Home
Buy the Book
Read for Free
Reviews
Press
Trailer
About
Myspace Page

I cranked the wheel and clawed at the hand. The truck skidded in the snow, jumped a curb and smacked a newspaper machine with a crash of ruined metal and glass. With a jolt, the front tires blasted through a snowdrift and landed back on the street, wheels spinning, grabbing, then spinning again.

The thing on my neck snaked across my collarbone and slid down my shirt, something with the texture of a slug or a leech but long, its tail snaking up from my chest around my collarbone and around the back of my neck. A cool, twitching, itching weight on my skin.

I screamed. I admit it. I blew through an intersection blinking yellow lights, I stomped around with my feet until I found the brake and went into a powerslide, the rear of the truck trading places with the front.

“No, no. Keep driving,” said a soft voice in my ear. “She will not bite if you keep driving.”

Fuck that. Fuck that idea like the fucking Captain of the Thai Fuck Team fucking at the fucking Tour de Fuck. I stomped the brake and cranked the wheel. We skidded to a stop and-

I screamed again. A terrible, pinching pain pierced my breastbone. It was unreal, like my bones were sprouting razor blades. I screamed again and grabbed at the monster on my chest. A hand reached around and snatched my wrist with a quick, clean move.

“Be calm,” said the voice. “Drive. Just drive. She will leave you alone. If you drive.”

I didn’t even hear this, not really. I got my other hand into my pocket and clawed free the pistol. A pain ripped through my chest again, unimaginable, like being torn in half. It crippled me. All of my limbs stopped in protest. A hand reached up from the back seat and very slowly took the Smith from my hand. Once more he said, “Drive. Just drive.”

The pain relented. Huge gasps of breath tore in and out of my lungs. I squeezed my eyes shut, opened them again, and eased my foot onto the accelerator. I tried to look down at the thing that had me, its tail sticking out of the neck of my shirt. It had inch-long stalks all along its back, each ending in what looked like a small black eye. Several of the stalks tickled my chin as it wormed its way around, the end of the creature resting over my shoulder, squirming gently back and forth on the leather of my jacket. I heard the figure behind me shift on the upholstery, as if it was sitting back in the seat. I drove into the night, desperately trying to remember where I was going. I felt a drop of some kind of liquid crawl down my belly.

I tried to say something cool, wound up stammering something like, “WANNA YOU WANNA WEENIE ME?” The end kind of trailed off in a shrill, choking warble.

“Just be calm. You’re doing fine. Now tell me what you were doing before I made myself known.”

“Who—who the fuck are you?”

“My name is Robert North.”

“Congratulations. Now who are you and what’s this fucking thing you-“

“-Please answer my question. Where were you going in such a hurry?”

“You can’t mess with Limp Bizkit!

Why? Because we get it on every day and every night

See this platinum thing right here? We’re doin’ this all the time

So you better get some better beats and some better rhymes...”

“Home. Why? What’s it to you? What’s happening tonight?”

I reached up and adjusted the rearview mirror to see in the back seat. It was just a man, thin, in his 30’s. Brown hair, buggy eyes and a beak-like nose. Looked sort of English, but no matching accent. He spoke robotically, with difficulty. It’s the way some deaf people talk, not able to hear their own inflection. He was wearing a white, furry woman’s hat, what looked like a blue Wal-Mart vest with a little plastic toy Sheriff’s badge tacked to the breast.

He nodded toward the rear of the vehicle, where the stereo speakers were. “That man, in your, whatever you call it, your communicator. Does he need help?”

“What?”

“He sounds wounded. Does he need your assistance?”

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Why do you not respond to my questions directly?”

“That’s just Fred Durst. On the radio. He’s not talking to us.”

“Are you certain? It sounds as if he is crying out while someone is strangling him.”

“I know. That sound is entertainment to many of us. It’s called a ‘song.’”

“I know songs. But—I thought they rhymed.”

I looked back again and saw the man was holding my gun by the barrel, glancing at it with detached curiosity. He had never held a gun before.

I said, “I’m turning off the radio so we can hear each other. Look.” I very gingerly reached out and clicked off the power button. “Okay. I’m driving home. I live there. Do you know me? Can you tell me that? Or where you’re from or who sent you?”

“I’m from right here, so far as you know it. Who sent me means very little. Why you are travelling home with such urgency, in these conditions, is of great importance.”

“Did I kill the girl?”

“I do not understand the question. My interest is only in you and in your desperation not to answer my question. I assure you that your own safety depends on your honesty. That is not a threat. It is said out of genuine concern for your safety the very important role you must play. Things are in motion, Mr. Wong.”

The thing on my chest began pulsing gently, making gulping twitches.

Okay, this bullshit has got to end. I’m neither brave nor reckless, but this was simply pissing me off too much.

“I’m going to reach out again,” I said, “to make an adjustment to the heat in here. Okay?”

I very slowly and non-threateningly reached out, then punched in the cigarette lighter.

“Now,” I said, “I am going home to check something. In my tool shed. The, uh, the little building behind my home where I store things. Okay? So I came clean. Now you tell me somethin’.”

He stayed silent for several seconds. A quick glance in the rearview showed a very grave expression on a bony face bathed in shadow and flickers of passing streetlights. The look of a man who’s going to have to put his dog to sleep.

“Fascinating.”

“What?”

I glanced down at the lighter. The slug on my chest slowly curled its tail around, coming to rest along my neck and earlobe. It gave a little shiver.

North stared off into the passing night and said, “They harvest insects here, do they not? For their honey? Do the bees know they make the honey for you? Or do they work tirelessly because they think it is their own choice? Have you never noticed that, after hearing a new word for the first time in your life, you’ll hear it again within 24 hours? Do you ever wonder why sometimes you’ll see a single shoe lying along the road?”

A single tear rolled down his cheek. It occurred to me that the man was batshit insane.

The lighter clicked. My heart leapt with anticipation of what was about to happen and I realized, with disgust, that the slug thing could feel the change. It twitched and fluttered as if it were feeding off the excitement.

Or the increased blood flow.

I shifted my hands, left on the wheel, the fingers on my right resting on the knob of the lighter.

32 ->

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22 - 23 - 24 - 25 - 26 - 27 - 28 - 29 - 30 - 31 - 32 - 33 - 34 - 35 - 36 - 37 - 38 - 39 - 40 - 41 - 42 - 43 - 44 - 45 - 46 - 47 - 48 - 49 - 50 - 51 - 52 - 53 - 54 - End

Copyright © 2008 David Wong and Jason Pargin - All rights reserved. No part of this book or website may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the express written consent of the author and publisher. This online book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidence.