Read Black Cat Tales: Where the Spiders Dwell: And Other Short Stories Page 5

evidence to show up in a stool sample but he had taken some bloods away to be analysed. He had also prescribed some praziquantel and suggested she came into the surgery if she felt no better after a few days. Unfortunately she had not been able to come to the surgery because her symptoms had indeed got worse.

  As he arrived at Bella’s house he saw the downstairs lights were on illuminating the dark path up to the front door. He knocked on the door and let himself in, as Bella had requested on the phone.

  He found her lying sprawled on the sofa wrapped in a red and white checked duvet. It looked like she had been trying to work earlier; there were sketches of baby-grows and matching hats spread out on the floor around her in disorganised piles alongside a cold cup of tea and a slice of toast with one bite taken out of it.

  “I’ve been trying to work and get this thing finished” she gestured towards the dining table where a length of soft cuddly-looking brown material lay in the jaws of a sewing machine. “But I’m not feeling any better. I’ve still been throwing up and I’ve not eaten for a while now” Bella complained weakly with a grimace. “I can’t hold anything down and I’m still getting those pains in my stomach as well” she added rubbing her stomach very gently.

  Doctor Barns peered over the top of his round spectacles and observed that her stomach was noticeably larger and slightly distended, which was unusual for a tapeworm infection. Typically a person suffered malnutrition as the worm feed on the food that the host consumed.

  “Let’s take a look. Lift you’re t-shirt up please” Doctor Barns asked and gently pressed her abdomen feeling for any signs of infection or inflammation. He was about to ask how long her stomach had been swollen for when he felt something move under the skin. It felt like a slight tap, not too dissimilar to a baby kicking.

  “Did you feel that?” Doctor Barns asked in surprise.

  “Yes, I’ve felt this fluttering feeling for a few days but I thought it was just indigestion. Should I be worried? Do you think it’s linked to those cases in the news? I hear it’s quite serious over there now”.

  Doctor Barns didn’t reply straight away. He had always been fascinated by parasites and this was a very curious case. Her symptoms now appeared very similar to pregnancy but she had said she had not had any unprotected sex and her periods were still regular. Whatever it was she was becoming increasingly unwell and his feelings of unease grew.

  “I’m not entirely sure what is wrong, if I’m honest, Bella. But I think a more thorough investigation in hospital may be beneficial. I’ll make a referral and they will be in touch with you in a day or so. In the mean time I’ll prescribe more praziquantel” The GP advised as he filled out the prescription. “I’ll ask John at the pharmacy to drop it round to you in the morning. He owes me a favour” he added with a friendly wink to try and cheer her up.

  Bella managed a weak smile in appreciation.

  The following day as Adrian ate a bowl of steaming porridge another report about the mystery outbreak in Peru came on the radio advising that large parts of the country were now under quarantine. Accounts were still sketchy and still no one outside the country had any real facts. It was all just speculation and rumour to which Adrian did not pay any attention.

  The telephone rang and Adrian finished loading the dishwasher before answering it and was surprised just a little concerned that it was Bella. She apologised for phoning him at home and asked if he could go round. He had given her his home number and had said to call if she felt worse. It was supposed to be his day off and he had intended to go through the latest invoices with Carol but Bella sounded much worse and he decided to see to pay her a quick visit first, the invoices would wait an hour or so.

  Bella had sounded as if she was in some pain on the phone and she had been slurring her words. She didn’t think she needed an ambulance but she wasn’t feeling well at all. So Adrian switched on the dishwasher and drove over to Satterthwaite again.

  When he arrived at Bella’s house he rang the bell but there was no answer. He looked through the window into the living room and saw her lying face down on the floor. She was not moving and appeared to be unconscious.

  Doctor Barns tried the front door and fortunately it was unlocked so he let himself in. A stale musty odour seemed to hang in the air and clung to Adrian as he hurried into the lounge. Bella’s limbs jerked with tiny spasmodic movements as if she had slipped into some kind of seizure. She didn’t respond to his voice so he put his jacket under her head to help make her comfy and pulled out his phone to call an ambulance.

  In the background he could hear a news report on the television about the mysterious outbreak again. A reporter was now saying the quarantine had been ordered by the UN and World Health Organisation. Increasing numbers of people were dying and neighbouring countries were now closing their boarders to try and contain the epidemic as more cases were reported outside Peru. The reporter had a distinctly anxious tone to his voice, as if he were reporting from a war zone and coming under direct fire. People in some towns and districts, he reported, had started to panic and riot. Adrian wondered how a common illness could case so much mayhem and also wondered what else the reporter knew but wasn’t able to broadcast. The reporter started to describe the features of the infection but Doctor Barns didn’t catch anymore as he noticed Bella’s lips were turning blue and his attention returned to her at once.

  She was no longer breathing!

  At first he thought she had swallowed her tongue but as he hooked his finger inside her mouth to clear the airway he found it wasn’t her tongue that was lodged in her esophagus; there was something else stuck there. As his finger touched the object, it withdrew further down her throat like the antennae of a snail when it is touched.

  Bella was now totally pale and glistening with a thin sheen of sweat. There also appeared to be movement beneath her faded Rainforest Alliance t-shirt. As Doctor Barns carefully lifted her t-shirt and grimaced at what he saw. Her pale stomach was moving, the flesh rippling as if it were a sack full of snakes.

  Whatever was in there wasn’t just kicking, it was… writhing? Mesmerised by the horrific spectacle he barely felt his sixth sense urging him to move away from his patient. Overwhelmed by a mixture of both professional curiosity and morbid fascination he stared over the top of his glasses at the scene before him, trying to consider a sensible diagnosis that would explain what he was seeing.

  But before he could reach a hypothesis Bella’s body abruptly transformed into a living nightmare. Her ears, nose, mouth, eye sockets belched forth squirming horrors as long tentacles suddenly burst from every orifice in Bella’s body. Pinkish muscular tubes slick with blood and other bodily fluids stretched out from the young woman.

  Doctor Barns recoiled from the sight as Bella’s body began shaking violently. Her arms and legs thrashed wildly for a moment before the soggy crack of her abdomen splitting open. The two halves ripped apart by a nest of lashing tentacles. Doctor Barns leapt backwards from the ruined body in revulsion, colliding with the wall behind him. He felt bile rising at the back of his throat. But he was unable to tear his eyes away from the angry knot of protrusions twisting in the air. He had seen many sights in his career but nothing as stomach churning as this. The clutch of tentacles seemed to be aware his presence in the room and began groping towards him, blindly reaching out in his direction.

  Whatever was inside Bella, it dragged her body towards him. Doctor Barns scrambled to the side only now realising his danger, but he wasn’t quick enough. A long probing member had snaked around his ankle and was working its way up the inside of his trouser leg. He felt it wrapping itself around his calf in sickening peristaltic movements. Its grip was tight and unrelenting and he felt the squeeze of suckers and the pinching of tiny hooks press against his bare skin. He kicked his leg frantically but the thing continued in its ascent. Doctor Barns searched for a way out as more tentacles reached for him.

  Bella’s body was between him and the door. He was pressed again
st the wall. He tried to side step to the right but the weight of the thing tipped his balance and he fell awkwardly to the floor. He could do nothing as the monstrous tendrils reached his waist. More exploratory tentacles were probing his body, caressing his flesh with slithering interest.

  The GP screamed long and loud as his sixth sense hinted at what was to come. Moments before the clutch of worm-like tentacles found what they were looking for Doctor Barns mercifully lost consciousness as the sickly members forcibly penetrated his body through all natural opening they found. Driven by the natural twin instincts of survival and reproduction, the very unnatural parasite ejaculated a batch of tiny eggs inside the unfortunate doctor before slipping away in search of more food.

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  Six - Leaving Giles

  At least he doesn’t hit me anymore.

  The empty words paraded through Stephanie’s mind on a loop as she curled up on her husband’s sofa. The phrase had become her mantra over the last few days. It was a crutch to prop up her denial and to help see past Giles’s creative outbursts. No matter how hard she tried to focus on Giles’s good points, just simply surviving in this toxic relationship was poisoning her