Tales From Twistwood

The Blob

The itching started a few weeks ago, the night after I had operated on an emergency patient with a strange disease, one that had never been seen before. I tried not to think about it too much, but visions of the man's wounds seemed to flash through my mind at the worst times - the huge gashes in his arms and legs, the watery grey liquid spattered everywhere on him, his gashed-out eyes. As a doctor, I've seen some pretty bad stuff, but nothing that severe. By the time he was brought in by an ambulance, he was barely even alive. No one questioned what happened to him. Most of the others said it must have been an animal attack, which would have explained the cuts, but what about his eyes? From the way they had been gouged out, it almost seemed like something had pushed them out from the inside. And that still didn't explain the strange grey liquid.

At first, I wasn't worried about my itching. I figured I must have gotten a bug bite, or I was mildly allergic to some kind of plant that grew in the woods. After all, I had taken a walk to get the gruesome thoughts of that strange patient from my mind.

But then it grew more persistent.

After a few days, it was more than just simple irritation. I was scratching furiously at my skin, so much that I had multiple cuts and scabs from scratching so hard in the same place. I had called in sick to work the first couple days, but now I didn't even bother. My stomach felt like I was going to vomit. I felt very energetic, yet drained of energy, and I was incredibly on edge and paranoid. Whatever it was, I was sure it had come from that mystery patient, and all I could do was hope that the same thing didn't happen to me. However, I didn't think it was serious enough to call 911 yet.

But it couldn't hurt to phone some of my friends up at the hospital. Maybe they knew what was going on?

I clambered out of bed, breathing heavily, and plodded to the living room. My legs felt like they were full of lead. What was happening to me?

I picked up the phone with a shaky hand and dialed my friend's number. The phone started to ring, but no one picked up.

"Hello?" a voice said. I sighed in relief.

"Oh, thank god-" I started.

The room started to spin. A sharp pain shot through my head, like someone was trying to split it open with an axe. The muscles in my arms and legs suddenly spasmed. The phone clattered to the ground.

"Janice?" the tinny voice said. "Janice, are you okay?"

My legs gave out and my knees hit the floor. I tried to cry for help, but all I could muster out was a croak. Pains wracked up and down my body. I couldn't think straight. My vision was starting to blur...

That was when I coughed up the first of the slime. It was watery and grey, exactly like the stuff that I had seen on that man that came into the ER. I vomited it violently all over the floor, so much it seemed like it wouldn't stop. And there was this pain, right behind my eyes, like something was trying to force its way out. I felt the same pressure in my arms and legs, in my stomach, behind my ribcage - and I started to panic.

Using the last of my strength, I struggled up from the ground and clambered into the kitchen. I shuffled to the sink and grabbed the rim with shaky fingers. Then I held on and retched the grey liquid into the garbage disposal.

Then I started to see the dots. Something moved out of the corner of my eye, and I saw that the flesh of my arm was moving. Small dots were swarming around, pushing their way upwards, and it looked like there were bugs under my skin. I scrambled backwards from the sink, clutching my throat, a scream stuck like a rock in my windpipe.

I spied a knife sitting on the edge of the counter and grabbed it on impulse. Closing my eyes, I held the blade to the skin of my forearm, right where the dots were starting to push their way up. It would hurt like hell, but I was sure it would hurt less than the feeling of these things trying to break out of my skin. And it would definitely hurt less than death. I stabbed directly at those things, breaking the skin of my arm and sending drops of blood to the floor. On my arm I saw that the "bugs" were small black dots, like droplets of water almost. They gathered together into a liquid pile and dripped down my fingers and onto the floor. From the cut, hundreds, then thousands of the same black dots poured out onto the white tile. Slowly, the pressure I had felt ebbed away, until the last drop of the black stuff slipped out. I watched the gelatinous mass roll across the floor, and the into a small crack in the wall.

I was left standing in my kitchen alone, clutching a knife, blood dripping from my arm and a horrified expression on my face. One question kept flashing through my mind - What the hell just happened?

To this day, I have no idea what that parasite thing was. I just hope it never happens to anyone else, and if it does, I hope they have the same idea as I did.