Hoarder (13 page)

Dani not only denied Tickles the object it desired, she used the remote against it. Dani turned, stuck the remote out toward the TV, and hit the volume button down until the television was silent.

“No! What are you doing?” it squealed in outrage. Tickles might be weak under its flabby flesh, but it was strong in emotion and vocal projection, enough to make Dani wince.

Oh, the horror!
Dani thought.
Now we might never find out the results of the paternity test!

“Answer one question first, then you can have it,” Dani said. It was the one and only question she had for Tickles, and like Missy, it would be the thing upon which it would be judged. “The cats in this house, are they yours or Missy’s?”

“They’re both of ours! The happy cats of Wormwood manor! Now gimme!”

Tickles’ outstretched fingers wiggled and jiggled for the remote.

Dani seethed, and could only get one word out with her venom. “Happy.”

Dani thought of every cat she had seen in this house. Not one of them was happy. Cats living and dying in squalor, prone to disease and bad breeding, imprisoned in cruel cages, and worst of all, starving. All of them starving. All while this
person
ate butter by the bucketful. She found herself surprised that the cats had not turned mutinous to their captor and eaten Tickles alive. The cats could have feasted for a month before they got to the bones.

Dani used the remote to taunt Tickles, waving it just out of its reach. Tickles whined with the exertion of reaching and more from the disappointment of the spoiled program. Dani tossed the remote onto the far right end of the sofa, out of Tickles’ reach.

“No! This is my favorite part!”

As Tickles reached over for the remote, the flesh and fabric stretched again, far more than before. It appeared to Dani that something might rip if Tickles reached any further. She looked up at the window again, her way out.

“Gimme it! The baby daddy!” Tickles squealed, and then something did rip. Dani was distracted from her destination by the sound. She looked over as the situation, and Tickles, unfolded.

The far right corner of Tickles’ shoulder had opened up at the seam where sofa met skin. The wound gaped open, a foot long. The blood was not immediate; it had a lot of fat to travel through first.

Having gained a few inches toward the remote, Tickles heaved to the side even harder. Tickles’ only pain was in missing the program. The wound tore in two directions, down the right edge of its back, and across the top, on its way to Tickles’ left shoulder (there was no shoulder blade visible). Tickles gained nearly a foot toward the remote from the peeling. All of its hard work was going to pay off.

Dani gaped as she saw Tickles’ back peeling open before her, the wound appearing like a slice of cheese peeled off the block from the corner. Tickles’ skinned back was a mass of quivering adipose with blood slowly seeping through. There were no muscles or bone visible, just jiggling jelly. The peeled skin was the new upholstery on the sofa. The hair and shit had finally become stronger than flesh.

This is what Dani had remembered and forcefully forgotten earlier, only it could never really be forgotten. This was
The Man Who Grew Into His Bed
all over again, where the rescuers had skinned the guy alive in their disastrous attempt at removing the man from his mattress. The difference this time was, the skinner was also the skinned.

Dani tore her eyes away from the distraction, that’s all it was. She had to forget this live reality horror show and get moving. Dani stepped up onto the left side of the sofa as Tickles was distracted right beside her. She kicked the bucket of butter cubes out of her way. The cubes did not spill out; they stuck together in one greasy clump inside the pail.

“Gimme!” Tickles cried. The loosening of Tickles’ flesh got it within inches of the remote control. Tickles had probably not moved so far in months, if not years. Despite the growing injury, which appeared to bring it no pain, Tickles leaned further. The left seam down Tickles’ back opened up, tearing down as far as the right. Tickles gained more inches over the couch as its ass began to rip off with the skin of its back. Now that the flesh was torn, the wounds were all too easy to widen, like perforated paper. Tickles didn’t seem to notice.

Dani glanced down at the wet, ripping sounds. She was repulsed to see the wide sheet of bloody meat that was the new upholstery already crawling with bugs eager for a taste.

Dani tore her eyes away from the shed skin as she tried to get a good step up. The top edge of the sofa was so stuffed with garbage, she couldn’t find a foothold, and she had to scoot trash away with her shoe to find a spot. Among the vermin that went scattering, she was most surprised by the centipedes, which were crawling over her shoe.

Dani grabbed onto the window frame, which had its own stash of garbage. She knocked empty soda cans and cups out of her way. She got splashed by a few of the falling drinks, and barely noticed. Dani’s tolerance for exposure to yucky stuff had risen exponentially in the last hour, and getting a splash of stale soda with fuzz on top was really the least of her worries.

With both of her shoes planted atop the back of the sofa, Dani reached further for the window latch, disengaging it and lifting the handle. The window would not budge. Dani noticed that Tickles’ wailing had stopped. 

Dani pushed harder, and then severe disappointment made her stop. She spotted over one dozen long, rusty nails pounded into the window frame, much like the basement window they had broken through.

Dani noted Tickles’ silence and was not surprised.
The Man Who Grew Into His Bed
had featured a grim denouement; the subject had not survived his painful predicament. Nor was she saddened at this. There would be no tears from her for this living, soon to be non-living, human Sloth.

Dani had nothing on her hard enough to bust out the window, except for her camera. She needed the camera to work, and the footage inside to sink Missy, so it was not a useful option. She’d have to get down and find something else, perhaps the pail of butter cubes. She knew it was metal and would make a good battering ram. That was when Dani heard the rising applause and commotion, followed by a proclamation.

“You are NOT the father!”

Dani realized she hadn’t thrown the remote control far enough. Two hands the size of hams seized Dani around the waist. Dani was pulled off the back of the sofa down onto Tickles’ massive, naked lap. Dani recognized that Tickles was sitting back in its peeled backside, and she thought with horror of the bugs that must be trapped and burrowing inside its skin.

“Coochie-coochie the coochie!” Tickles squealed in delight.

Dani gasped as Tickles tickled her body in overdrive with bloated, Bratwurst-sized fingers. Once the gasp was out, she could not get air back in, and hysteria set in. Dani hated getting tickled, absolutely hated it, and she had always set fear into anyone that tried to get his or her wiggly fingers on her. Except for Ian, she had let him get away with it, if only because she had started it by tickling him.

What Tickles was doing went far beyond its name, what it was doing to Dani was a violation. Its assaulting fingers kept wrapping around her breasts, yanking on them. Dani had never experienced a sexual assault like this before, and the shock made her ability to take a much-needed breath even harder. If she had enough air, she would have certainly been screaming, regardless that it might draw Missy’s attention. A painful cramp seized her stomach as she tried to fold in on herself.

Tickles’ assault on Dani got worse once its hands spread, one clamping over her crotch, the other over her face. Tickles’ fingers were trying to probe into every orifice they could find. Dani crossed her legs and tried to twist her crotch away. One of Tickles’ fingers probed into her left ear, and then another finger slipped into her mouth. Dani chomped on the fleshy digit hard, and this injury Tickles did feel. The hand pulled back from her face and returned to her chest, since her breasts weren’t likely to bite back.

As Dani struggled on Tickles’ lap, she realized she had grossly underestimated this hoarder’s danger and desires. How often did Tickles have company besides Missy? She thought probably never, despite Tickles’ talk of Missy’s parties. To have such a pretty young thing as herself in its vicinity, it didn’t really matter if Tickles was a man or woman; to it she was a juicy plaything to be seized and fondled. Only Tickles seemed like the type to break all of its toys. She feared she would be eaten alive, smothered, tickled to death, or worst of all, locked in a cage she couldn’t get out of.

Tickles giggled and drooled madly as it played its favorite game, coochie-coochie the coochie. The handheld camera smashed into what Dani approximated was Tickles’ face, but that didn’t stop its laughing. Dani hit Tickles’ face again and again with her camera, and Tickles just kept jiggling and giggling. Tickles didn’t even bleed from the new lacerations it received. She had to wonder whether Tickles could even bruise under all that fat.

Dani’s free hand grabbed for another weapon and came upon the open bag of sugar. She flung the bag at Tickles’ face. Tickles cried out in surprise, and it was a cry of delight. The sugar barely reached Tickles’ deep-set eyes, and it stuck generously to the drool around its mouth. Tickles’ tongue poked out between its non-lips but was not long enough to lick the sugar off.

“Yummy!” Tickles cried as it relentlessly tickled its prey.

Tortured by the tickling, Dani realized that she had neither the size nor strength to harm this half-ton hoarder. It had been partially skinned and still posed a mortal threat. Her flailing left hand hit the overturned bucket, and she changed her plan.

Dani pocketed her camera as she thrashed, remembering she had to keep it protected. Dani’s hand dove into the bucket and closed around a cube of butter. She shoved the cube at Tickles, smearing some of it over its face before sticking the cube into its mouth.

Tickles was all too happy to be fed by its guest. It let Dani go so it could finish shoving the cube into its hungry hole, and then it sucked on its buttery fingers.

Dani rolled off of Tickles’ lap and landed before its trunk legs, which waved above her. She pushed up and stepped forward, but she was jerked right back. Dani twisted to look over her shoulder.

No longer a complete prisoner to the sofa or its skin, Tickles leaned far forward in order to keep a hold on Dani’s hoodie.

Tickles pleaded with a desperation that topped its cries for the remote. “Don’t leave!”

Dani pulled away from Tickles as hard as she could, hoping that its buttery fingers would fail to keep hold of her. She considered slipping out of her hoodie, but Tickles’ grip included her shirt underneath. She could slip out of both (
a peeling for a peeling
, she regrettably thought), but she would not give it the satisfaction of seeing her in a state of undress. Tickles could jiggle its titties out in the open; she would not.

Tickles’ strength was not increased in relation to its size; it was severely decreased. Tickles was not big boned, but big fat. What muscles remained had withered from years of non-use. Muscular atrophy was most pronounced in Tickles’ legs, which had not stood due to a lack of feet in over five years.

No longer fused to the sofa, except by the peeled flesh of its backside (which Tickles had no idea had even happened due to a lack of working pain receptors), Tickles was tugged forward as it held onto Dani’s hoodie. Tickles leaned over the front cushions of its wide seat and realized too late the serious error of its actions.

Tickles hovered momentarily unbalanced, and then over one half ton of fat pitched forward. Tickles didn’t fall so much as roll off of the sofa. The flesh on the back of Tickles’ upper thighs ripped down to the knees, and remained connected there. When Tickles hit the ground face first, Dani felt the room shake. She also heard cracking, not from bones, but from the floor, which was straining from the relocated weight. Tickles released Dani’s hoodie, and she lunged away.

Dani turned to see the damage done. The fast food refuse beneath Tickles was crushed flat. Tickles blubbered and wailed, arms and half-legs thrashing in its completely impossible effort to get back up. Blood was beginning to pool in the fatty, skinless landscape of Tickles’ backside, from the shoulders down past its thighs. From the back of the knees up over the sofa was the red, wet blanket of Tickles’ flesh, forever fused in a sitting position.

“Ahhh, help! Missy! Help me up!” Tickles cried out.

Dani got the distinct impression that Tickles was not crying over a mortal injury, but from its newly obstructed view of the television. Dani found the squirming body and its bloody backside repulsive, and she knew her walking into this room had led to this gory and tragic scene. She would feel no guilt, though. Tickles’ own unquenched appetites had brought on its demise. Gluttony was Tickles’ real killer, not her.

Dani hoped that Tickles didn’t feel too much pain, and then she thought of the cruelties inflicted upon the cats in this house, which were the admitted happy pets of both occupants, and she hoped Tickles suffered greatly. Now was the time for the cats to come out of hiding and feast. Their co-tormentor had been opened up like a human food can, leaving the juicy, meaty contents ready for devouring. She hoped the cats would come quickly, while their dinner was warm.