Parasite

The original title of this story was Roadkill.  It was changed because I thought that this would be better for it.  Thanks, Kaya



Oh God!  My stomach is hurting again. I can't tell anyone, they wouldn't believe me.  I'd just hear the same old things.

"You're too thin, you probably need to eat." 

"Maybe you need to take a laxative."

"You should call the Doctor make an appointment." 

No, I won't say anything.  I can't.  It's just too awful.

I can't believe how stupid I was!  Coming home from work, three months back, hurrying because I was running late.  It was our two year anniversary and my husband and I were going out to dinner.  I ended up working late again and I was hauling ass down the dirt road that leads to my house in the dark.  The wind was blowing grit across the road, sucking up the light, making it hard to see.  I came around the biggest curve when something ran out in front of my car and SPLAT!  I thought it was a dog, maybe a coyote.  I put my car into park and got out to check.  I was wrong.

        Whatever it was I hit, wasn't anything I'd ever seen before.  I bent down in front of my car, the dim headlights casting light on...whatever it was.  The stink nearly knocked me down.  I still can't describe it.  A mixture of vinegar, rotting meat and soured milk.  Thankfully the wind was blowing enough to carry the first blast of odor away with it.  After that first slap I could deal with it.  The body was another matter.

        It was hairless, covered in tiny scales almost like the wings of a butterfly.  It was black with an undertone of green.  The blood that poured out of it was orange, not the normal dark redish-purple you get from a deep wound.  It had arms and legs like a human, but it was very small, child size.  The face was covered with eyes and teeth.  Part of the head was squashed, but on the parts I could make out I counted at least six eyes.  The teeth were like shards of glass pointing out in different directions.

        There I was, squatting by that . . . thing and I felt myself falling.  The next thing I knew I was waking up on the ground, flat on my back, right beside it.  I felt sore all over, like I'd been beat.  I panicked!  I got my ass up and into my car, locking the doors as fast as I could.  I left the carcass lying in the middle of the road.  When I looked in the rearview mirror as I was pulling away I saw things.  Shadows were crowding around the road kill.  I got the hell out of Dodge and went home as fast as my car could go.

          I told my husband what had happened . . . well, I told him that I had hit something strange.  An animal I had never seen before.  I didn't tell him about waking up on the ground, or the things crowding around the dead whatever.  In fact I was trying very hard to not even think about that.  He went out and looked at the car, sure enough it had some bits of gore stuck in the grlil, but very little damage.  I don't think he believed me about it being something unknown.  But he didn't laugh at me either.  I was thankful for that.

          We went back the next day to where I had left it in the road.  Nothing was there, no body, no orange blood, nothing.  My husband told me that I had probably just knocked it out and it had got up and left when it was better.  I agreed with him, mostly to just drop the subject.  I pushed it into the back of my mind and went on with my life.

          A couple days later I started getting sick.  I couldn't keep food down, my head hurt all the time and I began to drop weight.  I thought I had a very long lived case of the flu.  Eventually the symptoms passed and I figured that I was over whatever it was I had caught.  Then the nightmares started.

          Every night I began to have the same dream.  I am laying in the dirt, pinned down by tiny, dark hands.  There are so many of them!  I try to move, but my body feels like lead.  Disjointed voices and images skip across my mind to fast for me to make sense of.  My shirt is pulled up over my stomach and I work to raise my head to see what they are doing.  I look at my belly and something moves inside it!  I can see the ripples as the unseen thing stretches and kicks.  Something is alive inside of me!  I wake up, drenched in sweat, pulse pounding and I know that I am seeing the truth.

        I started having pains in my stomach.  I sit up most of the night, not sleeping until I have crashed due to exhaustion.  But it isn't just the pain that keeps awake.  They followed me home and are watching me.  I see them in the shadows, flitting around like ghastly, giant, fireflies.  They watch me. all night, every night.  They watch me and they wait.

        Maybe I am crazy.  I think I would prefer that to the alternative.  Because whatever this thing is, it is eating me alive from the inside out.  I am its shelter and I am its food.  One day soon it will be ready and it will eat its way out. Sometimes, late at night, I sit in my bed and I wonder.  Will it call me 'mamma' before it stares into my eyes watching me as I die?  My stomach hurts so much.