Trembling With Fear 12/19/21

Oxi by R. Wayne Gray

Headlights briefly lit the worn bricks of the outer warehouse wall, glaring off the metallic font of a sign reading Direville Medical. A pickup truck rolled by, tires flattening debris as a shadowed figure in the truck’s back dropped two dark bags near a shallow loading dock. The truck rolled on, and darkness settled back over the alley.

It didn’t last long. A metal door at the side of the loading dock squealed open, bright light stabbing into the alley in a narrow arc. A figure in a lab coat shambled through the door, glancing at the receding truck, down the other direction, and back. The figure offered a feeble wave, snagged the bags, and dragged them through the door. The silhouette of a cat peered out, jumping back as the door closed with a rusty clang.

From the inside, the warehouse didn’t look much better. It had once been painted red, but all that remained were flaking, faded lipstick strips. A sewer grate with exposed bars – thick water sluggishly flowing towards treatment plants in the city – covered the floor near a small incinerator. A few chairs, a table, and a couch were scattered around the dimly lit space.

The man set the trash bags down near the incinerator and pulled a cigarette from a pocket reading “Les.” He was tall, bordering on emaciated, with thinning red hair and a craggy face that put him in his early 40s. The face screwed up, and he gave a light kick to one of the bags, sending the cat hopping back a pace or two.

“First dibs, Mr. Whiskers,” said Les. He fired up the cigarette with a thin butane lighter. “You know the rules.”

Mr. Whiskers meowed in agreement, perhaps impatience. Les slipped the lighter into his pocket, cigarette dangling from his mouth. He pulled daintily at the knot of the first garbage bag, trying to tease it loose.

“Let’s see what we’ve got here, hmm?”

Les got the first bag opened and started pawing through it. He pulled out wads of cotton, cloth, a bloody sponge that he curiously sniffed. A partially-gnawed human finger exited the bag. This he lobbed in the direction of Mr. Whiskers. The cat sniffed it, batting the finger with a hesitant paw.

“Ow!”

Les yanked his hand from the bag, a hypodermic needle dangling from one finger. He pulled the needle out and threw the syringe back into the bag, thrusting his hand fearlessly in after it. Les grunted.

“Here we go…” he said, pulling out his newest treasure. It was a pill bottle, a large one, coated in blood and yellow… something. Les shook the bottle, grinning as the contents rattled.

Les wiped at the fluids obscuring the bottle. Someone had written on the label with a black marker, big letters almost wiped illegible, all except for one small bit towards the bottom.

“O-X-I… holy baloney, Mr. Whiskers. OxiKontin! I loooove my job!”

Les wiped his hands on the lab coat and fumbled open the top of the bottle. The pills he shook out were round, white, and slightly convex. They held no markings.

Les tossed a pill to Mr. Whiskers and tucked the rest of the handful into his mouth. He petted the cat – who had apparently filed the pill under edible – and stood.

“Break time, Mr. Whiskers. Let’s let these kick in.”

Les headed for the couch to wait for the fun to start.

#

Half-an-hour later, Les was off the couch, his face drawn, a hand clutching his mid-section. He walked slowly to the incinerator, opened the door.

“I dunno, Mr. Whiskers. Maybe we got a bad batch or something,” he said as he reached for one of the bags. He stopped, his eyes sweeping the lab.

“Mr. Whiskers?” 

The cat lurched out from under a chair, his legs and head under the control of some maniacal puppeteer. Eyes wide, Mr. Whiskers panted rapidly. But that was nothing…

Mr. Whiskers had two tails. One was full, covered in fur, sticking straight up. The other was thin, hairless, weaving drunkenly.

Something a bit closer to Les caught his eye. It bobbed several inches in front of his face. Les adjusted his focus. It looked a lot like Mr. Whisker’s second tail. Except it was coming from Les’ nose. And it had little angry eyes.

The creature suddenly lunged, stabbing Les in the eye. Les screamed and dropped, his body writhing as he tried to pull the thing free from his eye. It had a good hold, but Les, stronger, won the battle as the thing tore away, a bloody chunk of Les’ blue iris still clenched in its many tiny teeth.

Les gasped, his remaining eye drawn to his stomach. He ripped up his shirt. Several masses pushed up on the skin of his abdomen, each a strained, white bump.

Les’ screams of horror turned to those of pain, and he fumbled with his belt, hurriedly unclasping it and dropping his pants. A thin tail waved in the gap between little Les and his pants, a brown whip that suddenly shot up and bit the hand holding his belt buckle.

Out of the corner of his eye, Les saw the creature from his nose lining up to take a shot at his remaining eye.

“Mr. Whiskers!” Les screamed, struggling to rise. He tumbled into the trash bags, hard, rupturing them and sending fractured medical waste scattering.

Mr. Whiskers had his own problems. The creature coming out of the cat was in complete control, dragging itself across the floor, Mr. Whiskers swept behind in a widening swish of red.

Les’ dimming eye lost focus on that, re-catching on a crushed pill bottle, the label hand written in black marker: “Accelerated-Growth ‘Demon Worm’ Eggs – TOXIC!”

His body weakened as the worms fed, his blood spilling, fainter and fainter movements that sent pills sliding through the grate – drip, drip, drip – and into the slow sewage river flowing towards the city.