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It all started when Irene Murphy ate a peanut.
She was in her kitchen one afternoon looking for a snack. She and her roommates had finished most of the leftovers the previous night and she didn’t feel like cooking, so there wasn’t a lot of food in the fridge that looked appetizing. Moving to the pantry, she opened the wooden cabinet door to find a bag of salted peanuts sitting there on the shelf.
Perfect, she thought. Just what I was looking for. This should hold me over for a while.
Irene was fortunate not to have any food allergies or dietary restrictions, and she was not a picky eater by any means. She happily grabbed the small plastic bag off the shelf and went about the rest of her day.
Her two roommates were out each doing their own thing, so she was on her own for dinner. She considered ordering out, but she honestly didn’t feel that hungry. There was a slight pang in her stomach, but she was sure it would go away.
That night, as Irene was getting in bed, she noticed the feeling in her stomach had not gotten any better. If anything, it felt more irritating than before. She scrolled through her phone, hoping that the discomfort would at least subside enough for her to fall asleep, but it did not. Feeling like she was about to puke, she rushed to the bathroom and leaned her head over the toilet. Sure enough, the unpleasant taste rose into her throat and out of her mouth. What surprised her the most was not the cause of her throwing up, but what she had thrown up.
Floating in the water only inches from her face were three whole peanuts, still in their shells. It was already so late at night that she didn’t want to think about how or why this had happened, so she quickly flushed the contents down and went back to bed.
—
A few weeks had gone by, and Irene had almost forgotten about the peanut incident. She was spending the weekend with her parents. Although they had their differences, she could not deny that her father was an excellent cook. A few extended family members were also joining them for dinner, and Irene wasn’t the most talkative when the night began. However, after eating some of the appetizers (shrimp cocktail and a cheese charcuterie board) and sipping a glass of wine, she was much more open.
When it came time to sit down and eat, she anxiously awaited whatever delicious meal would be placed on the table. Tonight’s entree: crab legs, fresh from the local seafood market. Irene happily helped herself.
The conversation at the table was pleasant enough. Her parents peppered her with questions about her life in the city, her job, who she was seeing romantically. This made her start to remember why it was that she moved out of their house in the first place. Irene needed to find a way to escape from the constant questions, many of which she did not want to answer.
She did get her wish, but not for the reason she wanted.
The feeling came slowly, and she wasn’t sure if it was genuine at first. Regardless, it was incentive enough for Irene to stand up, saying “Excuse me for a moment, I’m just gonna go use the restroom real quick. I’ll be right back.”
As she briskly walked to the bathroom and closed the door, the pang in her stomach suddenly reappeared. Instinctively, Irene leaned her head over the toilet bowl and prepared for whatever was about to exit her mouth. Memories of the peanuts flooded back to her mind and added an even more unpleasant feeling to her already upset stomach. Whatever it was, she needed to get it out. She pushed and tensed her abdominal muscles, trying to will the contents of her stomach upward. She was beginning to feel physical pain now. The mass finally started to move, which felt like a good sign. But aside from it moving, it also felt like it was… moving. It was as if whatever was ascending through her digestive tract had gained sentience and was now attempting to swim its way out of Irene’s bowels. There was nothing that she could do about it. It wriggled up to her esophagus and into her mouth. Irene didn’t know what she was expecting to feel, but it sure wasn’t a hard shell with tiny moving legs. Her heart raced and she resisted the urge to scream when she saw a live shrimp drop into the water and start frantically swimming around.
Irene stared at the crustacean in utter disbelief for a good few minutes before she heard her mother’s voice from outside the bathroom.
“Irene? Sweetie, is everything alright in there?”
“Yeah Mom, everything’s fine!” she shouted back, remembering that her family was still at the dinner table. “I’ll be out in a second!”
She stood up shakily, wondering what on earth was wrong with her and how this could have possibly happened. The only thing left for her to do now was flush the poor shrimp down and attempt to regain composure at the sink. Her stomach still hurt, but she just passed it off as residual pain from what had just occurred.
Returning to the dinner table, Irene spoke very few words and faked a smile. Her family had a notoriously large appetite, so she knew that it would be a while before dinner was over. Her bowels ached and she would occasionally feel a momentary stabbing pain in her abdomen as she sat through the meal, each one worse than the previous.
Just as her father was about to start clearing the table, the pain Irene felt was so sharp and intense that she fell out of her chair and onto the hardwood floor of the dining room. Her family members rushed to her side as she wailed and moaned in pain. Their attention soon moved from her face to her abdomen, as something could be seen moving beneath cloth and skin.
A horrible squelching noise and a splatter of blood turned their concern into terror as an orange claw appeared from Irene’s exposed intestines. Then a second claw appeared, and then two beady black eyes sitting upon stalks. The crab looked at the horrified guests, then looked back at Irene’s lifeless face, then scuttled across the dining room floor and out the back door of the kitchen.
That was the last time Mr. Murphy ever cooked.