CS: What did you observe first?
MH: Well, I woke up after Claire every day, and I’d make the bed to pretend I was useful in some way, and I noticed some little spots of blood on her pillow. Nothing too serious looking. But then she got home that night and had a hefty cough. Plus, her breath had become pretty toxic. She’d block it with her hand but the smell would float across the whole room. And this smell, chief, it was like a dead hooker’s pussy stuffed with old shrimp. But worse. It crawled into your nose like it was living. She started burning nag champa incense, so she must have smelled it too.
CS: Is that when she decided to go to the hospital?
MH: No. Claire is… Claire was a tough one. I was starting to feel a little sick, too, and Claire figured we had some food poisoning. It was her birthday a few days before, and I’d been out “job hunting” at the Pussycat Palace. You know the place?
CS: I’m aware of it.
MH: So you’ve seen Cherry Headrush dance before?
CS: No, Matthew. But I’m aware of many venues and chains because of their prominence on our regional disease vector maps.
MH: Oh. Shit. [Sound of gulping.] Well, I’d flipped for this girl, Cherry. And they’d just extended my unemployment for another three months so I was feeling flush. Spent almost my whole check in one afternoon, hogging up the lap dances. Milking a cheap beer buzz for hours. And then my cell started vibrating and a Reminder message pops up: CLAIRE B-DAY DINNER TONIGHT. Only the “tonight” is spelled like 2-N-I-T-E which means Claire programmed this into my phone so I’d remember. [Long pause.]
CS: Please continue. The food poisoning?
MH: So I’m running late, very buzzed and most of my cash is already in the Pussycat’s sterilizer. But I have to try and pull myself out of this so I hit Chinatown and looked for something fancy to cook up. Chan’s Market has a beautiful red snapper on discount, so I cop that, pick up some lemon and capers, and get two fancy chocolate Cupcakes at Dreampuff’s.
SEE SEPARATE DOCUMENT INSERT FOR RELATED DIRECTOR ORDER: DPDx multi-venue deploy/search/surveil. Full containment authorized. Andolini appointed Team Leader.
CS: Sorry about that break, Matthew. You’ve been very helpful.
MH: Do I have any choice? Really? I appreciate the second bottle, but you might want to give me a bucket if I’m going to keep going. Although I’d have no problem shellacking your little desk here.
CS: Consider us well-advised. Please continue.
MH: Shit, man… it seems obvious, doesn’t it? I barely had any time to bake the fish before Claire got home with Myra. I brushed up and changed my clothes and put on some Alicia Keys even though I can’t stand that shit. Lit a couple of tea lights I found under the sink. But I still fucked it up. I still fucked it up. [Pause] The fish looked good by candle-light. Looked delicious.
CS: You think the red snapper was the original source of the sickness?
MH: Thing is, I was pulling off the sober act, but I had to burp. And that just ruined it. One hundred percent. Like a strip club came out of my mouth. Claire pegged it, and laid into me, even though Myra was sitting in the room in her little bouncy chair and we’d sworn not to fight in front of her. And I mentioned that and we tried to enjoy the dinner and pretend that something was okay and nice and we didn’t even notice how raw the snapper was until we’d taken out half of the fish.
CS: So Claire was guessing that the raw fish had given each of you food poisoning?
MH: Yeah. She was toughing it out until Myra got sick, too. Because that didn’t make any sense. Myra was still breastfeeding, so she never had any of that nasty snapper. But she was coughing and having the blood speckles just the same.
CS: That’s when she visited Pacific Grace, toward the beginning of August?
MH: I think so. I was sort of on my own thing while this was happening. Sleeping on the couch at night. Hiding at Pussycat’s during the day. I told myself I was in exile, giving Claire some space to forgive me. But I was really just doing the same old shit. Living in a worn down strip club booth, paying Cherry to hip-hump me. Hoping that Claire and Myra would start feeling better. That maybe Claire would start feeling so good she’d build up the mojo to finally drop me.
CS: When did you find out she wasn’t feeling better?
MH: Well, Pussycat’s kind of extradited me back to my family. I was already putting off that rotten jellyfish smell and… let’s just say there aren’t enough dollars to make a stripper let you cough blood in her face. I didn’t even see it coming. Just sitting there half-chubbed and dead drunk and BOOM! No tickle in the throat. No warning.
CS: Do you happen to know Cherry Headrush’s real name?
MH: You’re kidding, right? [Sound of bottle opening/sound of gulping.] All I know is that I was home and starting to feel pretty rotten myself, and I can’t imagine how Claire was managing to run the daycare like that. All those little people screaming. “I want. I need. Watch me. Love me.” Jesus.
CS: This was the Morning Sun Daycare on Stanton?
MH: Yup. So, Claire stumbles into the house and she and Myra are both coughing and they have those triple-dark circles under their eyes, and seeing them like that makes me feel like I managed to sneak into Hell without dying. Just worthless. No, worse than that—fucking evil. [Long pause] Claire said the lady at the hospital gave them both two I.V. bags to rehydrate them, and that they needed to go back tomorrow for more diagnostics. But she thought it might be a parasite, like one of those squiggly little gut worms you get from eating sushi in Ohio.
CS: Did she suggest you go with them?
MH: Of course. And I was thinking it was the right thing to do. I was starting to feel weak in my bones. But the next morning I wake up and they’re already gone and there’s a text on my phone saying that they’re both “feeling much better.” Which was weird, because they’d been coughing like crazy all night. Just brutal sounding. Wet. Like I’d guess TB used to sound.
CS: So… a productive cough followed by an apparent return to vigor?
MH: Sure, chief. However you want to call it. It spooked me because I was still under the weather. But I pegged that up in my mind as booze-related immune suppression. All those sauced little white blood cells getting bitch-slapped by the bugs in my system.
SEE SEPARATE DOCUMENT INSERT RE: Viability of ethanol [or variant] ingestion as chemical deterrent to life cycle of [un-named parasite/parasitoid CASE: F-DPD0758].
CS: So when did it become evident that Claire and Myra were still… unwell?
MH: [Prolonged sound of gulping.] You want to hear the rest, you get me a loaded shotgun. I promise I’ll only fire it once.
CS: Not an option, Matthew.
MH: Okay. Fuck it. I better get the truth out before the goddamn crawler starts telling my story. [Pause/sound of shuddering exhalation.] I knew they were still unwell when I found their tongues. Claire’s was in the bed, tucked under a pillow. Dried up already, like jerky. And Myra’s…
CS: Please, Matthew.
MH: Myra’s was in her crib, next to her favorite pacifier, the one with the orange dolphin on the back. And I’ve got to tell you, chief, between my half-sick, half-drunk stupor and lack of sleep, I felt like I was dreaming. So I did what seemed like the right thing. I threw the tongues in the garbage and kept on tidying the apartment. Like I could organize away what I was seeing. Like I could clean up reality.
SEE SEPARATE DOCUMENT INSERT FOR RELATED DIRECTOR ORDER: DPDx forensic detachment to attain SW Sanitation schedule/potential combing of landfill [use of trailing dogs authorized]. Retention of tissue from Subjects 3 and 4 Top Priority, presence/absence of eggs to be communicated ASAP.
MH (continued): So I had the place pretty spruced, and I was waiting for them to come home. Claire wasn’t answering her phone. And my nerves were on four alarm blaze, so I had some bourbon close by, just to keep things mellow until I could figure out what was going on. I’d call her phone. Five rings. Voice mail. Nothing. Take a swig. Five rings. Voice mail. Nothing.
And they still weren’t home by 9:00pm.
CS: Records show you called Claire’s mother.
MH: Three or four times. But she never picked up. And I thought about calling the cops, but I knew my speech was slurring by that point. What would I tell them? There was no crime, and they’d probably guess it was just another wife bailing with the kid, leaving the stew-bum behind.
CS: But their tongues? That must have…
MH: Can’t see that impressing the cops either. Just a way to induce them to pack a straitjacket. Besides, if I mentioned finding their tongues… I’d been on a steady drunk trying to bury that detail, hoping I was just losing my shit.
CS: So when did you next see Claire and Myra?
MH: Never again. I think the night they came home from the doctor’s was the last time I really saw them.
CS: Matthew, the chronology we’ve established shows the three of you were in that apartment for almost two days before we…
MH: Before you decided to bust into my place and stop me from finishing my work? Listen, chief, this is hard enough to talk about. So let me lay it out for you without all of your interjections and then we can clear up your questions later.
CS: [Long pause.]
MH: That’s more like it. So what I’m saying is that I saw Claire and Myra again, but they sure as shit weren’t my Claire and Myra. At some point that night I’d finished my bottle and given up on my phone crusade. I remember thinking, “She finally left me.” And I remember feeling so relieved. No one would expect anything from me after that, you know? I’d cop some menial job, enough to service a studio apartment and child support. I’d push for a few weekends a month with Myra, just enough to not feel guilty when I show some stripper a picture of my kid. I think I’d been waiting for a long time for a chance to fall apart.
CS: Matthew, I need to know more about your wife and child, and time is a factor. We have a staff psychologist you can speak with later if you need to get more familial issues off your chest.
MH: Courtesy is a short-lived thing around here, huh, chief? All right then, shitbird… So I passed out on the couch, if you can believe it. Noble. Noble guy. And when I woke up they were sitting at the foot of the couch, both of them, very quietly and… holy shit… and Claire was nursing Myra, and her head was tilted, and she was staring across the room at nothing, like she was back on Paxil, and they both had those goddamn seaweed eyes. And Claire had both of her breasts out and the one that wasn’t in Myra’s mouth was… it was kind of lumpy, like it had been stuffed with tapioca, and the nipple looked raw, just red meat raw, with these blisters around it, some popped, some filled up with the same dark green that was in her eyes, and…
CS: Hold on for a moment please, Matthew.
SEE SEPARATE DOCUMENT INSERT RE: Confirmation of multiple gender-specific intra-species transmission methods as seen in CASE: F-DPD0674. Student population under Sector 6 Quarantine should immediately be grouped same sex for confirmation/testing of all fluids for presence of concurrent microparasites.
CS: Okay, we’re back, Matthew.
MH: [Garbled/indistinct vulgarity.] My tongue is starting to feel numb. [Sound of coughing/spitting]. Aw, Christ, chief.
CS: I’d suggest drinking some water. We need you to finish your account.
MH: Yeah, well… suggest in one hand and spit in the other and see which one fills up first. [Sound of laughter/sound of gulping/sound of empty bottle set down on table.] What you have to understand is that I thought I was dreaming, seeing Claire and Myra like that. Between the guilt and the hooch, that kind of nightmare fits right in. But then Claire put one of her bony bird hands on my ankle and she turned toward me and smiled. And I swear to God, these two wiry antennae uncurled from in between her teeth and started swaying in the air. So of course I lost my shit. I rolled onto my side and chucked out my guts on the shag carpet, and it’s just bile and bourbon and I get that post-puke rush where things feel okay for a moment and I’m thinking I’m awake now and then I turn back towards Claire. [Long pause] She’s still smiling at me and this voice comes out of her mouth and says, “Empty. Feed.” And she’s got her other breast cupped and I swear it’s dribbling this shit like fucking wheat grass juice. [Pause] And Myra… Myra pulls off the other breast, or at least her lips move away, but there’s something else pushing out of her mouth, something with those same feelers wiggling, and it’s latched on to Claire, right on her tit, and it’s got these two tiny claws pinched on and its body is pulsing and hunching, and these plates on its back are clicking together and I can see through this thing’s belly, where the skin is clear and its guts are filling up green. And Myra’s eyes look almost black, but I can still tell they’re rolling back in her head…
CS: Claire could speak?
MH: They both could. But Myra… she didn’t have any words yet, so she would smile and her lips would pull back, but all that came out… Have you ever seen that footage of dolphins being massacred in Japan? And Claire’s voice was different. There was a lisp, like her mouth was too full, and there was a sort of hissing to it, like cricket legs or… [Pause] And the smell that came from them filled up the room. It was like being stuck in the dumpster behind a seafood wholesaler on a hundred degree day. Made me throw up again.
CS: So why didn’t you call 911?
MH: Are you listening to me, chief? This strikes you as a rational response fucking situation? I had no bearings. I asked Claire a question, thinking that this time she’d give me a normal answer in her old, sweet voice and I’d be all the way awake, but it came out with no authority and just made me feel smaller and detached and more alone. But I told her I was worried and that I wondered where she was yesterday and she smiled again… I’m thinking that’s the only way the thing could move around in there… and all she says is, “Work. Feeding.” And I say, “You were at the daycare?” She nods and says, “Feeding. Growing. Most will be born.” Then she looks down at Myra, and her nose curls up like she’s disgusted, and she says, “This one is dying. This one is too small.” [Long pause/sound of soft crying.]
CS: Matthew, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But the more detail…
MH: Details, chief? Go fuck yourself. I did what I did. I tried to save them. I tried to fix it. To fix them before anybody would have to know… But it was too late. I could barely stand, but Claire was always pretty frail, and this fucking bug thing had wiped her out. So I tried to help her first and it wasn’t too difficult to get her hands belted behind her, but that thing… that thing had teeth or mandibles or whatever and Claire started to shake and even with all the lamps in the room turned on my head kept making a shadow over her face and Myra was squealing and stomping her heels down where I left her on the carpet and I couldn’t tell where the thing in Claire’s mouth ended and the rest of her tongue began and when I cut in with the box knife it started bleeding so bad… But for just a moment Claire was looking straight at me, and even with the green lace it looked like her old eyes and then she spit right in my face. Right in my face, and she meant it. And her mouth was half-filled, and I noticed the blood from the thing and my wife wouldn’t quite mix, so there’s your details chief. Then her lips pulled back and the eyes were still Claire’s eyes and she said, “You did this to us.”
CS: Matthew, she…
MH: She was right. She was right. Even after I managed to finish cutting through, and I’d pulled the goddamn thing out of her face and smashed it under my foot… You want more details? The shell of the thing started changing colors and it hissed and sprayed a yellow mist out of its mouth after I set it on the floor. What the fuck does that? Even after I got the thing out of Claire she still had her eyes trained on me, just bullet-eyes, and she couldn’t have hated me any more. And I couldn’t fix her, because she was already weak and I don’t think she could stop from choking on all that blood. But I thought that Myra… [Long pause.]
CS: You didn’t try to remove the “crawler?”
MH: I didn’t want her to bleed like Claire. So I thought if I co
uld just kill the bug that maybe it would just detach and… and I was thinking of how they cook lobsters, and I tried to keep the water in a tin can and hold her over it, but the steam was making everything slick and I couldn’t get her mouth open at the same time and… so I thought that the burns would heal, you know how they say that the inside of your mouth can heal so fast, and then at least she’d live, and I didn’t put the sponge in there for more than twenty seconds, but the thing was hissing and it tried to curl in on itself, and Myra started shaking and making fists and then her eyes were open and they were looking right at me, right into me, and…
We Live Inside You Page 14