by Jeff Strand
Three down already. Three to go, unless they kept a deformed sibling locked up somewhere.
He was pretty sure you only got two shots out of a shotgun. Though it was possible that the driver had more ammo on him, Benjamin didn't really have time to search his body and reload.
"This is the police!" he shouted, deepening his voice. "Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up!" He felt extremely stupid saying it, but he needed to buy himself a couple of seconds while he figured out what to do.
Neal stepped out of the doorway with his hands up. Benjamin bashed him over the head with the shotgun.
There was a piercing shriek from inside the cabin.
Benjamin peeked inside and saw the last redneck besides Chet howling in pain, as Julie's front teeth bit right through his nose. She spat it out and chomped into his upper lip.
A handgun, probably set aside when the fun began, rested on a stack of nudie magazines on top of what passed for a coffee table. Benjamin picked it up, kicked open the door to the smaller room, and pointed the gun at Chet, who was still huddled in the corner.
He couldn't just shoot the guy like this.
C'mon, do something aggressive.
Chet saw that Benjamin had entered the room and flinched in terror.
Good enough.
Benjamin shot him in the chest.
He turned back toward the main room and saw that Julie had somehow gotten hold of a knife. The results were unattractive.
"It's okay," he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. "You can stop stabbing him now."
Julie stabbed him a few more times, then dropped the knife. "Is that...is that all of them?"
"Yeah."
She wiped some blood from her face. "That wasn't so hard."
"Piece of cake."
Julie picked her shirt up off the floor. They hadn't gotten her bra off yet. The shirt was torn and bloody, and after a couple of attempts to adjust it she pulled the shirt off again and tossed it aside.
"Thanks for coming back for me," she said.
"No problem."
"Or did you come back for the keys to the truck?"
"I hadn't even thought about the keys to the truck."
"Uh-huh."
"Seriously!" Benjamin insisted. "I'm here so they wouldn't butcher you. I had a prime chance to escape into the forest, and I didn't take it." Why, that ungrateful—
"I'm kidding, Benjamin."
"Oh."
She kissed him lightly on the cheek. "Thank you."
"You've got redneck nose blood on your lips."
"How about we get out of here?" Julie asked. "And then, y'know, make this whole thing off limits for any future conversations?"
"Sounds good to me."
* * *
They found a set of keys dangling from a hanger shaped like a pair of breasts. Unfortunately, even after a lengthy search they couldn't find the briefcase with the hypodermic needles or Julie's cell phone, though Julie did find a T-shirt that didn't smell too revolting. They grabbed a couple of guns, then got into a small brown pickup truck and drove off. It took about fifteen minutes of driving on a dirt road before they reached a paved one, and about fifteen minutes on that road before they reached the interstate.
"I need to make a call," Benjamin said.
"Hell no."
"I need to call my family."
Julie shook her head. "Not gonna happen."
"I refuse to die without telling my wife and daughter that I love them. You owe me."
"The call will be traced."
"It'll be quick. We'll find a dumpy pay phone. I'm becoming more and more cynical about my chances of being alive at this time tomorrow, and I absolutely have to talk to them."
"Why are you becoming more cynical?" Julie asked. "After what just happened, I'm way more optimistic. We can survive anything. Forget the Smith brothers."
"Brother."
"Whatever."
"I'm not taking 'no' for an answer."
"You are if I tell you no."
"No, I'm not."
Julie considered that for a long moment. "Okay. You get twenty seconds. That's ten seconds each. If they don't answer, tough. If you try to tell them where we are, I'll bite your nose off. I've had practice. Understand?"
"Completely."
They pulled off at a small gas station. Julie walked with Benjamin over to a pay phone that looked to be one small technological step ahead of two cans and a string. She gave him a very stern look as he inserted a quarter and dialed Margaret's cell phone number.
"Hello?" she asked, answering on the first ring.
"Margaret!"
"Benjamin?"
"Margaret! I've missed you so much!" Benjamin felt like he was going to burst into tears.
"Hey, Benjamin," said a male voice on the other end. "Remember me?"
Suddenly Benjamin felt like he was going to burst into tears for a different reason. "Who the hell is this?"
"You haven't forgotten me already, have you?" asked Pedro. "I thought our encounter was more memorable than that. Is your girlfriend with you?"
"What's wrong?" Julie asked. Benjamin waved at her to shut up.
"If you hurt them," he said, "I swear I'll—"
"You'll do nothing, Benji, because I'm here with them and you're wherever you are. So if I want to kill your wife and daughter, there's not a whole lot you can do to stop me. Here, I'll put your daughter on for a second so you know I'm not bluffing."
Julie grabbed for the phone. "He's got them," Benjamin whispered.
"Daddy...?" asked Cindy.
"Cindy! Cindy, honey, I'm so sorry!"
"All right, enough of that," said Pedro. "I promise you that we haven't hurt them yet. I also promise you that we will hurt them a lot if you don't do as I say. I've got a ton of pent-up frustration from this assignment, and I swear, I'll take it out on them. Are we clear?"
"Yes, we're clear."
"Good. This doesn't have to end badly. All I want is to get the parasite for my boss. The easier we make this, the happier everybody will be in the end. I'd love to see you walk off into the sunset with Margaret and Cindy."
"Vengeance!" somebody shouted in the background.
"Will you shut the hell up?" Pedro screamed. "I'm on the phone!"
"Tell her that I'm coming for her! Tell her that vengeance is on its way!"
"Enough!" Pedro grunted with anger. "As you can tell, Benji, I'm on a short fuse. Don't mess with me."
"I won't. What do you want me to do?"
"Where are you?"
"I'm not totally sure. We got sidetracked."
"Narrow it down."
"Texas, maybe?"
"All right. You find yourself a nice quiet place to hang out for a while. Do you have something to write with?"
"Uh, no. Hold on a second." Benjamin covered the mouthpiece and turned to Julie. "Find me a pen."
Julie walked back to the truck and leaned inside.
"How is it that an English teacher doesn't have a writing utensil?" Pedro asked.
"It's been a really bad couple of hours," said Benjamin. "I mean, you have no idea."
"I hear you, man."
Julie returned with a ballpoint pen. "Thanks," said Benjamin. "Give me the number."
"It's area code..."
"Hold on, wait, the pen isn't writing." Benjamin shook the pen and tried to draw some more swirls on his arm. "Okay, there it goes."
Pedro gave him the number. "Got it?"
"Yes."
"Call that number in exactly one hour. Do not call anybody else, do not talk to anybody, do not show your face to anybody. Remember that I have two hostages, and if I get even the slightest bad feeling about this, I'll kill your wife and still have your daughter to negotiate with. Are we perfectly, one hundred percent, crystal clear?"
"Yes."
"Excellent. We'll talk soon." Pedro hung up.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Benjamin just stood there for a moment, clutching the phone so t
ightly that his knuckles ached. Then he placed the handset back on the cradle.
"Please tell me that I misinterpreted your end of the conversation," said Julie.
Benjamin shook his head. "They've got Margaret and Cindy."
"Wonderful. Just wonderful." Through the sarcasm, Benjamin did detect a small bit of legitimate concern for his family.
"We're supposed to stay here and wait for them."
"That's a really bad idea. You know that they have no intention of letting you go afterward, right?"
"We're doing what they say."
"I'm not going to try to stop you," said Julie. "However—"
"No however."
"However, let's at least try to work out some kind of plan."
"No offense, Julie, but your plans have been absolute crap so far. Remember when you kidnapped me from the operating room at gunpoint instead of pretending to be a doctor? That wasn't a very good plan."
"Neither was starting a fight in the diner."
"I was being controlled by the parasite."
"Oh, sure, it's always the parasite's fault!"
"What's wrong with me saying that it's the parasite's fault? This whole thing is the parasite's fault! If anything, I should be blaming it more often!"
"Fair enough. But we need a plan."
"No. I'm not putting my family at risk."
"They're already at risk. This plan will get them out of risk," said Julie. "We've got to do something. I'm not just going to sit here and let the bad guys win. We don't have to actually use the plan. We should just have a plan ready. We've got time to sit and discuss it, so it'll be a much better plan than everything else we've come up with."
"So would a plan of flicking small boogers at our opponents."
"Then let's come up with a better plan than that."
Benjamin felt that he and Julie had bonded over their shared experience in the cabin. Still, he couldn't completely trust her. Or trust her at all, quite frankly. He still sort of believed that she'd hand him over and happily cash her paycheck while sinister men in white coats cut him into chunks with a paper slicer.
So he didn't tell her that the parasite had moved into his stomach.
It had popped into his throat once, and would possibly do so again. Maybe he could get it out completely. Julie and the others might not approve, but personally, he'd be much happier keeping the parasite in a jar instead of his body.
"I need to go to the restroom," he told Julie.
"Okay."
"You're not going to warn me and threaten me and stuff?"
"Not this time."
"Cool." Benjamin got out of the pickup truck, shut the door behind him, and walked over to the restroom. Even from the outside, he could tell that this wasn't going to be an antiseptic, or even non-vile environment, but it was at least destined to be better than the cabin. He went inside and locked the door.
He braced himself against the sink and stared into the cracked mirror. Hard to believe that not too long ago he'd been freaked out by his appearance simply because he'd shaved his beard. Now he looked absolutely grotesque. Open, leaking sores. Bruises and swelling. Greasy, dirty, bloody hair. Facial stubble that didn't look even remotely cool. He was one sad, ugly bastard. Margaret and Cindy would probably be repulsed and keep him locked in a cage for the next few years.
"All right, buddy," he said out loud. "Show yourself."
Nothing.
Benjamin opened his mouth wide and tilted his head at various angles to better see his throat. Then he closed his mouth and gently tapped his stomach with his index finger. "Come on out. No need to hide. Let me see your pretty face."
Friends...
"Yes, friends. Best friends. Friends to the end."
How could he even think of getting rid of his best friend? What they had was special. How many people had a best friend who lived inside them? Not very damn many, that was for sure. Margaret certainly couldn't live inside his stomach and say things like "Friends" directly into his mind. Compared to what he had with the parasite, his marriage was a superficial sham. Though he doubted the legality of a formal union, perhaps he could—
Benjamin dug his fingernail into one of the sores on his arm. The pain jolted him out of his fantasy.
He had to get rid of the parasite.
He opened his mouth again. Maybe he could bribe it out. Dangle food over his throat.
What might a parasite eat, apart from Benjamin's insides? Too bad he didn't have a scrap of stomach lining handy.
Blood, maybe?
It was worth a shot, and he had plenty of cuts and gashes to choose from. He ran his finger along a two-inch cut on his arm, sustained from the broken window in the cabin, then held the finger over his open mouth and let a few drops of blood drip into his throat. It really didn't seem all that disgusting, which he found somewhat disturbing.
No response from the parasite.
C'mon, you little prick, why swim around in stomach acids and bile when you can have some nice fresh blood?
Still nothing.
Chowtime! Let's have some din-din. Bloody bloody blood-blood! Mmmmm...
Benjamin swiped his finger on the cut again and resumed dripping blood.
Food, he thought. Food, food, food.
Food...
That's right. Food. Delicious food. Food for my friend.
Friend...
The parasite began to stir.
Friends like food, Benjamin thought. Friends share food.
He gagged as the parasite moved up his throat. He sure hoped this was a good idea. There was a distinct possibility that it was not.
He watched the mirror as the creature slid over the back of his tongue. He held his bloody finger a few inches away from his mouth, trying to entice it to emerge all the way...
It slithered across his tongue. Benjamin was able to take a small bit of solace in the fact that the slimy beast remained the diameter of a hot dog, as he'd seen on the X-ray. That's all the solace he could take. It had obviously grown much longer and still felt like it was hanging all the way down into his stomach. Its skin was yellowish-white, with large, orange eyes and a small fanged mouth.
Keep slithering...just keep slithering...
It stopped. He could feel its fangs pressing tightly against his tongue.
Please don't bite, he thought, frantically waving his finger.
The parasite resumed its forward path, moving painfully slow. Benjamin thought he felt a tiny tongue against his own tongue but couldn't be sure.
Just a little bit more...
The head of the parasite protruded about a half-inch past Benjamin's lips. He held his finger back, encouraging it to venture farther.
Then he bit down.
The parasite thrashed around like a snake, making Benjamin feel as if he were being punched in the stomach from the inside. He pressed his teeth together with all the force he could muster, trying to bite its head off, but the creature had the texture of a car tire and his teeth couldn't break the skin. It squealed as Benjamin's gag reflexes went berserk.
He tried to pinch its head between his fingers. The skin was too slippery and he couldn't get a grip.
The parasite jabbed a hook into the roof of Benjamin's mouth. He grimaced at the stinging sensation but refused to let go. He was going to bite this thing's head off no matter what.
It bit his thumb, hard enough to rip out a small chunk of flesh.
A hook jabbed into his tongue. Benjamin let out a yelp and the parasite recoiled back into his mouth. He thrust his fingers deep into his mouth in a last-ditch effort to grab it, but the creature slid back down his throat and was gone from sight.
"Dammit!" Benjamin spat some blood into the sink. "I'll get you! This isn't over!"
Teeth...
"That's right, teeth! You're gonna feel those teeth again, soon!" Benjamin slammed his fist against the mirror in frustration, shattering the glass.
Teeth gone...
"Teeth gone? What are you babbling ab
out?"
Teeth gone...
Teeth gone. Yes. That was a splendid idea. Teeth did get in the way of a lot of things, if you really stopped to think about it, and he needed to drink more smoothies anyway.
"You're right. Teeth gone. I'll take care of that right now."
Benjamin pinched one of his front teeth between his thumb and index finger and tugged. It didn't pop out like it was supposed to. He yanked on it over and over, but the tooth remained firmly in place.
How did he pop a loose tooth free when he was a kid? He'd wrapped dental floss around the tooth, tied it to his bedroom door, then slammed it. That always hastened the Tooth Fairy's arrival. He needed dental floss, or string, or something to tie around his teeth.