The Carpenters' Bones - GrUberfest 05 (656 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.81 on 18 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by badassmofo (View user info) at 2005-10-21 23:28:48 EDT
The TV in the motel room glowed dimly in the darkness, the sounds reverberating through the silent room.
"This is Tabby Corchran signing off from CrispWix Chip Factory, let the chips fall where they may. Join me next week when I bring to you a local Mother, whose famous soup has been bringing warmth to the Tri-county area for years now. It'll be the last stop on Tabby's Food for the Family series."
The TV went blank with and audible click as Tabby Corchran slid down under the sheets and dropped the remote on the floor. Another stop, another food, another mom and pop shop struggling to make its way into America's the food chain.
Tabby had studied journalism for years before breaking into the mass media racket. Plans to take the media world by storm had settled into just being happy to find work in the over-glutted market of shiny smiling faces wanting to tell you about the latest tragedy.
This series just fell in her lap, and although exciting in the beginning it had begun to grate on her as she began the 8th installment in this small New England town. She closed her eyes with a sigh and slipped into sleep.
<><><><><><>
Tabby took to the street the next morning at a brisk walk, camera and sound men struggling to keep up as they hurried by the small town shops. She was as irritated as she was when she fell asleep last night. All those years of clawing her way up and here she was still stuck doing sound bites about food.
"Ok Tabby," she said to herself as she came to abrupt stop in front of a shabby store front, "its game time." She smoothed the front of her skirt, patted her hair and with a contrived smile she opened the door.
The shop was small, seating maybe a dozen patrons and any point in time, but it was well lit by the morning sun pouring through the large bay windows in the front.
"Hello? Tabby Corchran, TV21 News, Food for the Family. I had an appointment with Mama this morning." Her words echoed through the empty establishment, "about her fabulous soup?"
The door opened behind the counter, revealing an older heavyset woman coming up a set of steps. "I'll be with you in just a moment, Dearie"
"Just let me get this soup in the kettle and I'll be with you."
The woman hardly struggled under the weight of the container as she poured what looked like a rich meaty broth swimming with vegetables and barley into the first kettle at the counter.
"First soup of the day" she said beaming at Tabby and wiping her ham-hock hands on the front of her faded blue, flowered dress and offering one to shake.
Tabby's well manicured hand took it and endured a violent shake.
"You must be Mama," Tabby replied as she recovered her favorite false smile for the job.
"Oh yes, Dearie. Come on; let's sit over here so I can give these old bones a rest in the sun."
Sitting at the table in the far corner, Tabitha looked over her latest assignment. Her age was indeterminate but she was apparently in her later years. The squashed face, like an apple left out too long in the sun, was surmounted by a well coifed tight bun holding back what could only be described as a mountain of gray hair.
'Hell this woman IS a mountain' Tabby thought.
"I like to start out with a quick interview, head into the kitchens for a look at the creation process, and then sit back down and cover the history of your product" Tabby rummaged through her bag for her notebook.
"The interview is fine, Dearie, but my boys are still working on other batches for the lunch rush. I can't have you go disturbin them while they work."
"That's fine," Tabby replied through gritted teeth annoyed that she may have to spend even more time in this town...in this establishment. Something about the air in here made her terribly uncomfortable.
"I'll just come back for that part when you're ready." Tabby spurted with instant regret.
"That'd be just fine Dearie, you go on 'head an ask your questions and Mama'll tell you her glorious story" the old woman chuckled.
Mama's laugh made Tabby's skin feel like it was trying to crawl right off of her.
<><><><><><>
Tabby leaped into her interview, this was old hat for her by now. Same questions different town...no mystery, no excitement just one more mom and pop sugar sweet story. The whole thing wore on Tabby.
After 10 minutes or so Tabby had all the information she needed. Mama had started the business with her husband years ago. Pop had died about 10 years back and the boys both had left high school to help Mama with the business. Since then they had stopped serving the variety they had started with and let the soup part take off. This was their staple now and folks came from far and wide for some of Mama's soup.
"So Mama, do you and the boys have any plans on expansion maybe moving your business closer to the city?"
"No Dearie" said Mama as she squared herself up to Tabby "this is a family business, it stays here, it stays in the family, that's how it is." As the last words came out of Mama's mouth Tabby saw it, the hint that she was looking for.
Mama had delivered her message directly and Tabby got it, Mama didn't like to be questioned on her business and Tabby knew there was a story here after all.
Ever the newshound Tabby pressured, she saw an opportunity and she struck.
"Ok Mama, shall we get on and take a look at that kitchen then?"
"Dearie, I tol' you once already my boys are cookin and this place is about to get busy 'er than hell." Mama warned.
"I know that's what you said but come on, we'll only be a few minutes." Tabby felt like she was pushing a bit but she wanted to see it again, that flash of anger. "A few pictures, maybe one of you and the boys for the opening shot."
"That's not going to happen so's you can just go on and take your gear and get along. Mama's got work to do."
Just as Tabby was about to take her final stab at getting into Mama's kitchen a noise came from behind the door. Tabby's mind flashed instantly to a piece of steel being drug across the pavement. That grinding sound that makes you feel like you forgot to add oil to something.
She looked at Mama but the overbearing woman didn't even flinch and as one of the boys stuck his head out of the kitchen to get his mother's attention she didn't even turn at the sound of his calling.
"It's time for you to go Dearie, sounds like there's some work for Mama to do."
Once Tabby gathered her self she turned to shake hands with Mama but couldn't take her eye off the kitchen door.
"Uh....uh ok, thank you for your time Mama and keep you eye out...your piece should air in about 4 days."
Mama didn't even take Tabby's hand, she simply place one of her big hands on Tabby's shoulder and turned her to the door.
"So long Dearie, thanks for stoppin." Mama said from the stoop as Tabby and her crew walked away.
<><><><><><>
'I have to get in that kitchen, there is a story there and I know it.' Tabby thought as she sat in front of her laptop back at the hotel. She was still fuming over being hustled out the door that way.
Over riding her anger though was the feeling of unease that had settled in on her as soon as she had walked into that shop.
She had chills as she went back over the tape of the interview. The way that the woman had looked at her, things she didn't see but the camera caught, yes Mama had something to hide.
"It's time for you to go Dearie, sounds like there's some work for Mama to do."
'Wait what the hell was that' Tabby thought, and she rewound the tape and listened again and there it was...right in the middle of Mama's line Tabby heard a cry...very faint and barely laudable between the woman's words.
"Holy shit!" Tabby screamed aloud. The goose bumps rippled down her arms and her heart had found its way to her throat.
"That was fucking human." She said to herself.
Tabby sat back down and rewound and listened, again and again until her mind snapped her out of her trance.
'I'm going there," she thought "tonight...right fucking now I'm going" And with that Tabby grabbed her MiniDV camcorder, threw it in her bag and took off.
<><><><><><>
She arrived at Mama's shop in around 20 minutes and pulled her Civic around the back of the building. All the lights were off and after sitting in her car for a good 10 minutes gathering herself Tabby got out and walked towards the door of the building.
She walked around the outside of the building looking for a way in and when she found the window open on the south side of the building she almost turned back.
After a moment of indecision Tabby grabbed the few crates she found around and stacked them into a makeshift ladder she climbed to the top and slowly pushed the window up.
A few moments of struggle and she was standing in Mama's kitchen, complete darkness surrounding her, and her mind volleyed her next move.
Tabby moved slowly to her left, hands outstretched, she was looking for a wall...a wall would eventually lead to a switch if she followed long enough.
Her hand landed on something cold and metal and after a little more cautious groping Tabby figured it a table of some sort so she followed along it.
As she moved along her hand slipping over the table she felt it slip into a cool, gooey wetness. The feeling made Tabby's stomach convulse. She felt like she had just stuck her hand in meat filled Jell-O and she was sure that she would throw up right there.
Tabby withdrew her hand and wiped it on her pant leg. She had tears forming in her eyes and she knew that she had made a mistake coming in here. Feeling out in front of her Tabby finally found the wall.
She patted her hands around anxiously, desperately searching for a switch...a switch would lead her to light....light would lead her to a door and a door would get her the fuck out of here.
Tabby could smell a sickening sweet that was making her stomach turn further into disgust and the wretched crunching sound coming from under her feet grinded in her ears as if someone was chewing on teeth.
'Come on, get your fucking self together girl,' she heard her mind tell her, '...now.'
Sweet relief engulfed her as her fingers found a switch on the wall and without hesitation Tabby flipped it. Expecting blinding light she shielded her eyes but no light came.
What came was that sound, the one she had heard a lifetime ago standing face to face with Mama.
She doubled over and her gut finally let loose in a violent convulsion.
Tabby regained herself and quickly found the switch one the wall again...that noise had to stop before she lost it again.
She flipped the switch and everything went white. Her instant blindness was too much for her to handle and she fell to the floor in a heap, crying to herself.
As her eyes began to adjust Tabby looked around the floor of the kitchen. Focus came to her as she fingered the floor below her. She pulled her hand back towards her face to see what it was she had plucked from the floors surface...were these stones...on a kitchen floor?
Tabby's tear streaked eyes brought the object into focus and she dropped it the same instant it became clear.
There were thousands of them, millions probably...some whole...some broken...some reduced to mere dust. Tiny bones covered the entire floor before her; layers and layers of bones blood coated bones, white and ashy bones, bones covered in kitchen grease.
Tabby stood up slowly, seeing more clearly than she ever had in her life.
She could hear her heartbeat...slowly pounding...ever slow...as the world spun to a near halt as she surveyed the room before her.
The table before her was no table at all, but rather a machine...running, 2 stainless treble hooks at one end the size of a man's fist. They were sunk into the shoulders of what appeared to be a grown man.
...slowly pounding
In the area of the man's thigh were 2 sets of steel hands, hooked fingers of hardened steel where sunk into the man's legs and they were being pulled slowly down towards his feet somehow attached to one another under the table.
...slowly pounding
The machine was ripping the cool sticky flesh and meat right off the bone in front of Tabby's eyes and she could not move. The sound, she could hear it above the machine now...the tearing sound as tendons and sinew tore away from the bone.
Tabby whirled around, her instincts finally coming back to her. The atrocity of the scene around her was something even the most twisted novelist couldn't have put into description.
Hanging bones riddled the room, bones on top of counters, hanging out of cabinets sticking up out of pots.
Piles of fleshed lay stacked in the corner of the room, leaving trails of blood to and from the machine.
"Well Dearie, I think you've seen just a bit too much." The thunderous woman's voice bellowed.
Tabby turned around to see Mama standing there hair down, eyes wild, and wielding a large kitchen knife.
Tabby fell to her knees, no longer having the strength to fight against the overload she had just taken in. She pulled her hands to her face and sobbed.
"Don't cry now, it'll all be ok, Mama's here and she'll make it all better Dearie."
"You see now you've gone and meddled and now you know Mama's secrets. It's all in the bones little one." Mama said as she moved closer to Tabby.
"You see when Papa died I figured he loved this place so much why not let him remain a part of it forever. The bones Dearie, the marrow, now that is where the real flavor comes from."
Tabby was giving in, how could this be...how could this go on, what is wrong with these people.
"N-....no...please...God no....don't hurt me please..." This was all the fight Tabby had to muster.
"Don't worry Dearie, this is what you've always wanted. I could smell it on you the moment you stepped in my shop. You reek of your desire for fame...it oozes from you like a sickening stench."
"You have your desire now Dearie, you'll be taken in by the masses. Tasted and savored and made fuss over...be still now little one...Mama's here to ease you."
With that Mama wrapped her hand around Tabby's head and turned it south; she slipped the blade into Tabby's neck as easy as she had Papa's all those years ago.
"Well then, that's that...suppose since I'm up I might as well get on with tomorrow's cookin." Mama said as she busied to the other side of the kitchen and grabbed an apron.
"Damn boys and their messes." She said as she kicked a baseball sized chunk of flesh into the corner.
Mama fired up her stove and set into another day's work, another day of providing for the hungry, providing for her family. It was not a glorious life but one she enjoyed and one she managed quite well.
<><><><><><>
"I'm so sorry you had to do this all again Mama, the network really apologizes." Krissy Martin said with the fakest smile she could provide.
"No problem at all Dearie, just another day at Mama's."
"Ok, last bit here Mama and we'll be out of your hair."
Krissy smiled and flipped her hair and turned to the camera.
"This is Krissy Martin, filling in for the vacationing Tabby Corchran, signing off from Mama's place. And remember Mama Carpenter's Soup...it'll warm you to the bone."
User Reviews
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2006-10-28 13:50:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
sick & twisted
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2005-10-31 08:17:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Apology +2
Submitted by Xcuses (user info) at 2005-10-23 09:16:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
In reviewing most of your posts, I have noticed you try different styles which I commend in itself. Some work better than others but most are pretty good.
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-10-22 14:14:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by badassmofo (user info) at 2005-10-22 07:36:05 (#)
Ranking: 0
As it happened I finished writing 10 minutes before I posted it and if I stared any longer I would have trashed it and forfeited but I'm no quiter.
******************
Well, shit. That's actually quite impressive.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-10-22 11:57:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Shit. Sorry. Fucking goddamn rating button. Fuck.
Submitted by badassmofo (user info) at 2005-10-22 11:32:33 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
No sweat Jack, I knew that would be the biggest flaw, I kept typing and thinking 'ok I gotta go back and change that' just to keep going.
IN the end I just didn't have the time.
Writing on demand is my kryptonite, my best stuff comes from just and idea hitting me at random.
Glad you liked the sick parts If I had a chance to go back I'd edit out most of the first 2 pages just to get there quicker.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2005-10-22 11:03:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Gotta go with a +1 on this.
I know you were slammed for time. It's not so much the typos as the flow of the words that needed some retooling.
BUT the whole bit with that machine stripping that guy down was some sick and twisted shit. I loved it.
Submitted by badassmofo (user info) at 2005-10-22 07:36:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
theceas - its a multi switch box, I just really couldn't think of a way to put that in there.
if I had more time, not as in if I had a longer deadline but as in if I had more time in my life over the last few days I think I could have worked out some of the bugs.
As it happened I finished writing 10 minutes before I posted it and if I stared any longer I would have trashed it and forfeited but I'm no quiter.
Submitted by Xcuses (user info) at 2005-10-22 07:29:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Jesus S. Lotsofwords
You expect me to read all that?
Read it to me bitch
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-10-22 07:21:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
The last line was great, and the picture was awesome, too.
I liked the idea of the nosy journalist and the mild mannered, sweet, yet very menacing-looking old lady.
Until Tabby heard the scream on the tape, I didn't think she was going on much. Earlier she was all, 'I know there's a story there' but I didn't see what she saw to make her think that, if that makes sense.
The part where Tabby breaks in kind of confused me...she hits a switch that turns on a machine, which makes her throw up, then she hits the switch again and it turns the lights on?
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2005-10-22 01:29:32 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You saw the end coming a mile away, but yet you HAD to keep reading. Great charcaters did that...
Submitted by pen_name (user info) at 2005-10-22 01:09:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I don't know what your conceding. this story is awesome.
Still, i have to point this out, because it made me laugh, and i'm a prick.
***
"She arrived at Mama's shop in around 20 minutes and pulled her Civic around the back of the BUILDING. All the lights were off and after sitting in her car for a good 10 minutes gathering herself Tabby got out and walked towards the door of the BUILDING.
She walked around the outside of the BUILDING looking for a way in and when she found the window open on the south side of the BUILDING she almost turned back."
***
I'm sorry to say, I made it here and almost stopped reading. I can't explain it, but somehow i got this urge to fashion an object with four walls and a roof. I think they're called trains...I don't know.
anyway, this was amazing...no lie. I planned on giving you a two, regardless (since sought fit to give me one) but mama really earned it.
YOU'RE ALL RIGHT, LA RUSSO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Submitted by Chinaski (user info) at 2005-10-22 01:08:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
you know... it was great.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2005-10-22 00:14:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This was a badass story.
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2005-10-21 23:50:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Don't ya just hate it when you're cutting up your.....uh......food, and all you have is a
sidewinder cause your friend borrowed your worm-drive and didn't return it and when he starts
screaming for mercy you have to explain it to him all over again why the blade keeps binding
his proximal femur?
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2005-10-21 23:49:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
This had the over-the-top gore that the first wave of stories were missing.
The ending spiraled the story down to a whole different place, which bumps it up from +1 to +2 in my book.
Good use of the title.
Submitted by forthewin (user info) at 2005-10-21 23:35:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
WTF- I'm not reading all that.
Maybe later.
Submitted by badassmofo (user info) at 2005-10-21 23:31:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
sorry for:
being late
being long winded
being horrible at spelling
being apparently incapable of editing.
I'd go on about my fucking day but I don't want to type anymore
congratulations pen_name