I love contests!
So often, they are the key to meeting other authors and occasionally, even
publication. This one found me via
Facebook, and I couldn’t resist. I apologize in advance for the decidedly
unholidaylike theme, but I was on a deadline, and try as I might I couldn’t fit
Christmas into the Horror category that I had decided to write under. Well,
you’ll see – I’m including the links as well as the story. My contribution fits
under number seven in the Horror section - not really horror at all, but lots
of fun. Hope you enjoy!
Nicola’s
affinity with frogs had long been established, even before she found The
Whopper in the fire station on the day of the drowning - her childhood summers
spent largely on the shores of Blue Goose Lake with spotlight and gig in hand,
blonde curls caught back with haphazard butterfly clips. Bikinis Tap paid a
flat ten dollars per pound for the unfortunate’s hindquarters, and Nicola had
purchased books with the proceeds – Steinbeck and Burke and later Sookie
Stackhouse.
But
she had never seen a frog the size of The Whopper. He emerged from beneath the
gear rack while she was removing her helmet - nudged her boots crosswise and
leaped past her, enormous legs trailing.
“Good
Lord.” Burwell passed a gloved hand over his bald head and left a sooty smear
just above his eyebrows. “There’s a whopper, kiddo.”
Nicola
had already captured her prey - gray-green and greasy-wet, its warble more like
death rales than anything else.
“Look
at that mouth,” Burwell bent close to peer into the pop-eyed visage. “Opens a
little wider, he’ll eat you right up.”
“I’ll
put him in my car for now,” Nic twisted away from her coworker with the
monstrosity clutched to her chest. “Take him home and turn him loose in the
lake.”
Nicola’s
half-sister Benny called at lunchtime, when the EMS
crew was still hashing the details of the drowning – her voice so agitated, Nic
could practically see her finger- combing her cornrows and rolling her eyes.
“That
thing I did last night, remember? With the frog eggs and the poppet?”
Nonsensical
magic, Benny’s forte; Nicola closed her eyes against a wash of real fear. She would
not reply....
“It
was a fertility spell for you.” Benny rode past the umbrage. “Because I know
how you and Johnny have been trying and I wanted to help.”
Nicola
rubbed a thumb at her temple; she could feel her cheeks heating at the memory
of her husband’s early morning ardor.
“Benny!”
she snapped. “What are you saying?”
“I
think it went bad!” The words hurried and blurred together. “Maybe I had the
wrong spell and this is the toad plague; there’s frogs in the toilet and the
kitchen sink is full and I accidentally boiled tadpoles in my travel mug.”
The
voices of the men at the table reached her as though from a great distance.
“Didn’t
so much drown,” Quiller was saying. “More like choked on frogs; his mouth was
full of ’em. Never seen anything like it.”
“Fix
it,” Nicola hissed into her cell phone.
“I
can reverse it, but I need the queen.”
* * *
Nicola
left town with The Whopper flopping in the back seat, scattering muddy, palm-sized
prints on the back window. She only stopped once, at the drugstore, and then
she stepped on three frogs while crossing the parking lot; their bodies gave
like water balloons beneath her boots.
The
sky washed over to a color like old moss while Nicola rode the outer curves in
her headlong rush for home. Her scanner was alive with hectic chatter,
exclamations and pleas for help - frogs in an infant’s crib, frogs choking the
sewer lines, on counters, in ovens, under pillows.
The
road was slick with them, and Nicola skidded into her driveway on a glut of
legs and bellies.
“This
is her!” She heaved The Whopper at her sister from the kitchen doorway,
catching Benny with a wet, sidelong smack to the head.
Benny
shrieked and fell backwards, braids bouncing.
“Do something.” Nicola patted her body in
a frantic search for cigarettes, lifted a croaker from her pocket by its back
leg and flung it into the squirming green pool at her feet. Voices rose in
deafening song, drowning even the panicked pulse in her ears.
The
Whopper watched unblinking from the top of the refrigerator.
Benny
lunged and slid, going down hard. She lay on back with her eyes closed and her
mouth open.
“Benny?”
She
hiked up on her elbows, spit out a frog.
Nicola’s
gig was in the gun case. She shuffled, kicking bodies aside on her way down the
hall. Took a deep and calming breath before she dove at The Whopper.
* * *
“What’s
for supper?” Johnny knocked on the bathroom door, cracked it so that a cloud of
rich, oily fragrance engulfed Nicola – real butter and fried egg batter. “Chicken?”
The
house was silent, blessedly free of slime and song and all things amphibian.
“I’ll
be right out!” Nicola squeaked.
She
tossed the pink stick into the wastebasket and scrubbed her hands beneath the
rush of hot tap water.
“Hey
baby,” Johnny called from the kitchen. “These tadpoles in the sun tea jar -
they here for a reason?”
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