He turned around and she smiled at him with teeth that looked like she had climbed into their dead grandma’s casket and stole the dentures right out of her rotting mouth.
A toy robot still in its original box stared up from beneath her feet. That was one of their mother’s greatest retro finds. She still hadn’t managed to sell it.
Jimmy knew the real Karen was hanging up in the slime, and she kicked her foot. One of her pink bunny slippers came free in the goo. The real sister loved those slippers. The imposter poked his back and urged him on as if her finger were a shotgun. Each tap of her finger created a spreading fire of pain in his lower back.
At least he knew his sister was alive. He wasn’t too fond of her, but she didn’t deserve to die.
The other Karen marched him deeper into the bunker that served as a basement. Remembering that the basement of the new house was a bunker made him wonder what the uranium levels were in that glowing green goo.
Boxes were covered in dust. Another selling factor for his mother. She thought they might contain the original owner’s possessions. That would save her hours of browsing online marketplaces and auctions scrolling, bidding, and buying. Everything had to be authentic. The family computer itself was set up in a shed because nothing new was allowed in the main house.
According to the estate agent, the original owners mysteriously disappeared one year to the day after moving in, never to be seen or heard from again.
Jimmy’s father made an off-colour joke about how the man was probably buried beneath the patio while the wife ran off with the gardener. Karen rolled her eyes. Only six but she was living up to her name that was ripped right off a list of the most popular girls' names in the USA during the year of our Lord, 1952. His mother looked horrified while Jimmy hid the snicker behind his hand.
They rounded a corner constructed entirely of boxes. This wasn’t the finished bunker-basement his mother viewed. Extra-special due to being all on one basement level. Sure, there were boxes at the viewing, but not this many. These boxes certainly did not belong to the family either. They’d moved in yesterday. Their boxes wouldn’t be coated in an inch of dust.
A man was laid out on a table next to a woman who Jimmy could only assume was his wife. Glowing green droplets ran down their naked bodies as if they had just been pulled out of a slime bubble similar to the one that held his real sister captive.
If Jimmy had to guess, he would say these people were the original owners based on the man’s glasses and the woman’s makeup. Turns out the husband wasn’t buried under the patio afterall.
Wires and tubes twisted and turned above their bodies and were connected to the ceiling and trailed into needles poking their arms. These people hadn’t aged a day and were still alive and twitching.
The imposter sister pushed him along once she decided he had gawked enough. A perfect copy of the woman on the table took his arm where the boxes cleared a path to walk next to each other. The copy hadn’t bothered to put on clothes, even though there would have been some authentic 1950s housewife pieces somewhere in that basement.
The copy of her husband took his other arm while the replica version of Karen pushed him from behind. Each tap of her finger created a spreading fire of pain in his lower back.
He heard the sound of his mother’s faint weeping. It was the same noise she made when she unboxed a delivery and found out the purchase was a replica and not authentic.
His parents were held in the centre of the basement in two separate baths only half full with slime. Their wrists and ankles wrapped together in twine, but not fully restrained. As far as Jimmy was concerned, they could escape if they really wanted to.
A third bath stood empty. It was obviously intended for Jimmy. He wondered why Karen was suspended in a slime bubble at the bottom of the stairs. They could have found something else to put her in if whoever they were found themselves out of baths. She wasn’t exactly big. He turned to the captour on his left with the start of a question on his lips.
The imposter sister hit the small of his back with such force that he would have fallen over if the copies of the former homeowners hadn’t held him up.
Pain exploded through him.
He elbowed his escorts trying to escape as he started to vomit up last night’s gelatine creation made from a seventy-year-old cookbook. The heaving combined with the firework display of pain erupting in his back and coursing through Jimmy’s body didn’t stop him from trying to put up a fight.
His mother continued her quiet weeping while his father struggled weakly against his bounds. They would be of no help.
The other Karen tackled him from behind. Jimmy landed on the bunker’s concrete floor. His father tried to pull himself out of the bath, but the slime allowed only his legs to twitch. It was up to his torso now. His arms were still free of it as was his mouth, but all he could do was groan and strain his muscles.
Jimmy had a good look before he landed and it seemed like what he mistook as weakness was all the strength his father had against the bounds.
The imposter Karen held onto Jimmy’s back as the copies of the original owners dragged him into the empty bath, already filled with an inch of slime.
The other Karen stood guard over the filling bathtubs while the replicas of the former house owners left the area.
The glowing green slime penetrated Jimmy’s pyjamas and burnt his skin. He tried to pull away from it, but his resistance made it worse. It reminded him of the quicksand warning signs at the beach. Only, there weren’t any lifeboats in the basement to pull him out.
The copy Karen returned a short time later with the original homeowners. They were dazed and dripping with the slime but seemingly capable of walking. The green glow extended beyond their bodies and reflected off the flat surfaces. The slime didn’t stop either from drooling.
The woman replica grabbed the housewife’s hands and held them as if they were old friends as the husband and his copy found themselves in the same position. The glowing grew brighter to the point that Jimmy had to shut his eyes.
The replicas opened their mouths wider than any human ever could and extended their bodies as high as the bunker’s ceiling allowed. They extended themselves further but twisted them along the ceiling. They looked like coiled snakes wearing latex people suits and ready to pounce.
The basement light caught their mouths illuminating rows upon rows of teeth. Everything behind that first, visible human row was filed into needle-like points dripping with green goo that looked like the slime filling Jimmy’s bath.
The woman replica wrapped her mouth around the dazed housewife’s head. She was missing, presumed dead, and had been for 70 years. No one was going to come looking for her.
A clicking was heard as the replicas twisted their necks and chomped downwards biting the heads clean off. The blood was slow to spout. These people had been suspended in slime for as long as they were missing. Their heads had probably come off before they noticed.
Jimmy frantically tried to escape the slime as did his father. He pulled on the sides of the bath and his butt even left the enamel. The slime was strong like it had a mind of its own. It didn’t even need to pull him back down. It rose itself up to meet his rear end and grab his arms.
Movement behind him caught his attention but didn’t stop his struggles. The people his parents bought the house from came up from behind the bath. The elderly couple had seemed so sweet that they even baked cookies for the open house.
They seemed less sweet now that they were clearly sweating slime and had a faint green glow piercing through their clothing.
The man pushed Jimmy’s shoulders down while the woman fought against his fingers, breaking each one.
“We’ve got a squirmer here,” the man said.
The voice was an old man’s but it concealed something sinister.
The woman replica was busy gnawing on an arm. Blood dripped from her chin. Due to the elongation, it had a long way to go before it landed on her neck or between her breasts.
“Save some of that for us dear, we’re just coming out of hibernation,” the old woman said.
Like the old man, she sounded like an old lady, but something sinister lurked in her tone.
Music started to play, some song from the 1950s. Jimmy knew all the words but couldn't think of the band. He wondered if they were streaming it or using an old record player.
He tried kicking, but his legs only twitched and the slime would inch further up his body every time he moved.
The woman replica gave the old woman a dirty look but put down the bone she was chewing.
The old man left the room and returned a short time later with tubes and needles. He cradled them like a baby in his arms. Jimmy wouldn’t trust these people with a baby or even a rabid racoon.
Jimmy’s mother was subdued and quietly weeping. The slime was up to her neck by that point. The old man reached in and inserted a needle.
Satisfied that Jimmy’s fingers were too broken to pull himself out of the bathtub, the old woman went to Jimmy’s mother and inserted another needle into her arm. This one was connected to a drip from the ceiling. The needle with a sample of Jimmy’s mother’s blood. Once the drip was connected and they had her blood, they pushed her head under the slime. while the song changed to another 1950s Motown classic.
They repeated the same on his father. Both the replicas had left, leaving the half eaten bodies on the floor. Jimmy didn’t know what happened to imposter Karen.
“That one can watch us eat,” the man said and pointed at Jimmy.
“He can watch us transform.”
“Eat first woman,” he told her as if the same sexism existed no matter what species.
Instead of helping herself to the woman’s remains, she went for the man’s. There was a slight jaw-clicking as she dug her teeth into the fleshy thigh and pulled away the skin. No one even bothered to shave it.
The other Karen returned and helped herself to a few toes and fingers.
“They didn’t leave much for us.”
“Relax dear, you won’t have to deal with them for another 70 years, and by then, you’ll be big and strong and maybe these humans will even figure out flying cars by then.”
“Yeah, dear, once they get to the flying cars, we can go home.”
The fake Karen popped a toe in her mouth and pulled a face.
“I’ll be glad when I can get some real food,” she said.
It looked like she was struggling not to puke, but the imposter sister put another toe in her mouth. Jimmy could see the workings of her neck as she swallowed without chewing.
With the bodies consumed, the old man injected the woman with Jimmy’s mother's blood. Her skin plumped up, erasing the lines and tightening the sag. The old woman transformed into his mother then she injected the old man with Jimmy’s father’s blood.
The resemblance was perfect. Except for the teeth. Those were too straight and shiny and white. The old man, now an imposter of Jimmy’s father, laughed and when he did so, Jimmy saw the extra rows of teeth lining the roof of his mouth. Big, fake looking teeth concealed that which could not be changed.
There wasn’t a needle for Jimmy. Only a drip. Once his bath was full, they hooked him up to some liquid that kept his mind working but his body in suspended animation.
At some point, they wheeled in a TV and played old B-movies. His mother must have enjoyed that, but Jimmy and his father couldn’t even complain.
Eventually they were pulled out of the bathtub and hung up like Karen was in a bubble of slime. The b-movies continued day and night and into forever (or 70 years that seemed like forever).
