Out of Date
A short piece I’ve written as a practice for NaNoWriMo, to see how much work an average day’s worth of writing would require. Enjoy.
Out of Date
Jemima switched on the tap, and let it run. Work had been an utter bitch that day, with Mr. Bogface being in an even fouler mood that usual. Mr. Bogface was a jobsworth manager of the worst kind, and seemed to have an especial dislike for Jemima, probably because she was a woman, young and better at the job than he ever was. As a journalist for the Ayresome Gazette, Jemima had spent the last four years carving out a great career for herself, and there were rumours that one or two of the national dailies had tried to court her. Old Bogface had been a journalist there for thirty years before being moved into a management position and his only contribution to the national press had been a stern letter to the Telegraph about the quality of its crossword.
That day, Jemima had penned a frightfully good article about corruption in the local council. The Council leader, it had been rumoured, had been taking bribes from local businessmen to work local legislation in their favour. Jemima’s network of informants had given her a wealth of information on the situation. When combined with her talent for writing, this had produced a document which most at the paper thought would really shift copies. Most, that is, apart from Mr. Bogface. It didn’t help that he was a good friend of the Council leader, but he didn’t want to say much about that. He just made Jemima’s day as hard as possible – constant putdowns, numerous pointless errands and requests for re-writes of other stories.
But Jemima had finished work for the day, and was now looking forward to a relaxing bath. She’d make herself a drink, and lie in the bath with a good book for about an hour, forgetting the horrible day she’d had and simply wallowing in the blissfully hot water.
As the bath ran, she wondered what drink she could take in with her. There was nothing alcoholic in the house; she wasn’t teetotal, but it had all been drunk at an all-night party the week before (she still couldn’t remember who that had been under the mistletoe – nor why there was mistletoe, as it was July). She didn’t fancy a coffee, as it might have kept her awake. Hot chocolate? Why not, eh?
Jemima had some idea that she might have some cocoa powder in the cupboard. Her hypothesis proved correct, but only after mounting an expedition right to the back of the cupboard, past instant mashed potato, rice, stock cubes and spice jars that might have been there since God was a boy. On taking the small jar of cocoa powder from the cupboard, it occurred to her to check the sell-by date on the bottom. September 2006, it read. This was November 2011. Cynical about the idea that cocoa powder could go off, she took the lid off the jar and peered inside. No mould, no weevils, nothing at all out of the ordinary. Just cocoa powder. Ah well, she thought, what’s the worst that could happen? Jemima stuck three heaped spoonfuls into a cup, added milk, boiling water and a bit of honey to sweeten it. The bath having run, she placed her mug on the side of the bath, took up her book and tentatively got into the steaming hot bath. She spent a few seconds acclimatising herself to the heat, and then opened the book where she’d bookmarked it, and began to read.
Soon, Jemima was immersed in the book and had clean forgotten about her hot chocolate. Such was Jemima’s interest in the book that her peripheral vision failed to spot something happening. The liquid in the cup began to bubble a little. Had Jemima been watching it, she’d have noticed a number of little bubbles appearing. The bubbles would appear to harden, and by degrees, would turn an ominously dark shade of green. Eventually the bubbles would begin moving around the liquid as though they were themselves alive. And every now and again, one of these “bubbles” would leap out of the cup. Some went onto the floor, others into the bath.
Jemima had been immersed in the book for some time, and didn’t notice a thing out of the ordinary until one of these dark green globules innocently floated past her. Jemima did a double take thinking, for some reason, that it might have been a spider. Sitting up in the tub, she quickly realised that it wasn’t. And from her new vantage point, she saw a mass of other similar globules at the tap end of the bath. They were everywhere – in the tub, on the floor, on the side of the bath – even a few in the sink. And every few seconds, a new one would pop out of the cup of hot chocolate.
Not entirely sure what to do, she thought the best course of action would be to jump out of the bath, going “Aaaaaaaargh!” Moving away from those globules on the floor, she picked up a towel and dried herself, keeping an eye on the strange little things. She replaced the towel and put her clothes back on, as though not being naked would make everything go away. Unfortunately it didn’t.
Jemima surveyed the scene in her bathroom. What were these things? Okay, she thought, that’s the last time I ignore a sell-by date. Was it mould? Was it something living in the cocoa powder? Or just some odd chemical reaction? She moved toward the sink, to take a look at one that was hanging on the edge of the basin.
It looked like a marble; a sphere about a centimetre in diameter, dark green and with a glossy surface. Some remnant so the hot chocolate still encrusted it. The globule just sat there, doing nothing. She took a look at the cup of hot chocolate. Nothing more was coming from it. The globules were doing nothing. Nonetheless, she didn’t want to touch them, as she wasn’t sure how harmful they might be. A few minutes past, and her common sense returned. Just some crazy chemical reaction, she thought. If I can tidy them up, things should be okay. She went away to find a dust pan and brush.
She returned a few seconds later, but when she saw the globules, she was petrified with fear. The globules appeared to be growing legs. She looked around at them, half in wonder, half scared. One leg appeared to be growing at a time, though by now, some had six legs, others were just growing their first. They were looking for all the world like they were growing into glassy spiders, and Jemima absolutely hated spiders. She hated being anywhere near them, and would sooner have had to spend a night with Mr. Bogface than to have to deal with them at all. Nearly, anyway.
As she watched in horror, it seemed that her worst fears were being realised. Some of the globules had grown eight legs, and these ones were beginning to change in other ways – growing extra body sections, hair, eyes, jaws. The one saving grace, in Jemima’s eyes, was that they were not moving. Just, somehow, turning into a large army of glazed, shimmering arachnids. They were truly fearsome, and Jemima thanked numerous gods in which she didn’t believe that they couldn’t move. She hoped they wouldn’t. Jemima stood there for about half an hour, not wanting to move in case they did, and formulating plans as to the best way to get the hell out of there if one of them so much as moved one of their infernal hairs.
Soon, Jemima was more or less at ease. She still knew not what these things were, but again thought that if she could just get them dumped in the bin, things would be fine. But she was to be proven wrong on this point. For almost as soon as she’d taken up her dustpan and brush and was steeling herself to scoop up the one closest to her, she spotted one beginning to grow wings.
Jemima jumped back against the wall. She looked on in utter terror as all of these apparent spiders grew wings. Flying spiders was her ultimate terror. She hated spiders enough – but if any could pester you in the way that wasps could, that would be so much the worse. One by one, the “spiders” grew wings. But they were still not moving, thankfully. Eventually, her bathroom was full of them. It looked like she’d spontaneously set up a macabre glassworks in her bathroom, and it only briefly occurred to her that she might be able to sell these as souvenirs for tourists. Only briefly, for two reasons – one, her house wasn’t a tourist resort, and two, the little buggers had begun to move.
Jemima saw them moving and was pinned to the wall in fright. Her instincts were telling her to get out of the house and call the Ghostbusters or somebody, but she couldn’t move. Every muscle in her body was paralysed. It seemed that the little creatures were looking right as her. For a while they seemed to be getting to grips with their new-found mobility, like horrifying, miniature Bambis-on-Ice. However, as soon as they found their feet, as it were, they began to move slowly toward Jemima. Closer and closer they got to Jemima, who by now was almost in shock, and in no danger of moving anywhere. She’d been looking down at the marching army of spiders, but suddenly looked up to something she’d spotted from the corner of her eye, and found herself face-to-cephalothorax with a flying specimen. She fainted.
The spiders moved over her body, lying on the ground, and proceeded to dine upon her flesh. Voraciously, they devoured her, until in a few short hours, nothing was left but her bones and clothes.
Her skeleton was discovered a couple of weeks later. Sergeant Orange was most puzzled by the affair, as there was no indication as to how the body of a young, fit woman could suddenly be divested of all its flesh.
“I’ve no idea,” he told his colleague, Constable Tomato. “No forced entry, no chemicals that might have had some odd effect. Only a cup of hot chocolate in the bathroom. Never has a good effect on my guts, that stuff, but it’s never turned me into a skeleton.”
Constable Tomato stifled a grin. He loved hot chocolate. So much, in fact, that he’d snaffled the jar he’d found in the kitchen. Nobody would miss it. And as soon as he got home, he’d enjoy a nice big mug of it.
© John Appleton 2010
