Coffee Date

     “Venti Java Chip Frappuccino Blended, three pumps brown sugar syrup, three pumps caramel syrup, two pumps cinnamon dolce syrup, three pumps raspberry syrup, one pump toffee nut syrup, one pump mocha sauce, extra barista cocoa powder, light holiday sugar sparkles, and one pump honey blend.”


    I have to give the barista credit for not even flinching as the girl in front of her ordered what was basically a cup of liquidized sugar. I tried to focus on my plain coffee and not think about how that crime against drinks would taste. Usually I wouldn’t have my coffee as black as this, but I needed the extra bitterness to keep my mind grounded. And maybe also because I felt bad for the employees and wanted to give them the simplest drink order I could. I kept my eyes firmly focused on my cup as the girl walked to my table and sat down. I suppose she could have been called beautiful, if you were into pale and emaciated corpses. Knowing what was underneath her skin made it hard for me to find any kind of aesthetic appreciation there.

    She loudly slurped the sugary abomination through her straw, clearly appreciating the saccharine sweetness. Despite my best efforts I couldn’t stop myself from watching this thing in the shape of a human enjoy such an awful drink. When she realized that she’d caught my eye, the girl stopped drinking and smiled victoriously. The effect was subtle, but if you knew what to look for you could see the inhuman nature in that smile. Her muscles didn’t move themselves; something writhed under her skin that pulled the tendons and muscles into what a human would have called a charming smile.

    “Isn’t it normal for the boy to pay for the girl’s drinks on a date?” She said in a tone that could have been playful if it hadn’t been equally condescending.

    My good sense warred against my desire to make a comeback, and in the end the urge to be snarky won. “Sorry, I thought that would ruin the whole girlboss thing you’ve got going on.”

    Had this been a real date, I probably would have taken her laughter as a good sign. Here it just put me more on edge. When she didn’t actually reply, I pushed ahead with the only real question I had on my mind. “Why is the Queen of Maggots asking people out on dates?”

    That laughter quickly turned into a smirk. “Please, no need to be so formal.” Despite being the shorter of us, she still managed to give the impression of looking down at me. “Just call me Queen.”

    “I’m not going to do that.”

    The Queen shrugged, communicating an unspoken but very obvious “Your loss,” and took another long sip. “You should relax more.” She finally said. “Enjoy yourself. There are plenty of people who would kill to be in your place.”

    Given how literal that statement probably was, I quickly glanced around the room trying to figure out if any of the other customers might be carrying knives under their coats. “Is someone going to try and kill me in order to take this place?”

    For once she didn’t seem amused by what I had said. “I don’t lead an unorganized rabble, you know.” She said tersely. “Anyone who followed me would know not to interrupt us. I want to enjoy this date, not ruin it. Not that you’ve done very much to make it enjoyable so far.”

    “Why should I try to make it enjoyable? All I want is for this date to end as quickly as possible.”

    The Queen appeared to genuinely consider that. “You are correct; I haven’t given you much incentive to play along. How about we try this?”

    Before I could ask what “this” was, intense pain ripped through my chest. I tried to scream, but something was in my throat, blocking the sound. I gagged and coughed speckles of blood on the table until I vomited out a blood soaked lump. As that lump began to move I realized it was a mass of maggots, all clumped together in a single mass. I could feel more of them still crawling in my throat as they burrowed into my body.

    “Have I given you enough incentive now?” The Queen of Maggots asid.

    Yes. She had. I forced myself to smile, despite the constant sensation of… things moving inside my body. I don’t know how to show a Fear a good time, but I could at least entertain her. I went up to the counter, grabbed a new straw, then came back and put it in her drink. Then I leaned forward and started drinking, trying to ignore the awful taste or the flies that were hovering around it. That seemed to amuse her, as she played along and drank from her straw. I’m sure anyone watching us without knowing the situation would have thought it all looked very cute.

    “So what do you like to do for fun?” I asked as I took a break from drinking syrup.

    “Oh, property foreclosures, police brutality. You know, girl stuff.” The Queen said. “What about your hobbies?”

    “Doing battle with soul devouring eldritch abominations from beyond time and space.”

    “Sounds fun.”

    “It is. Can’t say the same about your hobbies, though.”

    I tried to continue making small talk, but it was hard when the Queen was clearly toying with me. More flies gathered around our table, buzzing all around my head. At one point she touched my arm and a spider crawled out of her sleeve onto me. I felt something brush against my foot and when I looked down a centipede was wrapping itself around my leg.

    When we finished her drink, I hoped that would mean this “date” was over. I wish I could be so lucky. “What are we going to do next?” she said seconds after finishing the last drop.

    “We could…” It was hard to think with all the bugs buzzing in my ears, “... catch a movie? Get dinner?”

    “Dinner sounds perfect right now.”

    “Okay, so you want, what? Burgers, Italian, Chine-” The pain that hit me then was more intense than anything else on that date. The insects weren’t just moving under my skin, but ripping and biting me apart from the inside. Dark bruises began to appear on my body as blood pooled under the skin. I tried to call out for help, but no sound came out as I drowned in the maggots flooding my lungs. Not that it would have mattered if I could, as everyone else in the cafe were writhing in pain as they were consumed from the inside.

    “Thanks for the meal,” was the last thing I heard the Queen of Maggots say before everything went dark.