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 1 
 Hell’s Outpost 
© 2009 by Ron Sanders
Oh dear God, shake me out of this nightmare. Rouse me, unbind me, before I succumb to thehorror . . . free my arms and legs—get this warm sticky mucus . . . get it
off 
before that thing comes back. Wake me,
 please!
It’s closer, it’s closing in—that huge, ruby-winged monstrosity of my mind,serrated legs and long sucking feet, chainsaw-buzzing mouth and a dozen feelers; no eyes, no eyes,only black searching pits. I can’t move, God—pull me out before I drown. It’s leaping on me—longslick tongue, crushing press of legs. That curved stinger, rising, plunging, jacking into my chest. That burgundy abdomen, turning about, sinking onto my face . . . and my mouth a sump, a choked pitretching in red putrid slime. No, please . . .
don’t 
wake me—let me pass right now, let me die in myvile dreams.Doctor Freedman waddles back into the examination room. Elderly, white, artificially hearty, but now with a lateral crease to his smile. He motions me over to the little stainless steel desk, placesmy scan on the polished easel, backlights it. “Here’s the source of your stomach complaint; no doubtabout it.” We’re looking at an x-ray plate of my fisting, semi-spiral gut, all swollen and contorted.
 
 2
“Forget carcinoma, forget ulceration, forget diverticula.
That’s
why you’re so sick,
that 
explains thedramatic weight loss. Your complaint’s parasitic.”I stare at him uncertainly. “You’re telling me I have
worms
?”Freedman shakes his head. “Singular. At least as far as the preliminary goes. But it’s not ahookworm, not a tapeworm, not a pinworm. How it’s surviving in a gastric environment is beyondme.” The doctor lifts the scan to view against the fluorescents. “
That 
,” he gushes, “simply
has
to bethe largest parasitic growth ever encountered in a living human being!” He looks at me as thoughI’ve just won the lottery. The good doctor sets me back down. “Go home and relax while I researchthis little anomaly. If you show signs of anemia call me immediately. But first, let’s go over the fine points once more. You say that your income is inherited, that you live on a boat right here in our marina, and that you keep your personal area scrupulously clean. You mention becoming sick after eating a burrito at a little cantina in town. Describe that experience again.”“It was awful,” I say, and a
rottenness
comes to my palate. “Beef and cheese. I didn’t check itout first; I was hungry. I took one swallow, gagged, and spat out the rest. It was such a horrible taste,doctor. I couldn’t flush it; not with mouthwash, not with bicarb. I tried to walk off the whole thing, but I simply got more and more depressed. Eventually I stretched out on a little harbor bench and justlay there with my head lolling and my stomach clenching. When I opened my eyes there were allthese sea gulls and pelicans standing around me; dead-quiet, riveted, just staring. Creepiest minute of my life. I guess I was hallucinating, but that strikes me as the first piece in the nightmare puzzle; Imean that flying thing in my boat I told you about.”“Okay. We all know an unhappy stomach can play tricks on the mind. ‘. . . a bit of undigested beef,’ and all that, coincidentally enough. There are no indications of toxic ingestion or of food poisoning, and despite the weight loss and overall haggardness your blood count is normal, so it’ssafe to say your mental stress is a direct outcome of your body’s stress. I’m not prescribing anymedications until I’m clearer on this thing. Go home and take your mind off it. Get some rest, Mr.Rowan. Relax.”I’ve always been a man on the water. The California marinas have always been my home. I’velived on this little sailboat, moored in Mer Harbor, for the last twenty years, in East Basin’s deepest
of 00

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