If Left Untreated — A Short Story

Jonathan Cooper, Unsplash

Warnings: horror

There is nothing more frightening to a grocery store manager than the sound of a shopper falling down. When the manager heard the spattering chaos, followed shortly by calls for help, he raced to the spot. Shoppers heard, “Clean up on aisle five,” over the intercom, but to the manager it sounded like, “Impending lawsuit. Impending doom.”

The scene was something the manager had never seen before. There was thick, black sludge congealed in the middle of the aisle. It enveloped the fallen woman as she struggled to get up. As employees and passersby helped her, the manager’s eyes slid over the can-stacked shelves and the clean, clear ceiling. Where on earth did this puddle come from? 

Then he saw them: footprints. Inky splotches alternating down the aisle floor.  

The manager followed the trail all the way down to Aisle 12, where he halted with dread. About halfway down, by the rows of dried pasta, there was another giant pool of sludge. And a woman stood smack dab in the middle of it. 

“Ma’am!” the manager darted down the aisle as quickly as he dared. He already had one pending lawsuit. There’s no way he could have a second. “Ma’am, please be careful!” 

The woman, completely unaware, continued her phone call. “How dare Lindsey treat her own mother this way…”

“Ma’am!” the manager waved.

The woman, Debra, pulled her phone from her ear. “What?” 

The manager pointed to the gooey pool at her feet, which was slowly expanding beyond the four wheels of her shopping cart. “Ma’am, you’re standing in… in…” Frankly, he didn’t know what she was standing in. He gulped. “It’s a falling hazard!” 

Debra looked at the manager. She looked down at her sludge-covered shoes. She looked back at the manager. “I don’t see anything,” she said. “I’m on a call--” Debra brought her phone back up to her ear. “Anyways, after everything I’ve done for her, I can’t believe she would treat me like this…”

The manager rubbed his eyes, then looked back at the pool. It was definitely there. Getting larger by the second in fact. 

He decided to try again. “Ma’am…”

“Hold on, I’ll call you back,” Debra huffed into her phone. She tapped the “End Call” button with particular emphasis, took a deep breath, and turned to the manager. “If you’re so keen to help me, can you show me where in the world you keep the crushed pecans?”

________________________

“What are you up to?” Debra’s childhood friend Jessica asked later on the phone. 

Debra threw the grocery bags on her kitchen counter with a huff and a splat. “I just got some ingredients to make some of Grandma’s Special Rice Crispy Treats to drop off for my granddaughter.”

“Oh, you and Lindsey reconciled! That’s great news!” Jessica’s voice sounded warbled on the phone as oily drips wandered over the speaker and splotted onto the counter. 

“Well, my granddaughter deserves to know she has a grandmother who loves her. Lindsey can’t keep my own granddaughter from me forever. That’s absurd!” Debra said, washing the muck from her hands. She let the water run a moment longer so the stuff didn’t back up the drains again. Her socks squelched in the thin layer of ooze that had begun to accumulate on her newly-tiled kitchen floor.

Over the next hour, Debra made her Special Rice Crispy Treats, pouring all the love of an aching grandparent into her confectionery masterpiece. She melted the butter, stirred in the marshmallows, and worked up a slimy sweat as she mixed the sugary goop together. 

This will show her, she thought as she added her new surprise ingredient: crushed pecans. Now Lindsey and everyone else will see how loving I am, and how much I deserve to be in my granddaughter’s life. 

________________________

“I’m here to see my granddaughter!” Debra announced proudly when Lindsey opened the door. 

Lindsey bit her lip at the unexpected surprise. Oily footsteps marked the path Debra had taken from her bright red CRV up the walkway, on the steps, and onto the front porch, where she now stood in a slowly spreading pile of sludge. The gunk looked fairly tame today, so Lindsey felt a spark of hope that this conversation wouldn’t totally go off the rails.

Debra held up a plate of grey things between them, the color signalling that they were truly homemade. “They’re my Special Rice Crispy Treats.”

Oh, that’s what they’re supposed to be, Lindsey thought to herself, trying to keep her face still. That stuff really does get everywhere. Then she swallowed hard as her stomach coiled upon viewing the mess.

“Mom, I can’t take these,” Lindsay said. 

“Well, they’re not for you. They’re for my granddaughter.” Debra peered around Lindsey’s shoulder into their well-kept home. “Where is she, anyway? I want to see my granddaughter!” 

Lindsey stood firmly in the doorway. “We’ve had this discussion before…”

“Oh, here we go again,” Debra shot. “You can’t just let a loving grandmother see her granddaughter?”

“I can’t have you around Nina when you’re leaking like this.”

“I’m not leaking!” Debra shouted, causing the slurry to spread faster on Lindsey’s front porch. “This is your mess! It’s not my fault your porch isn’t clean. You always blame things on me, this is your fault!” Small sprays of the inky oil flew like spittle onto Lindsey’s face. She brushed it off slowly and wiped the stuff on her pants, thinking of the stain remover that would need to be applied and reapplied. 

Lindsey took a breath, suddenly filled with the rancid scent of the gunk. Images of the slime inching into her lungs and slowly grabbing hold started to fill her mind, but she pushed them out immediately. I’ve just got to get through this moment, Lindsey thought to herself. 

“Nina is my granddaughter!” Debra screamed. “You’re cruel to keep me from her!” As her voice rose, sludge began to ooze from her ears and drip from her nose. The stuff started to turn her teeth and the whites of her eyes to the color of decay. 

Lindsey curled her fingernails into her palms. “Nina is my child.”

“Well, she is my granddaughter!” In Debra’s anger, she slammed the treats down between them. The sharp sound of the plate shattered along with Lindsey’s heart. Grandma’s Special Rice Crispy Treats lay scattered amongst the painted ceramic and icky gunk. “Look what you made me do! I just wanted to show you love!”

Lindsey wasn’t sure how to explain love to her mother. But this just wasn’t it. 

As Debra preached on about the sacrifices of a mother, Lindsey stooped down beneath her mother’s shadow and began plucking up the grey rice crispy treats from amongst the quicksand-like sludge. The greasy stuff smelled like a gas station and messied her hands as it dripped down her forearms. There would be a lot to clean up once her mother left. As there always was. 

Then something caught Lindsey’s eye. She stood, slowly, hoping she didn’t see what she was seeing. 

Lindsey pulled a marshmallowy bar apart, sniffed it, looked again, then began to tremble. 

“Mom,” she whispered. “Did you add pecans to these rice crispy treats?”

Debra scoffed. “What, Lindsey? Like you’ve never put pecans in…”

“Nina is deathly allergic to pecans,” Lindsey’s voice was firm despite her quivering anger.

“No, she’s not!” Debra said sternly. “She’s not. If she’s allergic to pecans, it’s your fault for not telling me! Pecans are a very common nut type, and-”

“You were there when we found out she was allergic, Mom! You know this! What were you thinking, putting Nina in danger like this?”  

Big, sloppy crocodile tears welled up in Debra’s brown eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “I was thinking I wanted to do something nice for my granddaughter, okay?” Her sobs pitched and wailed. “You never let me see her! It’s your fault I forgot what allergies–”

“You could have at least made a dessert that wouldn’t kill her?!” Lindsey couldn’t help but spit.

Debra blubbered, big dramatic words, “This was a token of my love! I had good intentions!” 

Lindsey looked at the grey, pecan-riddled rice crispy treat in her hand. The token of her mother’s love. The smoking gun. The final straw. The cool mixture squished between her fingers as Lindsey smashed it in her fist. Then she looked calmly at her mother, the woman she wanted so badly in her life. But every time she lets her mother in, something like this happens. 

Lindsey watched how the black oiliness leaked from her mother’s eyes, spilled from her ears, and spat out her mouth when she spoke. How thickly she smelled of rancid gasoline. How the gunk oozed from her, puddled at her feet, then grew thicker and faster with her anger. She thought about the hours it would take to clean up once her mother left. How long it would take to scrub the front steps with soap and hot water, to rinse her flowerbeds and pray her chrysanthemums make it through. How long it would take for her to scrub and rescrub her hands, arms, feet, and clothes. How long it would take to clean up a mess that wasn’t hers.

Lindsey cleared her throat, feeling scared and sad. But she pulled her shoulders back anyway.

“Mom, I need you to see this… this…” Lindsey didn’t know what to call it exactly, but she pointed to the pool that covered her mother’s shoes. “You’re getting your sludge everywhere-”

“No I’m not! Stop saying that!” Waves of the oily slurry rippled at her feet with the effort, her anger burning brighter and hotter. 

“Goodbye, Mom,” Lindsey said softly, shutting the door. 

Debra wailed and pounded on the door. She stomped her feet, spraying black gunk all along the sides of the house, all over the flower pots and seasonal door wreath. Her anger fueled the mire and dirty slime leaked through the doorframe into her daughter’s home. The greasy stuff poured so heavily, it made its way down Lindsey’s walkway, into the gutter, and pushed down towards the storm drain in the street.

Lindsey sat against the door. Giant tears spilled down to her cheeks as she pushed her inky, rancid-smelling hand against her lips to silence the sobs. She sat like that, riding out the storm like she had so many times before. It never got easier. Eventually, Debra caught the eyes of one too many curious neighbors, and she turned to leave, cursing Lindsey for causing a scene. 

When the tide of sobs ebbed and Debra’s red CRV puttered away, Lindsey rose. 

The water ran hot in the kitchen sink. Lindsey ached as she scrubbed between her fingers, under her nails, over her nailbeds, up her wrists to her forearms and elbows. Scrubbing and re-scrubbing. Soaping and re-soaping until her hands were raw and red, but finally clean. 

________________________

“I don’t leak sludge,” Debra said, her footsteps squelching as she paced. “What an absurd thing for her to say. She’s the one who’s a mess, not me!”

But things were getting harder, and there was oozing gunk everywhere to prove it. Debra’s angry thoughts about Lindsey were only paused by her shower getting stopped up, or slipping on the floor, or her food turning grey with the mucky drops. When Debra drove to church, her anger churned hot and heavy, only to spill out onto the asphalt when she opened her car door in the parking lot. She kept tissues and wipes in her purse to dab at inky tears or wipe her hands of the stuff.

This is all Lindsay’s fault, she said, over and over and over again. 

 “Maybe you should talk to someone,” her friend Jessica offered, as sludge spilled onto the table and ruined her brunch appetite. “I don’t want this anger to get the best of you.”

“What?” Debra said, with a mouthful of half-chewed omelet. “Lindsey’s the one with the problem. Not me!”

Jessica watched as the half-chewed omelet darkened in Debra’s mouth. She watched as rage bubbled up and spilled over in her friend’s eyes. 

“I took rice crispies over! I visited her! I reached out! And she keeps pushing me away! Her own mother!” Faces slowly turned towards their table. Jessica squirmed under their gaze, and felt the cool grimy slime start to fill her own shoes as Debra’s puddle expanded with every angry lash. “She’s keeping me from my granddaughter!” Grimey goo poured from her eyes and spilled from her mouth. “She’s making things up! Doesn’t she understand the love of a mother? She can’t keep my granddaughter from me, she’s my granddaughter, not hers!” 

Jessica swallowed the lump at the back of her throat at the escalation of it all. “Debra, take a breath-”

But it was too late. 

Debra’s words froze, her grey-rimmed eyes grew wide then rolled back as she fell onto the floor. Patrons screamed as Jessica rushed to her friend's side, begging someone, anyone, for help. But even she knew it. Her friend was too far gone. 

As Jessica knelt there in the chaos, covered in the oily goop, she watched her friend’s face disappear behind her thick black anger for good.

________________________

There is nothing a medical examiner loves more than a death under odd circumstances. Typical things like gunshot wounds or drownings or cardiac events are all so boring. Expected. But when the coroner texted her with an “I’ve never seen this before…” she knew she was in for a treat.

The woman, Debra Janet Reynolds, was aged 65 and looked normal. That was except for the thick, dark substance that seemed to leak through her pores. 

“What on earth…” the medical examiner said, observing the cold, dead body. She handed the clipboard to her assistant and scrubbed in. The assistant took notes as the medical examiner observed the oily, acrid gunk in the woman’s eyes, in her ear canals, in her mouth and throat. A thick film of it covered the body, and she knew she needed to look closer. “Let’s see what’s in her chest cavity,” she said, with a snap of her blue latex gloves. 

The black substance, thick and grimy and coagulated, filled the entirety of the woman’s insides. The medical examiner slowly dipped her hand into the gunk and felt around for the heart. It took a while to remove, but once she had, the medical examiner curled her gloved hands around the heart and slowly lifted it up to the relentless light of the surgical lamps. Human hearts are a beautiful thing. Dark, plump, a marvelous work of artistry and mechanics, the very thing that causes life to thrive in a body. But this heart… this heart oozed with thick black sludge. 

As the medical examiner held the organ up to the light, the mysterious goo spilled back into Debra’s chest cavity with an irreverent chorus of plops. 

“What is it?” The assistant asked, wise to keep a wide berth from the peculiar finding.

“Ahh…” the medical examiner said, turning the heart over. “Untreated generational trauma.”

The assistant sighed and scratched the finding on the clipboard. “Totally preventable.”