by C. W. LaSart
I killed her. I fucking killed her. Chad thought, his head cradled in his hands as hot tears flooded his eyes. And I fucking ate her.
Chad’s stomach churned again and he splattered his shoes with a fresh bout of acid, surprised there was anything left in him. He wasn’t entirely shocked to realize he was half hard from the memories.
Panic rose to gnaw at his chest, his heart pounding furiously as he considered what he should do. He was in an abandoned building, next to the corpse of a hooker he’d killed and eaten, far from his home and car. He half expected to hear the whine of sirens and the banging of cops at the door, as if his guilt was being broadcast through the atmosphere and straight to the nearest station.
“Calm down.” Chad said, trying hard to make his body obey, his pulse still racing. “You’re a lawyer. You know about crime. Look at this as a crime scene.”
Taking several deep breaths, Chad closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he opened them, he tried to survey the scene with a critical eye, letting the voice of his law experience speak in his mind.
First problem, DNA from his saliva, semen, and god knew what else.
It’s okay. The voice reasoned. Your record is clean. They won’t have your DNA on file. Besides, if you’re lucky, she won’t be found.
Witnesses.
Everyone at the club was engaged in one or more illegal activities. They won’t be volunteering anything. The street was abandoned during your walk. No one knew you. If anyone saw you, you won’t know unless they come forward, but in that section of town, people don’t trust the cops.
Did I leave anything behind? He began to check his pockets and wallet.
Keys. Phone. Driver’s License. Credit Cards. Cash. Looks like it’s all there.
How to get home.
Walk. Not too fast, not too slow. Do nothing to attract attention. When you get to a better area of town, you can call a cab and go home. Throw your clothes and shoes in the trash compactor. Shower and shave and act like none of this ever happened.
Chad looked at Lily, discarded on the floor like trash. He felt bad. He hadn’t meant to hurt her, but right now the fact that she was a hooker was his biggest break. Even if the cops found her body soon, they probably wouldn’t put too many resources into finding her killer without a family breathing down their necks. He felt like a bastard, but was grateful she was one of the city’s disposable souls.
“I’m sorry, Lily.” He turned away but stopped when something caught his eye. Her hand gripped a piece of paper. His heart began to pound once again, making him dizzy with the thought of how he had almost left behind the one clue that could link him to the scene. Careful not to touch her, he pried the paper from her grip. It was exactly what he had feared, the ticket stub the old man at the pawn shop had given him.
Turning it over in his hand, Chad saw the address on the back now read 311 ¼ Oxford Drive, though the creases seemed to be in the same places, and the wear made it look identical to the other.
Hell, that’s almost in my neighborhood.
Chad’s phone vibrated in his pocket, startling him, and he dropped the ticket. Grabbing the phone, he looked at the caller ID. It was Elliot. He flipped the phone open.
“Elliot . . . ”
“Hey man! What the hell happened to you last night?” Elliot’s voice was loud as usual, full of enthusiasm.
“Sorry, Elliot. I didn’t mean to ditch on you like that. I wasn’t feeling very well.”
“Sure. Sure. You met some little hottie while we were dancing and left with her, didn’t you?”
“No.” Chad glanced at Lily, and feelings of disgust and desire warred within him, causing him to shudder. “It wasn’t a woman. Listen, Elliot. Now really isn’t the best . . . ”
“Sasha wants me to ask you if we’re still on for tonight?”
Chad bent to retrieve the fallen ticket, his mind barely on the conversation.
“Tonight?”
“Yeah. The bachelor party. You know. The one you’re supposed to be throwing your best friend.”
“I don’t know, man. Something’s come up—”
“Chad, you can’t back out on us now. Sasha’s hoping you’re going to take us to a strip club. Maybe one of the really sleazy ones on the East Side.” Elliot chuckled, and Chad could imagine him winking at Sasha in the background.
Turning the ticket over, Chad stared at the new address, realizing it wasn’t the only thing that had changed. Visions of Lily and the woman last night flooded his mind, quickly replaced by memories of him and Sasha fucking like animals on the couch while Elliot slept in the next room. He thought of how cold Sasha had been when she broke it off with him. He thought of how much Elliot meant to him and the heartbreak he would suffer when he learned what a slut his new wife really was. He imagined the two of them fucking her at the same time in a sticky booth at Club Carnal. Then he thought of the spoons and a room full of people, taking out their most primal desires on one another.
He knew what he needed to do. He wanted to do it for Elliot, after what Sasha had done to him, but mostly he wanted to be back there just one more time. One more night of unearthly bliss and he could save his best pal from what would only result in a nasty divorce.
“Yeah, Elliot. We’re still on. But it won’t be some cheap strip club for my best friend and his fiancé.”
Chad looked at the scribbled handwriting on the back of the stub. ADMIT THREE.
“I have somewhere much better in mind.”
LUNCH DATE WITH LOA LOA
“Mr. Hanks? Dr. McDonald will see you now.”
“Thank you.” Mark stood up from his seat, tossing a well-worn copy of National Geographic onto the waiting room’s coffee table. Following the pretty, blonde nurse, he wondered if she would be impressed if she knew he had taken some of the pictures in that magazine.
I doubt it, he thought, thanking her once again when she showed him into an exam room. Ordinarily he would have taken the chance and brought it up anyway, but he was too preoccupied for any attempt at flirtation.
Another nurse knocked before entering, this one much older and far less attractive, her salt and pepper hair cropped short and her face cast into a permanent frown.
“Please roll up your shirt sleeve, Mr. Hanks.” She stuck a thermometer in his mouth, then strapped the blood pressure cuff around his bicep and pumped it brutally tight, her fingers pressed firmly on his inner wrist.
“So what brings you in today, Mr. Hanks?”
“Dere’s a womb in ma aye.” He muttered around the thermometer.
“I’m sorry, what?” She released the cuff and scratched some numbers on a pad of paper, finally glancing at Mark, who raised his eyebrows and pointed at his mouth with his free hand.
“Yes, of course.” She removed the thermometer and held up a finger to prevent him from speaking as she scratched more numbers down. “Now what were you saying?”
“There’s a worm in my eye.” Though his tone was calm, Mark’s insides twisted just saying it.
“A worm in your eye.” The nurse frowned.
“Yeah.”
“Any other symptoms?”
Mark thought about it for a moment before answering, doing a mental inventory of his body. “Some soreness in my joints, a rash that comes and goes, and a lot of pain in my eye when it moves.”
“It moves?”
“Well, yeah. That’s when I noticed it.”
The nurse stood, giving him a strained smile.
“The doctor will be in to see you.” She said, handing him a blue and white gown. “Take off your shirt and slip this on. You can keep your pants.”
“No foreplay then?” Mark joked, as she turned on her heel and left the room.
“I guess not.” He said with a sigh, slipping into the gown and sitting on the exam table with his hands hanging between his knees.
He wasn’t afraid of the doctor’s office, but wearing the thin linen gown made him feel like a child. Though he’d been healthy most of his
childhood, it seemed his entire youth had been spent in rooms like this one. His mother had been a paranoid sort, rushing him in for every sneeze and sniffle.
“Hey Mark, how’s it going?” Dr. Alex McDonald didn’t knock before entering; they had been friends for many years. He sat on his stool and wheeled over to shake Mark’s hand.
“Been better, Alex.”
“What’s going on with you?” As he spoke, Alex palpated Mark’s neck, checking the lymph nodes, then looked in his ears.
“Well, I guess there’s a worm in my eye.” Mark cringed as he said it.
“A worm in your eye?” Alex laughed, his brow furrowed.
“Yeah. This morning I had a bad pain in my left eye and when I looked in the mirror I saw it. Not much thicker than a thread, but fairly long. It wiggled across the white of my eye, under the surface. Freaked me the fuck out.”
“Can you feel it now?” Alex looked concerned, his smile fading. He pulled back Mark’s eyelids and peered into the left eye with his ophthalmoscope.
“Not really, but my joints have been aching off and on and I keep getting a rash that fades after a few days. I thought maybe I was getting the flu.”
“How long have the other symptoms been present?” Alex scribbled on a notepad, much like the unpleasant nurse.
“Oh, maybe a few months.” Mark felt the sting of tears in his eyes, his palms sweating. He knew parasites were a job hazard, could handle the thought of a tape worm or chiggers, but in his eye?
“Okay, Mark. We’ll get to the bottom of this. From the looks of your chart, I gave you a malaria shot around three years ago. You were going to Africa, am I right?”
“Yeah. I went to the Congo to photograph a group of western lowland gorillas.”
“Yes, yes. I remember that now. Stunning photos, by the way.”
“Thank you. Do you think I picked something up in Africa?”
“Possibly. I have an idea what’s going on here, but give me minute to do some research. I’ll be right back and we’ll figure out what to do, bud.” Alex patted Mark on the shoulder and disappeared out the door.
Mark waited on the table, nervous. After what seemed like an eternity, the doctor walked back in the room and sat on his stool, his mouth set in a serious line, though his eyes danced with excitement.
“Well Mark, it looks like you’ve picked up a case of loiasis. Have you heard of it?”
“Sounds vaguely familiar. What is it, in English please.”
“What you saw in your eye is a Loa loa worm, otherwise known as an African Eye Worm. You can get it through the bite of an infected mango fly and it may take years to present any symptoms. The worms themselves can live up to seventeen years and cause all kinds of trouble from colonic damage to testicular swelling. We will have to do a blood test to be sure, but I’d bet my eyeteeth that’s what it is.” Alex laughed when Mark cringed at the term eyeteeth. “Sorry, man. I know it’s freaky. I would’ve never guessed I‘d actually get to see a case of Loa loa in person.”
“Glad I made your day, Doc.” Mark said sarcastically. “What do we do now?”
“Well, from what I’ve read, the best chance of detecting the microfilariae in your blood,”
“English, Doc.”
“The baby worms. Anyway, the best chance we have of detecting them in a blood test would be to wait until around noon tomorrow. That’s when they are present in the highest concentration. So you come back at, say twelve-thirty tomorrow and we’ll do the tests. Think of it as a lunch date with Loa loa.” Alex smiled and Mark grimaced.
“Funny. Okay, so then what?”
“If you test positive, we will get you on some medication to kill the worms.”
“Worms?” Mark felt his stomach lurch.
“Oh, yeah. If you have one, there’s probably hundreds more.”
***
The following afternoon, Mark once again sat waiting in an exam room for Alex. His blood had been drawn and they were awaiting the test results. The doctor finally entered and shook his hand again, before clapping him on the shoulder and taking his seat.
“The tests were positive. Your little buddy is in fact a Loa loa worm.” Alex did his best to look grave, but Mark knew he was delighted to add this to his list of unusual cases.
“Okay, so what do we do to get rid of my little buddy?”
“There are a few options. We could surgically remove it, but we have to catch it when it’s actually crossing the eye, and that’s not going to be easy. Also, that would leave the rest of the worms in your system. There are a few drug options, some more effective than others, but they have risks of side effects. Most of the side effects happen in a person who is heavily infested, but the good news is that you are not. I would like to hit this hard with the most powerful drug, DEC. It runs the highest risks of complication, such as encephalopathy and death, but you are strong and healthy, with a relatively mild infestation.”
“All right.” Mark shuddered, horrified that he had the parasites, no matter how mild the case.
Alex scribbled his prescription on a notepad, then tore off the top sheet and handed it to Mark.
“Take this to the pharmacy. I doubt they have it in stock, but they’ll be able to order it. You will take the pills three times a day for the next three weeks.”
“Three weeks?” Mark said, dismayed at the thought of living with the Loa loa for three more weeks.
“Mmm-hmm. We will retest your blood then. Only about fifty-percent get by with one round of DEC. There’s a chance you might have to go another three weeks on top of that.”
“Fantastic.” Mark grumbled.
“And Mark, no alcohol at all during this time. A large number of subjects with adverse reactions reported to have consumed alcohol. So no alcohol, okay?” Alex fixed him with a stern look.
“Alright, Doc. I’ve got it. No fun.”
***
The Loa loa made its appearance five more times during the first couple of weeks Mark was on the DEC. It always started with a sharp pain in his left eye, coupled with the previously unsettling and now awful feeling of movement under his eyelid. Despite the ache in his eye, he could feel it sliding just beneath the surface, inching its way around.
Sometimes it felt like a bubble, wriggling and pushing against the lid. Mark found himself bolting to the bathroom each time to watch its progress. Just under the iris, his sclera would look bubbled, the thread-thin worm starting its trek that took from ten to fifteen minutes. Mark guessed it could be as much as an inch or two in length, but it was hard to tell as the worm wriggled its way across, just beneath the surface membrane of his eyeball.
By the third week, the Loa loa appeared to be dead, and lab tests confirmed that the DEC had removed the larvae from his blood. Mark breathed a sigh of relief and went on with his life. He pointedly avoided looking in the toilet after crapping, afraid he might see what looked like spaghetti in there.
***
One morning, nearly a month later, when the episode with the Loa loa was an unpleasant but fading memory, Mark awoke with a crushing headache. It felt as though someone was pounding the right side of his head with a hammer. Dizzy and disoriented, he got out of bed and staggered to the bathroom to retrieve some aspirin from the medicine cabinet, took four, and collapsed on the couch. At least it was Sunday, and he could stay in his apartment and watch football.
By the afternoon, the headache hadn’t subsided and, even worse, Mark noticed a change in his vision.
I wonder if this is what a migraine feels like, he thought, returning to the bathroom for more aspirin.
He studied his haggard reflection in the mirror. Something was wrong. Leaning in close to examine his eyes, he gasped and took a step back.
“What the fuck?”
Mark looked at his eyes again and shook his head in bewilderment. His right eye was still the familiar pale blue, but his left pupil was now ringed in brown. Squeezing his eyes shut for a second before opening them again, Mark felt a sharp pain sho
ot through the right side of his head. He gripped the sink for support, his vision blurred.
After the world stopped spinning, he looked in the mirror again and closed just his left eye. His vision cleared and the dizziness retreated. He closed the right eye, leaving the left open and his stomach lurched.
Darkness.
Mark was blind in his left eye.
***
“I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Hanks.” The ophthalmologist sat back and scratched his chin. “From all my testing, it seems your eye is working just fine. It reacts the way it should to light and other stimuli. I have no idea why you can’t see through it.”
Mark had called Alex right away, but was told his problem was beyond the scope of his practice and was immediately referred to an eye doctor. Now the eye doctor was telling him there was nothing wrong with his eye.
“What about the color change? What would cause that?” Mark turned his useless left eye away from the doctor so he could see him better through his right.
“That’s strange. I have heard of brown-eyed patients suddenly turning blue, but that is an anomaly that only occurs in centurions and no one really knows what causes it. But blue eyes turning brown? Not after two years of age or so.”
“Is there anything we can do?” Knowing he had been harboring a worm in his eye was bad, but it was nothing compared to the fear of going blind. Mark panicked, thinking of how many changes this would cause in his life, one of them being the end of his career as a photographer. “Is my other eye at risk?”
“It’s hard to say, but I doubt it. I’ve never seen anything like this, but if I had to hazard a guess, maybe the Loa loa did some damage in your left eye that I can’t detect. Short of having your regular doctor order an MRI, I don’t know how to proceed further here.”
“I’ll call Dr. Alex and ask for an MRI. I need my eyes.” Mark was frustrated by the ophthalmologist’s perplexed attitude.
“Okay, tell him I would appreciate it if he would send the copy of the report to my office right away.”
Mark walked out the door, the bright afternoon sunlight stinging his freshly dilated right eye, forcing him to put on his sunglasses. As he slipped into the driver’s seat, his glasses slid down his nose and he caught sight of his eyes in the rearview mirror. Despite the blurriness in his good eye, he could see instantly there had been a change. No longer just ringed in darkness, his left eye was now completely brown.