Don't Eat That

“So, you’re saying that your husband had no known allergies?” Officer Logger asked the grieving woman in front of him. 

“None - and this is a meal I have cooked for him hundreds of times. The medical examiner said he didn’t choke either, so I don’t understand what could have happened,” Mrs. Turner said as she cried down into the tissue in her hands. 

Detective Logger nodded and took some notes on his small memo pad, surreptitiously glancing at the child sitting in the corner. The child was staring at Officer Logger with a blank stare in her eyes, clutching a stuffed rabbit to her chest tightly. 

“Poor kid, must be in shock,” Officer Logger thought to himself. 

The detective had read that the little girl was a witness to her father's death and he couldn’t imagine the pain she must be in. The initial incident report had described the little girl as inconsolable, and Officer Logger felt a tug at his heart for her. He had asked Mrs. Turner if she wanted to send her daughter to another room for the interrogation, but she declined. Mrs. Turner said that she was afraid something would happen to her, especially after her husband’s death. Officer Logger reluctantly pulled his gaze away from the little girl and shifted back to the crying woman before her. 

“And he was eating when he collapsed?” Detective Logger continued with his questioning. 

“He was telling us about his day at work, the sales that he made and the commission bonus we could expect this month, when he stopped talking. I thought he was choking but he grabbed his chest and not his throat. Then I thought it was a heart attack but the blood…the blood..” Mrs. Turner trailed off and returned to sobbing into her tissue. 

Officer Logger nodded uncomfortably and cast another glance at the little girl in the corner. Her gaze had not shifted even slightly and Officer Logger gulped uncomfortably. He was not used to working deaths, let alone ones with children as witnesses, and he felt out of his depths. He silently cursed the flu that had spread through the small town precinct like the plague as he continued. 

“You are referring to the blood that came from Mr. Turner’s mouth?” Officer Logger asked, referring back to his notes to ensure his details were correct. Mrs. Turner gave a louder sob and reached towards the table for another tissue. Officer Logger waited a few moments, but the crying did not slow down. 

“Mrs. Turner, ma’am, do you mind if I look around a bit?” he asked, desperate for a break from this sobbing woman and her staring daughter. 

Mrs. Turner nodded in consent and Detective Logger bolted from the room. The second he was alone, he felt his body shiver with the chills. He mumbled under his breath to himself about how annoyed he was to be out doing this. He started in the family’s dining room, just off the living room where Mrs. Turner continued her sobbing. He was caught up in looking at some family portraits on the wall when a small tug of his jacket startled him. 

“Yargh!” he grunted as he turned around and was met with the icy cold stare of the little girl from the living room. Looking down at the memo pad in his hands, he fetched the little girl’s name. Julia. 

“Julia, did you need something?” he asked, squatting down to match her eye level. 

Her eyes were bloodshot and ringed with purple; she looked like she hadn’t slept in days. He felt his own demeanor softening towards her as he looked at her rabbit, still clutched tightly to her chest. She hadn’t been staring at him out of malice, but simply out of fear. She had probably never been this close to a police officer and she had just lost her father. Officer Logger waited a few more moments for the girl to speak, but she didn’t. Instead, she silently put her fingers over her lips. Officer Logger felt his blood run cold; why was she shushing him? Was she afraid of someone, something? He nodded seriously and Julia grabbed his hand, pulling him through the dining room, into the kitchen, and out into the backyard. Once outside, Julia dropped the stuffed rabbit in the grass and sighed. It seemed as if that sigh had breathed life back into her and she became animated right before Officer Logger’s eyes.

“He can hear us in there, he was listening to you,” Julia said quietly, almost so quietly that Detective Logger couldn’t hear. He bent down to her level again. 

“What? Who, Julia?” he asked quietly back, trying to piece together the puzzle in his mind. 

“The Bad One,” Julia said as her eyes darted away from Officer Logger’s and directly at the house’s many windows. Officer Logger watched Julia’s face with fascination as her eyes darted from window to window, clearly looking for someone. 

“The Bad One,” he repeated, “is that someone you know? Or a friend of your mom’s?” he asked, following his line of thinking that it may have been a lover or an enemy to the family that harmed Mr. Turner. 

Julia shook her head in a silent no. 

“He only talks to me, and no one else. He didn’t like daddy,” Julia said and Officer Logger could see tears welling up in her eyes. “I told Daddy ‘don’t eat that,’ I told him what The Bad One had done, but Mommy kept saying he was imaginary. Now The Bad One doesn’t like mommy either!”

Officer Logger felt his blood run cold. Had this little girl murdered her father? Poisoned him? He was going to need to call for back-up. He needed to get Julia inside and keep her in a  safe place until he could call for reinforcements. He stood up and placed a hand on his radio. 

“Let’s go back–” he started, but was cut off by the shrill screams of Mrs. Turner from inside the house. 

Without thinking, Officer Logger’s body swung into action and he raced towards the house. He didn’t have time to register Julia’s screams of protest from the yard before he was inside the house. Once inside, the screaming from both Julia and Mrs. Turner stopped. An eerie quiet filled the space around Officer Logger and he swore he could hear his own heart beating. As he crept past the kitchen counters and towards the door, he placed a hand on his radio, ready to call for back-up but worried about alerting an intruder to his presence. As he came around the counters, Officer Logger froze in his tracks at the sight on the floor.  

Mrs. Turner was lying on the tile, eyes wide open, and mouth dribbling with blood. In her hand, was a piece of chocolate cake that looked perfectly normal and beside her was a broken plate. The door behind Officer Logger swung shut and Officer Logger swung around, met face to face with Julia. Her cold and demeaning stare had returned and Officer Logger felt his blood run cold. 

“I SAID DON’T EAT THAT!” Julia shrieked at her mother, rushing past Officer Logger, and ripped the chocolate cake from her mother’s lifeless hand. Julia took the cake and began shoving it in her own mouth. Chocolate tinged drool ran down her chin as she aggressively chewed the cake through cackling laughter. As Officer Logger watched, his stomach churned and he felt sick at the sight. Julia continued her cackling long after the cake was gone and began taking slow and deliberate steps towards the officer, eyes glaring directly in his. 

“You tried to save Mommy,” Julia said with a sinister sneer. She cocked her head to the side as if contemplating something in her own mind. “The Bad One has decided that he doesn’t like you anymore.” 

Officer Logger didn’t have time to wonder why the cake had filled Mrs. Turner’s mouth with blood but not Julia’s as her impending approach quickened on him and he screamed. His hands had completely forgotten about his radio and instead he grabbed at the porch door and yanked it open. 

“DON’T EAT THAT!” shrieked Julia, laughing at the top of her lungs as Officer Turner tripped over the door frame and collided to the floor with a thud. He tried to scramble out of the open doorway and onto the porch but when he looked up at Julia, he saw she was holding a bowl over his head. 

“You hear me?” Julia repeated, voice quiet and stern, “don’t eat that, or else,” she said as she placed the bowl down on the kitchen tile next to Officer Logger. 

Officer Logger, now shaking with fear, couldn’t stop himself from looking down into the bowl. He had to know what was in it. It was as if something in the deep recesses of his soul was begging for him to look, begging for him to know what it was. He was aware of the distinct part of him that was screaming for him to run, but that part of Officer Logger had no strength left. He peeked his eyes down and saw that it was a steaming bowl of macaroni and cheese; and not any bowl of macaroni but his grandmother’s secret thanksgiving macaroni recipe. He hadn’t tasted those deliciously perfect noodles since he was a kid and his grandmother was alive. 

Officer Logger felt every single cell in his body calming down and a serene sense of peace settling over his mind. His mouth began to water as his hands, no longer shaking, reached out and grabbed the bowl. He wrapped his hands around the warmth of the bowl and that feeling penetrated deep into his soul. It felt as if he had slipped into a warm bath and he felt himself sigh. He reached for the spoon in the bowl and spooned out a scoop of steaming pasta. Officer Logger inhaled deeply, smelling the spicy cheese and his watering mouth overflowed down his chin. He felt like he hadn’t seen food in a hundred years as the spoon got closer to his mouth. Wrapping his lips around the pasta, Officer Logger groaned the deepest and most satisfied groan he had ever emitted. 

As his body slid to the ground and blood began to flow over his lips, Officer Logger heard Julia’s voice above him. 

“I said don’t eat that….”