“Sister Thomas, thank you so much.” Pam Jensen accepted the glass pan full of gently quivering green gelatin. Carrot shreds mocked her from the glistening depths.
Sister Thomas waved her hand. “I’d love to stay and help, Pam, but Jared and Omner have basketball practice and little Tiffany has her piano lessons and Sariah wants picked up at the high school in half an hour. You know how life is. Toodles!” Her designer sweats disappeared rapidly through the glass door of the church kitchen.
Pam sighed. Another lime gelatin salad. How many was that now? Twenty-three? She set the pan on the counter next to the fridge.
“Sister Jensen? I hate to bother you, but . . . ”
Pam stopped her eyes from rolling with a supreme effort of will. Charity suffereth long, and all that. “Yes, Sister Love?”
Nyra Love waddled to the cabinets, one hand spread across her extremely pregnant belly. “I just need a pitcher of water, you know, for the little ones, when they come.” She smiled her vapid smile, like a brain-damaged hamster. Her breathless voice grated on Pam’s already stretched nerves. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, no problem, Nyra. Are you sure you should be helping tonight? Wasn’t your baby due Sunday?”
Nyra Love giggled. “Oh, no. I was due last Thursday but the doctor says all first babies are late. It’s my responsibility to be here. It’s my calling, to serve in the nursery at Relief Society weekly enrichment meetings.” A frown crawled over her face. “What are we supposed to call them now?”
“Just call it a birthday dinner. Do you want help?” Pam wedged the latest gelatin offering into the fridge with the other green masses. All had carrots. A few sported pineapple tidbits or canned pears. Sour cream covered two on the bottom shelf of the fridge.
Nyra pressed her hand to her belly. “Oh, that was a strong one. Nothing to worry about, Sister Jensen. It’s only Braxton-Hicks.” She waddled from the room, a plastic pitcher clutched in her free hand.
Pam shook her head as she resumed arranging fresh fruit on trays. A faint gurgle caught her attention. She paused, glancing over the simmering Crock-Pots of ham. Must have been the lids rattling. She popped open a container of strawberries.
“You want real forks or them plastic atrocities?” Edith Merkel stumped through the door, her orthotically correct shoes squeaking on the linoleum floor.
“Just use the real ones, please.”
Edith yanked the drawer open, extracting fistfuls of flatware. “Where’s your committee at? Lazing around expecting those of us humble enough to serve to wait on them hand and foot?” Forks protruded from her fingers.
“I’m sure they had important things to do.” Pam arranged a ring of strawberries on the tray. The other sisters had all made excuses when they saw Edith’s name on the dinner committee list. Sister Merkel’s tongue was legend in the Fifth Ward.
“More important than helping us set up this dinner they expect to eat?” The elderly woman shuffled from the kitchen, muttering under her breath.
Pam ripped open a bag of marshmallows, dumping them into a serving bowl. She debated calling Sister Harris for help. No, Sister Harris made Nyra look intelligent by comparison. Another rattle sounded from the general direction of the refrigerator. Pam jumped, startled by the unexpected noise. She glanced at the fridge then gathered the strawberry tray and the marshmallows, carrying them down the hall to the gym. Nyra’s off-key humming sounded from the nursery next door.
Edith stamped around each table, slamming forks on paper napkins. Her tightly permed white hair gleamed with blue highlights under the fluorescent fixtures. “I ironed each and every one of these cloths and they still have wrinkles. That’s what comes of storing them in a cupboard. They don’t make them like they used to, no, they certainly don’t.” She jabbed the last fork at the iron sitting on the edge of the main serving table. Steam curled from the vents.
“They look beautiful, Sister Merkel.” Pam set her burden on the dessert table. She tweaked the position of the pineapple boats more to the center as she made a mental note to remove the hot iron before anyone else arrived.
“Where do you want these?” Edith pulled bunches of silk flowers from a laundry basket. “Can’t even have decent flowers these days. Have to use these fake ones. In my day, we just plucked them from our yards. Everyone grew flowers then, not like these days.”
Thumps sounded from the direction of the kitchen across the hall. Pam glanced over her shoulder at the open door. “It’s March, Sister Merkel. The flowers are still buried under six inches of snow.”
“Well, I can’t be having these fake things dropping what-all into my drink.”
High-pitched screams shattered the peace of the church building.
Nyra bolted inside the gym from the nursery across the hall. The pregnant woman yanked the doors shut, then leaned against them. Her eyes stretched wide in panic. “It ate the little ones’ snacks! Every last box!”
“What did, Nyra?” Pam hurried to her side.
“It was hideous, all big and blobby looking!”
“I’d bet on the bishop, if I was a betting woman, which I’m not.” Edith squinted and slapped silk daisies on a table.
“Not the bishop.” Nyra’s voice wavered. She tugged her blonde braid.
“Then what, Nyra?” Pam patted the younger woman’s arm.
“That!” Nyra pointed at the far door.
Green gelatin oozed between the two sides, assembling into a wobbling mass. Carrot shreds and cheddar fish crackers danced in its middle.
Edith nodded. “Just like the summer of fifty-one. Back in Tooele, you know. We were setting up for a dinner just like this. Someone decided it would be tasty to put pears and pineapple in the same salad with the carrots. Some things should never be done.”
The quivering mass of lime gelatin extended a pseudopod, inching across the wood floor. The sour cream toppings rolled together, extruding out the top of the blob. The three women inched backwards.
“It’s formed an eye.” Edith dropped her armful of silk flowers on the nearest table. “This is a bad one.”
“This happened before?” Pam asked, her attention fixed on the pulsing blob of gelatinous salad.
“It’s an abomination, like Daniel said would come haunting us for our sinful ways.” Edith plucked forks from the place settings, gathering them in her fist.
The women took refuge behind the dessert table. The blob oozed across the floor towards them.
“How did you stop it back then, Edith?”
“We lured it out to the parking lot. Late July in Tooele. Thing melted.”
Nyra pressed both hands to her belly. “My, that was a strong one.”
“How far apart are the contractions?” Pam asked.
The eye quivered at the end of a long blob of green. It scanned the room, dripping shreds of carrot.
“About every five minutes for the last two hours,” Nyra answered. “The doctor says this baby won’t come until next week, though.”
“Sweetheart, you’re in labor. I birthed five of my own. Your doctor is an idiot.” Edith thumped her fist on the table, stabbing holes in the tablecloth with her forks.
Nyra’s lip trembled. “But I can’t have the baby now. I’m supposed to be teaching the children’s class. Ooo.” Her eyes widened. Her fists clutched the table for support.
Pam patted her back. “Just breathe, honey.”
The gelatin monster slid closer, leaving slimy trails of carrot on the floor. A fish cracker plopped from the eyestalk.
“Hahahee?” Nyra panted uncertainly.
“It’s too cold to melt that thing,” Pam said to Edith.
“We could try wrapping it in a tablecloth and stuffing it in the oven,” Edith suggested.
“Hahahee!” Nyra grabbed Pam’s hand, squeezing hard.
Pam winced. “I don’t want to go near that thing.”
“Try singing, honey. It helped me.” Edith fingered the forks she still held.
“Tell me the stories of Jesus, I love to heehee HA!” Nyra wheezed, tears leaking from her eyes as she clutched her belly. “I don’t want my baby to be born in a church gym.”
Pam patted her pocket. Her cellphone was at home, where she usually left it for church activities. “I’ll slip out and call your husband.”
The main blob gave birth to at least a dozen smaller blobs that slithered under the tables leaving trails of carrot shreds.
“They’re flanking us.” Edith hunched behind the chocolate fountain. “Did some idiot add marshmallows? No wonder they can think!” She flipped a fork at the largest blob. It hung, vibrating gently, among the pears.
Pam slipped the bowl of marshmallows she’d set out for the chocolate fountain farther down the table. No need for Edith to notice those now.
Nyra pulled away from Pam’s support. She drew herself to her full five-foot-three height, chin set. “As sisters in Zion, we all work to—heeheeHA!” She grabbed a wedge of fresh pineapple, flinging it at the monstrous blob. Her quavering soprano carried on, pausing only for panting breaths. “The heeheeHA of his blessings we heeheeHA!” Her aim aided by her faith, landed another wedge of pineapple on the monster.
The green gelatin stopped, wobbling in place. Burbling moans echoed through the room. The smaller blobs echoed the moans.
“I think you hurt it.” Edith winced at a high note.
“You’re a genius, Nyra!” Pam squeezed the younger woman’s hand.
“I am?” Nyra smiled, like a ray of sunshine breaking through a storm. “We have been born as heeheeHA of old.” She hurled a rain of pineapple at the blob.
Rivulets of green liquid dripped from the wounds inflicted by the fresh fruit.
Pam grinned at Edith. “Never put fresh or frozen pineapple, kiwi, or papaya in gelatin.” She plucked a wedge of pineapple from the carefully carved serving boat made from the outside of the pineapple. “Take that!” Her wedge landed on the floor several feet in front of one of the smaller blobs.
“You need a bit more enthusiasm. Or better weaponry.” Edith squatted behind the table, digging through her baggy pockets. “Ha! I thought those were in there.” She waved three rubber bands.
The quivering mound of green gelatin retreated a few inches, oozing back until it encountered a table. The blob sucked the place settings and fake flowers inside. Green slime dripped across the tablecloth.
“That’s going to leave a stain!” Nyra’s eyes hardened. She pelted the monster with another handful of fruit.
Pam shifted another pineapple boat into Nyra’s reach. The young mother-to-be snatched the empty pineapple shell, lobbing it across the gym.
“I belong to the heeheeheeeeHAAAAA!”
The quarter pineapple shell, carefully hollowed with its leaves still attached, struck the blob in its bobbing sour cream eye. The eyestalk retracted, dragging the pineapple inside. The thing pulsed, like a heartbeat. A warbling, burbling croak emerged from the interior.
“You’ve hurt it now, honey.” Edith emerged from behind the table. She clutched a contraption of two forks and multiple rubber bands in one hand.
“What is that?” Pam nudged more pineapple in Nyra’s direction.
Edith wedged a pineapple slice in the dangling rubber bands. “Wrist rocket. I spent twenty-seven years with the Cub Scouts. I can make anything into a weapon.” She spun on the ball of her orthotically clad foot, letting the pineapple fly at one of the smaller blobs creeping along the wall. “Take that, foul fiend!”
The smaller blob dissolved into a puddle. Carrot shreds floated listlessly over the wood floor.
“Poor thing.” Pam rose on tiptoes to peer at it.
Edith snorted as she reloaded. “That thing would have eaten you. Don’t waste pity on that nasty salad.”
“Onward Christian heeheeheeeee, marching as to war!” Pineapple rained down on the blob from both of Nyra’s hands.
The burbling croak rose in pitch. All of the smaller blobs slithered to the main monster. It absorbed them, growing larger and taller with each addition. Streams of unset gelatin dripped from gaping holes left by the pineapple.
Nyra sent the last pineapple boat sailing across the gym. The creature howled when it hit. Goo splattered the nearby tables.
Nyra placed both hands on her belly. “We’re out of pineapple. What are we going to do?”
“Do what the younger generation does. Ninja attack!” Edith grabbed the closest bowl of kiwi slices. Her shoes squeaked as she darted from behind the table, racing towards the blob.
“Oh, do be careful, Edith!” Pam clapped hands to her cheeks.
“Kill it!” Nyra shrieked.
Edith stumbled, clutching the bowl of kiwi to her bosom. “Dang my artificial knee!”
The far door of the gym opened. The bishop, a stout man who dearly loved his food and never missed a Relief Society dinner, peered inside. “Is everything all right, sisters?”
Nyra turned to Pam, her rabbity face creased with concern. “You have to stop it, Sister Jensen, or it’s going to eat the bishop. Oh dear. Hee. Haaaa. Aaaaaaugh!” She bent double over the table, hands pressed to her belly.
“I don’t know how! The fruit’s gone.” Pam dithered, eyes searching for anything that might help. She caught sight of the iron, still plugged in at one end of the table. Edith’s iron was a massive old relic from the fifties, the kind that had been discontinued for safety reasons.
Pam yanked the plug from the wall, hefting the beast with both hands.
“Lovely centerpiece thing. What is it?” The bishop wandered closer to the undulating blob of green gelatin.
“Don’t touch it! It’s evil!” Edith limped closer.
The blob extended a pseudopod, reaching for the old woman’s bobbing white head.
Pam closed her eyes, breathed a hasty prayer, then rushed at the blob, iron held before her like a weapon.
“Oh no, you don’t, you abomination of desolation!” Edith thrust the bowl of kiwi at the tentacle, parrying the monster’s attack.
The bishop reached one hand to the quivering backside of the monster. The sour cream eye, still leaking gelatin from the pineapple wedged in the center, rolled through the blob towards him.
“Stop, Bishop Alger! Oh, please stop!” Pam picked up her speed. She hadn’t actually run for fifteen years. Her middle-aged body protested even while adrenaline spurred her on.
“Heee heeeeee heeeeee HAAAAAAAA!” Nyra’s scream reached a new pitch.
The blob shivered, ripples cascading over its surface in time to Nyra’s panting screeches. Vague recollections of resonant frequencies and shattering wine glasses surfaced in Pam’s mind as she raced closer, the heat of the iron scorching her fingers.
The gelatin salad extruded a mass of carrot shavings onto the bishop’s hand just as Edith sprayed the other side with kiwi.
Pam plunged the hot iron into the center of the blob as Nyra’s scream reached maximum volume. The blob of gelatin exploded. Carrot shavings, cheddar fish, canned pears, and pineapple tidbits rained across the room in a sudden silence.
The bishop blinked, brushing his hand absently across the green splatters on his once-white shirt. “Dinner isn’t quite ready yet? Carry on, sisters. I’ll be in my office.” He blinked again, then wandered from the gym.
Edith set the serving bowl on a table.
“Sister Jensen?” Nyra stumbled from behind the dessert table. “I think I should go to the hospital now. My doctor was wrong.”
Pam hurried to the young woman’s side, catching her arm. “I’ll call your husband.”
Nyra smiled her sweetly innocent smile, only now it had teeth and a backbone. “You tell him we’re naming our little boy Lee. Brother Lee Love.”
Pam patted Nyra’s hand. “That’s a sweet name.”
Pam’s gaze traveled over the scattered decorations, covered with gobbets of melting gelatin. She shook her head then straightened her shoulders.
Edith planted her hands on her hips. “You take Sister Nyra off to meet her husband. I’ll get a mop. We’ll still be able to serve by seven.”
Pam led Nyra from the gym. They should have enough food without the gelatin. No one ever ate the green stuff anyway. And they had plenty of ham in the kitchen.
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Jalata Clegg has tumbled empires and taught piano. You’ll know if she is the one to finally destroy the world because you will be laughing. “Charity Never Faileth” first appeared in Monsters & Mormons in 2011. It has also appeared in her collection Brain Candy.
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