A Halloween Tale...

Bad Digestion

They had been invited to the dinner party—but not by the host.

All twenty-six of them had received a text message with the date, time, and GPS coordinates to Talbot Manor. All twenty-six, upon driving to the front gates, had been allowed entry without any guard on duty. They had parked their cars, all luxury models no more than three years old, in the circular driveway without an attendant's instructions, and they had made their well-dressed way up the front steps.

Once all of them had arrived, punctual as ever, the mansion's enormous front doors had opened just as silently and automatically as the front gate. No butler anywhere to be seen. Murmuring among themselves in pairs or groups of three or four—no one had arrived alone—they made their way through the echoing vestibule, following the flaming candelabras as if they were mile markers.

When the guests reached the dining hall, their expressions of well-humored curiosity vanished, replaced by knowing looks and smiles. For there stood the family patriarch, Edward Talbot himself, all eighty-odd years of him stuffed into a tuxedo barely able to contain his girth, grinning and beckoning them all to join him for dinner. His children, children-in-law, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, none of them younger than twenty-one, each took turns shaking his hand or kissing his cheek.

After certain pleasantries were exchanged and every guest found his or her assigned seat at the long dinner table clothed in white, Edward Talbot summoned the wait staff. He remained standing while servers brought a plated meal to each of the guests and filled all of their glasses with their preferred beverages. At the surprised looks on his guests' faces, Edward Talbot chuckled and mentioned in passing that he was not too old to prowl around social media. In so doing, he had learned quite a lot about his progeny, including their favorite meals.

"Dig in now,” he encouraged them. "I've already eaten.”

One of the sixty-odd-year-old male guests, a son-in-law, wanted to know what this was all about. This "summoning” as he called it. Said with a flashy businessman's smile, of course. As though he nor anyone else had any presumptions at all regarding a certain Talbot fortune.

"In due time,” Edward Talbot said, resting his gnarled hands on the back of his chair. The chair he stood behind while he watched his guests eat and eat and eat, enjoying their meals and drinks with a dignified gusto. He grit his teeth as a burning sensation leapt up his esophagus. Damned indigestion. He coughed quietly into a fist, feeling his face heat up. Beet red, no doubt.

"You all right there?” said the son-in-law who'd spoken up earlier. He styled himself the spokesman of the family. "Wouldn't want you to croak before you spill the beans, Ed!” Nervous laughter followed as eyes darted to one another and up at their patriarch. Their host. "Seriously though, take a load off. Have a glass of water or something.”

"I'm fine,” Edward Talbot grated out through his teeth. Not what he would have chosen to say. He was in something close to agony. Mainly because the burning sensation had quickly evolved into something else: a ragged chewing sensation, as if half a dozen small eels with fangs had commenced eating him alive from the inside out. Which was very close to the truth. "But you should know...that I was not the one who invited you all.” He shook with sudden spasms.

The son-in-law looked perturbed. "Someone should really call 9-1-1,” he said mildly. He made no move to reach for his phone.

Others echoed the sentiment. No one made the call.

"Too late,” Edward Talbot said, watching through bleary, bloodshot eyes as his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren stared at him, their meals forgotten.

But they had eaten enough. Soon they too would follow in his footsteps.

He staggered away from his chair, down the line of his progeny, resting a blood-spattered hand on each of the shoulders he passed. Blood pooled in his mouth now, dribbled down his chin. He was a gruesome sight to behold, he knew.

"I've left you nothing,” he rasped, convulsing as the parasites—the true founders of the feast, both sentient and self-aware, who'd used his fingers to text-message the dinner invitation—devoured him with explosive spurts of blood from every pore and orifice. "But you are welcome to join me!”

He laughed, a sick, gargling noise that was his last as he hit the floor, face-planting into the polished marble tile.

The twenty-six dinner guests glanced at each other, horrified. The son-in-law/spokesman cleared his throat and was about to say something significant. Or so he thought.

But instead he cleared his throat again—tried to, anyway, wincing with the intense burning sensation of horrible indigestion.