Benjamin's Parasite

by Jeff Strand

  "Just being thorough, ma'am. We'll get your husband back. Don't worry."

  * * *

  Joey Smith was not looking forward to making the call. He and Clyde had discussed things while bandaging themselves up, and they'd agreed that Dad probably wouldn't be too upset. It wasn't like they'd failed repeatedly. Well, it was like they'd failed repeatedly, but not at this particular task. So though Dad had made it pretty clear that they only had one more chance (by murdering one of his lower-level associates in front of them), they'd decided that "capture Benjamin Wilson" was the overall chance, and not any one particular instance of trying to capture him.

  Now that he actually had to make the call, Joey was second-guessing that logic.

  His preference would be to not update Dad on the situation until they had good news, but he had a missed call from Dad showing on his cell phone and ignoring that for too long could be as bad as failing. They'd done "Rock, Paper, Scissors" to determine who had to call. Joey picked rock. Clyde picked paper. Clyde always picked paper. But Joey always picked rock, and if he switched to, say, paper the one time Clyde switched to scissors, he would've felt like a complete idiot.

  He made the call.

  "Joey?" Dad asked.

  "Yeah, it's me."

  "Do you have him?"

  "Almost."

  "What does 'almost' mean?"

  "It means we're still looking."

  "When you called before, you told me you'd caught up with him and that the bitch had left him alone in the car."

  "Right. But it was a complicated piece of business."

  "Are you following him now?"

  "Oh, yeah, yeah, we're right behind him."

  "Where are you?"

  "We're..." He looked to Clyde for help and received none. "We're not behind him, but we'll find him, no problem. It was a setback but we learned from it."

  Dad sighed. It was always bad when Dad sighed.

  "Check your e-mail in ten minutes," Dad said, then hung up.

  Joey snapped the phone shut.

  "What'd he say?" Clyde asked.

  "He said to check my e-mail in ten minutes."

  "Why?"

  "Dunno."

  "Did he sound happy?"

  "Why would he sound happy?"

  "I don't know. Blowjob, maybe."

  "Don't be a moron. Where can we get free wireless internet?"

  "There's that one deli with the chicken salad sandwiches."

  "Those are awful. The last one had six hairs in it."

  "Right, but if we sit at the outside table we can still get wireless without ordering anything."

  They got lost on the way, but not for long, and sat at the circular table outside of Miller's Deli. Joey booted up his laptop. He smiled as the background image displayed—a rodeo clown being trampled by an angry bull. He'd taken the picture himself. The rodeo clown hadn't been badly injured but it was still funny.

  He checked his e-mail. Lots of spam. An e-mail from the chick he'd watched on webcam last weekend. Notification that he'd been outbid on the Adam Sandler CD. And an e-mail from Dad.

  He clicked it open. No text; just an attached file.

  "What do you think he sent us?" Clyde asked as it downloaded.

  "I dunno. More information on the target, I bet."

  "Do you think he's disappointed that he had to send us more stuff?"

  "Who cares? We'll get the job done."

  He clicked the "play" button, and the video began. It was Dad, sitting at his desk. He looked mad.

  He had a face that looked custom-designed for angry expressions, and the older he got, the madder he looked. His gray hair was slicked back and his suit was perfectly tailored, but he had dark circles under his eyes. He looked into the camera and sighed.

  "I warned you," he said.

  Dad slid a small metal tray in front of him. Joey gasped as he saw what was on it: his pet turtle.

  "No! Tortie!"

  Dad reached off-screen, then held the can of lighter fluid up to the camera. Joey gasped and slapped his hand over his mouth. Dad calmly doused the turtle with the lighter fluid.

  "He's really upset," Clyde noted.

  Dad took out a book of matches and held it up to the camera. He struck one and tossed it onto Tortie's shell. Joey recoiled in horror as his beloved turtle burst into flames.

  "What did I tell you?" Dad asked. "I told you not to screw up. If you screw up, there are penalties." He reached off-camera again, this time returning with a hammer. "Don't screw up again."

  He slammed the hammer against the turtle's shell, finishing it off in three blows.

  The video ended.

  "We really need to find that Benjamin Wilson guy, and fast," said Clyde. "Hammie could be next."

  * * *

  "The guys in the van?" Benjamin asked.

  "Yeah."

  "Are you gonna take their call?"

  Julie pressed the speaker button. "Hello?"

  The voice on the other end was male, low-pitched, and phlegmy. "Pull over."

  "You know I'm not going to do that."

  "I said, pull over." He was very articulate and menacing for somebody who sounded like he was gargling mucus.

  "If you have something important to say, say it. Otherwise, don't waste my time."

  "Does he know you're taking him to be butchered?"

  "Nice try. He can't hear you."

  "Bull. You think I can't tell you're on speakerphone?"

  "Fine. He can hear you. But he's not falling for it."

  "I could give him a pill. He'd fall asleep, wake up three hours later, and the only discomfort he'd experience is a small sore spot."

  "I'm hanging up now," Julie said.

  "Why don't you pull over and save your passenger all of this unpleasantness? Let us get the cancer out of him and send him on his way."

  Benjamin stiffened. "Cancer?"

  "It's not cancer. He's just trying to scare you." Julie pressed her mouth right against the phone. "And it won't work."

  "You don't think Mr. Wilson is scared? With that thing growing inside of him? I would be. It terrifies me, and I'm not the one it's devouring."

  "Enough. You lied about it being cancer, so he knows you're lying about everything else."

  "I wasn't lying. I was speaking metaphorically. Mr. Wilson is familiar with the concept, I'm sure. Your body is going to fail you, Benjamin. Piece by piece it's going to shut down, while the parasite sucks away your life. It's going to happen quickly, especially while you're asleep. When your false savior finally digs the cancer out of you, it'll be too late."

  "False savior. Melodramatic at all? You're so full of shit," Julie said.

  "Why don't you let Mr. Wilson decide? He's the one who'll spend the rest of his life being spoon-fed by his wife and daughter. Pull off to the side so we can discuss this. You're armed, I assume, so there's nothing to fear. Why resolve this by fleeing like criminals?"

  "If you're such a sweetheart, how about you use your camera phone and take a picture of the makeshift lab you've got in that van? What kind of surgical tools do you have in there? Chainsaw? Meat hook?"

  "You forgot the jackhammer. Now pull over so we can save Mr. Wilson's life."

  "Hold on a second, let me count the number of people in this car that you're fooling. Let's see..." Julie pretended to do a mental count. "Looks like it's about zero. Sorry. Better luck next time."

  "We're willing to take more aggressive measures to save him."

  "Oh, really? Thinking about opening fire on the highway? Ramming us with your van, perhaps? I'm pretty sure you're not that stupid. You can follow us all you like, but we've got a full tank and get better gas mileage."

  "I believe we will follow you. Thanks for the invitation." The man in the van hung up.

  "Old friend?" asked Benjamin.

  Julie shook her head. "New enemy."

  "Who is he?"

  "His name is Dominick Serkin. Sociopath. Everything he said was a lie. I know you're proba
bly thinking that you don't know who to trust right now, but believe me, if we pulled over to talk, you'd be in that van and dead in minutes. If he didn't want the specimen so badly, he'd keep you alive for hours, just for fun. That's the best I can say—you're too valuable for him to slowly torture to death."

  Benjamin turned around and looked at the van again. It didn't seem to be driving in a particularly sociopathic manner, but it was still oddly menacing. "Are we going to let him follow us until one of us runs out of gas?"

  "No. As soon as there are no witnesses, they'll try to run us off the road. I need to stick with other traffic long enough for him to stop paying quite as close attention, and then pull off the interstate suddenly to lose him."

  "You said 'they'll' try. More than one?"

  "He's got henchmen in the van with him. At least two."

  "I didn't think the word 'henchman' was in actual use."

  "Henchmen, underlings, administrative assistants... whatever you want to call them."

  "So we have a couple of really dumb brothers and a sociopath plus henchmen. Any other major players I should know about?"

  "The brothers are sociopaths, too."

  "Don't avoid my question."

  "I don't know everyone who's after you. Maybe it's just them. Probably not."

  Benjamin noticed motion in the rear-view mirror. "Hey, I think you're wrong, some guy's leaning out—"

  A gunshot.

  The rear tire exploded.

  Julie swerved to the right, and they went off the road onto the grass. The van followed immediately behind them.

  "That psycho!" shouted Julie in a panic. She slammed on the brakes, throwing Benjamin forward. The seatbelt kept him from splattering his face against the dashboard.

  The van pulled up alongside them and stopped. The side door slid open.

  "Duck!" Julie grabbed Benjamin by the collar and yanked him down, though since he'd clearly seen the man with the gun the assistance was unnecessary.

  Three more shots, and safety glass rained down upon Benjamin. He slammed his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut.

  "Get out of the car!" a man shouted.

  Something heavy struck Benjamin on the shoulder. He opened his eyes as Julie shouted: "Get out! Get out now!"

  He caught a glimpse of what had hit him. A grenade.

  He threw open the car door and tumbled to the ground in his frantic effort to escape the vehicle. Powerful hands grabbed his shoulders. Another pair grabbed his feet. Seconds later he was in the back of the van, and a moment after that the door slid shut.

  No explosion.

  The van sped off. Benjamin heard a gunshot from outside, then another, and then they were back on the road.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The two men shoved him onto a mattress. The inside of the van smelled awful. Almost rotten. The men were dressed entirely in black and wore facemasks. As Benjamin unsuccessfully struggled, he caught glimpses of shiny silver tools resting on the floor.

  "Calm down!" said one of the men. "We're here to help you. You're safe now. You're with friends."

  "Just kidding," said the other man, punching him in the face so hard that Benjamin literally saw stars.

  The second man punched him even harder.

  "Tyler! Silas! Don't break his jaw," said the third van occupant, from the driver's seat. The phlegmy voice made it clear that it was Dominick. "Get him in the straps."

  The first man, who was either Tyler or Silas, punched Benjamin again. He could feel blood trickling from both corners of his mouth, and wanted to just curl up in a corner and weep.

  He didn't struggle as the men tightened filthy leather straps around his wrists and ankles.

  "Wish we'd nabbed the chick, too," said the first man, who Benjamin decided looked more like a Tyler than a Silas. "Have some fun after we cut the bug out of this poor schmuck."

  Silas chuckled. "Make a withdrawal from him, and a deposit in her."

  They both laughed and high-fived each other.

  "When do we start removing flesh?" asked Tyler. "I've got me a thirst for gore."

  "Not while we're driving," said Dominick. "I'm not letting you screw this up because we hit a bump."

  "Ohhh, but I've got steady hands! I only cut where I want to cut."

  "Which is all over!" Silas said. They laughed and high-fived each other again.

  "Give it a rest back there," Dominick said. "I'm trying to drive."

  "Awww...are we distracting you?"

  Benjamin spat out some surplus blood and tried to speak. "Please," he said in a whisper.

  "Please what? Make the ouchies stop?" Tyler punched him again.

  "Hey! Enough of that!" Dominick shouted. "I swear, if he's dead before I get a shot at him, I'll strap both of you down and cut you up myself! Just wait, all right? When we get to a secure place, we'll make the guy drip from the ceiling!"

  * * *

  Julie dove onto the grass, momentarily unconcerned with the specimen. Her right arm went numb as she landed on it wrong, then she rolled away from the car and braced herself for the explosion.

  Dominick had lost his mind. It was hard enough to believe that he was willing to risk the specimen by shooting at her car—what if he'd accidentally struck Benjamin?—but throwing a grenade? That was positively insane.

  A few seconds later, when nothing blew up, she realized that she'd been duped.

  Dammit! She stood up as she heard the van's side door slam shut. She took aim with her revolver, trying to force her right arm to remain steady despite the lack of feeling, and fired at the rear tire as it sped back up onto the road. Missed. Another shot. Missed again. Then the gun slipped out of her grasp and landed on the grass.

  She screamed with rage.

  A couple of cars sped past. The drivers were no doubt dialing 911 on their cell phones to alert authorities to the wacky lady shooting at a van. She tucked the gun back into the holster in her blouse to increase the chances that a passerby would be willing to stop and give her a lift. Under her breath she let loose with a stream of obscenities that featured expletives imbedded inside other expletives.

  A small green Honda, driven by somebody who obviously hadn't witnessed the gunfire, pulled to the shoulder of the road next to her. The middle-aged woman in the passenger seat rolled down her window. "Could you use some help, ma'am?"

  "I sure could," said Julie, wasting no time in throwing open the door to the back seat and climbing inside. The large black Mastiff back there began to lick her face, and she gently pushed it away.

  "Weaver loves new people," the woman said. Her husband, a thin man with ruddy cheeks, looked back at Julie and winked. "I'm Marissa, and this handsome man next to me is Dan."

  "I need you to drive as fast as you can," Julie said. "I'm trying to catch up with somebody. It's an emergency."

  "Ooh, that doesn't sound like our thing," said Dan. "You may want to call the police or wait for somebody else."

  "No time. I need you to move. Now!"

  "I'm sorry, young lady, but I'm not about to put my wife or Weaver at risk like that."

  Almost ready to bellow with frustration, Julie yanked the gun out of her blouse and pointed it at Dan. "Drive!"

  Dan drove.

  "Why don't you turn yourself in?" Marissa asked. "Whatever you've done, it can't be beyond forgiveness. Just explain the situation to the authorities and I'm sure everything will work out in the end."

  "I told you, I'm trying to catch somebody, not run from somebody. My friend has been kidnapped."

  "If that's the truth, it's a sad thing and you have my sympathy. But you realize that by putting us at risk, you're almost as bad as the kidnappers. What if we get injured? What if we get killed? Can your conscience handle that?"

  "I'm not gonna get anybody killed. I'm just trying to catch a van."

  Weaver licked her cheek. She shoved him away.

  They were doing about sixty-five. No sign of the van.

  "Speed up," Julie said.
>
  "I'm not comfortable exceeding the—"

  "The speed limit is seventy! And I need you to floor it!"

  Dan did so.

  Marissa shook her head sadly. "I think you should look deep within yourself and decide if you're truly a good person," she said. "Look at your actions and how they impact others."

  "Please don't give me a sermon right now."

  "We're not religious. You don't have to be a Jesus freak to know right from wrong. What you're doing, whether it's out of desperation or because of your upbringing, is wrong. And I think you know that."

  "I really need you to shut up," said Julie.

  "Whether they realize it or not, everybody lives their lives with a moral code," Marissa explained. "Sometimes it's a very simple code, perhaps like Morse Code. I don't mean that literally, I just mean that some moral codes are a simple, straightforward series of dots and dashes. Some moral codes are more complex and harder to understand. Perhaps they're a cryptogram like what you might find in the newspaper, where C equals H and K equals E and so on. People who have that kind of moral code may find themselves confused at times. Almost lost. But there's always a hint available if you turn the paper upside down. Just don't wait until the next day for the solution."