A Bit of Beef

by L. Jordan James

You could say the reason Robert stopped was his body’s working on automatic, trying to find comfort in an uncomfortable situation. Or it could have been the small probability of chance making him stop in that precise spot, near the chain-link fence separating his yard from his neighbor’s. But he stood there, nonetheless. He turned his lawnmower off, placed both hands against the small of his back, and stretched backward until he heard a small crack. He sighed and wiped a bit of sweat from his forehead.

A breeze blew from his neighbor’s direction, providing relief on a hot day. The problem wasn’t that Robert found the respite he desired but that he did not ask himself: Why? Why is there a breeze just at this spot? Or: Why is there a gap here — it was more of a hole six feet above ground where the hedge suddenly separated — but nowhere else?

There were other questions he could have asked himself before he came to his back lawn, like: Why was my newly bought house so cheap? Or: Why doesn’t my neighbor’s dense foliage ever cross over into my yard? Robert and the question ‘why?’ weren’t very good friends. But lack of curiosity didn’t stop him from standing in that spot and letting the breeze dry his neck.

Behind him, where the breeze originated, was his neighbor’s land: a forest, a tangle of branches, and vegetation that seemed to stop where Robert’s property line began. Resting in the branches, at odd angles, above the ground, were boxes turning black and green from mold and mildew, falling apart, slowly spilling their unrecognizable contents onto a dark bed of green below.

There were other things that defied logic, left hanging in mid-air: bits of clothing, hats, and shoes. He always made a mental note to file a complaint to the city, but not being able to see clearly all of the trash because of the dense shrubbery made him forget.

After mowing his yard in the morning sun, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a dirty handkerchief whose original color was, and forever would be, a mystery. Behind him was his neighbor’s tangle of bush and garbage.

The refuse behind him made no sense, though. Tables, chairs all stacked as neat as you please but unused, with the banding still attached. Unopened boxes dotted what he could see of the space. Three cars and a small pickup stood as monuments to rust. The pickup lay on its side as if a giant child had played with it and been called indoors. In its haste to obey its mother, it left the truck askew.

When Robert finished wiping the sweat from his neck and brow, he placed the piece of cloth back into his pocket. With his back turned, he failed to see a small shoot of foliage reach out from the confines of his neighbor’s yard as though it had bone, sinew, and muscle. But as it reached out to touch Robert, it encountered an invisible wall making it turn black. It withered and retreated back into the embrace of its brothers and sisters.

Robert did not notice but if he had he would not have bothered to ask Why? or How? This was not his way. He would have ignored such movement or even placed such behavior into a mental box marked: Do Not Examine.

But something did catch his attention. Yes, the air was cool but there was an undercurrent of... something riding along with the breeze. Robert turned and faced the draft, inhaled, and understood. The smell was both repulsive and... alluring, like perfume with an undercurrent of rotting meat.

Robert licked his lips. His eyes unfocused but regained their clarity. He rocked back on his heels, almost losing his balance before he recovered control. He looked around into the next yard. In him, a dangerous note sounded. An off-key note. A warning.

His forehead creased, and he began to bite his lower lip. Something flared deep within his hindbrain, a series of dormant neurons left over in the human race from when men were considered snacks and not anything of consequence. That part of him that needed awareness of his surroundings, that went past sight and hearing, spoke and went past niceties: Danger!

Robert took a step back, followed by another. He pivoted to his house and made a beeline to his door. He wanted to run, but the part of him that never questioned prevented him. Sweat, again, rolled down his forehead and neck but it wasn’t from physical exertion. Robert didn’t stop until he opened his door, until he leaned against it, until he locked it. He sagged against it hoping that nothing would pound on it wanting access.

Robert, safe in his house, coaxed his heart and breath back to manageable rates.

The hole in the hedges that brought him relief, where the breeze moved through, slowly closed. The leaves and branches wove themselves together as if cloth.

Later that night, Robert would convince himself the fear he felt ran along the lines of what Ebenezer Scrooge thought as he tried to rationalize what he had experienced with ghosts: an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato...

He could not remember the rest of the line from A Christmas Carol but, as the day wore on, his nature took over and he stopped questioning and forgot the moment and his panic. But none of it mattered. His sudden anxiety, his running into his house, and willingness to forget didn’t mean anything because, for Robert, it was too late.

* * *

The next day was the same as any other for him. He got up from bed, made himself breakfast and washed his dishes. While busy doing his chores, Robert looked out on his backyard and saw he had left his lawnmower out. He stood at the sink, the warm water flowing over his hands, the soap bubbles rising, he remembered the panic he felt, and an internal struggle bloomed about the abandoned mower.

Leave it right there.
Go out, get the lawnmower, put it in the garage.
Why? It’s fine where it is.
Go out, get the lawnmower, put it in the garage.
It’s fine!
It’s fine until it rusts or gets stolen. Go out, get the lawnmower, put it in the garage.

And with Robert, logic always won out. He dried his hands on his dishtowel. Until he turned from the sink, his eyes never left his backyard or the spot where he had that feeling. He marched out of his house and over to his machine. He lay his hands on it, felt and smelled the breeze again and he turned to it.

He saw movement, through the hole, in his neighbor’s yard. Off to the right, he saw something he hadn’t seen before: a small building behind the larger house. The A-frame roof of it was hard to miss. Its body, the flesh of it had long ago rotted and died, but it bones, its internal structure, still stood. From those bones, from the rot and death, a single hand and arm rose into the air. The arm was feminine, nude, and lithe.

Robert turned, his lawnmower forgotten. He walked over to the hole and stared. He had never been curious growing up, he had never asked why as an adult but horny was his life. The arm — the beautiful arm — was attached to a well-toned back. She was naked, and what Robert could see of her was stunning.

Again, the question of why never entered his consciousness. Why is there a nude woman amongst the rubble and garbage, in my neighbor’s yard?

Robert’s nether region responded. He licked his lower lip. He leaned forward, head in hole, to get a better view when he felt something squeezing his skull. He tried to back out but found himself stuck. He forgot about the woman and concentrated on getting out of this Chinese finger trap.

The pressure increased. He thought his head would separate from his body. The force became so great that his feet left the ground, and he found himself on the other side of the hedge, flat on his back. He looked up at where he had come from and saw the hole closing on its own from a shape that reminded him of a vagina.

He rose to his elbow and found the naked woman standing above him. Her hair flowed down past her shoulders, hiding one breast. But she did not look wholly human. Yes, she had two eyes, a nose and mouth but they looked... poorly constructed, like a mannequin. It was something trying to look like a person but failing.

“Uh... uh, hello. M-My name is Robert and I’m from next door.”

Robert climbed to his feet and extended his hand as though she were not naked, as though he had not been pulled through the hole in the hedge, as though she were human.

She looked at his hand with doll-like eyes but did not grasp it. He closed his hand and let it fall to his side. She walked around him, taking him in. He tried to turn to face her.

“Don’t move, Robert-and-I’m-from-next-door,” she said. She continued her route around him. Her voice had a strange tonal quality to it

“I-I, uh, saw you through the foliage, from my back lawn.” He pointed at where he came in and saw that the hole was no longer there. His finger wavered then wilted just like his dick.

She stood in front of him again.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to trespass.” Robert tried to turn away from her and almost tumbled over. His feet were attached to the ground. He looked down and saw tree roots had grown around his feet and legs. No matter how much he moved his feet to try and free them, he could not.

She moved around him again, and now he smelled that alluring, unidentifiable fragrance again. It came from her. His eyes unfocused, and he struggled less, but he shook his head to reclaim lucidity.

“Hey, lady...” he said. He sounded drunk and unsure of himself.

He looked around, trying to find a way out and beheld what he couldn’t see from the vantage point of his own yard. The box where its contents spilled out was being held in place by a bush. What he couldn’t see from his lawn was that the bush was in the shape of a man. As Robert looked closer, past the green leaves and brown branches, he saw the reason why the bush was in the shape of a man. Within the greenery he saw a skull.

She saw him looking beyond her. “Oh, you’ve found the mailman,” she said.

“W-Why?” he asked. He noticed something about her. He hadn’t seen it before. She was close, now. She spoke but her lips weren’t moving to form the words.

“Why what? Why are my children eating you?” She reached out and stroked his chin, but her touch brought no solace. “I will tell you later.”

What he had smelled before, that cloying smell with an undercurrent of... something bad surrounded him. But that undercurrent, that smell refused to rise and be identified.

Robert’s eyes rolled back, and his upper body became slack. But the greenery surrounding his legs held him up.

“Robert-and-I’m-from-next-door? Robert-and-I’m-from-next-door?”

He heard her but she sounded like he was underwater and she above it. He swam up from the murky dark, broke its surface, and opened his eyes. She stood in front of him. “Good,” she said. She smiled, and he thought he had never seen such a beautiful smile. He wanted to kiss her.

She had changed from the mannequin with articulated joints and unnatural looking eyes to a beautiful goddess with golden hair that crackled with energy.

“Robert-and-I’m-from-next-door, you are dying. My children are devouring you. They have entered your bloodstream and are traveling to your brain. But I need you to understand that I am not doing this out of evilness. We are hungry. There are others like me throughout the world. Our magic is not enough to sustain us anymore. We cannot travel as we once did...” He heard all this before he passed out.

When Robert awoke, consciousness came in fits and starts: a car’s motor refusing to turn over and engage. He saw her, and she faded from view. He saw the vines holding him upright, and the sight faded, turning dark. When his brain fully restarted, she was still there, in front of him, beautiful, naked, and ready.

“My children are in your brain, so you may find certain things will not work anymore or look different.”

He looked down at his torso to see branches coming from his chest. They beat in time with his heart.

His mouth opened but, before a scream erupted, branches quickly covered the entire lower half of his head

“Shhh... Close your eyes.”

Robert closed his eyes. There was nothing more he could do.

Time passed; how much he could not tell. Slowly, overnight — or it could have been days — his sight changed, and he saw the plants and shrubbery come to life. He saw her children now, scurrying about doing their job for their mother. They were small lights pulsating in time with her.

He looked around at his prison and saw another skeleton, in the cab of the overturned truck. The leaves surrounding the bones of the man looked a deeper more vibrant shade of green. He tore his gaze from the sight and instead looked at her straight on. He saw her heart beating, not in her chest but in her whole being.

Everything was sharper, clearer than he had ever seen before. What his life had been before was a forgotten half-dream that made no sense. This place, this reality supplanted all.

He felt something but couldn’t identify what it was. A small shifting of his body accompanied the feeling. He did not feel any pain, but he did see her children moving his leg away from his body to an unknown destination. He looked down at the spot where his leg was supposed to be and saw nothing but tree branches supporting him. They had taken the other leg earlier.

She saw him awake and moved to him. She smiled and he had never seen such a beautiful smile. She placed her hand on his cheek.

“There are things in this world,” she whispered into his ear, “that defy your science, that disappear your kind, that will treat you as a bit of beef.” She looked into his eyes. To Robert she was surrounded by that smell, an odor which attracted and repelled him.

All at once she was beautiful and profane.

He looked down because he felt as though he had an erection. She followed his gaze and smiled.

She grasped his hair and leaned into him. Their tongues entwined and darted back and forth. Her hips moved against him. She enveloped him and a sigh escaped both. The light emanating from each synchronized. His light was a burnt orange while hers was green.

He closed his eyes. She watched him until he achieved the moment of the little death. As he ascended, she placed both hands alongside his head and twisted quickly helping him achieve the larger but less desirable real death.

She leaned in close to his ear as though sharing a confidence. “I am Venus,” she said. “Welcome to my flytrap.”