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.

“I don’t want to feel this anymore,” she says in a pitiful voice.  “Make it stop.”

Maybe I should try and get her to throw up.  Should I stick my fingers down her throat?  I’ve never done that before.  Not even to myself.  I’ve only ever tried to make Drew throw up, and usually all I have to do is talk about his grandmother having sex.

I reach over and take the dripping spatula out of her hand and set it on the floor.  I do the same with Drew’s cell phone, flipping it over first and noticing it's set to the BIC Lighter app, the fake flame flickering back and forth on the screen.

“Honey, why are you holding Drew’s phone against the wall?”

“I wanted to make hot.  Stupid fight wouldn’t lire.  Flight wouldn’t flier.  Fire wouldn’t fire.  Fire.  Fire, fire, fire, fire, fire-”

Sweet Jesus.

I slide an arm between Claire’s back and the wall and bring her forward so she's leaning over her bent knees.  Hoping she won’t hate me for this or bite me, I push my finger passed her lips and into her mouth.  She blinks then and looks up at me, trying to focus on my face.  My finger is in her mouth but she won’t open her lips, they just stay wrapped around my finger while she squints and tries to see me better.

I wiggle my hand and try to push my finger in further.  Her throat has to be in there somewhere.  If I can just get back there far enough I'm sure she will puke.

“Come on, Claire. Open up wider.  I can’t get it in.”

I grunt with the effort of holding her up and trying to get the knuckle of my first finger past her teeth.

“Don’t bite me.  You’ll feel much better after this is done, I promise.  I’ve done this a bunch of times, just let me in.”

Either she isn’t hearing me or she doesn’t care.  I move my hand around her mouth and try every angle I can but she just won’t open her mouth so I could reach her throat. Her tongue presses against the tip of my finger preventing it from moving.

“Claire, don’t be difficult,” I groan.  “I need to do this deeper.”

Claire bites down on my finger at the same time I feel a hand slap down on my shoulder.

I yank my finger out of her mouth and whip my head around and up to find George towering over me with his hands on his hips and a glare on his face.

“Carter,” George greets.

“Hi, Mr. Morgan,” I say as cheerfully as possible, considering he's looking at me like I'm a bug he's getting ready to squash under his shoe.

“Have you seen my shotgun?” he asks.

I gulp loudly and try to remember all of the reasons it would be bad to piss my pants right then.  Under normal circumstances, I'm quite used to the death stares and silent threats I receive from Claire’s dad, but this seems a little excessive.  I'm trying to save his daughter’s life.  How can he possible be angry with me about that?  He had been asleep on the couch two seconds ago.  He must have opened his eyes and seen me...

You’ll feel much better once this is done.  Don’t be difficult, I need to do this deeper.  Just let me in…

Oh sweet Jesus.  He had probably looked across the room and saw just the back of me trying to force something in his daughter’s mouth.

Why the hell couldn’t Rachel have been the one here tonight?  She would have woken up and cheered me on, probably even booing me when she found out I was only trying to make her daughter puke instead of forcing my penis in her mouth.

“I am NOT into Necrophilia,” I state firmly to him.

“There is something wrong with you,” he mutters.

“I just wanted her to throw up,” I complain.

“I really don’t want to know about the weird, kinky shit you’re into.”

“Yo, Mr. Morgan, you’re awake!” Drew exclaims as he lounges in the doorway.  “And Carter, dude, it’s called Poutiphilia.  You just told Claire’s dad you weren’t into banging dead people.  Which is a good thing, but probably not what you were going for.  Poutiphilia is a person who enjoys sexual relations with people who are passed out.”

Drew is a walking, talking Urbandictionary dot com.

“I was NOT trying to have sexual relations with this woman!” I shout.

“Slow your roll there, Clinton,” Drew says as he came further into the room and squats down next to me.

“HOW ARE YOU DOING, CLAIRE?” Drew yells, talking to her slow and loud like she doesn’t understand English.  “DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?”

He snaps his fingers in front of her face a few times.  She finally blinks and looks up at me.

“Make it stop,” she whines.

I'm not sure if she is referring to Drew or whatever is in her system.  I decide to err on the side of caution and punch Drew in the arm.

“What the fuck did you give her?”

“Just some cookies.  My mom makes them for my uncle all the time and he loves them,” Drew tells me.

“Did you guys get food poisoning or something?  Why the hell is this place such a disaster and Claire is almost comatose?”

I briefly wonder if I should try again to make her puke, but I'm a little afraid George really does have a shotgun hidden somewhere in the room.