Benjamin's Parasite

by Jeff Strand

  Julie kicked him in the chest.

  It happened so quickly that it took Benjamin a moment to register what she'd done. Fortunately, it took Clyde even longer, and Benjamin dove at him.

  Out of the corner of his eye as they crashed to the ground, he saw Pedro return the kick, knocking Julie against the wall. Then he became somewhat preoccupied with the sight of Clyde's gun pointed at his face.

  "Don't kill him!" Pedro shouted.

  "I wasn't gonna."

  Benjamin took advantage of this fact and punched Clyde in the face, as hard as he could. A bolt of pain shot through his fist. That guy had one hell of a hard chin.

  Julie tried to return Pedro's return of her kick, but he grabbed her foot and swung her in a circle, professional wrestler-style, and then bashed her into the wall again. She hit hard and fell to the ground.

  Benjamin punched Clyde in the face with his other hand. Now he had two stinging hands and no visible impact on his opponent. It occurred to him that if the gun accidentally went off, punching Clyde repeatedly would have been a very bad idea. So he stopped doing it.

  Julie jumped to her feet.

  Clyde punched Benjamin in the face. It hurt way more than he expected, even after a day of parasite pain and some prior punches, and he blinked tears out of his eyes. He was an English teacher, not a hand-to-hand combatant!

  "I will kill you if you make me," said Clyde with what appeared to be a genuine snarl. Benjamin didn't often hear people speak with snarls in real life.

  "No, you won't," said Pedro, kicking Julie yet again.

  The next punch made Benjamin's vision go black for a split second. He was pretty sure his eyes crossed, too. He tasted blood and knew that he simply wasn't going to win this fight.

  He spat blood into Clyde's face and said: "Flesh-eating bacteria!"

  Clyde yelped and frantically tried to scoot away. Benjamin grabbed for the gun, dug his fingernails into Clyde's wrist, and pulled the weapon away. Benjamin was now pointing a loaded pistol at himself, but he quickly rectified the situation and spun it around at Clyde.

  "I'll shoot him," Benjamin warned. "I mean it."

  "I'll give you fifty bucks if you make it a head shot," said Pedro.

  Benjamin stood up, keeping the gun pointed at Clyde. He'd never fired a gun before and his hands still hurt, but Clyde looked plenty intimidated.

  Joey stepped out of the motel room. His hand was pressed against his nose and some blood trickled through his fingers.

  "What the hell happened to you?" Pedro demanded.

  "Nothing."

  "Did the old lady do this to you?"

  Joey shook his head.

  "The old man?"

  Joey shrugged.

  "The old man your brother gut-shot gave you a goddamn bloody nose?"

  "He's tricky, okay?"

  Off in the distance, Benjamin heard a siren.

  "Well, the cops are on their way," Pedro announced. "That's just great. Just swell. God, my life sucks."

  "I propose a truce," said Julie.

  "What kind of truce?"

  "None of us want police involvement," she explained. "I lose, you lose, Benjamin loses. Let's all get in our separate cars—I'll have to steal one kind of quickly, I guess—drive the hell away from this motel, and work it out later."

  "So you're calling for a time-out, not a truce."

  "Fine. I'm calling a time-out."

  Everybody was silent for a moment.

  "Time-out works for me," said Benjamin. Though he actually wasn't sure that having the police arrest their entire group would be such a bad thing, he figured the chances of this turning into a Wild Bunch-style "everybody dies" shootout would be reduced if the cops didn't surround them.

  Pedro nodded. "Okay. I can go for that."

  "Everybody lower your guns," said Julie.

  Benjamin lowered his gun first, and the others followed. The sirens were much closer now.

  "Ha!" said Joey, suddenly raising his gun and pointing it at Julie.

  Though Julie's lack of planning skills and common sense made her a less than desirable benefactor in Benjamin's eyes, he couldn't argue with her physical agility. She'd moved out of the way before Joey's gun was even completely raised.

  He fired three silenced bullets, all of which punched into Clyde's chest.

  Benjamin gasped.

  Pedro smacked his forehead and said something in Spanish that sounded a lot like a string of curse words.

  "Clyde!" Joey screamed. He knelt down and cradled his brother. "Clyde, you're gonna be okay...don't die on me, bro!"

  Clyde touched his index finger to his bleeding chest. "You asshole." He closed his eyes and was still.

  "Joey, we need to go!" said Pedro, glancing around in a panic.

  "He's my brother!" Joey sobbed. "I won't leave him!"

  Julie ran into the old man and woman's motel room and returned a moment later with a set of keys. She picked up her gun and briefcase, then she and Benjamin hurried over to the yellow Volkswagen parked in front of the room.

  "That's right, run!" shouted Joey, as Benjamin opened the passenger side door. "I vow vengeance! Wherever you go, I'll be there! I'll hunt you to the ends of forever!"

  Benjamin hurriedly got into the car, buckled up, and closed the door. Julie started the engine.

  "Vengeance!" Joey screamed, as Pedro tried to tug him away from Clyde's body. "Someday when you least expect it, you'll be in a public restroom or something, and I'll be there! I'll walk up behind you and I'll slit your throat! You'll be gushing blood and gargling and you'll know that you're paying for what you made me accidentally do to Clyde!"

  They drove out of the motel parking lot and headed back for the interstate, in the opposite direction of the sirens.

  "Which one of us was he yelling at?" Julie asked.

  "Wasn't it you?"

  "I thought it was me, but then he started in with that whole public restroom bit."

  "I don't know." Benjamin sighed. "That was way too close. Are you sure you don't want to sleep while I drive?"

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  "Mom? Are you okay?"

  Margaret flinched and glanced away from the television, which hadn't been turned on. "What?"

  "You were just staring," said Cindy.

  "Oh. Sorry."

  Cindy sat down next to her on the couch. "You should get some sleep."

  Margaret had tried. It wasn't working. It was just so damn frustrating to have Benjamin gone, kidnapped right out of the operating room, and not be able to do anything but sit at home and wait for the police—or Benjamin—to call.

  "I'm sure he's okay," said Cindy.

  Margaret nodded. "I'm sure you're right."

  They sat there for a while, holding each other, until the phone rang. Margaret stood up and raced for the phone so quickly that she bashed her leg against the coffee table.

  "Hello?"

  It was the police. Their update was not quite what Margaret was expecting to hear.

  "What'd they say?" asked Cindy after Margaret hung up.

  "Apparently your father was in a motel in Georgia. There was a shootout, and then he and the woman who kidnapped him drove away in a stolen car."

  "Dad was in a shootout?"

  "Yes. One man was shot to death, and another is in critical condition."

  "A shootout? Dad? Really? You think he fired any bullets?"

  Margaret's mind was racing. She had no idea what to do, but she did know that she couldn't sit in the house waiting any longer. "Go get dressed."

  "Where are we going?"

  "Georgia."

  * * *

  Julie lay against the passenger side window, snoring softly. Before she went to sleep, she'd given Benjamin a very serious lecture about not trying to seek help, contact his family, or do anything that did not involve driving in the direction of California.

  They'd quickly ditched the Volkswagen. At the next exit, they'd driven around until Julie found a car that looked old
enough for her to hotwire: a 1985 Plymouth Caravelle. She'd given herself a nasty shock in the process, but had eventually started the engine.

  "How did the old guy look when you went in there?" Benjamin had asked. Driving in their Volkswagen had creeped him out. When people got shot in the stomach, you were supposed to call for an ambulance and try to help them, not steal their car.

  "He'll be okay, I think," said Julie.

  "You think?"

  "I'm not a doctor."

  They planned to ditch the stolen Plymouth in the morning, but for now Benjamin drove along the highway, staying just under the speed limit as directed.

  If he survived this experience, his students were going to think he was so cool.

  Actually, they'd probably think he was incredibly cool if he died, too, but he'd enjoy that less.

  He glanced up at himself in the rear-view mirror. He'd only been driving for a couple of hours, and the sores were definitely bigger than when he'd started. He wished he still had his beard to help cover them. Would they go away after they got the parasite out of him?

  Hell, he didn't even know if he'd be alive after they took out the parasite. He could still very well be expendable. Kill the host after the visitor's gone. Maybe he knew too much, or maybe it wasn't worth trying to save his life when they could simply take a saw and cut the specimen right out.

  You're getting paranoid...

  Maybe they'd keep him there. Maybe the whole plan was to keep the parasite alive inside of him until it was otherwise needed. He'd be strapped to a lab table, fed through an IV tube, hooked up to a bunch of machines while a doctor in a bloodstained lab coat grinned at him sadistically. Maybe they'd inject more parasites into him, a whole colony of them, until his entire body was filled with writhing creatures that burrowed through his flesh until there was nothing left but a skeleton like the one in Mr. Spooner's science class.

  Of course, that was a worst-case scenario.

  He turned on the radio to distract himself from his brain, and all the music sucked. He sang along softly to the least offensive tune and wondered for the nine-hundred and fifty-seventh time if he should secretly try to call Margaret and Cindy. Or at least send them a text message. It wouldn't have to be anything elaborate—just "ok" would be fine. Though he felt that text messaging was leading to complete illiteracy amongst the nation's youth, he'd happily make an exception to his "every sentence should have a verb, a noun, and at least one properly spelled word" rule.

  But no. Couldn't risk it.

  He winced at the sudden pain in his stomach. Wonderful. His buddy the parasite was getting squirmy again.

  He didn't want to wake Julie up. There would no doubt be more encounters with bad guys in the near future, and he didn't want her to be half-asleep when the next round of bullets started to fly. He'd be okay. When the pain started to get really intense, he'd wake her up and enjoy another needle in the gut.

  He suffered through crap music for another three songs, until finally Alice Cooper's "School's Out" started. He hummed along, hoping that some of his students had made productive use of their studying time while he was out of the room.

  Friends...

  Friends? Where had that thought come from?

  But still, friends were good. Everybody needed friends. Benjamin considered most of his fellow teachers his friends, though really his idea of an enjoyable evening was to stay at home with Margaret and Cindy. Or, usually, just Margaret, since Cindy liked to go out with her own friends. Cindy had lots of friends. She deserved to. She was a good kid.

  Benjamin continued to sing along. He realized that he'd gotten a bit too loud, and softened his voice to avoid waking up Julie.

  Food...

  Food. Yes. Food provided nourishment and was often fun to eat. Benjamin was a big supporter of the idea of food. Without food, society would crumble pretty darn quickly. He wondered how many food groups they had these days. It seemed like they kept changing it. It used to be...what, meat, fruits and vegetables, dairy, and bread? He didn't think it was called the "bread" group anymore. Grains, maybe.

  Bananas. Bananas were his favorite fruit. He also liked strawberries and cherries. Apples, not so much. Even apple pie didn't do much for him, although he certainly wouldn't turn down a slice if one was offered to him right now, especially if it had a scoop of vanilla ice cream on the side.

  When did kiwi/strawberry become a standard fruit flavor combination? You saw it everywhere these days. When he was ten years old, he didn't think he even knew what a kiwi was.

  He didn't really want fruit, though. Or vegetables. Steak. That's what he wanted. A great big ol' slab of steak, medium rare, lightly salted, with a fully loaded baked potato. Cindy would laugh and say "Would you like some baked potato with your sour cream?" and he'd gobble it right up with nary a thought for the high fat content.

  Would Julie let them stop somewhere for a steak? Probably not. She was kind of uptight.

  Friends...

  Why was he thinking about friends again? He'd already covered that topic. Back to food.

  Pomegranates. Now that was one dumb-ass fruit.

  How come so many restaurants used the animal being eaten as their cheery mascot? There was this rib place that had a pig in a bib, licking its lips. Didn't the pig realize that this was cannibalism? Why would anybody turn to cannibalism when there were so many other food options available? He could understand a pig being happy about eating a goat, but the restaurant was probably going to slaughter and eat that very same pig after he got done with his plateful of ribs.

  Benjamin looked over at Julie. Still sound asleep.

  Damn, she was hot. He'd love to have her for dessert, and not in a cannibalism sort of way.

  He grinned. Maybe he and Margaret and Julie could get a little three-way action going sometime in the near future. Four way if you counted the parasite. Kinky.

  The speed limit was annoying. Benjamin edged the car past eighty. If the cops didn't like it, they'd just have to try and catch him.

  He clenched his hands more tightly on the steering wheel. A small trickle of red liquid ran out of one of the sores.

  He thought about food for another ten minutes or so, until he saw a sign with the fork, spoon, and knife symbol. Julie would get mad if he stopped, since she'd have to hotwire the car again, but she wasn't the boss of him. Nobody was the boss of him. Okay, Principal Reitz was the boss of him. Principal Reitz wasn't here. If Principal Reitz told him not to stop at the nearest restaurant for a steak, he'd listen, but otherwise, Julie could kiss his thirty-nine-year-old ass.

  He took the next exit. Julie didn't stir. She sure was lazy.

  He drove down the street, cursing the lack of restaurants open at three in the morning. Didn't they realize that there were important steak needs going on at this very moment? Bastards.

  Finally, he saw a neon sign that said "24-Hour Dining." Springwood Grill. He didn't know if he was in a town called Springwood or if that was the name of the owner, but it didn't really matter, as long as they had chocolate.

  No, steak.

  Oh, hell, he'd have both. Steak with a side of chocolate.

  He pulled into the parking lot and checked out Julie once again. Don't wake up, please. A line of red gook stretched between his hands and the steering wheel as he pulled them away.

  As quietly as possible, he shut off the car's engine.

  Julie's eyes opened. "Where are we?" she asked in a groggy voice.

  "Bathroom break. Sorry. Go back to sleep."

  She blinked a few times and glanced around at their surroundings. "Don't go in there. Somebody might recognize you."

  "I won't," said Benjamin, trying to sound soothing. "Go back to sleep. I'll wake you up when I need you."

  She leaned her head against the door again and closed her eyes. Benjamin waited for a minute or so until she started to snore again, and then very carefully opened the car door. He got out and closed the door most of the way, leaving about an inch gap so the sound w
ouldn't wake her up.

  He pushed through the glass doors of the diner. A couple of men sat at the front counter, and a tired-looking man and woman with a young boy sat in a corner booth, eating burgers.

  Benjamin walked right up to the front counter and sat down. The waitress—a young, pretty blonde with glasses and her hair pulled back—didn't hide her grimace at his appearance. Stuck-up bitch. She'd already blown her tip.

  "May I help you, sir?" she asked, taking a small order pad out of her apron pocket.

  Benjamin rubbed at one of the larger sores on his forearm. "What have you got in the way of steak? I'm famished."

  "We have steak and eggs."

  "Is it a big steak?"

  "Not too big, sir." She mimed a pathetic little six-incher with her index fingers.

  "Well, that's a fuckin' waste of my time," said Benjamin. "How about you be a sweetie and go cook me up three of those and stack them on top of each other so that it looks like a real steak, huh? And get me a slab of chocolate cake while I'm waiting."

  The waitress, whose name was Tammy according to the name tag pinned over her insufficient breasts, glared at him but nodded.

  "Hey," said the guy three stools to his right, a big bearded loser in a ridiculous green ball cap.

  Benjamin ignored him. He had better things to do with his time than converse with somebody in a hat like that.

  "Hey," the guy repeated.

  Benjamin looked over at him. "Yeah?"