Earworm

by Aaron Thomas Milstead

  “I’ll say.” The way Dare said it and something in her thoughtful expression gave me the impression she wasn’t entirely displeased with my predicament.

  Hell no, kid. I gave you some extra testosterone, enough to make Viagra look like Salt Peter. Sometimes you have to let a broad know that your gun still has a bullet left in the chamber.

  Like Barney Fife, I thought.

  Barney Fife? Fucking Don Knotts? You have a strange way about you.

  Maybe, but Don Knotts was supposed to have a notoriously large penis and I wasn’t doing so bad myself. I followed Dare into the living room and realized I was walking with a bit of a swagger.

  As we stepped into the lavish room I stared longingly at my 75-inch 4k television and the PS4 console. My cheeks reddened as I realized our wedding photo had been removed from the fireplace mantle. We were married on the beach in Montego Bay, Jamaica. I looked happy and tan. Dare was so hot that they would have turned her down from appearing on Say Yes to the Dress because the other brides would have been too insecure to stand next to her.

  As if in response to my sudden sullen introspection, Shadow reached up and took my hand. We followed Dare into the dining room and I asked, “Is Maria here?”

  Dare shook her head and said, “No, I gave her the night off.”

  “Mommy cooked,” Shadow said. “And I helped.”

  “That’s great,” I said. It was rare that Dare cooked. She only had two dishes that she was comfortable preparing: chicken parmesan or cheese enchiladas with Mexican rice.

  “I just put the finishing touches on my famous chickie parm,” Dare said. “Your favorite.”

  “That’s great,” I said, though my favorite was the dish served at Caraba’s Italian restaurant. Dare’s tended to be a bit dry. Regardless, it was the thought that counted. I wondered if Jesus was served his favorite dish at the Last Supper.

  Have some confidence, kid. You are more sullen than a teenage girl on her period. Maybe your wife is trying to win you back.

  “Sit next to me, daddy.”

  I sat next to Shadow on one side of the dining table and wondered if Dare would settle down on my other side. The table was big enough to seat over a dozen people. Dare went into the kitchen and came back holding a serving tray covered with wooden bowls filled with salads, silverware, napkins, and a pitcher of iced tea. She sat the tray down on the stand and arranged the table, but her setup was on the opposite side of the table. I took a deep breath and gulped down some tea. It tasted like pure shit and was flavored like some kind of exotic flower like green asslong or Jasminey turd. I smiled as the foul concoction went down my throat.

  Dare stared at me, from across the table, with an expression that mirrored the cold calculation of a mortician considering how best to reconstruct the face of a crash victim for an open coffin viewing. I tried to lock eyes with her and was lost in a green intensity that reminded me of the stagnant swimming pool out back. I quickly glanced down at Shadow and asked, “How has Tanglewood been going?”

  Shadow shrugged. “David Morley keeps pushing me and told me I’m a fart knocker.”

  I smiled. “He probably has a crush on you, boys are like—”

  “Ripley.” Dare’s tone elicited a sort of Pavlovian response in me and I froze. My attention snapped to her like a jock’s wet towel in a vengeful high school bathroom. She was still staring at me with those piercing emerald eyes and her pale skin was flush with an inner heat. I expected her to nag me for some mistake I hadn’t realized I’d made, but instead she asked, “What have you been doing with yourself?”

  “Not much,” I stammered. “I’ve been doing my pest jobs and hanging out in the pool house . . . well, you know. Mainly keeping to myself.”

  Dare slowly nodded and asked, “Have you been spending a lot of time lifting weights?”

  I grinned and puffed out my chest as I said, “Maybe a little bit. A few light dumbbells here and there. Thanks for noticing.”

  “How could I not notice? You barely look like the same person.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How much weight have you lost?”

  “A little . . . ”

  Her forehead wrinkled as she asked, “A little?”

  ”Yeah. I’ve missed your good cooking. Just pizza pockets and . . . ”

  Dare shook her head and asked, “You’ve lost that much weight on pizza pockets? In a week? I could swear you had a full beer belly just last Wednesday but now . . . ”

  “I don’t drink anymore,” I said defensively. “You know that.”

  “Yes, I know that,” Dare said. “But it’s just not natural to lose that much weight that quickly. Stand up.” I stood and self-consciously felt the intensity of her scrutiny. “Look how baggy your pants are.”

  “I haven’t worn dress pants in a while.”

  “Unbutton your shirt.”

  “What?”

  Shadow giggled.

  “Your shirt,” Dare demanded. “Unbutton it.”

  She wants it, Bogart said. Show her the goods.

  I slowly unbuttoned my shirt from the top down and when my pectorals came into view she gasped. I glanced down to make sure I hadn’t grown breasts and realized my chest was bigger and more ripped than when I was a teenager. Back then I took handfuls of amino acids, threw down protein shakes, and furiously pumped iron in an effort to resemble the ‘80s concept of male beauty. I wanted the unnatural physique of a Hulk Hogan or Arnold Schwarzenegger or even Stallone from Rocky III. I never achieved it back then, but I suddenly wasn’t so far off.

  And Dare noticed. Her unrestrained admiration was the most glorious thing I had received from her in a very long time. I kept unbuttoning and when I got down to the last button the shirt fluttered open and revealed what had previously been a bloated reminder of the price of excess. Dare stared and pointed at my midsection with her mouth agape. I glanced down at an eight pack that would shame Ryan Reynolds and put Brad Pitt’s shirtless scene from Thelma and Louise to shame.

  “How?” Dare mumbled. “Are you taking performance enhancing drugs? Roids? I heard that Hugh Jackman buffed up like that overnight, but I never believed . . . ”

  I shook my head and laughed. “Do I look like a professional baseball player? A-Rod or something?”

  Damn straight she wants your A-Rod. Bogart cackled.

  “Ripley . . . ” Dare began, “are you . . . are you sick or something? It must be some kind of testosterone imbalance or something.”

  I quickly buttoned my shirt. “Of course not, sweetie . . . . I mean, of course not, Dare. I’ve just got too much time on my hands. It’s like how prison inmates always bulk up during captivity.”

  “You feel like a prisoner?” Dare asked. “In the pool house?”

  “No, of course not,” I quickly corrected. “That was a poor choice of analogy. I’m great. Better than ever, but I’m still the same guy.”

  Shadow put a hand on my leg and said, “That’s my daddy.”

  Dare’s face brightened. “Of course, sugar. He’s always going to be your daddy.”

  I smiled and nodded, but it was more than a little disconcerting that my wife felt it necessary to affirm my paternal status to our daughter.

  The doorbell rang and Dare excused herself, hurrying to the front door. She seemed perplexed by the sudden intrusion. As she left, I stared at her perfect heart-shaped ass and I fell deeper in love. They might say love is blind, but they also say that men are visual, so I felt justified in my superficiality.

  When Dare returned she seemed even more frazzled and, judging from the intruder, there was no wonder why. It was her mother. My mother-in-law. A despicable human who had all the charm of that cackling Muppet that dug the lint out of Jabba the Hut’s bellybutton. A cold, barren, rancid abomination who suffered from Munchausen’s by proxy, sociopathy, and bi-polar disorder with a side order of well-seasoned bigotry. She wore black lipstick and a garish pants suit that a rodeo clown would think was too tacky. The pants were striped and the
top had black sequins that formed a Rorschach blot over her upper body. It was interpretive enough that you could say the design was a cancerous growth or a diarrhea stain, depending on your point of view.

  She stared at me and her fat, wrinkled face contorted like an elephant’s prolapsed anus and I saw something that will haunt me until the day I die.

  My mother-in-law smiled.

  The mighty eye of Sauron would have wept.

  So hideous was the sight that Shadow audibly wretched . . . keep in mind that this hideous creature was her grandmother.

  I have spent some time describing her, but it should be noted that I am not being hyperbolic, instead using restraint so as not to be impolite. With that in mind, let me add that she had an accompanying stench that was overpoweringly unique and served to make my cologne stand out as heavenly. The closest analogy I can provide is that I once had to treat a residence who thought they had dead rats in their attic. It was mid-August and I found a dead Opossum and her litter of young that had mistaken rat poison for dinner and quickly perished. It then became the birthing nest of countless writhing maggots. That stench had permeated my very pores and refused to be washed away for several days, yet it still paled in comparison to the smell of my mother-in-law.

  Dare stared at me apologetically and said, “I wasn’t expecting Mom to come tonight.”

  I tried to hide my disgust and told my mother-in-law, “It’s good to see you, Gladys. A nice surprise.”

  “Dinner plans fall through?” Dare asked.

  Gladys sniffed dramatically and pointed towards the kitchen. “Why should I eat out when there’s a fine Italian feast right here prepared by my beautiful daughter. Plus, it’s been too long since I’ve seen my son-in-law. How’s the pool house, Ripley?”

  I felt a heat in my cheeks like a phantom slap and mumbled, “Its fine.”

  Gladys nodded. “When Frank and I had the house built we figured we’d let the gardener live in it, or maybe an out of work relative. Are you working?”

  “Yeah. I’m still doing pest control.”

  Gladys laughed. “Oh, that? I guess that’s a job. Not an occupation, but—”

  “Mom.” Dare gestured at Shadow.

  Shadow was staring up at her grandmother with an expression that could turn Medusa to stone.

  “What?” Gladys asked.

  “You’re being mean to my daddy again.”

  Gladys shrugged and said, “Darling, the truth can sometimes seem mean, but—”

  “Mom,” Dare said. “Can I get you a salad?”

  “Certainly.” Gladys sat down right next to me in the spot I’d hoped Dare would choose. The stench was unbearable, and it took everything I had to fight my gag reflex.

  You need to get the fuck out of here. Your life is in danger.

  She stinks, I said to Bogart, but she’s mainly harmless.

  Wrong. That smell . . . It’s a protective mechanism. Part of our symbiotic relationship. It’s how we recognize our kind.

  She’s got something like you in her?

  Worse. If I’m a tween then she’s being controlled by a much older person. Let me put it this way: the worse the smell the stronger the symbiote. If she was carrying a symbiote my age it might smell like some mild BO or maybe a low grade fart. No beans or eggs.

  What does it mean then?

  She has to be carrying an Elder.

  Gladys stared at me and asked, “You look thoughtful, Ripley. What is going on in your head?”

  “Nothing.”

  Gladys smiled and asked, “Why do I doubt that?”

  Dare returned with a tray covered with salads and another iced tea that she placed in front of her mother. Gladys sniffed suspiciously and asked, “Dare, what kind of dressing is on this?”

  “It’s actually your favorite,” Dare said defensively. “Newman’s own Parmesan and Roasted Garlic.”

  Gladys shook her head. “Not anymore, dear.”

  Dare shrugged. “Okay. Thousand Island?”

  “No.”

  Dare stared at her mother with a perplexed expression. “Ranch?”

  Her mother nodded and said, “That sounds fine, dear.”

  I tried to remember if Ranch had garlic in it and then quickly interjected, “Can I get Ranch as well?”

  Dare frowned but said, “Sure.” She snatched up my salad and her mother’s and dropped them roughly on the tray—a sad cherry tomato fell out of my bowl, rolled down the tray, and dropped to the floor. “Shadow, do you mind helping me whip up a couple of new salads . . . with Ranch.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  Get out of here, kid. We don’t need to be alone with an Elder.

  I didn’t doubt that Bogart was serious and I sensed that he had reason to be concerned, but I also knew that there was no way I was going to sneak off with my tail between my legs. Besides, what were the chances that my mother-in-law was also unfortunate enough to have been invaded by a symbiote?

  As soon as Shadow and Dare stepped out of the dining room Gladys stared at me and said, “You should have stuck with the garlic dressing, Ripley.”

  I returned her gaze and noted that her pupils were so wide that her eyes looked dark and unfathomable. I was reminded of the Nietzsche quote about staring into the abyss. I imagined dark, wet, slithery things moving just under the surface of her leathery wrinkled skin and controlling her like the world’s ugliest marionette. Despite these dark thoughts, I forced a smile and said, “I don’t want to get bad breath.”

  Gladys shook her head and said, “I don’t blame you, Ripley. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You are just a pitiful victim in all of this.”

  Run, kid. Run.

  “I’m not sure what you are talking about,” I said.

  “Quit playing dumb,” Gladys said. “You are better than that. Besides, you aren’t very good at it. It’s about as hard for a smart person to play dumb as it is for a dumb person to play smart.” Gladys pointed at my head and added, “I can hear him as clear as I can hear you—maybe even clearer, because he’s yelling like a little bitch. He’s begging you to run, but you are wise not to listen to him. He’s only looking out for himself, but I’m looking out for you. I don’t want to have to kill you. If I truly wanted to do so, I’d have done it back in that apartment.”

  She’s lying, kid. She had no idea I’d jumped ship or she’d have burned both of us alive.

  “Thanks, for that much,” I said. “What do you want from me, Gladys?” I hesitated and added, “Is my mother-in-law somewhere in there?”

  “She’s sleeping. Peacefully.”

  “Probably dreaming about drowning kittens,” I mumbled.

  “More like drowning you,” the thing inside my mother-in-law said. “She’s a royal cunt.”

  “I think we found something we could agree on,” I said. “Who are you?”

  “My name is unimportant. What should matter to you is that I’m giving you a choice.”

  It has to be Carrion-Six-Toes. The Elders are very territorial and this is his turf.

  “Carrion-Six-Toes?” I mumbled.

  My mother-in-law frowned. “You dare to speak my name? That fool dared to . . . ” Her face contorted and her leathery skin tightened as if ready to split open to reveal another terrible face beneath. I watched with terrified fascination. After a few intense seconds her face settled into an expression of plastic calm and she asked, “Is it Foster?”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The one inside you. Is it Bromas? No, I consumed him decades ago . . . Is it Elica?”

  I shrugged.

  “Bogart?” I flinched and Carrion-Six-Toes smiled. “Bogart . . . a filthy, puny little scoundrel. An immature miscreant. A traitor to the Sleeper.”

  “The Sleeper?”

  Carrion-Six-Toes waved away my question. “Are you going to make the right decision?”

  Run. Fucking run, kid.

  If you’re wondering why I didn’t haul ass I’ll admit it wasn’t just my desire to win
back my wife. Carrion-Six-Toes was exerting some kind of calming hypnosis on me with her gaze and the cadence of her voice.

  Carrion-Six-Toes reached into her slacks and pulled out two horse-sized pills. I didn’t even have to guess that they were filled with garlic powder. “Eat these. Within minutes, Bogart will have no choice but to crawl out or he will quickly wither and die. If he crawls out I will eat . . . I will deal with him.”

  “And then?” I asked.

  “And then you go on living your own life,” Carrion-Six-Toes said. “Just like before.”

  I shook my head. “But I was dying. I need him.”

  Damn straight kid.

  Carrion-Six-Toes chuckled and I nearly fainted. “If your life is that important to you then I’ll replace him.”

  “Replace?”

  “That’s right.” She pointed at my head. “I’ll crawl in there and you can experience the Unity.”

  “No.” I didn’t understand exactly what she meant by the Unity, but what I imagined was a lack of free will, identity, and self-awareness.

  All of that and worse, kid.

  “Are you denying me?”

  I nodded.

  Carrion-Six-Toes shook her head. “Maybe you weren’t playing dumb after all. I gave you the illusion of a choice, but eventually I’ll just take what I want. I’ll consume Bogart and I’ll add you to the Throng, but now I’m also going to ruin everything you hold dear as well. Your wife. Your daughter. I’m going to—”

  “Mom?” Dare and Shadow had stepped into the room and Dare was staring at her mother with a concerned expression. “Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not.” Carrion-Six-Toes covered her face with spidery fingers and loudly wept. After several dramatic heaves she mumbled. “Ripley called me . . . He called me . . . ”

  “What, Mom?”

  Carrion-Six-Toes glanced up at me with wet eyes. “Ripley called me an old cunt.”