1
“I told her not to eat it!” Candy screamed, not caring if the whole police station overheard.

“Not eat what?” questioned Detective Lewis as he flung his office door shut.

The detective studied this woman who had wet streaks of mascara bleeding down her cheeks. He noticed her messy, bloodstained blonde hair and smeared lipstick. The situation was far from humorous, but Detective Lewis could not help picturing the woman before him as a crazed, distraught prom queen.

“The sushi! It made her—”

“Sushi? A person was murdered because of sushi?” Detective Lewis angrily questioned, then bent down so his round nose was almost touching her face. “Don’t insult my intelligence, damn it! Why did you kill her, and your father too? What . . . did the egg drop soup do him in?”

 

She began sniveling, and her body heaved with every deep breath. “It was self-defense, you bastard. And if you don’t listen, more people will die!”

Detective Lewis backed off, suppressing the urge to backhand her. He sat behind his desk across from her while wiping his right hand on his forehead. “I have time, Ms. Harrington, all the time in the world. I’m going to press Record on this little tape recorder, and I’m going to document why you committed murder in the first degree.”

2
The detective pressed Record on his tiny dictating cassette player and stated with disgust in his voice, “Today is January 13, 2005. This is case number 1177, Candy Harrington. The time is 2:13 AM, and the suspect will report in fine detail the occurrences leading to her charge of murder in the first degree.”

3
“My name is Candy Harrington,” she began, trying to steady her shaking voice. “I did not intentionally murder Mom.” She paused momentarily and then continued, “Today was Mom’s fiftieth birthday, and Dad and I decided to treat her to a birthday dinner. My mom eats . . . ” Candy paused and debated her wording, “ate all kinds of weird crap. I’m sure if she lived in some foreign country where dog was an entrée, she’d eat that too.”

Candy quivered, then began speaking again as she stuttered, “Ma-Mary Harrington was my mother, and Jacob was my father. She loved sushi, so my dad and I took her to the new sushi bar on the other end of town by Albertson Drive.”

The detective placed a fat cigar between his thick pink lips, then lit the end. He took a draw off the cigar, like an infant sucking a bottle, inhaling the smoke into his body. After the cigar had a cherry, he returned the Zippo lighter into his jacket pocket. “In a nutshell,” he demanded while biting down on the cigar.

Candy sighed and felt panic begin to swell inside her. “I’m reliving everything, and you said exact detail.” Her panic was growing into fury. Before he could reply, she continued, “My dad and I did not eat the sushi because at every sushi bar there is a poster advising people to eat at their own risk. They do this as a precaution so the restaurant cannot be sued in the event the meat is old or the fish contains a parasite.”

Candy wiped the new tears from her face and smeared the wet black mascara lines even further and continued, “That’s what my mom had: a parasite. It was the parasite that drove her mad. For years, I told her that one day she was going to catch something from eating that shit, but she never listened! Now, she is dead!”

4
The more Detective Lewis listened, the more he believed her to be innocent. Well, not exactly innocent, but psychotic and unaware of her actions.

Candy repeated her last sentence in a whisper before she wrapped her arms around her chest, took a deep breath, and attempted to maintain a normal tone. “I can still see my mom sitting at that little table, spreading wasabi on top of one of the rolls. Her hands casually ripped a piece of wet pink ginger to stick to the green paste. Then she dunked it in soy sauce and lifted it from the plate with her chopsticks. She aggressively chewed the roll, then sat back to savor the fishy flavor. She had eaten twelve, maybe twenty pieces, before she was satisfied. That’s when it started,” lamented Candy as the detective reclined farther back in his leather chair, which squeaked under the pressure of his corpulent body. Candy could see the detective was enthralled. It was his curiosity that silently questioned, Could sushi cause murder?

5
“When Mom stood, she said she was nauseous. My dad and I thought she stood too quickly, and her vertigo was making her dizzy. We had plans to take her to the movies to see that new romantic flick. But instead of topping off her birthday at the movies, she asked us to drive her home.”

The detective hunched over his desk with the chair squeaking as he shifted his excess weight. He tapped the cigar to the tray on his desk, and a dead gray ash fell from the brown tobacco-filled tube. For once, the detective was speechless, and it helped ease Candy’s shattered nerves.

“We knew something was abnormal. My mom never turns . . . ” Candy paused, “turned down a night out on the town. When we arrived home, my mom went directly to bed without removing her clothes. Even though it was early, I stayed at home with my parents. My mom was in bed, my dad in the kitchen setting up a game of chess.” Candy sighed and continued, her tone drowning the panic in her voice, “We had almost completed our game when we heard a stumbling echo from down the hall, followed by a thud. We ran to the noise and found my mom lying facedown on the floor. When we approached her, we found her shit-stained, reeking of her own waste. I almost vomited. We both grabbed her by the arms and brought her to a standing position, her head swayed back and forth, then a line of drool hung from her bottom lip. A gurgle came from her large belly, then a rumble.”

The detective twisted his face in disgust. He probably wanted her to stop, but she wouldn’t, not yet.

“She made a sound like something was pressing down in the center of her stomach with all of its weight. I suggested the bathroom, and as soon as we were near the toilet, her cheeks puffed outward like a puffer fish. My dad opened the lid to the toilet, and my mom dropped to her knees and opened her mouth. A substance as green as the wasabi she had earlier consumed spewed from her lips, but it wasn’t exactly a liquid. It was like thick snot or honey. She choked and gagged as I drew a glass of water for her to rinse her mouth.”

The detective leaned back in his seat, interested but repulsed. Candy cried softly as she continued speaking. “After the vomiting ended, she rinsed her mouth and spit in the toilet. I filled the tub with water since it was obvious she had soiled herself. As my dad undressed her, I rushed to the bedroom to see black and brown sludge all over the pink sheets and mattress. The raw smell made me light-headed. I gagged until I covered my nose and mouth.”

Candy trembled but spoke rapidly, “I rushed to the bed, stripped it, and crumpled the sheets into a ball. I ran outside and threw them away. When I got back to the bedroom, I sprayed air freshener everywhere and walked back into the bathroom to see if everything was okay. My mom complained of a throbbing head, like someone was beating her temples with mallets. After my dad and I lifted her from the tub, we dressed her for bed, then carried her to the guest bedroom. My dad explained they were low on medicine, and he didn’t want to leave my mom. So I . . . I left the house for the grocery store . . . I left him alone with her . . . ” she began crying fitfully, “I left him there, and he’s dead . . . God, I should have stayed!”

6
Again Candy was forced to calm herself; the detective didn’t care enough to help. He had already decided he was going to call the mental hospital to collect her.

“After I purchased her medicine, I went back home. If you’re wondering, I left home at 10:00 PM and returned home thirty minutes later. Inside the living room, I noticed a blood trail on floor entering the kitchen and continuing into the hallway.”

For the conclusion of her story, she prepared herself mentally, then physically from the shakes. Candy spoke carefully, “First, I dropped the bag of medicine and crept to the threshold that divided the kitchen from living room. I gazed inside the kitchen to see that the table and chairs had been overturned. A drawer was yanked from the counter where utensils were scattered about the floor among the chess pieces, and starting at the refrigerator was a pool of blood. In that sticky puddle was Dad’s right foot. It had been severed about five inches above his ankle, and the end was jagged as though someone had to do some serious sawing or chopping to separate it from his body.”

Candy’s face turned blank and was without expression. Her eyes widened and gawked into space. “The trail of blood continued onto the white carpet of the living room. It was smeared as though a toddler had dipped his hands in red paint and finger painted.”

Detective Lewis finished his pungent cigar, and Candy was grateful when the smell diminished. “The blood trail continued into the hall, somehow the stains on the carpet looked heavier and stronger. Past the end table, beside my father’s recliner, a lamplight was projected on another foot. This body part was detached a little higher than the ankle. Just as the other foot, the stump was jagged with part of a bone protruding from the meat, which appeared to have been gnawed. Next to his foot was his right hand gripping the telephone.”

Candy closed her lids over her lubricated eyes and sighed. “I followed the trail into the dark hall where the end closest to the guest bedroom was almost pitch-black. I stood by my dad’s foot and hand, I could see both bedroom doors were shut. I proceeded down the hall in the dark, wondering if I was breathing my last breath. I kept my back against the wall, turning my head left and right, watching and waiting for someone or something to attack at anytime. When I reached the bathroom, I stared into the shadows, wondering if something was in the darkness staring back at me.”

The detective straightened himself in his chair and leaned over his desk, placing his upper weight on his arms. Candy made eye contact with him, and she knew he believed her to be mad. “I worked up the courage and rushed to the bathroom. I stumbled, but I reached the light switch beside the toilet. Light flooded the hall, and I threw myself back against the wall. I viewed the floor to see my father’s severed arm lying before me. It had been hacked away above his elbow, and the bleeding stump resembled the severed feet and hand I had seen,” she paused to breathe deep and wipe more recent tears away from her cheeks that were red but becoming clear of the wet mascara.

“I realized there was nothing in the bathroom when I turned the light on. If anything were in there, it would have attacked me then. The attacker was in the guest bedroom. As frightened as I was to approach the bedroom door, I did. When I arrived at the door, I grasped the knob and prepared myself to enter the room.”

7
“I turned the knob carefully and cracked the door open. From what I could see, the room seemed empty, but it was only because the light was off. When I entered the room and flipped the switch to the chandelier, I discovered I wasn’t alone”—her voice trembled—“to the left side of the bed was Dad.” Candy’s breathing became heavy again like she was suffocating.

“Fr-from the angle I was standing, I could only see his head. He was lying facedown on the floor. I walked to the foot of the bed, then noticed my mom . . . only it wasn’t her anymore. She was lying on her belly gnawing, licking, and lapping at the end of the bloody stem of Dad’s left ankle. The middle of his back held the meat cleaver that had been used to chop away his hands and feet. She lifted upward without unlocking her clenched teeth from the raw meat. A piece of gristle dangled from her bottom lip, and it hung there as though it were cooked spaghetti.”

8
“Her eyes contained no pupils or irises, it was as if all her veins had burst and turned the balls in her sockets crimson red. Her teeth had grown sharp, razor sharp, but they hadn’t become fangs. Her voice had also changed where it sounded raspy and gravelly. ‘It’s in my head,’ she said, ‘it’s in my head, eating my brains, and it only stops when I destroy. It hurts. Dear God, it hurts,’ Mom croaked. The look of remorse and dismay removed itself from Mom’s face, and joy took its place. In her eye I saw it, the parasite, which was canary yellow, swim by. It was the thing eating her brain, causing her to go crazy. ‘I want more,’ she howled.

9
“She yanked the meat cleaver from the spine of my dad and charged toward me, eyes bulging, teeth clenched, and hands wrapped around the weapon. I rushed from the room, slamming the door shut. I held on to the knob while deciding my next move. I didn’t have time to reach the front door, only the bathroom. I released the knob and ran, knowing she was only feet away from me. Just in the nick of time, I entered the bathroom and locked the door behind me.”

Candy paused, swallowing a heavy lump in her throat and reflecting the events that had earlier occurred. She sucked her lips inward and bit down as salty tears intruded the edges of her mouth.

“She began beating and chopping at the door with the meat cleaver. I grabbed the lid of the tank from the toilet and waited beside the door with the light off. As soon as the hinges dislodged, I was ready. She entered the bathroom without seeing me, I smashed the lid onto the top of her head. The porcelain piece shattered, and she sank to the floor with her body twitching and flopping like a dying fish out of water. She dropped the meat cleaver, and as soon as it was out of her reach, I grabbed the weapon. I fell to my knees and began chopping. Blood . . . GOD, THERE WAS BLOOD EVERYWHERE! ON HER! ON ME! JESUS CHRIST!” Candy took minutes of whimpering and recuperation before she continued in a shaken voice, “I’m supposing Dad had called you, but you were late, and now I’m suspected of murder in the first degree.”

Detective Lewis turned off the recorder. “We are going to have to allow the city institution to contain you until the day of court,” he casually noted.
“Listen, right now I don’t give a damn about how long I’ll spend in jail or a wacko hospital! There is no telling how many people are out there that have eaten that same sushi and are infected! If something isn’t done, you are going to have a pure massacre on your hands!”

Detective Lewis glanced at his office window to see a few policemen gazing in his room. The detective raised his hand and gave a waving gesture for the officers to come to his aid. Within seconds, the men of law were in the room.

“Take Ms. Harrington to a holding cell, allow her one call, then make arrangements for the city mental institution.”

“YOU DAMN BASTARD! Your men need to be patrolling the streets, and they need to be sure that the new sushi bar doesn’t open tomorrow! If you don’t do as I say, people will die!”

The officers forced Candy to stand by firmly lifting her from the chair while she yelled, “YOU DAMNED BASTARD! YOU DAMNED DIRTY BASTARD!”

The officers placed handcuffs around her wrists, led her into the main area, then into the hall as she struggled and constantly pleaded for someone to do something. Detective Lewis began thinking to himself, What a real psycho. For years, he had been a detective, and never had he heard such a bizarre and brutal story.

10
Five minutes had passed, and he had almost attempted to erase the story from his mind until he walked into the front office where Carrie, the receptionist, was snacking on some sushi she had earlier purchased and just now had the opportunity to enjoy. “Hey there,” she said after swallowing her mouthful, “want some? It came from that new sushi bar.”

She held her plate toward him, and he almost refused her offer until he realized he had never tried sushi. He took a piece and chewed, then swallowed while not understanding why it was craved by so many. “It’s okay,” he said and turned away but paused when the phone rang.

The receptionist answered the phone by the second ring, and Detective Lewis heard a frantic woman on the other end. “My husband has gone crazy! He’s killed our son!”

Another call sounded and passed to line 2, then another call. Suddenly, all six lines were filled, and as soon as the receptionist answered the second line, another call came through. Clusters of cops ran out the doors to their squad cars. When Carrie finished the fifth line, Detective Lewis quickly asked, “What in God’s name is going on?”

“The whole city has gone crazy! Something about parasites in sushi . . . ”

"The Acquired Taste has been published in Traumatized by Alexander S. Brown to order your copy please go to www.traumatizedsouls.com Also available on Amazon.com, Amazon.uk and any other book retailer."