Futures and Frosting (Chocolate Lovers #2)(41)

The sight before me leaves me speechless and confused. I really don’t’ know where to look first. There is chocolate splattered everywhere and as I take a step into the room, something covered in chocolate dripped down from the ceiling in front of me and lands by my foot with a plop.

It's dead silent in the room which is my first clue that something is off; Claire always has music playing in the kitchen when she works.

Actually, my first inclination that something isn’t quiet right is seeing Jenny sitting in the sink crying. My eyes pass right over Drew lying on his stomach on the floor lapping up a puddle of chocolate like a dog. That’s not something I haven’t seen before unfortunately.

Since Jenny is closest to me, I start with her.

“Hey, what’s going on? Why are you crying? More importantly, why are you crying in the sink?” I ask her as I reach in and scoop her out of the big, stainless steel commercial sink like a baby. It takes a few minutes to steady her once I get her on her feet. She clutches onto my shoulders and stares up at me.

“I think Drew ate Claire,” she whispers. “She was sitting here a minute ago and then Drew said he was hungry and now she’s gone. He ate four batches of chocolate chip cookies and one batch of Claire.”

Jesus God what the f*ck is going on?

I gently push Jenny away from me until her back is leaning up against the counter and I am certain she won’t fall. Turning around, I stare at the mess that has transformed this sparkling clean kitchen into a chocolate nightmare.

Are those chocolate covered Twinkies stuck to the wall?

I gingerly step around small puddles of melted chocolate on the floor, careful not to slip and fall, and make my way over to Drew who has given up sucking chocolate off of the floor and is now curled up in the fetal position asleep.

“Hey, ASSHOLE!” I yell. “Wake up!” I shove the toe of my shoe into his stomach and push until he rolls over onto his back and lazily opens his eyes to look at me.

“Duuuuuuuuude,” he says on an exhale of breath.

“Don’t dude me. What the f*ck happened here? Claire sent me a text a few hours ago that you were going to help her frost cookies. Why does it look like a bomb exploded?”

Drew blinks a few times and shakes his head to clear out the cobwebs or whatever the f*ck is in his brain right now sucking out all of the functioning parts.

“Help me up so I can think,” Drew says as he sticks his arm up towards me.

I shake my head in annoyance, grab onto his hand and yank him up off of the floor.

“You’re hands are so soft. Do you moisturize?” Drew questions as he pets the top of my hand like a kitten.

I rip my hand out of his grip and smack him upside the head.

“Cocksucker! Pay attention!”

Drew rubs the back of his head and glares at me.

“Don’t get your panties all in a twist. Claire is in her office. She’s fine. Her dad is in there with her.”

Okay, so it can’t be that bad if George is here.

I leave Drew with Jenny so I can go in search of Claire. Jenny isn’t going to stop crying until she sees Claire with her own eyes and realizes she hasn’t been eaten.

Only in MY life would those words make perfect sense.

Claire and Liz share an office and it is situated right in the middle of their connecting stores. They each have a door that leads into the office. It's really no bigger than a walk-in closet. It houses a computer table and chair, a loveseat, and two metal filing cabinets. I walk over to the closed door and press my ear against it trying to figure out if Claire and her father are in some deep discussion while all hell breaks loose in her kitchen. I’m pretty sure her father still plots fun and exciting ways to kill me so there is no way I'm going to interrupt them if that's the case. I don’t hear anything so I turn the knob and slowly open the door.

I had to do a double-take when I see George curled up in a ball on the loveseat. How he had managed to get his six foot frame wedged in between the arms of that thing I will never know. I decide to let sleeping dogs lie for the moment and turn in a full circle, my eyes finally coming to rest on Claire.

She's sitting on the floor behind the door with her knees pulled up to her chest. She has a spatula in one hand held out from her body with chocolate frosting dripping off of it and what looks like Drew’s iPhone pressed up against the wall with her other hand. Her eyes are glassy and vacant as she stares off into space, never once blinking as I walk up to her and crouch down in front of her.

I don’t know what I'm dealing with here so I speak in a soft, calming voice. “Hey there, Claire. How are you doing sweetie?”

She moans in response, but still doesn’t blink.

I look over my shoulder and see George is still fast asleep. Obviously he isn’t going to be any help here.

“Can you tell me what happened here tonight?”

Another moan coupled with a bit of a whimper. Still no blinking.

How long can someone go without blinking before they go blind?

I feel like I walked into a horror movie and found the sole survivor of a serial killer rampage. I'm afraid to say the wrong thing for fear I’ll spook her and will never get to the bottom of the truth.

“I ate cookies,” she finally mutters.

“Wow, that’s great, sweetie,” I tell her kindly.

I don’t really know if that’s great or not but at least she has ingested something that will sop up whatever it is that's turned these guys into chocolate covered zombies.