Benjamin's Parasite

by Jeff Strand

  Tonight, he hated his life.

  The Smith brothers. How did somebody with his incredible talent get stuck babysitting these two bozos? His boss wanted Benjamin Wilson captured and brought to him. No problem. That was an easy, short assignment. But Mr. Smith wanted his idiot sons, Clyde and Joey, to make the actual capture. He merely wanted Pedro to supervise and make sure things went smoothly, since apparently they'd totally botched their first attempt.

  Pedro had wanted to explain that of course they botched their first attempt—they were incompetent. Their combined IQ was barely sufficient to fully comprehend the voting process for American Idol. Their father had given them every possible opportunity in life, and Pedro resented how little they'd done with these opportunities. In their shoes, he'd be CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation.

  As it was, he'd come from nothing. Dropped out of school at fourteen to take care of his baby sister. Caught Mr. Smith's eye at age eighteen while talking his way into an exclusive nightclub and had been doing "odd jobs" for the man for the past six years. He'd slowly but steadily earned the old man's trust, which had apparently backfired now that he was stuck with the dumb-asses.

  "I think Dad wanted one of us to drive," said Clyde.

  "You're lucky to even be sitting inside my car," Pedro informed him. "If it were up to me, I'd drag you behind on a rope."

  "Don't talk to my brother that way," said Joey.

  "I was talking to you that way, too. You were included in the rope comment."

  "Well, don't talk to me that way, either."

  "I will talk to you any way that I please, because I could kill one or both of you in about three seconds." He took his right hand off the steering wheel and held up three fingers.

  "Dad wouldn't like that."

  "I know he wouldn't. So don't make me do it."

  If Mr. Smith had been in the vehicle, Pedro wouldn't be talking to his sons like that. But he'd be damned if he was going to suck up to this pair of imbeciles, or even treat them with respect. He was surprised that they hadn't fought over who was going to get the front seat.

  There was a moment of blissful silence.

  "You couldn't kill us in three seconds," said Joey.

  "I could and will."

  "While driving?"

  "Yes."

  "How?"

  "By sticking my index finger in your eyeball socket."

  "In three seconds? Not both of us."

  "Maybe in two. Stop talking."

  "That's a bunch of crap."

  "Stop talking."

  "Two seconds my ass."

  "Stop talking."

  One problem with the Smith brothers, and there were many, was that they never shut up. Not ever. Pedro suspected that he could reach over and break Clyde's jaw, and that the dullard would continue to flap it up and down with his hand, like a self-manipulating puppet.

  "How do you think I should kill this guy?" asked Joey from the back seat. "Gun or knife?"

  "You're not going to kill him," said Pedro. "We're bringing him to your father alive. That's what your father meant when he said 'I want you to bring him back alive.' If you kill him, he won't be alive anymore, and you'll have failed at a relatively simple task."

  Joey ignored the sarcasm. "What about the girl?"

  Pedro shrugged. "You can try it. You won't have much blood left when she's done."

  "Yeah, right."

  "Didn't she kick your butt in the parking lot?" Clyde asked.

  "She hit me from behind."

  "Still, at least I got my butt kicked by a dude."

  "Bite me."

  "I'll pass."

  "Oh, go ahead. Take a great big ol' bite. It won't hurt you."

  "I'd rather bite a rabid donkey."

  "I'd rather bite a rabid..." Joey had to think for a moment. "...seagull."

  "Well, I didn't ask you to bite me, jerk."

  Pedro knew that this could easily go on for another twenty or thirty minutes. "Enough!" he shouted. "I'm going to lose my mind if you guys don't shut up. I'll quit. I'll do it. I'll forget about the assignment and spend the rest of the night in a bar."

  "Dad won't like that," said Clyde.

  "I know he won't. He'll be breathing fire. That's why I need you softheads to stop talking."

  "I killed the last person who called me a softhead."

  Pedro took out his cell phone and dialed.

  "What are you doing?" Joey asked.

  "Calling your dad."

  "Why?"

  "To notify him of your idiocy."

  Joey and Clyde exchanged a concerned look.

  "How long do we have to stop talking?" Clyde asked.

  "Until I give you permission to speak."

  Clyde shook his head. "That's not gonna work for me."

  Pedro pressed the "speaker phone" button. Mr. Smith's voice said: "Yeah, Pedro?"

  Joey and Clyde frantically waved for Pedro to stop. Joey ran his fingers across his lips in a zipping motion.

  "Just checking in to let you know everything is fine, sir."

  "How are the idiots doing?"

  "Still dumb, sir, but they'll get the job done." Pedro winced as soon as he said it. Mr. Smith freely acknowledged the way-below-average intellect of his offspring, but others were not given the privilege of agreeing with him.

  Mr. Smith didn't seem to notice. "Good. Thanks for the update."

  "No problem, sir." Pedro hung up.

  Joey and Clyde still didn't shut up.

  * * *

  As he lay in bed, unable to sleep, Benjamin reflected upon the idea that certain fantasies were best left as fantasies. For example, he was currently in bed with a gorgeous blonde, handcuffed to the headboard. Pretty good fantasy. However, his fantasies of this nature never included him being covered with sores, and they certainly didn't include a bed partner who was snoring like an orchestra of chainsaws.

  He struggled with the handcuffs, trying to wriggle his hand free yet not jostle the bed enough to wake up Julie. They seemed pretty solid, and he didn't have any experience in this type of escape, so gaining his freedom was unlikely. Still, he had to try. He wasn't planning to make a run for it if he did somehow manage to get loose, but he'd definitely go for her gun. Put himself in control. They'd go to California, but under his terms. It was insane that they were wasting time lying here when he could be driving.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a soft rattling outside.

  * * *

  Pedro watched the moron mess with the lock on the motel room door, wishing he could just stand back and watch the fireworks. The door had probably been booby-trapped, and Clyde was destined to get badly hurt or killed if Pedro didn't intervene. Mr. Smith would go ballistic if one of his sons died on Pedro's watch, so he'd have to settle for enjoying the thought of an alternate universe where Clyde got a face-full of the hot end of a flamethrower.

  "Step away from the door," Pedro whispered.

  "I've almost got it," Clyde said, also in a whisper.

  "No, you do not. You'll probably cut your finger off."

  "Stop talking. You're pulling me out of the zone."

  "You have no zone. Quit playing with the door."

  Clyde glanced back at him. "Hey, I think I've got it!"

  The door popped slightly ajar. Pedro was so surprised that the bumbling imbecile had succeeded that for a split-second he didn't think to call out a warning.

  There was a flash of white light, and then Clyde stumbled backwards, hands over his face. He let out a pitiful wail that would have really gotten on Pedro's nerves if he weren't so concerned about Mr. Smith breaking his legs because his son got his face fried off. He grabbed Clyde by the back of his shirt and yanked him out of the way.

  Pedro thought quickly: "Housekeeping!" he announced, using the thick Mexican accent he'd lost over the years. He felt kind of racist doing it, but there were more important concerns at the moment.

  "We don't need any towels," a woman—Julie, no doubt—info
rmed him from inside the room.

  "Wrong room then. Sorry very much."

  Housekeeping was unlikely to be making service calls after midnight, so she obviously knew what they were there for. Clyde had stopped his whining and was blinking rapidly as if blinded. Fortunately, the white flash had apparently just been a light and not an explosive, so his face didn't look like bacon.

  "Look," said Pedro, "it's not in any of our best interests for anybody to get shot."

  "It's in my best interest for you to get shot," Julie said.

  "Not loudly."

  "What do you want?"

  "You know what we want." There was enough real stupidity in the vicinity that the idea of playing stupid was incredibly distasteful to Pedro.

  "You can't have it."

  "I respectfully disagree."

  * * *

  Julie kept her gun pointed at the ajar door as she unlocked Benjamin's handcuffs. He really felt that if danger was going to lurk at every turn, she should quit cuffing him. They weren't even fur-lined.

  "Who's out there?" he whispered.

  "I don't know." She popped his right hand free.

  The flash-bomb booby trap would have been a much more valuable asset if they weren't wasting the "blinded enemy" time unlocking the handcuffs. However, this went without saying, so Benjamin didn't say it.

  Julie freed his left hand, and they both got off the bed. "How did they find us?" Benjamin asked.

  "I don't know. They must have traced the credit card. They shouldn't have been able to trace that one to me. Dammit!"

  "What are we going to do?"

  "They aren't going to shoot through the windows because they could accidentally hit you. So I just have to cover the door."

  "Okay, sounds easy enough, but there's no real exit strategy there."

  "I know." She lowered her voice even more. "I need you to sneak over to the window and peek out underneath the curtain. Tell me how many there are."

  "Me?"

  "They won't shoot you if they see you."

  "They might shoot blindly at the sign of motion."

  "They won't."

  "Those other whack-jobs tried to shoot us off the road."

  "Listen to me," said the man outside. "I have a canister of tear gas that I don't want to use. Come out and we'll talk."

  "He's bluffing," said Julie.

  A few seconds later, a metal canister rolled into the room and began to billow a cloud of smoke.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  "Let's go," said Julie, grabbing her black briefcase off the desk and running for the door. She threw it all the way open and kicked somebody that Benjamin couldn't see. He followed her, heart racing.

  As he rushed out of the motel room, the first thing he noticed was a man pointing a gun at Julie. The second thing he noticed was a man—Joey, one of those delightful brothers who'd tried to kidnap him at Wal-Mart, whom he was so very happy to see again—pointing a gun at him. The third and final thing he noticed was Clyde lying on his back on the ground, clutching his stomach, the obvious recipient of Julie's kick.

  "Close the door so we don't all get gassed," said the man with the gun pointed at Julie. Benjamin did as he was told.

  "What happened to your face?" Joey asked. "That's nasty."

  "It's flesh-eating bacteria," said Benjamin. "Very contagious."

  "Oh, crap!"

  "He's lying," said the other man. "Just chill."

  "Oh. Drop your gun," Joey told Benjamin.

  "I don't have a gun."

  Joey regarded him with suspicion, then shrugged.

  The man with the gun pointed at Julie took a step closer to her. "You, too."

  Julie dropped her gun and briefcase to the ground.

  Clyde sat up, still holding his stomach. "Kill her. Shoot her in the face."

  Joey shook his head and gave his brother a wicked smile. "Why waste her? Let's have some fun, first. What do you say?"

  "Are you kidding me?" asked the other man. "With the police possibly on their way, and people peeking out of their windows, you're going to take a rape break? Do you two have any dignity at all? 'Oh, sorry, Mr. Smith, we had the specimen, but your sons wanted to boink the bodyguard.'"

  "I was gonna be quick!" Joey insisted.

  "Do you really think that improves my opinion of you?"

  "If either of you so much as touch me," said Julie, "I'll twist your dick off before it's all the way out of your pants."

  "Oh, yeah?" asked Clyde. "Maybe you'll be dead when we do it."

  The other man looked at him incredulously. "What? Did you seriously just say that? You're a necrophile now?"

  "What does necrophile mean?"

  "It means practitioner of necrophilia."

  "What does—?"

  "It means that you're the kind of sick pervert loser who would threaten to have sex with a dead woman." The man gave Julie a look as if to apologize for the appalling behavior of his associates.

  The door to the next room opened, and an elderly woman stepped outside. "People are trying to..." Her angry expression vanished as she saw the guns.

  Joey grabbed the collar of her nightgown and pulled her toward him. He wrapped his arm around her neck and pressed the barrel of his gun against the side of her head. "Look, Pedro, we've got ourselves a hostage now," he said, proudly. He sneered at Benjamin and Julie. "Now what are you gonna do?"

  "You...fucking...idiot..." said Pedro. The poor guy looked about ready to burst into tears of frustration, and Benjamin almost felt sorry for him.

  Joey frowned. "What's wrong?"

  "Who the hell told you to take a hostage? What are we supposed to do with one? What benefit does she serve?"

  "I thought she might, I dunno, make them cave in to our will or something."

  "Well, she won't. And now we have to take her with us. By the way, who's pointing a gun at Mr. Wilson now that you have your little hostage?"

  Joey looked kind of sheepish.

  "That's riiiiight," said Pedro. "Nobody! You bumbling mentally non-existent jackass! Clyde, go get whoever else is in that room. Move, bimbo!"

  Clyde got up and walked into the open motel room. Benjamin thought that this might be a good time to try for a daring escape, except that it would be a very simple matter for Pedro to point his gun away from Julie and fire a bullet into his leg.

  "What's Smith paying you?" Julie asked Pedro.

  "More than you're making."

  "You'd be surprised."

  "I doubt it. And I don't do bribes. You might be able to bribe one of these simpletons with a warm beer and a copy of Playboy, but I don't switch loyalties."

  "Fair enough."

  There was a soft pop from the motel room, and the sound of something falling to the floor. Clyde emerged from the motel room, smug satisfaction on his face. He blew on the end of his pistol.

  "What did you do?" Pedro asked.

  "Got the old man."

  The elderly woman let out a cry of sorrow that was cut off when Joey put his hand tightly over her mouth.

  "You killed him?"

  "Yeah." Suddenly Clyde looked unsure of himself. "You said to get him, right?"

  "Get him! Not kill him! I wanted you to bring him out here, you dumb shit!"

  "Oh. I thought—"

  "No, you didn't! If there's anything you most assuredly did not do, it's think! Our job here is not to leave a trail of bodies! If we're going to be that careless, why not just kill the old lady, too?"

  "Can I?" Joey asked.

  "No!"

  "Obviously you're having a personnel issue," said Julie. "How about you let us go and get back in touch when you've worked it out?"

  Pedro ran a hand through his hair. "You know what? I can feel myself growing dumber. Brain cells are being sucked right out of my head. There's this whole line of brain cells floating up into the ether, sparkling in the moonlight. I should shoot myself in the head, speed up the process."

  Somebody groaned in the motel room.


  "Is he still alive?" Pedro asked.

  Clyde frowned. "He shouldn't be."

  "I realize that he shouldn't be. That wasn't the question. Joey, take the old lady with you and check on her husband."

  "Okay. By 'check on' you don't mean shoot him again, right?"

  "Correct. Go look at him with your eyes and tell me what you see."

  Joey dragged the old woman into the room. "Oh, yeah, he's still alive," Joey called out. "Clyde got him in the stomach."

  "Ah, yes," said Pedro. "Because when you're trying to prevent somebody from identifying you, the best way to go about it is to shoot him in the stomach and leave him to die a slow, agonizing death." He closed his eyes in frustration.