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CINDY LOOKED AT THE calendar. Two more days and her month-long dairy-free diet would be over. She opened the fridge to gaze at the carton of milk, and there, on the top shelf was a ball of cheese. Not ordinary cheese. It was fresh mozzarella. Cindy licked her lips, her stomach growled. She figured the housekeeper stuck it in there, knowing Cindy loved cheese.
“Two more days,” she muttered. “You will be mine.” She scolded herself for talking to a ball of cheese, closed the fridge and sat at the kitchen table to read the newspaper. She looked up and jumped. The refrigerator door stood ajar. The cheese stared out at her, tempting her. She laughed at the thought and closed it.
Later that day, Cindy went to the kitchen again to daydream about eating the cheese with tomato and basil. Licking her lips, she paused in the doorway. The fridge door was wide open again.
“I know I closed that door,” she said. Two more days, but she couldn’t take it. It had been too long since her last bite of cheese. She lunged forward, grabbed the ball, and bit off a mouth-filling chunk.
Mozzarella-goodness caressed her palate. Creamy, subtly salty. She closed her eyes and moaned, savoring every bite. She chewed long and hard, extracting every bit of flavor, unaware that the cheese in her hand began to melt. The cheese boiled, burning her. She dropped it and ran to the sink to run cold water over the burns.
Behind her, it bubbled on the linoleum. Expanding and stretching, it mounded up into the crude shape of a seven-foot man in a fedora. A single feather stuck from the hat.
“You bit me,” the cheese said. Cindy gasped, backed away, staring up into the eyeless face of the Cheeseman.
“I-I’m sorry,” she said gripping the edge of the counter as the cheese loomed over her. “I had two days left, I should have waited,” she stammered, as if it mattered.
A cheese slicer gleamed from the Cheeseman’s hand. Cindy’s heart pounded. She glanced from his face to his weapon-wielding hand.
Cindy reached out. “Please,” she said. “I didn’t mean any harm.” She noticed a missing piece from his face. The piece that now sat, a hard, cold lump, in her stomach. Bile rose to her throat.
In a movement too quick for a man made of cheese, he slashed at her with the cheese slicer, lopping off her outstretched hand.
Cindy screamed. The Cheeseman plucked her hand from the floor, brushed it off against his leg, leaving a smear of blood on the smooth white surface, and sat at the table. Cindy dropped to the floor, wrapping a kitchen towel around her stump. Sweat beaded on her forehead. She retched, and blood soaked the towel. Her heart pounded in her throat, her vision blurred, and finally, she blacked out.
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AS CINDY LAY ON THE floor bleeding to death, the Cheeseman enjoyed slices of her fingers and hand on buttery crackers.
