The Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating by J C Laird (ap literature book list .TXT) 📖

planted the candle. By the flickering candlelight, she retrieved the bottle of whiskey from a lower cupboard and poured herself a liberal dose.

She turned to sit at the table and froze in mid-stride. The candle continued to sputter in the drafty kitchen, but Viola could see well enough. Neatly arranged on the table was an eerie, welcoming tableau—a vase of her blue aconitum flowers and her pink, left-over bowl of chocolate pudding from dinner, a cloth napkin and spoon placed handily next to it. She stared wide-eyed in confusion. True, she had picked flowers for the house, but they weren’t the dainty blue ones, and besides, she had put those others in the living room. And Viola was sure she had put all the leftovers, including her pudding, in the fridge Sunday night. Had she intended to have a snack before bed, become distracted, and just forgotten? And, of course, things had been a little stressful of late. But the setting was all so neat and inviting…

Viola was still gawking, stupefied, at the table setting when a loud splat sounded from the direction of the darkened living room. It was akin to a wet ball of laundry being dropped on the hardwood floor, but the sound that followed was worse—a liquid gurgling and another fluid plop. The musky, dank smell of rotting algae and the heavy, rich stink of lake mud created by years of forest decomposition, now with an underlying sense of decaying, putrid flesh, assailed her. The thick miasma of noxious odors was nearly overpowering. Another wet plop, closer to the kitchen door. Below Viola’s gawking eyes, her nose wrinkled up in unconscious revulsion at the stench.

And now, realization grabbed her heart in an icy grip. She knew why the aconitum plants were missing from her garden. Some were in the welcoming vase on the table, the rest Stanley had used for her pudding. And now he was coming for her. Her mind knew all this was impossible, but her heart and soul knew differently. In her mind’s eye, she could see his viscous, bloated, white body lumbering wetly across the floor towards the kitchen, towards her, strands of rotting lake vegetation clinging to him. Viola knew he was coming.

She turned and ran to the back door. The old doorknob turned loosely in her hand but would not catch. She jerked it back and forth, pulling and pushing frantically. The knob came off in her hand. “Dammit, Stanley, you’re supposed to fix this!” Viola screamed into the ominous silence.

A liquid gurgling answered her. A laugh?

Fighting rising panic and despair, she glanced at the window over the sink. Too small for her to squeeze through. She was trapped in the kitchen.

There was a squish and a rattle as the shambling horror bumped into a table near the kitchen door. She grabbed a knife out of the kitchen drawer and held it out in front of her with both hands. She giggled hysterically. How were you supposed to kill something already dead? The candle flame had steadied, the deep blue of the aconite flowers appeared deep purple—like drying blood. The pudding was a blackness in the bottom of the bowl—a yawning abyss.

Viola dropped the knife and sat heavily in the chair. Her screaming mind played out the end to the gruesome finale in her small kitchen: the gelatinous pale blob that was now Stanley, with its staring white eyes, loose and yawning mouth—drooling vomit and river mud—would slither over her, hold her down—it’s foul, fetid breath gagging her—and force-feed her the tainted pudding.

She looked at the open doorway. Was that the white shadow of a wet, hulking monstrosity, of Stanley, ready to enter? She giggled again, her mind teetering. She looked down at the dark bowl before her, dipping her finger in and tasting. She smacked her lips and grinned at the shadows. “Yes, you're right, Stanley. It is a little grainy and a bit sweet. I guess it's true, ‘the proof of the pudding is in the eating,'” she whispered, the flickering stillness beckoning her.

She grabbed the spoon and began to eat...

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Publication Date: 05-02-2020

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