Hatched

by Jason Davis

  He watched John try to swallow as he moved back on the couch. The motion was tight and he made a loud sound as he licked his lips. He looked dehydrated, his lips chapped. Then John looked down, a lost look, a sad look. It was as if he wanted to cry, but the tears never came.

  He looked back to Marty with those white, lifeless eyes. His face was twisted in mournful agony. There were only faint remnants of what had once been eye color. “I feel them. The spiders. They’re in my stomach now. They are eating away at me from the inside, turning my stomach into knots.”

  What the hell was he mumbling about? Was he stoned?

  Marty didn’t like to think that his best friend had lost his mind. Maybe he was just having a bad acid trip. It wasn’t like John to drop acid, but spiders inside him? Maybe the doctor wasn’t the best thing. Still, John looked terrible. He needed some sort of help.

  John started to pull at his stomach, looking at it, scratching, a dazed look on his face. “They itch.”

  “You’re nuts, man. You're just coming down with something or having a bad trip.” John just kind of grunt laughed and kept looking down at his stomach.

  “Here, let me show you something,” John said, suddenly standing. Marty was surprised he could even stand, although he did wobble a little. He remembered how he had to help John sit up. How was he standing now?

  He started to stumble out of the room, bouncing off any object he passed as he worked his way back toward his bedroom. Marty watched him as he disappeared down the hallway. He could hear John tossing things around, possibly looking for something.

  Marty hoped that he didn’t come back with some acid or ganja because he was not in the mood. Especially, and he kept thinking there was no way to avoid it, he’d have to take John to the doctor. He just hoped that whatever his friend took wouldn’t show up in any of the tests they would have to do. Marty didn’t want to deal with the questions.

  John came wobbling back into the living room holding a folded piece of paper. Marty hadn’t even heard him stop looking for it. He guessed that he just was too tired to keep paying attention.

  “That damn bitch is after me,” John spit out as he neared Marty.

  “Who?” Marty asked, as he started to reach for the letter. John quickly pulled it back, blocking him with his other arm.

  Marty recoiled a little in surprise.

  John walked to the coffee table, and with a sweep of his arm, he cleared a spot sending piles of garbage to the floor. He then tilted the piece of paper over the table, a white powder sprinkling out.

  Shit, Marty thought. He sure as hell hoped John hadn’t moved on to start doing the white stuff, the “nose candy” Marty had seen some of his other friends starting to take, losing their lives in the process. It was nasty stuff, and John wasn’t doing good as it was. He didn’t need to make it worse. Once that shit got you, there was no getting away from it.

  “You’re not doing that shit, are you?” Marty asked, hoping the tone conveyed more than his question. He wanted John to know and understand that coke was going too far. That there was no way he approved of it and would not watch his friend lose himself to it.

  John looked at him, a strange expression on his face, as though he had heard Marty’s question, but didn't comprehend it. He looked at the powder briefly, then recognition flashed in his eyes.

  “No, no. Hell fucking no. This isn’t that shit. No, man, this is much worse than that. I think it’s that fucking anthrax shit.”

  John went into a coughing fit, shooting more blood onto the floor. When he was done, there was a streak of it dripping from the side of his mouth. It reminded Marty of that show he had heard about on HBO. The one with the vampires. John looked back at Marty. He could see he wasn’t catching what he was saying.

  “Remember those terrorist attacks and how they had that white powder, anthrax, being sent around? I think this is that,” John said as he reached out to the couch to help himself sit back down. It was laborious, Marty could tell. Damn, he had to get John to the hospital.

  “Who, man? You don’t really think you have that shit, do you?” Hell, looking at him, Marty could almost believe that he did.

  When John let the letter fall to the table, Marty saw it had some writing on it. He wanted to reach out for it, find out what it said, but he was afraid to touch it.

  “What’s it say?”

  John smiled. It was strangely terrifying because there wasn’t any rational reason for it. “Die, motherfucker. Die! It’s in Jamie’s handwriting. I knew she was a psychotic bitch, but I didn’t think it would come to this.”

  “Jamie? She would never.” Marty didn’t truly believe that. Jamie was nuts. He had known her since her family had moved to town and had heard all the stories long before John started dating her.

  Then again, John and Marty were, themselves, considered to be the younger generation of nut jobs. They had both seen their share of strange looks as they walked into the grocery store or gas station. In a small town, when you were on the “darker” side of social living, you easily stood out. While Marty would never consider John a goth, the rest of the town did. Jamie, though, was at her own level of crazy.

  She had always been heavily into Wicca, witchcraft, earth mumbo jumbo. Marty never did get the full story. He didn’t care, either. She was into magic and all that hocus pocus, and he couldn’t give two shits about it.

  John thought she was interesting. She liked to make her potions. He liked to make his…own concoctions. They were their own strange peas in a pod and went psychotically well together.

  Thankfully, John had finally had enough of her bullshit and dumped her just over two weeks ago. That letter must be her response.

  Damn, she is crazy.

  “I can’t see her sending you anthrax. I mean, where the hell would she get it?”

  “Who the fuck knows? She’s nuts, man.”

  John coughed vigorously. Blood splattered from him, spraying out and falling onto the hardwood floor. Marty was sure he had more to say, but John just sat there, looking at the spot where his blood had hit the floor, like he was seeing if for the first time.

  “Anthrax is such a deadly disease. I would have thought she would have better taste,” John said. It sounded almost dreamlike, as though he didn’t even realize he said it. He just kept looking at where the blood sat drying on the floor.

  ****

  John continued to look at the floor, but it wasn’t the blood he saw. It was two spiders, dark, black shapes that had been launched when he coughed and had landed in the puddle of red. At first, he didn’t even know what they were. He had been coughing up black chunks all morning. Most of them were irregular, so he just assumed they were blood clots from inside him.

  When they hit the floor, they just stayed there, as if they were stunned. Then he saw what looked like little strings unwinding from around the tiny dots. The strings formed the long legs, different from the tiny spider he had imagined earlier. The legs lifted the bodies, now bigger in size, then both just paused there. It was like they were scanning their surroundings. Then they quickly dashed toward Marty, who just stood there.

  John wondered if he could see them because he didn’t react. He thought about trying to step on them, but he was just so tired. He had gotten worse. He could feel it. Even breathing was getting difficult.

  He heard Marty say something but didn’t hear what it was. He was watching the spiders. They had stopped. “Wha…? John said, looking up.

  “I said that I should get you to the hospital.”

  John looked back at the spiders. They were dead.

  He could tell because they were on their backs with their legs curled up.

  “I don’t think I would make it,” John said.

  “Don’t be so cryptic.”

  Yeah, that was easy for Marty to say. He hadn’t been

  the one trying to figure this shit out the last hour. He wasn’t the one who had felt the stabbing pains all th
roughout his body as the little bastards tore his insides apart. Marty wasn’t the one sitting here while he felt them in his head. They were in his fucking head, under his skin, where he couldn’t get to them.

  One would occasionally come out and taunt him, dance on his skin, play games with him, make John chase him, itching to catch the damn thing as it ran under his skin again.

  Marty hadn’t been here when he tried to go into the kitchen. It wasn’t a big apartment, so he didn't have to walk far. Marty hadn’t seen John trip over his own legs when he lost all control of them and started falling forward. He had just barely gotten his hands out in time to catch himself on the counter. He had to use his arms to pull himself, shifting his weight back and forth to bring his feet under him. It was like he had become paralyzed while walking. He had never felt anything like it. He had just stared at his legs, the limbs that were no longer his.

  Then he could feel them again, like a switch had been flipped. Of course, with the feeling returning came the pain of sudden awareness. He had screamed out as his knees buckled.

  No, Marty hadn’t been there. Marty hadn’t seen.

  Marty also hadn’t seen as John lay in the kitchen, painful wave after painful wave coursing through him to the point that he could feel tears and sweat spreading across his face. That was when John had felt he couldn’t take it anymore. He was lying on the floor, his eyes glazed over, only seeing shapes in the room through his tears. He had just wiped them away when he saw them—more of the little spiders coming out of his arm and running to a hole in the wall.

  Oh, how the little bastards just seemed to be coming out of him in droves. They just kept coming, and he had to stop them. He wanted to kill them, to get every damn motherfucking one of them. They were killing him, eating him away. Well, guess what? It was time for him to eat them away.

  John had pushed himself up onto his knees and reached out, grabbing the handle for the cupboard under the sink and ripping it open. He quickly found what he was looking for. It hadn’t been what he had originally gone in there for, but this shit, this fucking pain could just go to hell. Actually, he was probably the one going to hell, but the rest of the shit could go down there with him.

  John had reached into the little cabinet. His arm was thick and heavy, hard to keep it steady as he reached for one of the bottles. There were many different chemicals and poisons in there. He didn't care which one. He figured any one of them would do.

  Yeah, Marty didn’t know about any of that shit. John drank from multiple bottles. Any one of them should have killed him. Marty should have found him sprawled out on the kitchen floor, but he wasn’t. No, he was on the damn couch. He didn’t even feel the effects of any of the poisons tearing away at him. It was like he had never done any of it. And maybe he hadn’t. Maybe it was all a hallucination.

  Man, wouldn’t it be fucked up if all this shit is just some part of a bad trip?

  ****

  Marty watched as John started to sway. He looked like he was getting worse. Staggering, John bent over, a coughing spasm much worse than any previous ones shuttered through him. He had to reach out to the side of the couch as he shivered violently. Spittle flew through the room and he rocked back and forth, his lungs convulsing, blood showering down.

  Marty hurried forward, reaching out to him. John put a hand out to stop him. His eyes were mere slits from the coughing spasm, but he could see the spiders as they landed on the floor. They would just stay there for a brief moment before their legs quickly carried them toward Marty.

  John quickly slammed his foot down on top of them,

  using all his energy to focus on them. He thought he was going to fall over. In the fog that surrounded his head, he was surprised he could keep himself upright. Not only that, he was able to use the momentum of moving forward to reach out and push Marty toward the door.

  “Get...out!” John said, rasping and working to spit out the words through coughing spasms.

  “What the fuck, man?!”

  John pushed hard against him, and Marty could tell he was trying to put all his weight into it.

  “Dude, I’m fucking here because you called me!” Marty

  tried to yell, but as he struggled against John’s weight, it came out more like a grunt. John was actually pushing him back. It surprised him just how much force he could put into it. It was enough to get him to nearly fall back against the wall, which would have had John falling with him. Marty was barely able to get a leg behind himself and plant it down to stop their momentum.

  “Get…o—” John tried to spit out.

  Marty could tell he put everything into the struggle as he tried to work him toward the door. Marty wasn’t about to give up and just leave his friend. Not like this, not with how bad he was.

  “Come on!” Marty yelled

  “The spiders!”

  “Dude!”

  John buckled. Marty caught him, quickly working him back to the couch, lowering him as softly as he could. It wasn’t easy. He found himself having to let go and reach out to the back of the couch in order to keep from landing on top of his friend.

  Marty pulled himself back up and looked at his friend. John was out cold. His breathing was shallow, his chest barely rising, and Marty could hear each breath as it was forced back out. He couldn’t help but think of hospitals and patients who were hooked up to machines to keep them alive. The rhythmic, raspy, dying sound was about the only thing Marty could hear in the now quiet apartment.

  Chapter 3

  Billy...Billy…Billy’s got a little willy. Billy the Willy.

  Billy’s got a little willy.

  He had many names. Names that haunted him most of his life and went as far back as he could remember. Many of them flashed through his nightmares, even tearing away the happiest of dreams to show the rotting memories of his past. All the names had followed him through school. They were also the names he still heard daily at work, or when he went to the bar. Billy the Willy. Billy’s got a little willy. The names of his past, always there in his mind, always there to echo and haunt him. The names that had shaped him.

  And those echoes would often keep him awake, not allowing him to drift off to sleep until well past exhaustion. It was always hard to sleep when, every time he closed his eyes, he saw someone, heard someone calling out at him. He heard them laughing, often seeing their faces all around him. They were always laughing.

  In a small town, everyone seemed to know him, which was odd because little towns were not like they were depicted on television. Everyone didn’t know everyone else, and every bit of news wasn’t spread by just one town gossip. Still, they all knew him there. He could tell. He could see it in their eyes and the way they looked at him. They all watched him and held their children closer as he walked by. It was in their body language and the way they shifted their gaze to him, thinking of him as that sicko pervert. He could never understand why.

  Billy with his little willy.

  The nickname given to him so long ago should have vanished or gone away by now. Things shouldn’t linger like that. He knew he was not the first child to have faced such humiliation, but why had he always been the one tortured? All of it had started in the third grade, and he had never been man enough to stop it.

  Billy had started out as a smaller kid, scrawny, typically always alone on the playground. His mother called him special, but the others called him dumb, laughing at him for not being like them. It wasn’t his fault. He just couldn’t catch on to things as quickly or keep up with everyone. Plus, he was always the tattletale, always the one strictly following the rules and reporting his classmates who didn’t. He just wanted everyone to be fair and do what was right. He was already a joke even before it happened. Even before that afternoon when everything had gone from bad to worse in his own little world.

  He couldn’t remember why he had been wearing sweatpants, why his mother would have allowed him to wear those stupid things. It wasn’t important anyway. It w
as probably his fault, another way for him to prove he was a loser. After all, they had been a present from his grandmother for Christmas that year. Who actually wore the clothes from their grandparents? Only those who were forever marked for loserdum.

  However, those sweatpants didn’t seem so cool when they were pulled down to around his ankles during recess. They had been playing kickball, everyone running around. All the kids were laughing, having a good time. He hadn’t been noticed too much at that point. He had just been standing with his best friend against the wall of the school. Everyone ignored him. There had been none of the teasing he had gotten used to. He could just enjoy himself in that awkward way of having no one around him.

  They hadn’t even been talking. They had just been standing there, watching the others. Some of the kids were on the merry-go-round, others were on the monkey bars, and the rest were kicking the ball back and forth. Billy had thought about going over to the monkey bars, but still had a sore spot from when he fell off the top bar and hit his head on another one on the way down. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea for him to start climbing them again so soon.

  So he watched the others play, mainly watching the kickball game. Renny Armstrong ran the bases after a kick, the action of the game picking up. Billy started to find the game interesting as he watched Tina Lock run and catch the ball off the bounce. As she ran across the playground trying to tag Luke, Billy suddenly felt a cold, unfiltered breeze below the waist.

  It had been so smooth, he had barely even felt it. He had been watching the game, felt a little tug around his waist, then just air rushing at his legs, his exposed private parts. Everything felt the cool breeze.

  The world around him seemed to slow down. Everyone now moved in slow motion. Tina must have seen it out of the corner of her eye because she suddenly stopped and turned. Renny, seeing her stop, also stopped and turned. The whole playground seemed to turn to look. And they all looked directly at him.