Chubby Chaser (3 page)

Eric threw a strip of bacon at Jason; Jason threw one back, and an all-out food fight erupted among the three boys, taking place all over the house.

Sara Krason pushed the button to bring the target to her. Once it came, she pulled it from the hanger to examine her marksmanship: from behind her protective goggles, she was able to see that she managed to get all but one of her bullets inside the innermost ring. She put another target up and pressed the button to send it to the end of the forty-yard lane. She put another magazine into her Glock twenty-six, nine-millimeter pistol. She raised her gun and fired at the center ring of the target. (The earmuffs she wore protected her from hearing the ear-splitting sounds of her shots.) She brought the target to her and was pleased that she managed to get all her shots in the innermost ring this time.

That was enough for today. It was almost four, and she still had to stop by Harold’s to get groceries for later on tonight. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with a hand towel.

On her way out, she stopped by her dad’s office. Her father, Marvin, owned this and two other gun ranges in Pennsylvania, including one in Philadelphia. He had gotten Sara involved with shooting and hunting about three years ago, after her mother had died. It was the only time they spent together, besides the occasional dinner. Marvin was a good man, and he tried to be a good father, but he and Sara had never been close, though he did try to make more of an effort after Sara lost her mother.

“Hey, kiddo, you heading out?” he asked from behind his large wooden desk, his meaty palms resting in his lap.

“Yeah. I’m stopping by the store on the way home. Do you want me to grab you anything while I’m there?”

“Uh, no. I’ll have whatever you’re making.”

“Okay.” As she walked out, Sara turned her head and accidently caught a glimpse of her reflection in a mirror embedded in one of the walls. Horrified, she turned away immediately. She hated practically everything about her appearance, from her double chin to her cottage-cheese thighs. And then there were the mounds of flab drooping from her arms like straw on a scarecrow and the rolls of fat encasing her stomach like a donut with filling. The only thing Sara liked about her appearance was her long dark-red hair. It was the only physical attribute she had received from her mother. (Why couldn’t Sara look more like her? She had been as gorgeous as an oil painting before cancer had ravaged her.) She got her size and everything else from her dad.

Harold’s was a supermarket chain that populated the northeast. They had pretty much everything lining their shelves: food, clothing, electronics . . . Sara wasn’t sure, but it wouldn’t surprise her if they carried the proverbial missing kitchen sink.

The store was extremely busy, even for a Saturday afternoon. Sara filled her cart with hard taco shells, ground beef, lettuce, shredded cheese, tomatoes, green onions, taco sauce, and sour cream. She was lucky enough to meet an empty lane when she was ready to check out her groceries. She rushed to put her stuff on the conveyor belt before anyone else came along.

“Hello. How are you doing today?” the cashier greeted her.

“I’m fine and—” Sara stopped speaking when she saw that her cashier was Andy Abbott, one of the assholes she went to school with. Her first thought was to put her stuff back into her cart and go to one of the other lanes—even though it would require her waiting awhile to check out her groceries—but she stopped herself, refusing to let this jerk scare her off. She flattened her voice and did her best to remain cool, calm, and collected. “I’m fine.” She finished putting her food on the conveyor belt. While Andy was scanning her groceries, Sara demanded to have them double bagged.

“Sure thing.” He looked as though he was sniggering at her. Sara would have called him on it, but she could feel beads of sweat forming on her forehead, partly from the heat and partly from nervousness, and she wanted to get the hell out of there before the beads started to drip far more than she wanted to confront Andy. She had a phobia about sweating in front of other people: from kindergarten until she had started high school, her classmates had taunted her for sweating through her clothes during the first couple of months of school—when the weather was still warm—and during the last couple of months—when the warm weather returned after winter hibernation—from doing absolutely nothing but sitting at a desk. A teacher had even gotten in on the
fun
once, remarking a few weeks into the beginning of the school year, “You got sweat all over this!” in a disgusted tone, after a thirteen-year-old Sara had handed in a worksheet dappled with perspiration. The entire class had howled with laughter, and Sara—shoulders up, head down—had lumbered back to her seat. She now carried a hand towel and a change of clothes at all times during the spring, summer, and fall, but she didn’t feel comfortable pulling her towel out at the moment: she didn’t like sweating in front of other people, but she didn’t like to wipe the sweat away in front of them, either; it only called more attention to her problem.

Andy handed her the last of her groceries before stating, “That’ll be thirty-two dollars, even.” Sara handed him two twenties, and he gave her back a five and three ones, along with her receipt. “Thank you, have a good day.”

Sara walked away without replying. She heard chuckling once she got a few steps away.

The ground beef sizzled in the frying pan as Sara moved it around with the spatula. She pushed and flipped the meat until it was dark brown. She scooped it into the four hard taco shells she had on her plate and sprinkled the toppings she had gotten from the store on it.

Moving from the kitchen and into the living room, Sara set her plate and drink (Mexican Coke) on the coffee table. She pressed play on the remote control to the blu-ray player. The first horror film up was
Scream
, Sara’s favorite. It had been a tradition since sixth grade for her to watch horror films and pig out on Mexican food the weekend before school started. Her mom had done it with her when she was alive, because Sara didn’t have any friends, and Sara had been doing it alone since then.

Her mom had passed three years ago on May twenty-first. Sara was about to graduate from junior high and would turn fourteen in a month. Her mother had been battling B-cell prolymphocytic leukemi
a
for two years at that point, and she had suffered through chemotherapy and multiple trips to the hospital for drug administration before the illness finally took her. The morning of her mother’s passing, Sara had awoken early to make her mom’s favorite breakfast: blueberry pancakes with turkey sausage links and eggs over easy. Her dad, disheveled from the previous night’s sleep and distraught from his recent discovery, came into the kitchen while she was whipping the pancake batter and told her that her mother was gone.

Sara didn’t believe him at first; she couldn’t afford to. If her mom had truly passed, who would go with her to the mall and make her feel pretty while she tried on hideous plus-size clothing? Who would look at her artwork and praise it? Who would she talk to, as in,
really talk to
? Who would she admire and look up to? Who would be her friend?

By the time of her mother’s funeral, her mother’s death still hadn’t sunk in; Sara hadn’t even cried yet. She thought something was wrong with her. How could she not shed a single tear for her mother? How could she not shed a single tear for her only friend? It wasn’t until it came time to go back-to-school shopping that it hit her: She was trying on a pair of jeans in Lane Bryant, and she wanted to ask her mom whether they made her look like a hippo. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t because her mom was gone. She was gone and she was never coming back. Her tears had taken three months to come, and when they finally came, they came like a rushing flood, pelting down and visibly wetting the carpeted dressing-room floor.

Sara shook her head to clear her mind and focus on the movie. But the movie had already ended. And her plate was empty.

Jason gripped the armrest of his seat with his left hand and the ass of the girl bent over his lap with his right. He loved it when girls licked the slit in his dick. The girl currently giving him oral pleasure was Amanda Peyton, a cute, little brunette he hooked up with that weekend—after Emily—and went to school with. They were actually in the school parking lot right now. It was the first day of classes after summer vacation, the parking lot was packed, and people were constantly walking by. At any moment, one of them could look over and see what Jason and Amanda were doing. It was all just so . . .

“Uh!” Jason cried out as he ejaculated into Amanda’s mouth.

Amanda sat up, her lips pursed and her face panicked. She opened the passenger door with amazing celerity and spat a few times. She turned to Jason, anger replacing the panic that had been on her face. “Why didn’t you tell me you were about to come?”

“I’m sorry, baby. I forgot. You were so good, I couldn’t think about anything else.” He smiled at her and flashed his puppy-dog eyes (
girls always fell for his puppy-dog eyes).
Jason actually hadn’t forgotten, but he liked to come in girls’ mouths when they blew him, and if they said no when he asked, he would do it, anyway, and claim he had forgotten when they called him on it, feeding them the exact same lines and puppy-dog eyes he had just fed Amanda. And they always forgave him.

“Just don’t let it happen again,” she said, wiping her chin with a wipe from her purse. She checked her hair and makeup in the sun-visor mirror. “You wanna stop by the mall after school?”

“Can’t. I got football practice.”

“Well, what about tomorrow? I’m free then, too.”

“I can’t do tomorrow either.”

“Why not?” Amanda asked in an accusatory tone.

“Because—”

“Because you’re with Emily, aren’t you? You’re dating Emily Bulstride!”

“No, I told you already that wasn’t true.” Jason had run into Amanda at the mall the day after sleeping with Emily at Eric’s party and chatted her up. She had been interested, but she had been reluctant to do anything with him, because word had gotten around that he and Emily were together. Jason had denied it, but apparently, Amanda was still having trouble believing him.

“Then what is it?” Amanda demanded to know.

“My grandmother is sick.”

“Your grandmother is sick?” Amanda asked, her tone changing from one of accusatory anger to compassionate concern.

“Yeah, real sick. She’s moving in with us this week, and I have to come straight home after school to take care of her on the days I don’t have football practice.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, I really don’t like to talk about it. My grandma and me are so close. If anything ever happened to her . . .” Jason put a hand over his face and pretended to cry.

“I’m so sorry. I’m such a bitch for giving you a hard time when your grandma is sick. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No, I’m fine. I just need some space for a while to deal.”

“I totally understand.”

The first bell rang. It was to alert students that they had ten minutes to get to class.

“Well, I gotta go. Call me if you need anything, okay?”

Jason nodded, his hand still covering his tearless face. He breathed a sigh of relief once Amanda was gone. Why did girls always have to make a big deal about sex? If they weren’t so sensitive and clingy, then guys wouldn’t have to lie to them and
cheat
(it’s not cheating if you only tell a girl,
I want to be exclusive
, to get sex) on them.

The first half of the school day wasn’t much fun for Jason: he had Sociology, AP chemistry, and AP English for his first three periods, and Eric wasn’t in any of them to keep him entertained; he didn’t even have Andy for company. Fortunately, they all had the same lunch period. Collin Holt; Amy Reed, Collin's girlfriend, whom, unbeknownst to Collin, Jason had fucked; and Matt Sudekis, a guy who was a point guard on the varsity basketball team and who was best friends with Collin, joined them at their lunch table.

“I can’t believe I got stuck with Mr. Harrison again,” griped Eric. “He has the worst case of BO. It was so bad I thought I was gonna blow chunks first period.”

“I see your bad-BO Harrison and raise you the spitting Mr. Clay,” said Amy.

“Spitting is nothing. You can move to the back of the class to get away from spitting. There is nothing, I mean nothing, you can do to escape Mr. Harrison’s funk. It fills the entire room like one big, gnarly, everlasting fart.”

“At least you never had Mr. Vanderhoss,” argued Collin. “He called me a fucking loser in front of the whole class sophomore year.”

“That’s because you told him your dog ate your homework,” Andy pointed out.

“But my dog really did eat my homework. After I fed it to him.”

Everyone laughed.

Eric took a swig of his Coke. “So what about you, J? Got any first-day horror stories for us?”

“No. My classes and teachers are pretty much blah. The only problem I face is dying from boredom.”

“That’s because you don’t have me there to make you laugh. Don’t worry, you’ll have your boy back by sixth period.”

Jason, Eric, and Andy all had AP calculus together, sixth period. Jason understood how Andy got into the class, but Eric?

“Hey, look! It’s Darlene!” Eric said urgently.

They all turned to see Darren Parker sitting at a table by himself. Darren was a short, scrawny gay kid who would come to school wearing makeup and girls’ clothes and then would have the audacity to get upset when people called him Darlene and gave him a hard time—as though he hadn’t been asking for it.

Today, Darren was wearing a black Lady Gaga T-shirt with matching leather leggings and wedge sandals. The entire table erupted in laughter at the sight of him.

“Why doesn’t he just wear a shirt with the word
fag
written on it?” Jason quipped.

“It’d get the same message across a lot more efficiently,” said Andy.

“Come on, guys,” Jason commanded. The first day of school had been dull as dirt so far; messing with Darren would be a nice way to liven things up. He grabbed a bottle of Coke off the table and walked over to Darren’s table, with Eric, Andy, Matt, and Collin joining him. They surrounded Darren, so he’d have no way to escape. Jason sat in front of him; Eric sat behind him; and Andy, Matt, and Collin were on the opposite side of the table.

“Hey, Darlene.” Jason grinned innocently at Darren.

Darren tried to make a run for it, but Eric held him down.

Eric put his mouth next to Darren’s ear and whispered menacingly, “Where the hell do you think you’re going, Darlene?”

“It’s Darren, Neanderthal. Now get your hands off me.” He tried to sound tough and masculine, but Jason could see the fear in his eyes and could hear the lisp in his voice.

“Neanderthal. Wow. That’s a big word for such a little girl like you, Darlene,” Jason said tauntingly. “Where’d you get it from, the sissyonary?”

“It looks like he got his clothes from Sissies-R-Us,” Eric interposed.

Jason looked down at Darren’s leggings. “Yeah, speaking of, are those real leather?”

Darren looked at the bottle of Coke in Jason’s hands then at Jason. “Don’t. Please don’t.”

“I just wanna know if those are real leather, I swear,” Jason promised. He saw Eric smirking at him from behind Darren.

“Yes, they’re real leather,” Darren sighed.

“See, that’s all I wanted to know. And since you’re being so nice, I’m gonna be nice and buy you a drink.” Jason began to slowly unscrew the top on the bottle of Coke.

Darren screamed, “No!” and moved to stop him, but Eric covered his mouth and held him down. Jason loved watching the dread get to Darren: Darren knew what was about to happen to him, could see it coming from a mile away, but was powerless to stop it, because Jason was in complete control. Jason finished removing the top and poured the entire bottle on Darren’s leather leggings.

Tears ran down Darren’s face, mixing with his makeup. The turbid mixture dribbled onto the hand Eric covered Darren’s mouth with.

“Ew! He got his fag gunk all over me.” Eric pushed Darren to the floor.

“And by the end of tonight, you’ll transform into one of them,” Jason said ominously, as Darren ran out of the cafeteria, sobbing.