When a parasite leeched onto Jack Simmon's mind, he decided to name it Darrell. Back in high school, Jack knew a kid by the name of Darrell Lane. It was no secret that Darrell dealt with a parasite known as depression on an irregular basis. Some days, he came into school happy as could be. Other days, he didn't speak a word and would lay his head on the cafeteria table during lunch. And then one day, it was announced that Darrell had gone home and hanged himself. The news was a shock to Jack. He knew people died everyday, but he realized that day what it was like to hear that someone you knew had kicked the bucket.
When Jack found himself infected with a parasite of his own, he thought of Darrell and realized what that boy had endured. He sometimes wondered if it was a cruel thing to do: naming his depression after a dead kid. And when Darrell fed Jack the suggestion of suicide, he also wondered if the name was an omen of some kind.
As sick and twisted as Darrell could be, Jack found it to be a romantic, because walks seemed to soothe it. Whether through the bustling city or in the serene park, first thing in the morning or late at night, walks put Darrell to sleep. So when Jack was up late in the dark morning hours of November 24th and the sharp edge of his pocket knife looked more and more enticing to introduce to his throat, he drove down to the city park. Before he had discovered the calming power of his strolls, he would lay in bed, barely getting up even to use the restroom.
The latest Jack had visited the park before tonight was just after sunset. There had been a few couples strolling around, their hands intertwined, but tonight, there was no one.
The path was kept alight with a train of circular glows stationed at the lamps dotting the asphalt path, so he didn't worry about anybody leaping from the shadows and robbing him of his pocket contents or his life. The one place where the lamps' light did not reach was the forest edging along the park perimeter, but the path was safeguarded by a creek at the bottom of a gentle slope. Along this portion of the path, Jack rebounded Darrell's earlier claims that his family didn't care for him.
My family loves me, he told himself, with his eyes glued to the path. My mom, Dad, my grandparents. Aunt Margaret will down in a few days for Thanksgiving. She told me she'd missed me and was looking forward to seeing me. If I didn't show up for Thanksgiving, she'd be sad. He repeated similar thoughts for each member of his family, even the ones he wasn't as close with.
Some leaves rustled from within the forest, as if some nocturnal animal was patrolling the night-cloaked edges. Jack inspected the source and found that the “nocturnal animal” wasn't some raccoon or opossum. For a split second, he thought he was looking at someone pulling a prank. Like some high school punk covered himself in white makeup and skulked among the trees, while his buddy hid elsewhere with a camera, filming the reactions of passersby.
But then he saw that if this was an elaborate prank, it was performed expertly; possibly with some sort of animatronic, for the legs of this creature's slim humanoid body dragged along the ground, bending as if they were filled with no bones or muscle. Its tiny arms swayed back and forth, they, too, apparently without bones or muscle. The back of its head was split open, as if hiding inside was a parasitic arachnid that had matured too much to remain locked inside its host's head. So it cut an opening and spread its massive legs out, the remainder of its hidden body sucking dry whatever nutrients remained in its unfortunate host's skull.
Jack's heart skipped several beats and then pounded faster to play catch-up. He leapt backward with a curse as his arms donned sleeves of tiny bumps. He stood and stared at the pale creature that stopped and turned.
Fear squeezed Jack's heart as his wide, white eyes locked with the beady, black eyes of the pale creature. Dangling from the edges of its face were its fat lips, which frowned at Jack, like it disapproved of him.
While the pale creature might have been some uncanny animatronic built too late for Halloween, the sight of it still scared the hell out of Jack as he screamed.
The tiny eyes of the pale creature widened, and its lower lip dropped as if screaming itself. Yet it produced no sound, and its ovular mouth was tall enough that Jack could stand inside.
Jack stumbled backwards a few steps, still screaming, before taking off like a bat out of hell.
ns3.148.221.222da2
