"What is it?" he growled at her.
With her hands shaking like leaves, Alma picked up the bag and moved it over to the kitchen counter to her left. She hurriedly opened the container and pulled out the box. Alma set it on the counter and flinched when he came up beside her to see what her gift was to him. When she opened the cake box her nostrils were assaulted by the terrible smell of the sweet. She expected him to get a whiff and knock her head off her shoulders for giving him such a foul gift, but he leaned forward and inhaled the scent. His eyes widened and she thought she saw a bit of drool slide out from the corner of his mouth.
"Damn, where'd you get this stuff? It smells great," he asked her.
"There was this shop open, and I just went in and found it," she replied.
He only half-listened to her tale, for his attention was locked on the rum cake. Alma couldn't figure out why the putrid smell so fascinated him, but he shoved her aside and grabbed hold of the cake by its firm cardboard bottom. "You get anything else from this place?" Alma didn't want him to have her snacks, but she couldn't hide the honey bars from him for long. She pulled out her personal sweets, but he took one sniff of those and sneered. "Damn nasty smell from them."
Now Alma was really confused. Her treats smelled as sweet as their honey origins, but he didn't smell them the same as her. At the very least she could keep her own treats, so she stepped away from him and into the living room. There was an old chair she used as her own situated close to the door, and she flung her wet coat over the back before she flung her body into the seat. The night had been long, the work hard, and her strange adventure in the sweet shop roused her mind with its fabulous treats and strange proprietor.
With her husband preoccupied, she opened one of the honey bars and looked over the treat. The honey glistened in the soft light, and the whole thing looked much like an energy bar. She took a bite and her eyes shot open. The flavor was amazing, like sugar melting in her mouth. She eagerly tucked the rest of the bar away into her mouth and looked at the other tempting packets. There was an idea in her mind to consume them all, but she decided to wait and enjoy them later.
While she rested her weary body, Brutus took out a large butcher knife and cut a swath of cake for himself. He had no intention of sharing any with his abused wife, but instead scarfed down the slice in a few bites. The rum flavor was absolutely delicious to his taste buds, and the smell was heavenly to his sense of smell. He couldn't fight an urge to eat more of the cake, and this time he was less dainty about how he got another piece.
At the sound of scarfing, Alma turned in disgust but her expression quickly changed to shock. Brutus had his face stuffed into the sweet and his hands quickly shoveled the cake into his wide, filthy mouth. She couldn't figure out how he was breathing, much less why he was being more of a pig than was usual. The cake hadn't smelled that good, but he wolfed it down and didn't pull his face away until he'd licked even the cardboard bottom clean.
Brutus straightened himself and sighed contentedly. Alma stood to her feet with her face twisted with a sneer. She couldn't believe how awful he'd been with that cake, and especially how Mr. Eres had been kind enough to give it to her for free. Brutus didn't know it had been a gift, but she knew he wouldn't have cared either way. He was a callous, selfish, disgusting creature, and for once in their marriage she felt she had the strength to get out from beneath his overbearing, impossible attitude. She could get a new job somewhere else, maybe even Mr. Eres' shop, and be rid of him forever.
He was just slurping the rum flavor off his fingers when he heard a crash. Brutus turned to find Alma's chair overturned and her face blazing red with anger. "That's it!" she shouted. "I am done with you!"
His voice was low and threatening. It was the one he always used on her when she was getting uppity with him. "What the fuck are you talking about?" he asked her.
Alma raised an accusing finger at him. "I'm talking about you, you slob!" she yelled back. "You just stand there and eat every bite of that cake that I gave to you without even offering me a bite! What kind of a husband, no, what kind of a human does that? How can you be so selfish and disgusting?"
Brutus scowled and straightened himself up to his full six-foot height. "You trying to mess with me, woman?"
"No, I'm trying to rid myself of you," she shot back at him. She grabbed her wet coat and put it back on. "And this time I'm not going to come crawling back. I'm going to go find a better job, and to hell with buying your booze and feeding your fat stomach."
His own face brightened with his fury, and his large hands balled into tight fists. He grated his teeth together and his words came out in a hideous, dangerous growl. "You think I'm just going to let you walk out of here? I'll kill you before you leave."
Alma's eyes widened at the very real threat, and she made a dash to the door. Brutus had longer strides, so he made it to the entrance and blocked the way. She was quicker on her feet and managed to escape his grasp by ducking and jumping back. She whipped her head from side to side, trying to find another way of escape. There was the fire escape outside the living room window, but it was a rickety thing. She would probably get killed climbing down that as assuredly as Brutus would kill her now if he got a hold of her.
Her husband held out his arms so she couldn't pass around him, and then marched forward toward her. His aim was to capture her in a corner and, if necessary, beat the life out of her. He couldn't take the risk that his source of drink money would leave, but if she was intent on leaving him then she was as good as dead to him. Alma backed up and dodged around her fallen chair to gain some protection from his long arms. He smirked when he saw the terror in her eyes. That really turned him on, so maybe he'd have some fun with her before he beat her to a pulp.
Alma noticed the feral glint in his eyes, and she was even more frightened. His love-making, like everything else he did to her, was abusive to the extreme. Seeing no other option and unwilling to allow him to sexually degrade her again, she inched her way toward the fire escape window. Brutus saw her movement and understood the implications, so he lunged over the fallen chair and reached his arms out for her.
At that point he would have grabbed her and crushed her in a violent hug, but there was one obstacle he hadn't counted on. That was his stomach, which at that moment made a horrendous gurgling noise. He clutched at his loud stomach and tumbled forward. Alma moved back and watched him crash headfirst onto the floor. He struggled to sit up, and she glimpsed that his face was covered in sweat and his face had changed to a horrible, dark shade of pink.
Brutus groaned and grabbed at the edge of the couch close at hand. He managed to stand to his feet and stumble to the bathroom in the back of the apartment. She heard the door slam closed and his groan echo through the tiny bathroom. Every survival instinct she possessed told her to run, to flee from this inhuman monster who had just tried to kill her. However, every part of her humanity told her to go to this suffering creature. She moved around the couch and toward the bathroom. When she passed the kitchen counter, though, she paused and glanced over at the licked-clean cardboard plate and empty cake box. She didn't think it was just a coincidence that Brutus was hit with a severe stomach attack just a few minutes after eating that cake meant especially for him.
Alma's musings were interrupted by a loud groan from the bathroom. The sound was deeper than she remembered his voice being, but perhaps it was just echoing off the narrow walls. She tiptoed to the closed entrance and put her ear against the door. The groaning noises grew louder and more frequent. Whatever was happening to him wasn't getting better. She also heard another strange noise inside the room, like the sound of tearing clothing. Alma looked down and wrapped her hand around the knob. If Brutus felt as bad as he sounded then she would be safe opening the door on him.
Alma took a deep breath and swung open the door. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped opened when she beheld something hunched over on the floor. Its back was turned toward her so she couldn't see the face,
but the clothes were torn all over their body. The shirt had ripped down the center and revealed dark brown skin. The thing's pants were torn down the seam, and there were only remains of the socks on the bathroom rug. She could make out the arms in front of the creature, and powerful muscles rippled beneath the shredded sleeves. The arms ended in hands that were fat and stunted with ingrown nails.
When she gasped, the creature paused in its groaning and swung its head around. Alma stumbled back when she beheld a single eye in the middle of its forehead, and its mouth was full of sharp, half-rotten teeth. The hair had mostly fallen out, but she saw it was the same color and length of Brutus' own. Whatever had happened to him, she was seeing the results and they weren't pretty.
"B-Brutus?" she stuttered out.
The creature growled at her and pushed itself up onto its thick trunk-like legs. She backed away as it stood up and towered over her. His six feet now had an added foot, and his dark eyes were filled with fury at her. Then for the first time the creature noticed its image in the bathroom mirror. The thing stiffened and its eye widened. It slowly edged toward the mirror and held up its hand to the shiny glass. For a moment Alma felt a pulse of pity pound through her heart at the creature's realization that the hideous thing in the mirror was itself. She also thought she sensed a flash of recognition toward the creature. Not because it had once been her husband but because she felt she knew such a creature before.
Her sensitive emotions and strange flashbacks didn't last long because the creature reared back its head and let out a deep, deafening cry. It pulled back its hand and smashed the mirror to pieces. That told Alma that now was the time to run, and she turned away toward the door. The creature saw her run and gave a great howl of fury before it chased after her. Its wide shoulders crashed into the door frame, but that hardly slowed it down.
Alma's heart pounded in her chest as she ran past the kitchen and slammed against the door. She fumbled for the knob and glanced over her shoulder. The thing barreled toward her and she finally got the door open. Alma stumbled and fell into the hall but the screams that followed her out of their apartment encouraged her to scamper to her feet and race down the passage. She heard the door behind her smash against the corridor wall and glanced over her shoulder to see the one-eyed abomination lumber out of the apartment. Doors on both sides of her flung open and sleepy people stepped out. When they beheld the thing that reared back its head and roared loud enough to shake the building, their puffy eyes widened and they ducked back into their rooms.
Alma hoped the thing's girth wouldn't allow it to move down the hall, but she was wrong. The creature smashed its way through the walls and overhead lights as it chased after her. She rounded the corner into the stairwell and flew down the stairs with the thing close at her heels. The creature hesitated in front of the narrow flight of steps, and she stopped a few flights below to lean over the railing and look up. The thing sneered, which was enough of a warning for her to keep moving.
Her former husband roared again and clambered down the steps after her. She gasped for air and wracked her mind for a fix to this problem, or at least an escape. Her thoughts brought only one solution to her mind, and that was to lead this pathetic, psychotic creature back to the sweet shop and get it fixed before it destroyed the whole city. Unfortunately, her pursuer had other ideas because as they scampered down the stairs, at every landing it smashed its fist against the wall. The force destabilized the entire stair structure, and before Alma had made it to the ground floor she felt the steps shudder and shake beneath her feet.
Boards and nails clattered down atop her head, but she didn't look back until she'd reached the safety of the first floor. Then she turned and glanced up. The creature was stuck on the third floor landing with its hands smashing the railing and its dark eyes glaring down at her. She gave a shudder at the death promised in that gaze, but she couldn't stop in that place for long. The entire stair structure was collapsing, and she turned away from her former husband. He had written his own doom.
Alma didn't look back once as she ran through the lobby and out into the street. She heard one great, final roar and glanced over her shoulder to watch the part of the building with the stairwell collapse in a fog of dust and debris. The residents on the floors screamed and cried out, but all the rooms were untouched by the destruction. When the dust cloud had cleared a little, Alma took a few tentative steps toward the pile of ruined steps. She could just make out a still figure among the wrecked stairs, the form of her husband. He wasn't moving, he wasn't breathing. That's all she needed to know.
Alma lifted her arms and took hold of her wedding ring. She tore it off her finger and tossed the useless thing onto the rubble that was her old life. Then she turned and walked away from it all. He was dead, that was for certain, but she had questions for the man who had given her that cake. With the rain pouring down atop her bare head and the sounds of police and fire truck sirens in the air, Alma pulled out her packet of honey-flavored bars. She hadn't taken another bite of them, and she wouldn't after seeing what her husband had become, but she wanted answers to how he'd become that thing.
She knew it wasn't a smart move to be going back to that wonderful and insane candy store, but she had nowhere else to go. Her former life lay among the rubble of that stairwell, and the police would be asking her uncomfortable questions sooner or later. There were too many witnesses for her to fake a domestic squabble gone horribly wrong. She'd make herself available to the police when she had the answers, and she would be getting them as soon as she had her talk with the old man.
She hurried back to the shop and was disappointed to see all the lights were out inside except for a few weak ones behind the counter. Alma pounded her hand against the glass door and screamed at the top of her lungs. "Is anybody in there? Hello? Mr. Eres?"
"He generally doesn't keep these hours," a voice spoke behind her.
Alma spun around and found herself looking upon the most handsome man she had ever beheld. He was the perfect picture of a Greek god, what with his light hair and blue eyes. His body fitted perfectly into the plain white shirt and jeans, along with a coat thrown over his shoulders to protect against the rain.
"I-I'm sorry, what was that?" she asked him. Whatever he'd said before had flown out of her mind when she beheld his beauty.
"I said he generally doesn't keep these hours except on rare occasions," the man repeated. He looked her wet figure up and down. "Did you need something? You look pretty tired."
"I...I just needed to talk to Mr. Eres about, well, about one of his sweets."
The stranger looked her up and down with a curious and critical eye. "It seems to me you should be home. You're drenched and your face is as white as a ghost."
Alma did feel faint, but she wasn't about to tell someone she didn't know about the incident with her husband. The papers would soon tell everyone what all those witnesses had seen. "But do you happen to know when Mr. Eres will reopen the place? I really do need to talk with him."
"Perhaps in a few hours, perhaps never again. He's very fickle that way," the man informed her. Alma was aghast at such a possibility as never getting her answers, and the man chose that time to move to the bottom step. "But if you don't have any other place to stay, and were wanting to catch Mr. Eres at the earliest, I have a flat above the shop that he rents to me."
"Oh, I couldn't ask you to do that for me. You don't even know me and Mr. Eres might be mad at you for taking me in without permission."
"He gives me as free a rein as he would himself," the man replied with a strange, mischievous smile on his lips. "But here I am speaking to you and I don't even know your name, nor you mine." He gave her a flourishing bow at the waist, and turned those twinkling eyes up at her. "My friends call me Cupid, since I'm fond of playing the matchmaker, but you can call me Amor."
"Amor?" she repeated. The name sounded strange to her, and yet familiar in a way she couldn't place.
"Yes, and yours would be?"
/> "Oh, sorry. It's Alma." She didn't think it prudent to give him her last name.
"A lovely name. Now what do you say to coming upstairs and sleeping on my couch? I promise I won't bite." He nodded up at the windows that lined the top of the shop building. "They're just up there, and we can reach them by going through the kitchen."
Alma glanced between his kind face and the darkness behind him. If she wanted to avoid a nasty night of sleeping outside, she didn't have much of a choice. "I guess, if you think he won't mind me being here."
A smile lit up Amor's face and he stepped up to her. He lifted his bent arm for her to take. "Not at all."
Alma smiled back and took his offered arm. He led her to the door, which he deftly unlocked with his own key, and let them both inside. Even in the dark the shelves full of their sweets were inviting, particularly with the smells that wafted from their wrappers and boxes. Amor guided them around the counter and into the familiar hall. Outwardly she was nervous, but inwardly she was curious to see the back end to such a marvelous sweet shop. They rounded the corner at the far end and she had her first glimpse of the kitchen. There was nothing there. No ovens, no sinks, no dishwashers, nothing. There were only cupboards without doors, pipes and outlets sticking out of the ground and walls where there should have been appliances, and empty holes in the counter tops where there should have been sinks.
Alma was so surprised that she stopped and gazed, open-mouthed, at the ruin that was a kitchen. Amor noticed her lagging behind and turned. "Something wrong?" he asked her.
She gestured to the room. "This place...is this really where he makes all that stuff out front?"
Amor shrugged. "Not really. This is only a ruse to fool curiosity-seekers. He has other ways of making all that stuff out there. Less talk about that now, though, and more on the fact that you're dripping all over the clean floor." He nodded at the linoleum beneath her feet and Alma glanced down to see a puddle form beneath her.