It’s the yellow death. It kills millions every year and there isn’t a damn thing being done about it. In fact, I’d heard there were people who were consuming the poison en masse. They’d pour it, inject it, snort it and smoke it before vowing solemnly, "never again."
But I knew the truth.
I knew that in their sticky, rotten centres they craved more. More and more until finally their bodies rejected themselves and oozed out of their wrinkled skins, crawling into the drains to hide forever.
They were eating butter here, high atop the ivory towers of the university, and all I could do was watch. They mashed it into their faces by the pound, afraid it might melt on the way in and seep into their jackets and clothes, leaving them as stained on the outside as their corruption had stained them inside.
They didn’t do it for money or glory, such concepts are far too advanced for Neanderthals such as these. No, they’d congratulate each other in some other fashion, I was sure. My mind was plagued by sudden, violent visions of oil-slathered savages gnawing away at each other’s delicately seasoned skin.
"Pass the butter," they’d grunt as they munched on the foreleg of one of those too fattened to resist. "It’s surprisingly low in carbohydrates."
How much butter could a human body take? We’d soon know, that I knew.
But were these things even human? Was there any association between their vacant, cream-filled eyes and the sharp hatred of my fellow man?
I could almost forgive the human race for being a rampant plague of festering disease if I was sure these six weren’t in on the scam. But they were too inhuman not to be men, they had faces and skin that glistened with freshly absorbed oil. They were sweating grease and shitting Crisco.
I’d seen one of them expose himself to a barmaid once, heard him scream like a madman and tear his hair to the floor before he ran into a wall and found himself dragged off by pug-faced security guards. I’d stolen his wallet and found nothing but used prophylactics inside.
I learned about the rest in between their butter-laden belches and lactose-inspired hallucinations. Learned about the man with a number for a name and the blind photographer with a name that tasted like boiled potato. They didn’t say a word, they just sat glazed-eyed and slack-jawed as the vermin that scuttled across the table and crawled into their mouths, delivering filthy cube after festering drop of the lactose-death.
I carried on a brief conversation with a redneck as he caressed his shotgun with a slack-jawed leer.
"You’ve got to watch out for butter," I said. "That’s one monkey you don’t want crawling up your ass."
"I thought you was supposed to worry about one jumping on your back," he replied languidly, jamming an oily cube into his pipe.
"Jesus man," I said, suddenly realizing the horrible gravity of the situation. "It’s a metaphorical fucking monkey, fight the paranoia. That butter is starting to eat at your mind."
One of them remained silent, hiding in the corner and eating his butter like a squirrel, clutching it protectively in front of him before jamming it into bursting cheeks.
"I fucked your mother!" I screamed at him, just to make conversation.
"Who hasn’t?" he spat sullenly as he crammed a fistful of half-melted goo into his mouth.
I watched it drip down the sides of his mouth and vomited in a file cabinet.
I should have been worried by monsters like these, but I knew they were too drunk on saturated fats to be of any real threat to me. It was my midsection I had to worry about, I could already see them greedily eyeing every errant bulge, their greased tongues flicking in and out of between their glistening lips. They were ready to cannibalize me, render my fat and bathe in the lye.
The truth wouldn’t set me free– I would have to find a diversion.
"Look," I yelled, pointing at some imaginary point beyond the windows, "a McDonald’s! Hallowed halls of cholesterol, bathe in their fryers and lose yourself among the counters! You can sodomize the Hamburglar in prison, you can get away with it scott free!"
Only one of them was spry enough to fall for it, his belly still nearly free from the yellow corruption. He jumped straight through a plate glass window, sailing past disgusted patio patrons and onto the yellowed grass. Security grabbed him and hauled him away, exiling him to Australia on a rickety wooden boat, strapped to its rusted masthead.
He caught lock jaw en route and hasn’t been able to convince the locals he’s not simply a remarkable circus ape. Now makes trinkets for tourists, chained to Ayers Rock while he slices the legs off lame kangaroos and fastens them to garish keychains.
Lucky for tourists, lucky for me.
I was able to make my escape then, leaping behind an impossibly huge pile of discarded butter wrappers and making the squelching noises of cast-off butter.
But I could still hear them.
I heard their lips smack and stick as the oil dripped into the crevices of their skin, seeping through the table and then the floor until the whole thing gave way. They toppled down four floors and crushed each other underneath their own impossible bulk, their final death rattles a cascade of oily vomit.
It’s better that way, I suppose.
Editor’s note: Mr. Thompson sent us such an exciting article last week that we wrote back to him and asked for another subission, but maybe something a little more tasteful this time. The next day this story, accompanied by 200 colour photos, apeared in our mailbox. Why or when this experiment was conducted remains a mystery, but our editorial staff feels ths story should be printed as a cautionary measure against trying such disgusting things at home. Enjoy!