by Jeff Strand
Pedro angrily turned around. "Joey, if you can't hit your target, stop shooting bullets!"
Benjamin's hopes about not dying a fiery death in a plane crash lifted a bit as he saw Cindy and Margaret frantically putting on parachutes. He hoped to join them after he dealt with the Joey issue.
The plane took a sharp tilt to the right. Benjamin fell forward, smacking into Joey, who then smacked into a seat. Benjamin's head smacked into Joey's nose. Benjamin held onto the seat with one hand and punched Joey's nose again with the other. He tried to get in a fourth hit, but Joey turned his head and merely got punched in the jaw.
Benjamin punched Joey again, and again, and once more, unable to keep himself from enjoying the momentary thought of Wow, I'm a bad-ass! He kept his fist clenched and prepared to deliver yet another punch, but Joey didn't seem to be awake anymore and there were much more pressing matters at hand.
"Here!" said Margaret, tossing a parachute to Benjamin and mouthing "Last one!" at him. He caught the parachute just as Margaret shoved Cindy out of the plane. Pedro, apparently having given up on trying to fly them to safety, stepped out of the cockpit and rushed at Margaret. He grabbed at her but missed as she leapt out of the aircraft.
Pedro did a quick survey of the closet, then, finding no remaining parachutes, he turned to face Benjamin. Benjamin quickly slipped into the harness, not sure if he was doing it right. "We could share," he offered, having to shout to be heard.
Pedro glanced out the window. The ground was visible. "Okay."
Benjamin tightened the strap around his chest as he hurried over to the open door. Pedro pushed his arms through the straps and wrapped them tightly around him.
Joey, who apparently hadn't been as unconscious as Benjamin hoped, ran toward them, blood flying from his face in the wind.
Benjamin and Pedro jumped from the plane. To avoid freaking out and having a heart attack, Benjamin looked up into the sky instead of down at the ground. This provided an unobstructed view of Joey plummeting toward them, headfirst, arms outstretched.
Though he wasn't the science teacher, Benjamin knew that in a vacuum objects fell at the same rate, regardless of their mass. Unfortunately, they were not currently in a vacuum, and Joey's Superman-flying position carried him down faster. He crashed into Benjamin's waist and wrapped both arms around his right leg.
Benjamin tried to shake him off, though the fact that he was paralyzed with terror made this difficult. Joey held his leg so tightly that Benjamin thought he might start snapping bones.
Pedro pulled the ripcord. The red-and-blue parachute deployed and suddenly there was a jolt that was a hell of a lot more intense than Benjamin had expected, though it still didn't dislodge Joey from his leg. Now that they were no longer in freefall—though they were still plummeting toward the ground at an alarming rate—Benjamin quickly glanced around and saw one...two...three other parachutes. All of them miles away, but clearly open. Thank God. Below, they seemed to be falling toward a city.
"Just shake him off!" Pedro shouted.
"I'm trying!"
Pedro lifted his foot and slammed it down on Joey's head. Joey's grip remained solid.
Food...
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!"
Benjamin's breath cut off as the parasite rapidly squirmed up his throat. Pedro kicked Joey again and cursed when he failed to fall to his death. The slimy creature slid over Benjamin's tongue, pressed against the inside of his lips, and then pushed through.
Pedro's eyes widened. "What the hell?"
The parasite shot forward and bit Pedro on the chin. He screamed and tried to pull his head away from it, but the creature stretched like a rubber band, and there was only so far he could go while remaining in a bear hug with Benjamin.
"Get it off!" he shrieked. "Get it off!"
Benjamin momentarily forgot about his dental issue and tried to bite down on the parasite, snapping his half-tooth off and squeezing it with his bloody, swollen gums instead. The parasite did not let go. Pedro frantically jerked his head back and forth, trying to break its grip. A small ring of blood appeared on his chin around the parasite's head.
"Shoot it!" Pedro screamed.
Were Benjamin able to talk, he would have explained that he didn't have a gun. He wasn't and didn't.
"Shoot it! Strangle it!"
Benjamin had been holding onto the parachute straps in a terrified death grip, and suddenly realized that he could in fact use his hands for parasite control. He let go of the straps and grabbed the parasite by the...neck? Didn't matter what it was. He yanked, and its head popped free of Pedro's chin, leaving behind a deep circular gash.
It slipped through his fingers and retreated all the way back into his mouth and down his throat. Pedro seemed to be in a state of shock.
"It just started doing that," Benjamin explained.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Benjamin glanced down and tried to estimate how high up they were. A mile, maybe? Lots of buildings and traffic below. The landing might really suck. He had no idea how to steer a parachute, and probably couldn't do it anyway with Pedro hugging him and the other jackass clinging to his leg.
"What the hell is that thing?" Pedro demanded. "Why the hell would anybody want it back? Why the hell wouldn't they just step on it?"
"Your guess is as good as mine."
"I have no guesses! I'm completely baffled by why anybody would want it! That's insane! Totally insane! It bit my chin! The parasite took an actual bite out of my chin! Who does that? Who bites people's chins?"
Benjamin felt a now-familiar movement in his stomach. "It's coming up again," he warned Pedro.
"What? No!"
"I can feel it."
"Don't let it out! Block it with your tongue or something! At least turn your head!"
The parasite shot past Benjamin's lips and went several inches straight into Pedro's open mouth. The two men floated downward, eyes wide, parasite between them, both of them choking loudly. Benjamin's sense of dignity had taken some pretty severe hits recently, but this was really pushing the limits of what his self-respect could endure.
"Hey," said Joey, "try to land by that—" He looked up at them. "Holy shit! Is that your tongue?"
* * *
When Mr. Smith was only eight years old, his father had died in a plane crash. "If only he'd had a parachute!" his mother had sobbed, over and over. His Aunt Sally tried to explain repeatedly that the crash had occurred on the runway before takeoff, and that a parachute really wouldn't have done much to save him, but his mother was in too intense a state of grief to care.
Though Mr. Smith had not turned into the kind of crackpot who would bring his own parachute onto commercial aircraft, he did insist that any private jet he flew on carried them. Granted, his preparations had been in anticipation of mechanical failure or a surprise thunderstorm or an inconveniently timed heart attack, and not that his idiot son would shoot the pilot. Still, his mother's semi-insanity all those years ago had saved his life. He was glad she'd lost her mind.
He was less glad as he floated down toward the razor-wire fence.
He struck it hard, at waist-level. An instant later he discovered that the fence was also electrified. He tried to scream but merely drooled. After he fell inside the junkyard, barely conscious, the parachute floated down upon him, blocking his view though not before he'd counted three pit bulls running toward him.
The parachute provided a bit of protection against being mauled to death by ferocious dogs, but not quite enough.
* * *
Pedro thrashed around, trying to get the parasite out of his mouth as it inched its way farther and farther inside him. Though Benjamin didn't really see a downside to having the parasite change hosts—let Pedro enjoy the fun for a while—the whole situation was still disconcerting.
Unfortunately, as twin streams of blood ran down the sides of Pedro's mouth, Benjamin realized that the parasite was not changing hosts, but rather feeding. Pedro tried repeatedly t
o bite the monster in two with no success.
Joey said "Holy shit!" several more times, with very little variance in tone.
They floated down past the top of a building and Benjamin realized that they were headed toward a busy four-lane city street.
Pedro let go of Benjamin with one hand and dug his fingers into the parasite. Gagging violently, he slowly pulled it out of his mouth, inch by inch. The parasite had latched onto his tongue, which extended as far as it could out of his mouth before the parasite finally tore free. It slipped through Pedro's bloody fingers and retreated back down Benjamin's throat.
Their descent stopped with a sudden jolt. They still had five or six stories to go before they hit the street, and Benjamin realized that their parachute had caught on a flagpole extending horizontally from the building.
The aluminum flagpole immediately began to bend, obviously having been designed to hold items such as flags and not three men and a parasite. The parasite shot out of Benjamin's mouth once more. This time it got Pedro on the eye. He pulled it free and it got his other eye.
Benjamin recoiled at the sight of Pedro's ruined face. His own face was in far from pristine condition, he knew, but something about eyeballs with chunks missing really bothered him.
The parasite's head darted into Pedro's screaming mouth again.
The flagpole continued to bend. They began to slide down it.
Pedro's other arm pulled completely free of the parachute straps. Benjamin grabbed the front of his shirt. The cloth tore easily.
Down on the ground below, several people screamed.
Pedro fell. The parasite fell with him, rapidly unspooling from Benjamin's mouth. After about six feet, the parasite popped free of Pedro's mouth and shot back into Benjamin like a tape measure. Pedro hit the pavement, narrowly missing a crowd of gawking people with his body, if not its contents.
Benjamin felt really bad for the guy. Pedro would've been very upset to know that he'd die before Joey.
The parachute slid off the end of the flagpole. They plummeted just long enough for Benjamin to discover religion, and then the parachute opened again, slowing their descent to a rate that wouldn't splatter them on impact.
They touched down in the middle of the street. Luckily, most of the drivers had stopped their vehicles to gape at the spectacle and avoid running over the rogue parachutists. Benjamin landed surprisingly well, hitting the street with both feet instead of his ass.
"Let go," he said to Joey, who still had a death-grip on his leg.
Joey remained firmly in place. It almost sounded like he was whimpering.
"Seriously, let go of my leg. This is embarrassing." Benjamin tried to shake Joey off. He wouldn't detach.
It only took a few seconds for the awe-struck wonder of the motorists to transform into impatience. One car honked its horn, then another, and then Benjamin and Joey were the targets of a whole busy street full of honking vehicles. A huge crowd had gathered around Pedro's corpse and pedestrians were still screaming.
"Let's at least get off the road," said Benjamin, continuing his unsuccessful efforts to pull his leg away from Joey. He took a step toward the sidewalk, dragging Joey along with him.
Finally, Joey seemed to snap out of it. He let go of Benjamin's leg and slowly stood up, wobbling as if drunk. Their eyes met.
"Vengeance!" Joey shouted, punching Benjamin in the face.
As many times as Benjamin had been punched recently, he would've thought it would become no big deal. Instead he stumbled backwards, tripped over the parachute, and fell to the ground.
"You killed my brother!" Joey shouted. "And if he didn't land safely, you killed my father!"
"I didn't kill your father! You shot the pilot!"
"So?"
"What do you mean, so? That's why your father had to jump out of the frickin' plane! And if they didn't land safely, you killed my wife and daughter along with the pilot."
"The pilot doesn't count."
"Fine," said Benjamin, pushing himself up to a sitting position. "But a wife and daughter still outweighs a father and brother."
Joey fell silent, as if mulling over that logic.
"You know," said Benjamin, "you might want to get out of here before the police show up."
Joey looked around. People were starting to get out of their cars to investigate, though keeping a safe distance away. "Yeah, you're right," he said. "I hope that thing eats you alive." He kicked Benjamin in the stomach.
The parasite shot three feet out of Benjamin's mouth. It flailed around on the pavement, twitching rapidly.
A woman screamed: "His intestine just came out of his mouth! Oh my God, his intestine just came out of his mouth!"
"It's not his intestine," Joey said, as if the woman were exceedingly stupid. "It's his—" Joey yelped as the parasite wrapped around his ankle. He tried to tug his foot loose but the parasite's grip was too tight.
Police sirens began to blare, not too far away.
"I'm not going to jail for a leech!" Joey announced to the crowd. He tugged once more, hard enough that Benjamin thought his entire stomach was going to spew out of his mouth along with the parasite. Benjamin crawled along the ground to keep pace with him as Joey stormed over to the sidewalk.
Several of the onlookers moved out of the way, clearing a path for the blood-drenched duo. Benjamin had to scramble on his hands and knees as Joey rushed ahead. He violently shoved a young woman out of the way. She fell to the sidewalk with a scream as Joey scooped her baby out of its stroller.
"Everyone get back!" he shouted, holding up the infant. "I'll smash it to the ground! I'll spike this thing like a football, I swear!"
Benjamin would have offered a dozen excellent reasons that Joey should reconsider this plan of action, if not for the parasite clogging his throat. The horrified crowd stepped back even farther, except for the mother who sat on the ground, watching in terror.
"That's right, I'm the kind of guy who would splat a baby! I'm dangerous! Don't mess with me!"
"Stay calm, sir," said a bearded man, taking a cautious step forward. "There's no need for anybody to get hurt."
"There's need for this baby to get hurt if you don't shut up! Do I look like somebody who wouldn't bounce a baby off a sidewalk? Do I? Do you want me to see if it actually bounces or just sort of lies there? Do you?"
"Please don't hurt my baby!" the mother wailed.
The parasite's head slid under Joey's pant leg. Joey cried out and did a frantic dance. "It's biting me!"
"Don't drop the baby!" Benjamin tried to shout, although it came out more like "Uuuhh uhhhh uhhh uh-uh."
Lots of people shrieked.
Joey stomped on the parasite with his free foot. Apparently that made it bite harder, because he let out a bellow. The baby slipped out of his hands.
Lots more people shrieked.
Benjamin caught the baby with both hands. Joey immediately scooped it back up, then pointed to a man in the street on a motorcycle. "Give me your bike! Now!"
Without hesitation, the man climbed off his motorcycle and pushed it over to Joey. Joey climbed on board and Benjamin had no choice but to follow him. He leaned over the side, his mouth about a foot from Joey's ankle. He tried to telepathically ask the parasite to give him some slack, but nothing happened.
The motorcycle sped off. Benjamin felt like he was going to slip off the seat and grabbed the back of Joey's pants to hang on. He was uncomfortable around motorcycles even under normal circumstances, and riding in this position was much worse than being one of the fools he regularly ridiculed for riding without a helmet.
They rushed past several parked cars, each of them missing Benjamin's head by inches. Were there not a kidnapped infant involved, Benjamin would've been tempted to just leap off the vehicle and hope that the parasite snapped in half, but somehow he had to save the baby and put an end to this madness.
He desperately needed more slack. If nothing else, zooming past vehicles at this angle was making him nau
seous.
He inhaled a deep breath through his nostrils, clenched his free hand into a fist, and then punched himself in the stomach as hard as he could. With his body contorted, he wasn't able to punch himself as hard as he would've liked, but it did the trick: it hurt really bad and three more feet of parasite spewed out of his mouth.
Benjamin pulled himself into a normal sitting position just in time to see that Joey was about to run a red light.
He managed to forget entirely about the parasite for five whole seconds as they sped through the intersection. Joey swerved to the right to avoid an SUV, then to the left to avoid another SUV. The SUVs both swerved to dodge the motorcycle and crashed into each other, head-on. Benjamin thought he felt a small piece of debris hit him in the back.
The extra three feet of parasite quickly slithered back down his throat. However, he was able to remain upright rather than being yanked down toward Joey's foot again, since the creature had thankfully let go of his ankle.
At the next intersection, the light was green. But there were about three police cars blocking the way, lights flashing.
Please don't let him speed up, Benjamin thought.