W.O.R.M.S.

by J. J. Alston

  A day between each procedure allowed the two of them to rest. Jeff drifted off after his turn only to be woken up by the splash of ice cold water in his face.

  And the blood curdling screams of Victoria.

  They were in a room similar to the clinic’s operating room, but much bigger and much, much colder. There were several steel tables like the ones they lay on. On those tables, sheet-covered figures lay rigid.

  A morgue? Jeff’s horror nearly got the better of him, but he stifled a scream. He focused on Victoria and on what their captors had used to secure them. Felt like plastic tie wraps, unfortunately.

  A burly man held her hands behind her back and Dr. Peters crouched over, in Jeff’s face.

  "Well, good morning Jeff." His fake pleasant demeanor made Jeff sick, but the pronounced limp from where he’d shot him in the thigh gave Jeff no small amount of satisfaction.

  Had Jeff not been tied up and recovering from the mind-numbing drugs that Victoria had given him for the procedure, he would have punched the man in the nose.

  "It's come to my understanding that you two have uncovered a cure for the disease. That doesn't sound good, my friend."

  Jeff struggled against his bonds, but tie wraps were insanely hard to get out of. And his had been pulled tight. "I swear, I'll—"

  A coy smile curled on Dr. Peter's face as he said, "What? What are you going to do now? Nothing. Just sit here and watch us torture your little girlfriend until she tells us where the serum is." His sharp gaze glittered with malevolence.

  Jeff wanted to tell her not to, but his daughter's life was at stake. He had to think fast, but what could he do?

  Scanning the room, Jeff searched for something, anything, to help them escape. There was nothing but the tool cabinet against one wall, a propane tank in the corner, and rows upon rows of lockers where they stored the corpses.

  A burly man standing over Victoria put out a cigarette on the soft flesh of her stomach. He flicked open a carving knife and cut a strand of her hair from the scalp.

  She let out another blood-curdling scream as he lit another cigarette.

  “Take me,” Jeff said. He couldn’t stand the thought of her suffering so horribly, even after what she’d done. She must have been sure they’d have a cure to save his daughter. He knew she wouldn’t have done it otherwise.

  "Josue,” Peters said, placing a hand on the tormentor’s shoulder, “is quite good at skinning things. He's got a whole collection at home. Worth quite a bit on the black market.” He sounded like a proud father. “ I wonder how much those billionaire clients you attacked on their island would pay to hunt down what will be left of Victoria when we're done with her."

  Jeff swallowed hard. Despite the professor's creepy smile, he wasn't joking.

  "But just for a little motivation, we're going to try a little, shall we say, thought experiment."

  "A what?" Jeff asked.

  The silver-haired man stabbed him in the thigh with a syringe.

  "Payback's a bitch," the professor said. "You shot me in the thigh, just thought I'd repay the favor."

  Jeff's leg throbbed and the creatures under his skin pulsated as they replicated at lightning speed.

  "Holy ..." Jeff said, writhing in pain.

  "No!" Victoria screamed, her eyes widening at the sight.

  "Now, if I'm correct, this man will die within 72 hours if he's not injected with the serum. Will he not?" Dr. Peter asked Victoria.

  Jeff traded looks with Victoria and she nodded. "How could you be so cruel?" asked the woman.

  "Now, that's not fair. I'm quite charitable, actually. I've allowed you to live, haven't I? My little friends were poised to carve you up like steaks for injecting them with the virus. That is, until they realized that you didn't inject them with anything after all. Now, that was cruel."

  Maybe he could negotiate a cure for himself and for his little girl. "Give it to them, Victoria. We've already lost."

  "But—" she said, her eye twitching.

  "It's behind the fireplace. It says Exhibit A," said Jeff.

  That creepy smile reappeared on the professor's face as he headed over to the fireplace, pulled back some logs, and found the vial.

  "You have no idea how happy this makes me. If this is true, then the parasites will die immediately. If not, then you die. Both of you."

  "Stand me up. It won't work unless you prop me up," said Jeff. “And you have to remove the zip ties. They’re too tight, the meds won’t circulate properly.”

  The professor nodded for Josue to do as Jeff asked.

  Dr. Peters stabbed him with the syringe in the same spot he'd injected the worms.

  "Don't use too much. That's all we have. Ten cc's should work," said Jeff as the professor injected just enough, then pulled it out.

  All eyes were on Jeff's leg as the pulsating under his skin stopped. Thousands of worms squeezed out of his pores, screeching, dropping onto the hardwood floor like flies and drying up as they did.

  "Excellent," said the professor, clapping.

  He was so busy celebrating, he must have forgotten that Jeff was from the bonds that held him.

  He wasn’t too busy to notice how Jeff elbowed the burly man, Josue, in the throat. A quick kickbox to Peters’ temple knocked him out cold.

  Jeff poked holes into a propane tank with a carving knife, then grabbed Josue’s lighter and a cigarette.

  "How did you...?" Victoria started to ask, but Jeff took her by the hand and led her out of the room and down the hallway as he lit up the cigarette.

  "Shouldn't we tie them up before we ... I didn't know you smoked," she said.

  "I don't," he said, chucking the cigarette through the open door and leading her at breakneck speed as the fire lit up the propane and lit the room afire.

  A body stumbled through the doorway, its slight form aflame. Jeff kicked Peters in the chest, sending him flying back into the room.

  Jeff and Victoria ran as fast as they could. Within minutes, they’d made it out of the morgue and onto a blacktop highway.

  "Oh, my ..." she said, as they stopped just long enough to catch their breath.

  "Got the serum?" he asked.

  She nodded.

  "Good," he said, smiling. They may have dodged that bullet, but curing his daughter and the rest of the world in time was going to be challenging enough.

  When Jeff arrived in Memphis and asked to see his daughter, his ex didn’t give him one ounce of grief. As much as she hated him, and regardless of her reasons, she wanted her little girl to have as many loved ones around her as possible. When he told her he had the cure, she fainted outright.

  He injected Natalia while Casey was passed out. Victoria helped the woman into a chair when she came to. Jeff was sitting on the hospital bed with Natalia, holding her small hand in his own.

  For the first time in a long time, Jeff prayed. He didn’t know how long the WORMS had been in her system, or how much damage they’d done while there. He could only hope she’d recover.

  After a few moments, the worms made their way out of her body through her pores, dropping onto the sheets beneath her and drying up to harmless husks. The disease was gone, the cure had worked. But was it in time?

  Casey sat on the bed on the other side of their daughter. Together, and with Victoria at his side, they waited.

  ***

  3 weeks later...

  “Daddy, a little help, please!” Natalia shouted from her bedroom down the hall.

  Jeff was happy beyond belief. He never thought he’d have the chance to spend time with his daughter. But after he showed up with the cure and saved her life, Casey agreed to visitation. They were starting slow, every other weekend and only on Saturday during the day, but it was something.

  He turned off the stove and shifted the pan of bubbling bacon to a cool burner on the back, then rushed to help her into her wheelchair. The worms had attacked her muscles first, which meant that she’d survive but that she had years of physical therapy
ahead. She may never walk again, but as long as he was around and able to, he wouldn’t let her quit trying.

  “Okay, sweetie, ready?”

  She looped an arm around his shoulders and nodded.

  “One, two, three...”

  He lifted her easily and gently placed her in the seat.

  “Sorry I’m so much trouble.” She picked at a loose thread on the hem of her t-shirt. Her blonde hair fell in a curtain that shielded her face from his view.

  He pushed it back behind one ear, wiped a tear from her cheek, and picked her up again to hold her close. Sitting on the bed with her in his lap, he rocked her like he did when she was a toddler.

  “I hate that this happened to you, but I couldn’t be happier that I get to hold you a little longer. You’ll always be my baby, and that’s no trouble at all.”

  Later that evening, after Casey picked up Natalia, Jeff got a phone call from Victoria. Things were... weird, but good. He’d never fully forgive her for injecting Natalia, but he understood why she did it. He just tried to maintain his distance from her. She was simply way too tempting for him to let her get close again.

  It had been working, until that moment she called. With the news she carried, there was no way he was going to be able to cut her out of his life any time soon.

  “Jeff? Hey, it’s me, Victoria. Listen, we need to talk.”

  “Victoria, I can’t—”

  “Bradley sent me a letter.”

  “He probably had some property or something in the US to leave you. If there’s anything for me, mail it.”

  “This letter was posted from the US two weeks ago. Jeff, you know what this means, right?”

  His heart was beating so fast, it was painful. “No. No way, Victoria.”

  “We didn’t see him, Jeff. We only saw a tombstone.”

  Jeff shook his head even though she couldn’t possibly see the motion.

  “He’s alive, Jeff. Bradley is alive.”