"Mom, where's the peanut butter?" I yelled from the kitchen, tearing through the pantry, desperately searching for the sandy brown substance that would make my dreams come true. (Okay, so I'm a little obsessed with peanut butter)
There was no answer. The house was completely silent. My dad, brother and sister had gone into town to meet up with one of my dad's friends, so it was just me and my mom for a little while.
"Mom?" I called again, turning around and shutting the cabinet door. After listening for any noise in the house and hearing none, I shrugged and turned back to my search.
Back in my home in Texas, I kept 4 jars of peanut butter in the kitchen cabinets at all times. When I was 18, my parents had decided to move out of our old home back in Texas and move here to the small town of Grayson, Georgia. I was legally old enough to live on my own, so I re-bought the old house I used to live in and still lived there. I'm 24 and have been out of college for about a year. I finally got my doctors degree in psychology. I wanted to be a psychiatrist, but there wasn't much of a high demand for those recently. So I just did odd jobs I could find like part-time cashiering at Wal-mart, babysitting for friends, and even the random house-call for psycho-analysis.
5 minutes and still no peanut butter I grumbled internally. I sighed and closed the cabinet door once more, felling my heart sink. I really needed some peanut butter.
When I turned, the last thing I expected to see was my mother, the whites of her eyes blood red. But, the green part of them could still be seen bright against their terrifying background. Her hair was matted and for some reason there was a little bit of blood dripping out of the corner of her mouth. Her skin was pale and looked clammy. She seemed to be limping.
"Mom?" I asked, staring at her curiously, my brows drawing together in confusion.
Sure she was sick, but geez she looked terrible.
"Mom, come on, we need to get you to a doctor," I said urgently, stepping forward and eyeing the blood on the side of her mouth. I staggered backward a step when she growled, a frightening, guttural sound from deep within her throat, and snapped her teeth at me, causing more blood to spill out over her lips. "Mom!" I yelled.
She continued stumbling forward, gnashing her teeth with a sickening squelching sound. And I continued to back away, fearful. I felt my back hit the kitchen sink and felt around behind me for something, anything. I felt my hand hit something that felt like silverware, so I gripped it and held it up, like I was holding her at knife-point. Unfortunately enough, it was a spoon (the least dangerous item in the silverware world) and didn't do anything.
I looked to the opposite corner of the kitchen beside the big white fridge. In that drawer, there were knives and lots of them. I dashed over to it, ducking under my mother's loosely flailing arms.
She stumbled headlong into the counter I had previously been cornered into.
I threw open the drawer and grabbed the biggest knife I could find. I spun around, holding the knife up threateningly.
My mom's eyes were trained on me, though and in her eyes I didn't see any recognition, any registration of the danger of being at knife-point. Just a deep blankness that I will never forget.
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. "Oh shit…"