Made With Love

(TW: body horror, description of a panic attack, death)

Nana always called it baking, but it didn’t feel like baking to Caleb. To him, it felt sort of like alchemy, or maybe even magic. It was a secret they held together, creation for the sole purpose of creation. It was the construction of something wretched, something wrong, and it was damnation and blasphemy. Cruelty and morbidity. 

But Nana just called it baking. 

“It goes in the oven,” she would tell him when he mentioned it, “so it must be baking.” 

From where he was standing in front of the table, Caleb glanced over at his Nana. Her small face was turned towards the material spread in front of them, wrinkled hands carefully preparing their ingredients. Her curly white hair bloomed around her face, and her gentle eyes–brown, like his own, ones that softened with love whenever she looked at him–had sharpened with intent. 

Caleb loved his Nana. She was everything to him. He would do anything for her. Anything. 

“Remember how to start?” Nana’s voice broke through the layer of silence that had settled over the room as she set the knife down, and despite her gentle tone, nausea started building in Caleb’s gut. 

He looked at her, then back down to the sterilized table in front of him, then to the bucket of scraps that she had prepared for them. 

“Yeah,” he said. He reached into the bucket. 

Caleb wasn’t especially fond of baking on principle, but he definitely didn’t like this part. Nana was so particular about it; she insisted that he didn’t wear gloves and would hear no protestations.  

“The best results always come from a true connection to your ingredients,” she would tell him. That meant no gloves. 

His naked fingers brushed over the first strip of flesh. 

It was kind of like sculpting, he thought distantly. He started with the outline of the figure, the arms, the legs, the place where the head and torso would go. Like this, he could imagine he was the God that Nana told him about, pulling together materials to create man’s image in the shape of his own. While he worked, Nana prepared the muscles and the bones. They were layered carefully on top of the outline, precise from all the practice the two of them had done on previous drafts. 

“I could never do this without you,” she told him every time he faltered. “I need you to be strong for me.” 

In the past, they had only built animals. They had started with rabbits and birds, then moved onto bigger creatures like sheep and deer. Placed in the oven as parts, they exited whole, if not a little… wrong. 

That was the goal here as well, to make what was technically a large animal. Nana had needed help gathering materials this time, but hopefully it would be the last try. He didn’t know if he could do that again. 

Caleb worked quickly but steadily, packing in material: a heart, a liver, two kidneys and two lungs. A stomach, a pancreas, a bladder. He put the ribs on, then the muscles, then the skin again. 

His movements stalled; he was out of tasks. Placing his hands flat on the table, Caleb took a moment to just breathe. The damp basement air was spiked with formaldehyde, and it made his nose run. 

Nana stroked his hair. “Good job, baby, good job. Go wash up now. When you’re ready, get the head from the pantry.” 

He nodded and turned to go. His hands left wet marks on the table. 

—

In the small bathroom, Caleb washed his hands until they bled. The steam from the water curled up and into his eyes, and sweat beaded on his temple. In the fogged mirror, his reflection looked fevered and frantic. 

Get a grip, he told himself. Get a grip get a grip get a grip get a grip GET A GRIP GET A GRIP–

This hadn’t happened in a long time, but then again, nothing had been this important in a long time either. The face in front of him was turning red, eyes bulging, harsh breaths wafting across the glass. In front of him, the faucet leaked a gentle chorus of drip drip drip drip drip. He reached his raw hands up to his hair and pulled–

—

Fifteen minutes later, Caleb exited the bathroom and approached the pantry. Rows and rows of jars were stored inside, stretching from his feet to far above his head. Some of them were innocuous; pickles were near his knees and jam was on the top shelf. There was sauerkraut here somewhere too. 

But one jar was much bigger than the rest. It was settled pristinely on the shelf at eye-level. The head inside was submerged in murky brown liquid, though the skin still had a porcelain quality, even through the muck. Pale, empty eyes rolled loosely in their sockets, and the head’s ruby lips were dull and faded. Still, though. It was immaculately preserved, if he did say so himself. 

Caleb hefted the jar into his arms, wobbling a bit as he adjusted to the extra weight. It was heavy, but not so much that he wouldn’t be able to get it back to Nana. She looked up at him as he entered, beckoning him over with stained hands and a peaceful smile. 

“Good, good,” she said when he put the jar down next to their creation. She unscrewed the lid and leaned in to inspect its contents while Caleb lurched away; the stench that poured from the jar made him want to scream. 

She eased her wrinkled hands into the jar and pulled out the head. He watched in fascinated disgust as liquid sloughed off the hair, the chin, the cheeks. He himself felt lightheaded, and he steadied himself on the table. Get a grip, get a grip!

“You’ve done good work,” Nana said, putting the head down at its proper place at the crown of the table. “I’m so proud of you, Caleb.” He tried to let her words bolster him, wanted to feel them energize him, but all he could muster up was a weak smile. 

“I would do anything for you, Nana,” he said. Anything. 

“I know, baby.” She reached forward as if to cup his face in her palms, then seemed to remember the state of them and let them drop to her sides. “I think we’re ready for the final preparations.” 

This part was always the most difficult for him to execute. The gentle act of connecting the head to the neck–of connecting the body to the mind–took steady hands and unwavering faith. Caleb could feel Nana’s excitement and nervousness radiating off of her in waves, though she remained quiet. As he worked, he couldn’t help but think of the head’s pale eyes. He and Nana wouldn’t share their brown eyes anymore. Somehow, that felt like the cruelest part of all of this. 

There. Done. Finally. And now... 

They didn’t talk for this part. They never did–words seemed so incomprehensibly small when compared to an act of God. Nana pressed a kiss to the side of his head, and he tried to memorize the way she smelled, the way she looked. Her hair and her face and her hands. After this, she would have pale eyes. After this, her body would be flawless, built from his hands, guided by her talent. 

He followed her over to the other side of the room. Helped her onto her own table. Eased her down until she was lying on her back. Each moment felt like it was happening in bursts, lagging and stuttering in his mind. She reached up, and this time she really did cup his jaw. He could still feel the sticky residue lingering on her skin. 

It goes in the oven, so it must be baking. That’s what Nana had always said. 

Caleb picked up one of the cables from the floor. It wasn’t quite an oven in the traditional sense; the thick tangle of wires that sprouted from the panel on side and the pistons embedded into a large engine in the front sort of muddied the look. Still, though. It was close enough. If it did what it was supposed to, it didn’t matter what it was called. 

Nana held out an arm for him as he uncapped the needle attached to the cable. In one fluid movement, he inserted it into one of the deep blue veins in her forearm. He turned before he could meet her gaze again (brown for now, pale in just a moment). The oven–the actual oven part, with the chamber and the heat–waited across the room, the door slightly ajar. He pushed it the rest of the way open. Once he turned this on and put the body into it, the transformation would begin. 

By all means, this was the easiest part, but his limbs still felt stiff with anxiety as he heaved the slab holding the body into the chamber. Shut the door. Locked it so the pressure wouldn’t force it back open. 

The control panel was on the far side of the oven. He had to squeeze past a couple pipes to get there, ducking under the water line, sucking in his breath so he didn’t brush against the septic pipe. The panel itself was small, no larger than a book and it only had three buttons. They were all identical, but Caleb didn’t need labels to know what did what. The first would turn the oven on. The second would remove Nana from her body. And the third would put her into the one they made together. 

Caleb pressed the first button. 

The room immediately burst into motion. The oven heaved out a giant groan before beginning to tremble, jostled by the force of the pistons’ growing movement. Caleb could hear cogs spinning inside, pushing and pulling and colliding with a clunk clunk clunk that resonated through his entire body. Heat rapidly began rising off the oven’s surface, and he shrunk back as far as he could as sweat beaded on his temples. 

Above him, the dingy basement lights flickered a little, then a lot. Reaching forward, he let out a small yelp as his hand made contact with the oven’s burning surface. The erratic light made it difficult to see, but after a moment spent nursing his sore fingers, he tried again, carefully feeling over the first button, then the third, before landing on the second. 

Click. 

He jumped as one of the lightbulbs popped from the abuse, then another, then another, until all that remained was the dull orange glow from the oven bathing the far walls. In the darkness, Caleb felt almost like he was floating, bodiless, reprieved of gravity. Within the shadows, he was nothing, and he felt as though he would have drifted away if the rumbling of the machine hadn’t forced him back to himself. 

It was time for the third button. The one that would complete the transformation. Once he pressed it, all of this would be over. He could feel it under his fingers, smooth and plastic but grimy from the years spent in the damp room. It waited, perfectly still even as the oven’s shaking increased, trembling from all of the movement encased inside. 

All he had to do was press the button. Just one push and it would all be over. 

One single gesture, a motion so simple a child could do it. 

A tiny action, miniscule. It was the easiest part. 

He only had to press the button. And he was going to do it. Right. Now. 

Caleb’s breath caught in his chest. 

Push the button! he wanted to scream, but he couldn’t force himself to move. 

His eyes started to burn. Sweat poured down his face in rivets. He needed to hurry, the oven wasn’t going to be able to sustain itself much longer. It was using too much power. 

Get a grip get a grip get a grip–

He could hear it churning, gasping, fighting under his hands. Splintering apart into pieces. Shattering. He had to press the button!

Hurry! Do it now!

His legs were stone, his arms leaden weights. His finger shook where it was suspended in the air. 

Out of time out of time out of time–

He wiped at the perspiration dripping down his temples, an automatic movement, and why could he do that and not make himself–

You’re running out of–

There was a crash as something inside the oven buckled. 

Anything for her!

He could see Nana’s face in the darkness, so sweet, so soft. 

Anything for–

He could see his own, blurry from the grime on the bathroom mirror and his own tears. 

Move! You idiot, move!

Nana’s voice echoed in his ears. I’m so proud of you. 

His own. Anything for you. 

Her voice. I couldn’t do this without you. 

He lowered his arm, and one final, explosive BOOM! resonated throughout the room. The oven fell quiet and still. The air cooled. In the silence that followed, the only sounds he could hear were his own gasping breaths as they shuddered out of him. 

When he had finally settled, he began to creep out from behind the pipes, under the water line, squeezing around the septic pipe, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. As he emerged, he made a wide berth around the engine, which was smoking slightly, and approached her. 

Nana. 

He looked down at her. Examined her pinched face. Her dirty hands. Her ghostly hair and bruised eyelids. Wretched. Wrong. 

She didn’t move. 

He did. He took one step back, then another. Glanced away, back at the oven, then towards her again. Another step. Away from the table. Away from her. 

Into the darkness. 

He turned slowly. 

And fled.