In her dreams, Bertha and Mickey are on a date at Texas Roadhouse. She wears a new blouse and jeans, and Mickey wears the fitted black suit his corpse wore at the funeral. The restaurant is empty except for the couple and a waiter. He approaches the table with two complimentary glasses of wine. Every night, Bertha is surprised to see that their waiter is Conner, bright eyed, arms clear of tracks. She asks her son what happened to the mechanic job, and he says that cars are too risky, that the restaurant business holds the real financial security. Bertha disagrees but orders a steak anyway. Rodney never orders in the dream. The food never comes.
She comes to the restaurant early today, knowing it’s going to be busy. The kitchen is always cold in the morning. It’s a dry cold where fingertips go numb and curl into themselves. Hard to cut lettuce that way. But, later in the day, the old bricks of the building trap that sweet 2 o’clock sun, creating a sauna from Hell. Even now in December, Bertha knows that heatwave is coming, so when she faces the produce fridge, she makes a note to appreciate the fleeting cold. A sticky cart is stacked with tubs of whole vegetables, leafy greens swaddled in plastic wrap, and then rolled into the salad section.
Mindfully, Bertha skins cucumbers with a sharp knife so they are striped dark and light green. She slices red onions in uniform circles, concentric and hypnotizing. She works synchronously with the ticking of the old analogue clock above her head.
Tick Tick Tick.
Chop Chop Chop.
She beheads lettuce in half, the crunch of their amputation breaking the silence of the early morning. This is the only time of peace in the kitchen. The morning lunch shift. Even with the holiday chaos, lunches are always pleasant for Bertha. Maybe it’s the sunshine, or just lighter orders, or the crew that is scheduled to work. It doesn’t matter why, because she is able to drift off and go into autopilot.
However, Bertha’s been doing this long enough to know this silence will never last. After the last salad of the morning goes out, she takes a breath and savors the stillness. The dinner crew will be here any second, the seasonal college kids trying to save money just to waste it on beer and bad decisions when they go back to school. They hoot and scream like apes from 2 pm to 10 pm, puffing on their vapes, whistling at the waitresses, and teasing Bertha.
She keeps to herself as the rest of her coworker trickle in. Thes sauté chef, Felcia, rubs sleep from her eyes before sharpening her knife. Morris from the grill nods along to a pair of earphones, heavy bass reverberating from all around him. The first of the boys to arrive is the quiet one, the one that is surprisingly a sweet boy but too cool to let the other kids know. Then the tall one appears with heavy grey tattoos who is just an echo for the ringleader: Chris.
Stocky, strong, and pumping with hormones, he saunters in for his shift with a vape in one hand and a Honeybun in the other. He’s staring at her. Why’s he staring at her? It can only mean something bad. Chris is always playing tricks on Bertha since he started. Rodney, their manager, always defends him even though she’s been here longer! He’s just a kid. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s just a joke, Bertha, don’t take it so seriously.
Once, he put her entire bus-tub of onions behind the pasta boxes, so she looked everywhere for them while the whole kitchen laughed at her. He never admitted to it either, which made it worse, said she hid the onions from herself. Like she’d ever do that!
Bertha counts her vegetables to make sure everything is there and notices she’s missing one small container.
Of course.
“Where’s my feta cheese?” She asks to the general kitchen, but stares at Chris. He’s just slouched over the counter, blowing out grape flavored clouds.
“Why’re you looking at me?” He says through an artificially sweet fog.
“You’re always fucking with me!”
“Woah, Quasimodo, language.” He chuckles.
Chris called her that years ago due to her dramatic humpback. The boys laughed and laughed, but when Bertha asked what that meant, that started cackling, point at the dumb red neck with her dead end job and crooked spine.
Rodney interferes, a tactic he learned from a leadership training session. “C’mon guys, we gotta prep for dinner. Let’s just focus.”
Bertha holds back hot tears. The stupid tickof the clock feels louder, smothering her as she finds a new container to fill with feta cubes. She cleans off the cutting board, gets a stack of salad plates, and sets them in an easily accessible position. She brews a cup of donut flavored coffee in her Keurig, adds a dash of half and half, three spoons of sugar. In the corner of the kitchen, Bertha sips her coffee and watches a video on her phone of a puppy meeting a rooster for the first time. She twists slightly and pain oozing from her lumbar, to her tailbone, to her leg. Following it is a headache that makes the vision in her right eye blurry, and she can’t see the rooster anymore, just a wobbly image of a puppy on a farm. Instinctively, she digs in her pocket for her medicine and pops it in her mouth. She swallows some coffee and imagines the pill traveling down her through with the flow of caffeine, through her body, landing in her stomach and disintegrating. Bertha closes her eyes and waits for the pain to subside.
She takes a breath.
Dinner is going to be God-awful. But no matter what, Bertha loves the holidays: the lights, fireplaces, hot cocoa, watching cartoons with her family. Every year she saves up to get all the employees at the restaurant a little gift, something to bring some joy. Even Chris. She knows their smiles are forced, that their hugs are limp, that the animatronic Santas will just collect dust in a closet. Yet, Bertha knows deep down, she makes them happier, even if it’s just a smidge, even if the joy is at her expense.
Before the rush, she steps out to have a cigarette. She sits on an upside-down bucket, slouches over her menthol, and takes deeps drags. Like a mediation, she holds the smoke in her lungs for four counts. One. Two. Three. Four. And breathes out a thin haze. She watches the smoke disintegrate and notices a black spec. Her gaze follows it, but the spec reappears in another location. Bertha rubs her eyes, and when she opens them again, finds a squirrel staring at her from the employee parking lot. Their eyes meet and Bertha looks away, blushing. After another puff, she looks up to find another squirrel, a fat one with a scraggly tail. They’re chittering, talking to each other about something important. A conference. Bertha can tell it’s important, they’re squeaking too fervently for it not to be. They feel her intrusion, stop their meeting, and turn to face her with their beady little eyes. Bertha’s stomach drops. They know something about her, glimpsing into her future like ghosts. She smashes the cigarette on the ground, rubbing the embers on the asphalt like a charcoal drawing. Like most, Bertha doesn’t like being gossiped about. It puts a bitter taste in her mouth, and she flushes it down with three large gulps of a Coke.
A wave of customers seems to have rushed in when Bertha was outside, and there’s a lengthy line of salad tickets waiting for her. She tries to be fast, whips out eight wedge salads like it’s nothing, adds peppers to the 2 Greeks, tops a House with ranch. A waitress yells because she needed her salad five minutes ago, but Bertha ignores her. Amber is always like this during the holidays.
As she mixes more lettuce, Bertha’s lower back stings again, a sharp pain shooting down her right leg. Her knee wobbles, buckles under her weight. She gives in, and with an embarrassing thud she plummets onto the ground, breaking a plate in her hand. The floor is sticky.God what is that? Blue cheese dressing.
Morris and Felicia, being the two nicer line cooks, rush over to see if she’s alright. They get her a seat and a glass of water. Felicia offers takes over salads for the time being and tells her to rest.
Begrudgingly, she sits in the corner of the kitchen, out of view of everyone, and takes small sips of the water. She fights her burning eyes, tight throat, the urge to scream at anyone.
Her condition is getting worse.
She remembers a time when Conner was young, maybe nineteen, and he collapsed in the middle of church. The congregation all fanned his sweaty face and prayed for him, for the evil to be expelled from his soul. He sat down in the pew and was given water to sip. Then the mass continued as if nothing happened, and everything was seemingly fixed.
Tears escape and roll down Bertha’s cheeks. She gave him this burden. He didn’t deserve it, but he got it anyway. She and Mickey taught him, raised him, gave him the gene that would destroy him. It’s been three years since they were taken. Died within a week of each other. Bertha has all their gifts ready under the tree, waiting for the morning when Conner and Mickey come home, and they’ll open them together.
Tick.
The chaos of the kitchen blurs into a muffled buzz of noise that doesn’t matter. Bertha is sucked into a past she wishes so desperately to escape. Conner. Mickey. Ghosts in her life that hover and judge her every move. They watch her take a sip of water. They watch her eyes go blank as she stares off into space. They worry about her, but she doesn’t know this. Bertha is too separated from their world to feel them. She is alone.
Tick
Felcia isn’t as good at making salads as Bertha, but she is grateful for her, nonetheless. When her eyes come back into focus and her legs feel secure, she waddles back to the station to take over.
“You sure?” Felicia asks, concern for the older women blending into pity.
“Yeah, Honey, I got it.” Bertha’s voice is meek but adamant. This is her job, her duty. If she doesn’t make the salads for tonight, what else would she do? Her back aches and she ignores it. There is a job to do, and she’s afraid Rodney will yell at her. Though young, he is a diligent worker and expects the others to follow suit. He was hired a few months ago and still had the freshness to care about efficiency. Attributes that have earned her respect.
Tick.
With the muscle memory of an athlete, Bertha mixes up fifteen garden salads like it’s nothing. It’s a chilled bowl of mixed greens, three cherry tomatoes, two cucumbers, and a handful of carrots. She mindlessly shoves her hand into the container of tomatoes, palms the perfect amount, and sprinkles them on the bed of lettuce. When she goes to fan the slices of cucumbers, her heart drops.
One of the tomatoes twitches. She moves her hands from the plate and brings her face closer to watch the fruit. It is indeed moving on its own, wiggling next to its still comrades. Its skin seems to breathe, pushing out and flattening back into its original shape. She holds her breath. The movements seem consistent, breathing.
Suddenly, the skin breaks, juice and seeds splattering Bertha’s face.
She coughs, her whole-body recoiling from the rancid juice. The tomato spasms rapidly, gushing acidic blood. Something wriggles free of the egg; a larva oozes its way onto the salad, squelching in its own slime. It’s a meaty worm, ribbed, covered in slime, and wet hair. It makes a soft hissing noise, the breathy shrill of a newborn afraid of the world it has just entered. Bertha wants to scream, but she thinks of stupid Chris, of Rodney, of Felicia who’s already worried, and stops herself. She has met this larva before, seen it stalking her in the corner of her eye. But it is always at a distance, not here in her face.
She really must be getting worse.
Bertha wipes the juice off her face with a rage, cringing, trying so desperately not to freak out. She breathes in, breathes out, and opens her eyes to find a perfectly good salad. The tomato is intact, no juice, no larva, just a cherry tomato waiting to be smothered in ranch. Its clean skin shines in the florescent lights of the kitchen, mocking her.
Bertha’s lip quivers. Then she throws the tomato in the trash, replacing it with good one and not an imposter. She gives the salad to a waitress and tries to forget. There is no larva, no twitching tomato. She is okay.
Everything is okay.
The rest of the night is a daze. The world around her moves in slow motion, passing through a thick invisible force that she seems to be outside of; she makes her salads at a regular speed. After the last reservation is given their Caesars, Bertha packs up her station, wipes off the counters with bleach, puts all her vegetables in the produce fridge and leaves. She skips her rounds of goodbyes and rushes to her Toyota Camry, where she cranks the heat, lights a cigarette, and opens a peel bottle. Her back’s been killing her all day, too much to be ignore, and here at the end of busy week, she feels drained. Bertha shakes two small blue circles out of the bottle and flushes them down with the cup of Coke that is now warm.
The pain eases. She takes a deep breath.
Bertha lights a cigarette, but when she puts it to her lips, she freezes. On the hood of her car is a dark outline of a small creature. It stands on the Camry and stares at her, its eyes glowing red from the parking lot light.
Tick.
With as much stealth as she can muster, Bertha wriggles the keys in the ignition, engulfing the creature in the flames of the headlight.
Now, Bertha lives in the woods. She grew up with coyotes and human-like howl, the deer with their deep gurgling noises. She knows the difference between a black vulture and a turkey vulture. She is used to the strangeness of nature and considered herself, to an extent, one with it. But this—thing—is something she has never experienced before. Maybe it’s one of those invasive bugs that came from China, or a mutation of a roly-poly. Maybe a turtle and an octopus had a baby and then it mated with a lobster and then that baby mated with a pig.
A freak of evolution.
It is palm sized, a child, with tuffs of fur highlighted by the beams, a trail of slime dripping from something that must be its mouth, an abundance of skin drapes on a set of hooves. Its eyes are bead-black, no expression, and they stare at her unblinking.
Tick.
“The hell?” she grumbles, shifting the car in drive. If she could just get out of here, get home, everything will be alright. This thing will go away. She will go to sleep and tomorrow will be normal. She tells herself this. She believes this.
Bertha presses the gas pedal and the car creaks out of the parking lot. The creature stands its ground, and she grows hot, angry with its defiance. Her hand slams on the horn, letting it scream at the creature, but it is not afraid.
Tick.
It has a purpose.
Tick.
The car then pulls out of the restaurant parking lot and shoots down the road. Bertha decides to take the back road. With its winding turns and lack of rules, she’s sure she can lose the creature. The hills lift her stomach as she speeds over them, but still, it refuses to move. Her house isn’t far, tucked just outside the woods.
Tick.
Bertha speeds down the winding road. The night is cold, and her windshield is fogging, but she can still see the creatures sitting perfectly still on her dash.
“You stupid lil shit!” She screams at the creature.
Tick.
She’s approaching her house and knows there’s a sharp turn right before her driveway, one that killed drunk teens at least once a year.
Tick.
If the car hits it with just the right speed, the creature is sure to fly off and out of her life. Tick. Tick.
Bertha pushes down on the gas, her knuckles growing white as she approaches the turn and whips the steering wheel.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Just before the turn begins, the creature jumps up into the darkness. Bertha’s eyes follow and watch it disappear.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
She doesn’t see the telephone poll.
Her poor Camry smashes it head on. Bertha is slammed into the airbag, which gives her a clean upper cut, knocking her out for a moment and everything goes silent for a moment that feels like an eternity. The car crunches, the pole snaps, and everything goes dark. The horn is blasting a long numbing siren that engulfs all noise. Both loud and muted. The smell of gas and burnt rubber fill the car, her nose, her lungs, and she becomes one with the wreckage. A piece of warped metal. She stirs slowly. Her head spins. Bertha winces. Yet, there are no tears, even though she’s sure she has serval broken bones, even though this was Conner’s car, even though he spent countless hours tinkering with it when he was alive and was his most prized possession. She has no emotion whatsoever, just knows that she is now safe. She is alive.
Through the broken glass, Bertha finds her pocketbook and swallows a pill with no drink—her stale coke is all over the passenger seat. She sits in the wreckage and waits for it to kick in.
It’ll take just a few moments.
Her house is only a few minutes walking distance. There’ll be no cars, not at this hour, not out here. So, Bertha waddles back home, purse in hand, in silence.
It’s cold and there are no lights. The moon casts a blue shade on her home outlining the porch swing, the mature maple out front, her faded red door. Mickey repainted it a few months before he died, and it is perfect. She shuffles up the driveway, ignoring the holes that need to be (and will never be) filled in. But before she could place a foot on the front step, she gets a familiar feeling that something is watching her. Expecting that horrible creature, she turns, relieved to meet a doe. It lives in the shade of the large tree, her eyes illuminated by the moon light. The two animals watch each other.
Mickey was a big hunter, waiting all year for November to bring back fresh venison. Since he died, the deer have gained confidence. They used to avoid the house out of fear of Mickey, but now they inch their way to her back yard, just to remind her of her lost family.
“What’dya want?” Bertha cries.
The doe does not speak, though it has a message to relay.
“C’mon. I’m tired of you and your friends stalking me. Y’all’re playing with me now, and it needs to stop!” A few minutes of silence go by, Bertha gives up. She lets out a “harrumph” and climbs the stairs. On the last step up to her front door, the doe lets out a high-pitched bark.
“WHAT!” Bertha shoots back at the deer. She begins to tremble and all she can think about is her bed and going to sleep forever.
Ever so slowly, the doe shakes her head back and forth as if saying, don’t go in there, Bertha. There’s only bad in there.
“Fuck you” Bertha spits and disappears in her house.
Everything is dark and she makes no effort to turn any lights on. The room smells like pine candles and cigarettes, just the way it’s supposed to. She instinctively makes her way in the kitchen, her feet dragging behind her. She pours a glass of water from the tap, and then places it on the counter. Half expecting it to shake or fly off the counter, Bertha watches the outline of glass in the darkness. Though irritated and tired, she does not ignore the doe’s warning.
However, the water seems fine, and she downs it in one gulp. Catching her breath, Bertha leans against the counter and tries to ground herself. She has her house, her home. She raised a family here, and even though she can’t see them, they watch her from the ether as she laments. Bertha wishes for Christmas to be over. She wishes for the deer and squirrels to stop bothering her, for her mind to stop playing tricks on her. She probably just needs sleep, and everything will be fine. And maybe if she’s lucky, she’ll sleep through the holidays.
Her broken bones creak with every slight movement. The floorboards creak with every step as she makes her way to the stairs. They are tucked behind the kitchen like a secret only she and her family know. Bertha sticks out her hands to feel around her, an extra pair of eyes. She grazes the cabinet, the fridge, the wall with large chip in the paint that vaguely looks like Jesus. Every surface is comforting, a different memory to swaddle her.
Bertha approaches the staircase and tries to grab the railing in the night. Yet, she does not feel the smooth wood. She knows immediately that it’s that disgusting mutation, maybe its arm, or a horn. Somehow, the creature has grown in the past twenty minutes since it made her crash her car. But she is not afraid anymore. She is too tired to care. Her back is an endless cycle of knots and pain, and she just wants to go to bed. Bertha uses the monster to keep her balance as she ascends stairs like they are attending a ball. It leads her up to the second floor, dark expect for the moonlight leaking through the windows. She releases her grip, and the creature offers her its hand. It’s strangely human, like homo erectus coming back from the past for round two. In its wrinkly palm were a handful of pills; Bertha can’t make out how many. She doesn’t really want any more, but the creature insists. They’ll make her feel better. So, she takes the gifts and throw them down her throat.
The creature then disappears in the shadows, and Bertha is surprised to grieve its absence. Despite its monstrous mutation and stalking habits, its presence filled her home for the first time in so long. It gave her a taste of that warmth, then left her in the cold.
Bertha is numb. Between her long day of work, her car crash, and her interactions with the creature, all she wants is for this day to end. She does not feel any pain. She does not feel any emotions; there is no need for them. All there is in life is a bed, and a quilt her mom made her in another life.
Her head feels heavy, every neuron passes through a bog to get to their destinations. She pushes through, her neck struggling under the weight. A sharp bell rings distantly in her ear. The humming encompasses her as Bertha creeps into her bedroom and notices a lump sleeping in the bed. With no reaction, she approaches it, and finds a large being with scales and whiskers and slime sleeping next to her spot. Its hooves dangle off the bed as it gets some well-deserved sleep after a day of growing.
Bertha’s head is spinning, her sight coming in and out of focus, but she knows what it is. She is relieved to not sleep in a bed by herself and climbs in bed. Her fingers are cold, frozen in fists that she cannot move. She tugs the blanket away from her companion, who is hogging it, and gets comfortable. The creature stirs, tosses onto its other side, and places a hairy arm around her. The creature brings Bertha into its body, and she immediately becomes calmer, closer to sleep. It’s been so long since she’s been held. She snuggles against it, feeling warm, and tired, and ready.
“Good night, Mickey.” She yawns comfortably, kissing the creature on its warped cheek and fading into nothingness.