Daniella strode through the hallway and down the wide stairwell to the dining room. She paused at the door, hearing the gentle laughter and soft voices coming from within. Intellectually, she knew they disgusted her and that she was having a moment of self-pity, though she felt nothing. The disgust did not claw at her, like it did in certain novels she had read, and the self-pity roused no sensation within her solid clay body.
She filled her constructed lungs in preparation to speak, and pulled open the door. "It is time I served dinner," she said as she walked past, not waiting for a response.
"I'd say so," said the male guest, a man called Roger. An overweight and sweating Englishman who was the father in the family. He let loose a loud guffaw. "I'm famished. Could eat just about anything right about now."
She paused. "Dinner will be served soon." Then she continued on out the door into the kitchen. She had only left the pots simmering on their own for a little while so she could check the experimental cages were prepared. It wasn't as though she could believe the others would do so properly.
The door opened quietly behind her as she stirred an Irish Stockpot. She ignored the footsteps that approached her and the masculine cough for attention.
"So, uh, your name is Daniella, right?" asked Harry, the eldest son who was apparently nineteen. "You're real pretty for a maid."
Daniella simply stirred.
"Wow. Guess that sounded really rude, huh? Sorry." The sound of shuffling feet. Another cough or two. "Daniella's a real pretty name. It suits you. So, um, how old are you?"
Daniella pondered the question. "Six years..."
"You're sixteen?"
"Sixty years..."
He laughed nervously. She turned her head to glance at the young man, his face red from the many pustules that covered it. Acne. How unseemly. "I'm seventeen myself," he said.
"Dinner will be served soon," she said, turning back to the food. It was taking its time. It would probably be another ten or fifteen minutes before it was prepared.
"Will you be eating with us?"
"I do not taste."
"Aww, come on. It'll be awesome." He moved in close enough for her to see his face and he winked at her. "Almost like a date, y'know? It's not like you'd get guests very often all the way out there." He tilted his head to one side. "Thanks for finding us when our car broke down. That guy that chased us... Man he was big and creepy. I didn't know what he'd do next!"
"Debilitas."
"Bless you," Harry said. "You put too much pepper in it? Anyway, thank God we got away from that guy. If he hadn't tripped and if you hadn't shown up when you did..."
"You're talking about Debilitas."
"You know him? He doesn't live around here, does he?"
"He won't be dining with us."
"Oh?" Harry frowned and stepped away. "Okay..." He turned to go, probably to tell his parents that the filthy man was nearby. He would give them all away and she couldn't have that. So she spun on her heel with a clear frying pan in hand and brought it down across the back of his head as hard as she could.
He grunted, took a few more steps forward, swayed, nearly fell backwards, regained his balance, lungs working hard as though to build up a scream. She walked after him, hit him again, the momentum sending him staggering into the kitchen wall, but he stayed upright spun around, and she hit him in the face. His nose shattered with a crack, his head snapped back and hit the wall with a thwack, and he slumped to the floor.
Daniella dragged him out into the little corridor outside the kitchen and went to fetch Debilitas from the hut. She found him on his bed, laying under a blanket, a dirty magazine semi-hidden in his armpit. Judging by his red face, he had not been attempting to sleep. She wished she cared about his filthy mannerisms, his grotesquely human desires, but she didn't. She could only file away somewhere in her memories that she would sorely like this man to die.
"There's a boy outside the kitchen that needs to be taken to the cells."
Debilitas nodded but didn't move.
"Now." Daniella turned and left. She didn't want to see such a hairy, sweaty and large body in all his malformed, masculine glory. She snorted at the thought of masculine glory. So many imperfections in the world. "I was made perfect," she muttered as she walked back towards the kitchen. She paused as she shut the door behind her. "I deserve ... Azoth."
She stepped over the unconscious and bleeding boy and went into the kitchen. The stockpot was bubbling now so she went over and switched it off then began to fill some bowls with the warm mixture. She added some sleeping drugs, not too much, for there were to be more than this one meal set on the table and she didn't want them to die from an overdose. Then she carved up a roast, filled a plate with roast vegetables, set out some salads, placed the food onto a large silver tray and walked with practiced grace to the door, opened it and came to the family where she started placing the dishes.
The little girl was tapping her fingers and swinging her legs, looking supremely bored, but she brightened up considerably when she saw the food. She seemed so full of life it seemed obvious that she was infused with Azoth. Perhaps more of the product could be infused from the little wretch.
The humans greedily started filling their plates and bowls. Daniella wished she could also enjoy the many flavours that she made with stilted perfection. To be a chef with no sense of flavour was a tricky job but one that the years had allowed her to hone.
"Where is Harry?" asked the wife, Gerry.
"He offered to help with some chores," Daniella said.
"That don't sound like him."
"Now, now," smirked Roger. "If Harry wants to help Daniella do some chores, I don't see why she would stir him up about it."
Daniella turned and left to see if Debilitas had done as he was commanded. She found the giant of a man standing in the corridor. Harry was nowhere in sight. "Have you removed the boy?" Daniella asked.
Debilitas frowned and scuffed the floor with a large foot. "Ain't here," he said, breathing so hard he seemed about to hyperventilate.
"Stupid oath," she said, the words flung casually, yet causing him to cower, trembling. She turned smartly away, then paused. "Where is the dog?"
"Ur...?"
"Their pet dog they left in the yard. It might cause a mess. Did you chain it up?" Daniella, hearing no response, whirled around. "Do it now."
Debilitas hunched his shoulders up around his head and shuffled off.
Daniella frowned. "Cleaning time now."
