ago.”

He opened his mouth, dropping his lower jaw to his chest. The horny mandibles slid over his teeth. My little head fit neatly inside his maw.

Apparently, reason does persist in a decapitated head. I feel my face pressing against Jamal’s velvety throat, sliding down into his stomach. I feel the burning of acids on my skin. And as the lights go out in my brain, I accept my fate. It makes perfect sense.