Mommy's Little Sucker: A Short Horror Story by Alyanna Poe

Jeremy: a forty-three-year-old man living in his mother’s basement. He converted it into a nice, carpeted apartment, he would assure people. Nonetheless, with no windows and a collection of porcelain dolls, it was still fucking creepy. 

Margaret: a sixty-year-old who worked full time to support her son. Her portion of the house, aka the entire thing above ground, was bright and always clean. She was a very successful dermatologic surgeon, and every day she got home, she wished for one thing:

I wish Jeremy would clean this house.

And every day she came home, Jeremy was downstairs, “looking for a job.” He, “had no time to even climb the staircase to get upstairs.”

Every afternoon, Margaret would clean a bit, and on the weekends she would tackle the larger stuff.

“Jer, can you help me dust the shelves upstairs?” she asked, poking her head into the basement.

“No.”

There was no explanation, no excuses, nothing. 

“But—”

“I said, ‘no,’ mom.”

Margaret sighed and shut the door. 

She got out a rag and some spray and started dusting. 

Wiping a picture of her son as a young boy she thought, Where did I go wrong?

Then it hit her.

As a surgeon, she could make him into anything she wanted to. 

Margaret walked into the kitchen and opened the cabinet that held her pills. She retrieved a handful from a few bottles, dumped them in a pot, filled said pot with water, and threw a bouillon cube in. 

They would have soup for dinner.

The sun set early on that foggy fall day. Margaret looked out the kitchen window as she simmered the soup. Beef, tortellini, tomatoes, cheese. Her little Jeremy wouldn’t be able to resist. 

“Soup’s done!” she called downstairs.

Jeremy immediately paused his PC game, rushing upstairs. He had waited all day for some food. 

He ate the soup under Margaret’s watchful eye, slurping up every last drop and asking for seconds. He didn't even question why Margaret didn't have a bowl herself.

“Oh, honey, you’ll feel better in the morning,” Margaret said. She smiled as she laid her sleepy boy on the couch. 

As he closed his eyes and relaxed into the couch, Margaret retrieved a wooden spoon. Returning to the couch, she lifted one leg of Jeremy’s flannel pants and raised the spoon high into the air. She came down, smacking his shin with the head of the spoon.

THWACK

He didn’t budge. 

Lying naked on the kitchen table, Jeremy sawed logs. 

“He’s such a sweet angel,” Margaret whispered. 

She gathered makeshift surgical tools: a sewing needle, cotton thread, a kitchen knife, a boxcutter, and finally, something you would not find in an operating room: a vacuum.

Cutting the bag free of the vacuum caused a cloud of dust to assault the room. She sneezed, throwing it into the living room. Gently, Margaret wiped down the vacuum, then her naked son. 

It wasn’t going to be easy, but it had to be done.

Margaret cut the hose off of the vacuum, then she removed the filter. 

Standing back and looking at the vacuum, she finally saw it: the mental picture of how she would put it together.

She unscrewed the internals of the vacuum. 

Only the base of the vacuum remained. 

Margaret nodded.

She turned to her son, her heart beating fast. She felt like an artist in the middle of a wild painting. Her masterpiece would be there soon, she just had to trust the process. 

Taking the box cutter, she slitted Jeremy’s chest to his groin, then from hip to hip. She opened his skin like a book and repeated the process through layers of fat and muscle. He squirmed in his sleep, and Margaret couldn’t help but feel bad that he might be in pain.

He’ll be a big help soon though.

She removed his intestines, and squeezing them like she was trying to get the last drop out of a toothpaste tube, his fecal matter plopped to the kitchen floor. She cut open his esophagus next, rearranging his organs so she could connect the intestine straight to his throat. His kidneys, spleen, liver, and stomach all landed on top of the pile of shit. She set his lungs outside his body and sewed them to the other end of his intestines. Margaret closed up his abdomen cleanly, leaving his lungs dangling on his chest. With the zipper from the bag of the vacuum, Margaret made his lungs into an openable cavity.

Pulling him to the edge of the table, she shoved his head down quickly, snapping his neck backward. She busted out his teeth with a crab claw mallet, setting these aside. Pulling him back onto the table, she carved one of his legs and his junk off.

Tossing them to the ground, she looked at his big head. She delicately carved the skin away. The skull came out cleanly, and the bread knife sawed through it swiftly.

She removed his brain. 

Then the sculpting began.

His abdomen fit nicely on the vacuum, and his skin wrapped around the base where she sewed it on. She stuffed his brain into the skin and reconnected his eyes, mounting them onto the front of the vacuum.

His arms were bothersome as they scraped the floor, so she cut those off, too.

His teeth looked pretty on the face of the vacuum, replacing the bristles that were originally there. Having fixed her vacuum in the past, the wiring was the easiest part for Margaret. 

“Wake up, Jer,” she coed, patting his misshapen cheek. 

His eyes fluttered open.

She flipped the switch on, conveniently mounted on his calf, and the sucking began. Air moved from his mouth to his esophagus into his intestines then finally into his lungs. Air escaped the top of his lungs and dirt settled within them.

Jeremy screamed, realizing his new reality. 

Besides the blood that dripped everywhere, Jeremy made for a great vacuum. 

And he never said no to cleaning ever again.