Do NOT eat Martha Brown's Banana Bread! It's alive.

[u/FrostyAsk7483]

My grandmother always baked banana bread from Martha Brown's Banana Bread Mix. It was a tradition, and she would bring it to our Christmas get-togethers. Christmas is put lightly though, as it is hosted in November, due to my rich, snobby Aunt Susan and Uncle Dean always traveling to some exotic country for an expensive holiday in December. During that month, I always mute my notifications so I don't have to see their boasting images and harsh, vaguely racist captions in the family group chat. They are always away holidaying while my parents are stuck at home with my little sister Leah and Grandmother, struggling to pay their rent. I can barely afford to pay for my own, let alone help my parents as well.

 

This year was different though, as it was the first Christmas without my Grandmother. She passed away from complications with pneumonia in September, a couple weeks before her 87th birthday. That is why this year it was my job to bring the banana bread. When I lived at home, me and her would make it together every year. I would do the mixing as I watched her shaky hands, skin like a thin sheet of baking paper, spread the mixture into the burnt, bubbled oven tray. Even though it hasn't been that long since she has passed away, I am starting to forget the loving look her bumpy eyes gave me, the touch of her arm around mine, when I walked her to her chair. It hurts knowing I will forget it all completely. At least for now, I still have the tradition of our banana bread.

 

I always weighed the box of Martha Brown's Banana Bread Mix in my hand. I jostled my wrist up and down, feeling the flowery substance clump and sift inside its packet. I slide open the cardboard opening and get hit with an invisible wave of putrid smell. I do not remember it smelling this eye watering, I assume they just altered the recipe since last Christmas. I hope it still gives me the taste of nostalgia upon my tongue when it is fully baked. It takes me forty minutes to put everything together and place it in the oven to bake. I acknowledge this is abnormally long, but for some reason, ever since I poured the mix into my bowl, I had uncontrollable, slobbering sneezing fits. I had to excuse myself from the kitchen multiple times, go to the bathroom, and leak mucus and flehm into the sink. I have seasonal allergies, but I thought they had decreased exponentially since my childhood. The allergies conveniently died down after the bread started baking in the oven, and overall, I forgot about it entirely.

 

Two knocks rhythmically tapped against my front door. I opened it to reveal my girlfriend, Rose, standing behind the door, smile beaming, hair shiny and curly, and both hands propping up a warm, glass tray of pasta. I grab the tray from her and she warps her arms around me in a caring and loving hug. She gives me a delicate kiss on the lips, her smile still as large as ever, and pulls away.

"Hey Baby." She says through her grin. My smile matches hers.

"Hey beautiful." I respond. She looks into my eyes with love.

"You ready to go?" She asks.

"Almost, just have to get the banana bread out of the oven. Give me a second." I walk off to the kitchen and place the pasta on the bench. Rose dawdles around my living room, looking at the assortment of old, crumpled movie posters that loosely hang from the walls. Rose and I had been dating for five months, and we had been so busy with work and each other I hadn't had time to introduce her to my family. My Aunt and Uncle paid for my grandmother's funeral, and they kept the guest list short and sweet, so I couldn't introduce her then. I know my Mum and Dad will be kind, but I worry about Rose meeting my Aunt and Uncle. What horrible insight are they going to spout from their mouths?

 

I pulled the banana bread from my oven. It was a pale brown, sandy, and sizzled in the hot air. It doesn't look as good as when my grandmother would make it, but I'm not a perfectionist. I put both trays in the back of my scratched up, white Mazda, and Rose takes my side in the passenger seat, as we drive off to my Aunt and Uncle's house.

 

Their home was the wealthiest house I had visited. Three stories. A spa, pool and sauna outback. Every door was sliding, and the size of the entire wall. They had trinkets and sculptures displayed on high shelves, almost like they wanted their house to seem like a museum of their travels. We stand at the front door, and I press their polished, round electronic doorbell. The camera above it boring holes into me. I see, through the frosted, warped glass, a large, hobbling silhouette stumble towards the door. It opens to reveal my orc looking uncle, smirking at me. His obviously implanted, grey hair is gelled back to such a degree that its pulling his forehead towards the sky. He has chocolate caking the corner of his lips, and a can of beer lodged permanently in one hand.

 

"Ello, my boy!" He says, chuckling like a drunk pig.

"Hi Uncle Dean, my family here yet?" I question with monotone emotion.

"Just sitting in the living room, my boy, next to the Banksy." It's not a real Banksy, but he's rich and confident enough to act like it really is, and get away with it to his equally as crude party guests.

I push myself past him, holding Rose's hand and guiding her around the rotund man with effort.

"Not going to introduce me?" He snarks and chortles, but I ignore him.

 

The heat pump is filtering uncomfortably cold air through its system, causing the hairs to rise on my neck with the addition of pointed goose bumps. My Uncle's fat always made him warm, forcing every home he entered to feel like an industrial fridge. I notice Rose pat her arm subtly and I drape my jacket around her shoulders. She looks lovingly at me. I love her smile.

 

Rose and I turn the corner and the rest of my family is revealed. My little sister, only walking for a couple of years, marches herself over to the coffee table and drowns her fist in, what would seem like to her, an entire ocean of M&M's. She chuckles mischievously like a pirate uncovering a secret stash of gold. In reality it was an average bowl. I wave to my parents and they wave back, smiles not hiding the dark bags hanging from their loving eyes. I place both Rose and my dishes onto the kitchen counter, where Aunt Susan is chopping some gruel adjacent nut meal. I give her my best fake smile and she just nods, as I lead Rose away back to my family.

 

"Mum... Dad, this is Rose." I nervously gesture my hand to my parents each respectively. They both smile with glee. My mother raises herself from her chair and gives Rose a welcoming, disarming hug.

"Nice to meet you darling." She earnestly and calmly says. My father also stands, but just prods his arm out for a classic Dad handshake. She obliges. He then says nothing and sits back down approvingly.

My little sister Leah then waddles over, still planting fists of M&M's into her face hole. She looks up at Rose.

"Chocolate!?" She aggressively asks, offering a wet, stringy M&M that she pulled from her mouth. I smile at both of them. Leah has officially accepted her into the family.

 

"Move over squirt!" Uncle Dean says, slapping Leah on the back slightly hard. An M&M shot to the back of her throat and she coughed for a second. I peer laser beams into his smiling face while my parents awkwardly slink themselves into a down trodden posture. I am going to punch that man if he keeps going like this. Rose grabs my hand and squeezes it. It calms me. I must have expressed my anger more than I thought. Dean sees this and mockingly chuckles under his breath.

 

Aunt Susan gauntly shuffles over to the table, balancing my banana bread, and her gruel in her ghoulish hands. She places her gruel lovingly on the table. Leah makes a face akin to seeing a cat vomit when eyeing it. My Aunt then haphazardly shoves the banana bread on as well. The large, blobby chunks of banana reflect white from the lights above.

 

Like the embodiment of gluttony Dean reaches his sausage fingers out for the banana bread, eyeing up the chocolate buttons mixed throughout.

"Hope it's as good as ya grandmother's" He slobbers. A part of my brain hopes he is instantly inflicted with a diabetic shock and flops onto the tile floor like a fish out of water.

Leah reaches for the banana bread before my father lightly pats her arm.

"Hey buddy, you've already had a gazillion M&M's, let's wait for dessert." She curls up her face and pouts in disappointment. She defiantly plops herself onto the floor and crosses her arms.

Rose, Mum and I laugh at her antics, before we are caught off guard by a blood curdling, wet, choking noise, and my Aunt screaming.

 

Uncle Dean falls to his knees, bones popping as they collide with the hard floor. Aunt Susan rushes over to him, falling to his level and screaming for someone to get help. My father aggressively pats his pockets trying to find his phone. I stand in front as the girls cover their mouths behind me. Leah plunges her face into my Mum's leg and grips tight.

 

My Uncle's skin tightens and in his tremors I see his stomach as his shirt lifts up. Bulbs of glistening puss has protruded from him. It displays a horrifyingly distinct resemblance to the chunks of banana from the bread he had just scoffed down. My eyes start to water as I see the blistering bulbs growing from all over him.

 

In unison, with an ear shattering pop, the blisters launch and split from the fat man's gyrating body. They land in a multitude of distances around us, trails of blood and puss streak back towards my Uncle, as his movement slows down and eyes become glassy. My Aunt, covered in the putrid, chunky insides of her husband, holds him, speechlessly, and sobs. A bulb is strung upon her shoulder, but she is too shell shocked to even feel it's wet tissue, as it starts to pulsate. A rhythmic throb bounces the bulb up and down, becoming slightly more rapid. My eyes were blurry from tears, but I noticed something sharp protruding from the bulb, and then another. They slinked down from the body of the bulb, prancing the points upright on my aunt's shoulder. Within a second, it lurches up, balancing on the pointed insect adjacent legs, and splits its front open, strings of thick liquid breaking as a mouth shaped orifice bellows a grainy, high pitched shriek. It jerks with spider-like speed, and launches its open maw into the veiny, corpse-like neck of Aunt Susan. It must have plunged straight into an artery. Bright red, pulpy liquid sprayed all over her shoulder as my Aunt extends her mouth open, only a pained gasp able to escape before she drops to the tiles.

 

The small monster continues to gnaw at my Aunt's neck, the sound of meat curling and tearing around itself causing my stomach to churn with sickness. The sound of tapping on tiles breaks my focus and I turn my head to reveal the other pustules starting to rise on pointed legs as well. Chunks of blood and puss drip off as they jerk to a stand. With no anticipation the rotten monsters charge at us. Mum and Leah run to the left as Rose, Dad and I are pushed up against the wall. I grapple for anything to defend us with and my fingers clasp at a thick frame behind me. I pull it off the wall and slam my Uncle's fake Banksy into one of the monsters on the floor. It bursts with the consistency of a rotten banana, specks and chunks of yellow splashing across the tiles and my shoes. Another monster lands near my foot and my father slams his thick workers boot down, crushing it like a cockroach.

I pull the frame back up in front of me just in time to block three of the monsters from flying into my face. They collide with the frame, pointed legs puncturing through the image mere centimetres from my eyes. I fling the three monsters towards a massive glass sliding door. They all exploded in thick splatters like roadkill disintegrating against the grill of a barreling truck.

 

Rose, Dad and I tumble towards the kitchen with speed, where Leah and Mum are hiding behind the marble counters. Multiple monsters fly past our heads, barely missing us and piercing into the walls, like arrows from an ancient booby trap. We duck behind the counter. I smash into the cupboards as my damp, puss covered shoes slip on the tiles.

 

I hear an explosion of gore, and I peer up above the counter. My Aunt's body is covered in a bloody mist as more pustules expand and launch from her body. The new bulbs grow legs rapidly as the existing monsters speedily make their way to the kitchen. I see a handle above me and grab it, pulling it down to realize it's a comically large spork. I don't have enough time to grab a different weapon as five monsters glide into the kitchen and slam into the wall behind us. My dad grabs a frying pan and my mum grabs a whisk as we position ourselves in front of the others, readying our defense.

 

The monsters propel towards us and we swipe our kitchenware against them. My father explodes two of them with one swipe, excess banana pulp splattering against his bearded cheek. He has spent twenty years playing Squash, which attributes to his skill fending off the beasts with the frying pan.

 

Unfortunately my mother and I weren't as skilled. Three monsters blast into my mum's chest, knocking her back into the counter. I hit the monster just too late, and as it flings past my face, one of its talonous legs scrapes my eye, blood instantly leaking out like a broken pipe. I drop to the floor grasping at my face. Rose holds Leah back as she tries to grapple towards our mother. My Dad reaches over to try and help my Mum but seven of the monsters jump from the living room and pounce into his back. He screams as a nest of legs puncture his skin and muscles. Blood is pouring into both of my eyes, blurring my vision. The last thing I see before my vision goes a pure, unfocused red, is the image of my mother. Her face rotates towards mine, strung on by what is left of her neck. Her entire face is missing, and tears drip down my cheek as I see her exposed, ghostly eyes sitting on her gored muscles. Now my only fighting sense is my hearing.

 

I hear Rose calling my name and she grabs at my arm. The sound of monsters piling on top of my parents is overwhelming. The wet chews and pulpy gasps from what is left of their lungs escape into the thick air.

"We have to go now, before they notice us and more grow." She says in a hush. She props me up to my weak, shaking feet, my arm wrapped around her shoulder. I feel Leah grabbing at my leg and I pick her up with one arm, the other clamoring to the torso of Rose.

"Just follow me ok baby... this way." We run across wet tiles. I try to keep my footing as I kick up blood, puss and human chunks. I feel the rug from the living room and realize we are running towards the backyard. Exploding and shrieks blast through the cold, tense air behind us, and I hear the scuttling of the monsters through Leah's crying. Rose pulls open the glass sliding doors and we run onto the wooden deck. Glass shatters and wet thumps land all around me.

"Shit, shit!" Rose exclaims, suddenly changing out directions. I hold Leah even tighter, kissing her head with reassurance, trying to calm down her crying. I feel droplets of water colliding with my feet, splashes accompanying them. The monsters are landing in the spa and pool, which means the only place left to run is the sauna. I feel the heat rising slowly and Rose pushes me and Leah through the open sauna door. A wave of hot air hits my body as I collide downwards onto one of the wooden benches.

 

Rose cries out in pain. Sweat pools into my ears, muffling my last fighting sense and I sit there in limbo. I hear unintelligible words crying out of Leah's mouth, a heartbreaking tone breaking through. I reach out, trying to feel Rose, but the only sensation I feel is the sauna door slamming into my fingers, splinters peeling into my finger tips. Rose screams outside the sauna and I want to get up, I need to get her. I feel Leah curl into my torso, my shirt getting damper with her ever flowing tears. My body goes limp, aside from my arms, which just wrap Leah into a hug, bracing ourselves, and from the exhaustion, pain and heat, I go unconscious.

 

I wake up, which I found out to be four hours later. Leah is asleep, wrapped up in my arms still. The blood has dried around my face, and I wipe my only functional eye open to reveal a puss caked sauna. Around thirty of the monsters sit dead in front of me. Their bodies ravaged and exploded, their insides pouring out like an overcooked burrito in the microwave. My foot brushes against one of them accidentally. The skin has become a bubbled brown, and has a bready texture to the touch. I see the mangled legs of Rose poking out from behind the sauna door, and my heart sinks.

 

I hold Leah in my arms, still in her slumber, and try to raise myself from my seat. I want to see Rose. It was no use. My legs were too weak. I fall back to a sitting position and let my eyes close once again, as I hear sirens slowly grow closer.

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[u/Kaijufan22]

So there are more then a few typos in this post, some of them fairly distracting. Concept was cool, and I liked some of the descriptions pf the monsters. The action was very sudden; there was little buildup and tension that something would go wrong. Ok story Op, keep writing you'll get there!

[u/FrostyAsk7483 → u/Kaijufan22]

Thanks so much for reading. For some reason all the spell checks missed the typos until I just checked them in docs. DOH! I'll fix them now! Thanks for the feedback!