It was supposed to have been a slow, relaxing, two-month holiday in Peru. Victor Martinez-Silva and his wife, Amy, had retired early, both in their fifties, and had decided to take a long trip to the country Victor's family had left when he was just a baby. Victor's work as a library historian had always left him itching to visit the ancient places of the world, and this was a first step into the unknown for them. When they left, their three kids, now grown, had wished them a fun vacation when they dropped them off at the airport.
They rented an old yellow Volkswagen Beetle to get around, the elderly owner of the car smiling brightly at the trim, gray-haired couple as Victor negotiated in his rusty Spanish, and they had spent a few weeks driving all over, visiting a bunch of different sites. Today, they had made the harrowing drive up the switchbacks leading to Choquequirao, in southern Peru, and had just started the hike through the forests leading to the ruins. But, after walking for a while, Amy had suddenly cried out in pain and surprise.
Victor turned around and saw Amy rubbing her forehead. “What happened, dear?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing, I must've snapped myself with a branch.” Victor looked around, but he couldn't see anything sticking out that might have hit her. He walked to her and gently lifted her hand from her forehead, where there was a small scratch and a tiny puncture. It didn't look bad. He knelt down and got the first-aid kit out of his travel bag, and sprinkled some alcohol onto a piece of gauze. He motioned for her to sit down and he carefully cleaned the wound and covered it with a bandage. Good as new.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, gently helping her to her feet.
“Oh, I'm fine, don't worry about me.” She smiled, and Victor smiled too. He had always admired how strong she was, and sometimes he was astonished at how much she loved to travel. She was always dragging him from place to place, but her love was for big old cities, so this trip was a first for her, too. They kept walking, until a few minutes later, when Amy slowed down and murmured Victor's name. He saw her standing there and knew that something was wrong. Her legs were shaking like she could barely stand. He put his hand on her forehead and realized she had a serious fever.
“Honey, you're burning up,” he said. “We should go back and check with a doctor.” She nodded with a sorry smile on her face, and held his hand. As they walked, Victor became more worried when Amy leaned on him more and more, until he had her arm over his shoulder and was practically dragging her along the trail. They had made it more than halfway back to the car, but they were slowing down.
Amy coughed and shuddered, and then she convulsed and tore away from Victor, falling to the ground. She was groaning or mumbling something he couldn't understand, maybe some kind of a fever dream, he thought. Her breathing was fast and shallow. He scooped her up in his arms and started running toward the car, as fast as he could. She was shivering in his arms. He was by no means a strong runner--his hours spent alone in libraries had kept him thin, but he had never been much of an athlete. But the feeling of holding his wife's limp body, burning hot and soaked in sweat, in his arms pushed him forward. He struggled down the trail, gasping for breath, sweat soaking through his clothes. Then he realized--she wasn't moving. The words pounded through his head like a jackhammer. She wasn't moving.
Finally, the last line of trees gave way, and he saw that little Beetle parked on the side of the dirt road where they had left it. It was only a few hundred feet, now. He stumbled, and nearly lost his grasp on Amy, but managed to catch himself and keep moving. He had made it a few more steps when she seized up and wrenched out of his grasp. He fell and rolled, sliding in the dirt, as she laid on the ground a few feet away, twitching and crying out in agony, and still muttering something. He tried to stand up to go back to her, but his legs refused to obey.
A man emerged from the tree line. Victor stared in disbelief as the man walked toward him. He was fair-skinned, lean, and had slightly wavy auburn hair combed back. He was dressed like something out of an old movie, with a charcoal-colored vest over a dark blue shirt and slacks that matched the vest. The man walked over to Victor and put out his hand. Victor pulled himself up to his feet, and the man asked him if he could get to the car. Victor nodded and loped toward the car as the man walked toward Amy.
Or that's what Victor thought he was doing. Instead, Victor got into the driver's seat and was leaning over to the passenger side door to open it, but the man was already there, without Amy. The man grabbed the handle and yanked open the door, and Victor protested, loudly and desperately. “I thought you were going to get my wife!”
The man didn't answer, but instead got in and sat down, keeping his eyes on Amy. Victor started to get out of the car, but the man grabbed him by the sleeve and said in a serious voice, “You need to drive, now.”
Victor stared at him in disbelief. Here he thought this man was going to help him get his wife out of here, and instead he looked like he was ready to hijack him. He glanced past the man at Amy, who was still convulsing on the ground about a hundred feet away. The sound of her voice was getting louder, and more distinct. He could almost start to make out some of what she was saying.
Then she stood up, her knees bent at odd angles. The man shouted, “Drive, now!” but Victor still hesitated. Amy took a step toward them, and now he could hear what she was saying, but it wasn't English. He knew a few languages, and had a passing familiarity with a few more, but he didn't know what this was.
“Yas el trei ga min xa ko...” she began to chant in a guttural tone. She took another step. Her eyes were blank white, rolled back up into her head.
“Damn! Drive!” the man yelled again, and suddenly there was a gun in his hand, a jet-black revolver, pointed at Amy as she took another step. Before Victor could say anything, a few shots rang out, too close together for Victor to count, and he saw Amy's body bend backward, shudder, push forward, and then fall. Then he saw her start to struggle to get back up.
The man slapped the dashboard and yelled again, “Drive, drive!” Victor saw Amy stand back up, and there were five holes in her stomach, and around each of them, he watched as coiled cords of pink flesh erupted, punching more holes in her shirt, and covered each one. Finally, Victor slammed the transmission into gear and stomped on the gas pedal, making a tight turn and heading back down the road, toward civilization. Whatever was happening to Amy, she was a danger to them. Victor glanced to his side and the man had sat back in his seat and was reloading his gun, one bullet at a time. It was like an old cowboy gun.
The best Victor could manage was to stare out the windshield and try to stay on the road. There was too much happening, and what had happened to Amy? He tried to speak, but the best he could do was stammer out, “What-what was that? What happened to Amy?”
The man was sitting, looking forward through the windshield, a practiced calm on his face. “Andalusian Brain Worm,” he said, as if those words meant anything together. “First discovered in southern Spain, they appear occasionally in South America. Probably a small colony brought over by accident, hundreds of years ago. The colonies in Andalusia are even older.”
Victor shouted impatiently, “What is going to happen to my wife?”
“How long ago did she get infected?”
“Infected? What do you mean?”
“Did she get injured or complain of a... pain any time recently?”
Victor was having trouble recalling anything. He was silent for a few seconds. “A branch or something hit her... about half an hour ago.”
“Did you see a puncture wound?”
“What? Uh... There was a little wound, yes. I--I cleaned it with alcohol and put on a bandage.”
Both of them were silent for a minute as Victor made a sharp turn on the narrow, downhill-sloping road. The little tires of the Beetle kicked dirt up into the air around them.
“You did your best,” said the man, “but you couldn't have been expected to have the right treatment for it. Speaking of which...” He pulled two yellow pills out of a pocket and popped them into his mouth, swallowing them in one smooth movement. “Anti-parasitic,” he explained. “Want some?” Victor shook his head frantically. “If you say so.”
The man hunched over and gritted his teeth. Victor looked over at him, but he tapped on the dashboard and pointed forward. Victor put his attention back on the road.
After a minute, the man took a deep breath and leaned back in his seat. “That stuff hits hard,” he said.
“Who the hell are you, and how did you find us?” Victor finally found the strength to say.
“Lawrence George Samson,” the man said. “Pleased to meet you.”
“Victor Martinez-Silva,” Victor replied, almost involuntarily.
“I wasn't looking for you specifically,” said Lawrence. “I had read some things that suggested a colony of Andalusian Brain Worms might be in the area, and was trying to find and exterminate them before, well, before that happened. I happened to see you carrying your wife, and thought I'd make sure... well...” he trailed off.
“What are we going to do?” Victor pleaded.
“You said she was infected a little over a half-hour ago?” Lawrence glanced at his watch. “If you can get me to Abancay, I might be able to do something.”
“That's the nearest big city. It's about two hours away.”
“Yeah. But we'll need to be faster than that. It should be about thirty-five miles. We'll need to make it in one hour or less.”
“On these switchbacks, in this little car?”
There was a rumbling somewhere behind them. Lawrence glanced back over his shoulder. “Like it or not, we may not have a choice,” he said.
A tree--a whole tree, roots and all--slammed into the road a dozen feet ahead of, and only a couple of feet to the right of them. It kicked up a huge cloud of dust and Victor resisted the urge to scream while twisting the steering wheel. Then he looked over his shoulder, and what he saw nearly made his heart stop: Amy, or what used to be Amy, was a few hundred feet behind them, and was keeping up with them. It still had her form, more or less, but its movements were all wrong, her arms and legs moving more like a spider or a crab than a person. Victor glanced at the speedometer and saw they were going nearly seventy kilometers per hour--something that could easily get them killed on this downhill.
“See, we're going to need to go faster,” Lawrence said with bizarre calm. Victor glanced over, and once again saw Lawrence aiming that black revolver behind them, and five more shots rang out. The rumbling sound from behind them stopped. “That should keep her down for a bit, but we're going to need to keep this pace up, at least. I only have ten more shots.”
“Only ten more! How did you expect to deal with a colony of these things with that!”
“The gun isn't how you get rid of these things. With these kinds of... problems, bullets are rarely a solution--but they can buy time.”
“What was your plan, then?”
Lawrence produced a small, white ball, about the size of a golf ball, but it was chalky and smooth instead of dimpled. “Concentrated anti-worm serum,” he said. “One bit of this powder will kill those worms dead.”
“Then use it, now!”
Lawrence frowned. “I will, if I have to, but the problem is that, under these conditions, it would make her very dead, too.”
“And if I get you to Abancay, she won't?” asked Victor.
With a grim look on his face, Lawrence replied, “Maybe.”
The rumbling behind them started up again. Victor was navigating the switchbacks pretty well, but each time he had to brake hard to go around the hairpin. The sound of movement behind them was still loud. Victor tried to ignore it.
“We're coming up on Kiuñalla,” Lawrence said, pointing at the small town ahead. “You're going to need to blow right through it, best you can. Try not to hit anything.”
In fact, there was so little traffic there that they went right through the town without anyone getting in their way. But, as they zoomed through, Victor saw a set of flashing lights start up in his rearview mirror, but they suddenly vanished with another loud thump from behind them.
“We won't have to worry too much about pursuit,” Lawrence observed.
As they got further down the mountains, the roads got straighter and the slopes were less dangerous. Victor managed to get their speed up above eighty kilometers per hour for some long stretches. The booming noise behind them got fainter, and eventually he couldn't hear it anymore. But Lawrence kept his eyes glued to their rear, watching for any movement.
Minutes later, they blew through another little town. Victor kept his eyes forward, his hands on the wheel, and his foot on the gas, for the most part. But suddenly, the road seemed to dip and another sharp corner loomed in front of them. “Shit!” he shouted. Victor turned the wheel, but the front tires refused to grip the road and their little car spun and slammed into a tree, rear first.
“Hm,” was all Lawrence said. They got out and looked at the damage. The tree had slammed into the rear-mounted engine and the thing was leaking oil in a steaming puddle.
Victor sank to his knees. That was it, huh. Now maybe he would still survive, but there was no way to save Amy. There was no way they were going to get to Abancay in time, and certainly not before whatever that thing was caught up to them. To illustrate this point, he heard a faint pounding noise from far off, and he could swear he heard some more chanting on the wind. “Xe tiv ku na k'leth vo...” He shivered.
To Victor's surprise, Lawrence seemed unfazed. He walked over to the rear of the car and started pushing it away from the tree, his shoes sinking into the mud with his effort. Victor looked over at him and just gawked. The pounding sound was still far away, but it was getting louder.
“What are you doing?” Victor cried out.
“I can fix this,” said Lawrence.
“Fix it! The engine is smashed, and the oil is all leaking out! The damn axle is bent! How can you fix this?”
“Help me push it away from this tree and you'll see.” Lawrence grinned. “You'll like it.”
It took effort, but Victor stood up and went over to the other side of the car. They both pushed, and after a minute, they had managed to roll the smashed car a couple of feet from the tree.
Lawrence reached into his pocket again, and this time he produced a small, shiny ball about the same charcoal color as his vest. With his other hand, he pulled out what looked like a smartphone. “Is this a '67?” he asked. Victor shrugged. “Check the VIN number, I need to know.” Victor wordlessly stumbled back over to the front of the car and looked for the little plate with the number on it. He found it and started reading it to Lawrence. Then Lawrence tapped a few times on his device and tossed the little ball at the smashed engine. Instead of bouncing, it deformed with an audible whoosh into a layer of fuzz--fuzz that started moving around. It formed a little wriggling blanket over the engine, and part of it spread around the rapidly-growing oil puddle and surrounded it. Then Victor watched in awe as the border around the oil moved inward, making a smaller and smaller circle.
“What the hell is that?” Victor asked.
“Nanomachine colony,” replied Lawrence. “As long as it knows what it needs to recreate, it should be able to put it back together and get us the last few miles.”
“Where did you get it?”
“I made it. Comes in handy in situations like this.”
Victor stood, stunned. “Just who exactly are you?”
Lawrence kept his eyes on the contorting metal. “Someone who got burned by something like this before,” was all he said.
Victor felt like he didn't want to dig deeper. He stood in stunned silence for the next couple of minutes, watching the rear end of the car be repaired, like magic. It looked even better than when he had rented it. Even the paint. And the fuzzy carpet all collected itself again in the shape of a small, shiny ball, which Lawrence picked up and returned to his pocket. “They don't have enough energy stored to do that again, so... keep your eyes on the road this time.” They both got back into the car and Victor was amazed when it started right up. Even the oil pressure gauge was reading fine. The pounding in the distance was getting louder, but now they were on their way again, and it faded into the distance again.
Victor kept driving, his nerves close to their edge, his muscles shaking. They made their way along a road that followed the edge of a sharp cliff, and in the distance Victor could see the roads and buildings of Abancay. They weren't far off, now, but neither was their pursuer. He heard a sound, a great tearing noise, and a few seconds later another whole tree flew across the road and thudded onto the right side of the road. Victor slammed on the brakes and swerved left, and the tree fell off the side of the cliff just in time.
“Watch out for that,” Lawrence said. “We're making a lot of noise, and it looks like she can throw those pretty accurately. Keep an ear out for them.” As if to punctuate that statement, Victor heard what must have been another tree being torn out by the roots. He let off the gas pedal and watched another whole tree fly out of the forest in front of them, but this one missed the road and tumbled down the cliff. He put his foot down again.
They nearly slid as Victor drove around the last hairpin. The pounding sound was getting louder again, but they hadn't seen another tree thrown in a minute or two.
“What do we do when we get to Abancay?” Victor asked, louder than necessary.
“Head toward the southeast part of the city. There's an abandoned building there. I'll give you directions when we get closer.”
“An abandoned building? What are we going to do there?”
“You'll see.” Lawrence stared over his shoulder toward what once had been Amy Martinez-Silva was. Victor glanced at the rearview mirror and saw a bunch of trees shudder, not far away.
As they got close to the city, Lawrence pulled a small bottle full of a clear yellow liquid out of his pocket. With his other hand, he produced a little roll of adhesive tape. He leaned out his window, and Victor could hear him fiddling with something. Then, he pulled himself back into his seat, and the bottle was missing from his hands.
“What did you do, there?” Victor asked.
“It's a pheromone drip,” replied Lawrence. “It'll keep her on our tail, rather than going crazy through the city. Should minimize collateral damage, but we'll have to act quick. Turn left here,” he said, pointing.
Victor followed his directions, which led them to a block where the buildings were abandoned shells, with broken windows, doors hanging off their hinges, and graffiti on nearly every flat surface. Lawrence pointed at one building that used to be a little grocery store and told Victor to park. There weren't any cars to worry about, so Victor just pulled alongside the edge of the road and killed the engine. Lawrence had already opened his door and stepped out, and Victor had to run to catch up to him.
“What are we going to do here?” Victor asked, but Lawrence just kept walking in quick, confident strides. The doors were half-open, the glass parts already smashed. Bits of garbage and chunks of masonry were strewn all around. Nobody--at least, nobody legitimate--had been here in quite a while, it seemed, but Lawrence just walked right in and kept going. Victor stumbled trying to avoid stepping on debris while keeping up with Lawrence's odd confidence. Finally, Lawrence stopped at a bare wall near the center of the building.
Before Victor could even ask, Lawrence placed his hand on the wall and a door slid open. There had been no sign of it before. Lawrence stepped in, and Victor followed behind. The tiny square room they stepped into was clean and well-lit, with white walls and a tile floor. The door closed behind them, and suddenly Victor felt his stomach lurch. They were going downwards. It was an elevator!
A few seconds later, Victor felt them stop and the door opened. Lawrence stepped out and Victor peeked through the door at what looked like a laboratory. Stainless steel tables, shelves with instruments and bottled chemicals, sinks, burners, and a couple of computers filled the room. As Lawrence stepped in, he grabbed a lab coat off of a hook near the elevator and put it on in a single practiced motion. Victor walked out of the elevator a moment later and the doors closed behind him.
“What is this place?” Victor asked, more to himself than to Lawrence specifically.
But Lawrence answered. “It's my lab. Well, one of them. I try to set one up in any big city where I operate.” He deposited the nanomachine ball into a weird-looking machine and was walking over to one of the shelves where a few hundred little bottles were sitting.
“How did you--” Victor started, but Lawrence seemed to anticipate the question.
“It's not too hard, with the right tools. Find an abandoned building. Set up an elevator in an unused wall. Carve out a little space below. Hijack water, gas, electricity, and sewage from the city. Getting the instruments and chemicals is a little tougher, but most of the stuff won't be missed.”
“And you do this... everywhere?”
Lawrence was choosing a few bottles off of the shelf. “Everywhere I need to.” He picked up four bottles and walked over to a machine that looked like an oven, with a big door with a window in front and a bunch of buttons on top. He opened the door and put the bottles inside, then closed it. He tapped a few buttons, and Victor could hear something moving inside. Victor walked over and glanced through the window, and could see a needle moving around, poking into the different bottles and then into a little clear ball, like a medicine capsule.
“This is incredible,” Victor murmured. Lawrence just nodded. He was pouring an amber liquid from an opaque medicine bottle into a shot glass, which he then downed in a single gulp. He glanced over at Victor and said, “Something to give my reflexes a little edge. I might need it.” He gestured with the bottle. “Want some?” Victor just gave him an incredulous look. Then he heard a loud thump and a crash from above.
“Looks like she's here,” Lawrence said. “That was probably the car. I don't think she'll find us immediately, but I need about thirty more seconds to finish up here.”
“To finish up what?” Victor asked.
Lawrence turned his head to look at Victor, right into his eyes. He had the hint of a smile on his face. “An antidote,” he said. Victor watched the countdown on the top of the machine, and heard another loud thump from above.
The countdown reached zero, and the machine stopped. Lawrence pulled open the door, and reached inside. He pulled out the little capsule, less than half an inch in diameter, filled with a clear, dark red liquid. Lawrence's other hand dove into his pocket and pulled out that little white, chalky orb from before. Victor looked on as Lawrence laid the orb on a table and put on a pair of plastic gloves. Then he took the little red capsule and squeezed it over the orb. The capsule ruptured and the red liquid dripped onto it. It was viscous, like honey. Victor heard a little hissing noise and saw a few tiny wisps of smoke rise off of the thing as the red liquid spread over it, and then it was quiet. The chalky white orb was now a florid orange color. Lawrence picked it up and examined it, turning it over in his hands. After a few seconds, he stuffed it back into his pocket, and ripped the gloves off of his hands, tossing them into a bin.
“Time to see if this works,” he said, putting his lab coat back on the hook and walking into the elevator, whose door opened, seemingly without any signal. Victor took one more glance around the lab and followed. The doors of the elevator closed behind him, and a sense of finality washed over him. He glanced at Lawrence, whose face was grim, his mouth drawn taut into a slight frown. The upward lurch of the elevator took Victor by surprise and he nearly fell down.
“This is it,” Lawrence said quietly. “It's been a little over an hour. This antidote, it can only do so much. But I've got to finish this, whether it works or not. You understand.” Victor looked at Lawrence, and the despair on his face must have been evident, because Lawrence looked him straight in the eye, and his stern face melted into a slight smile with a hint of sadness behind it. “We'll do our best. It's all we ever can.”
The elevator slid to a halt and the doors opened. Lawrence pushed past Victor and walked out. Victor shadowed him, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. They walked back toward the door they had used to enter the building, but as Victor looked through the doors, the little yellow Beetle was nowhere to be seen. Lawrence, now exuding confidence, pushed through the broken doors as if they led into a saloon, and Victor finally saw where the little car was. It was embedded in the side of a building across the street, on its side and smashed up like a madman had taken a sledgehammer to it.
As soon as Lawrence stepped out of the building, they heard a loud banging sound and a screech. To the left, just down the street, what once was Amy's body lumbered out from an alleyway, her legs and arms all stretched and deformed, yet moving together to propel her body with terrifying speed. She skittered out into the middle of the street, and once again Victor could hear a strange chant. “In corla vas tee xhu victa min gih...” It was so loud Victor almost covered his ears reflexively. There was something unsettling about it. It made his skin crawl, and he broke out into a cold sweat. He felt goosebumps rise as she moved slowly and carefully toward Lawrence, who stood in the middle of the street, his black revolver in one hand, and that little orange ball in the other. Lawrence seemed unfazed by her sounds... and her form.
Then Lawrence said a few syllables, apparently to the monster. What once was Amy screeched and charged, as Lawrence raised his gun and took aim. He waited until she was only a few feet away before he let loose with the gun, the report echoing from the sides of the buildings and the force of the bullets pushing Amy's body back, crumpling to the ground. Then he leapt forward and tossed the little orange ball right at her face. It hit and exploded into a puff of orange dust, and what once was Amy screeched again. Lawrence leapt backwards and landed, and the monster reached out with its left arm and swept through the building, blasting the brick into smithereens and tossing huge chunks at them. One of the big pieces flew right at Lawrence's head, but he ducked with ridiculous speed and grace. Another, smaller piece flew at Victor--probably entirely by accident--but Victor wasn't able to see it in time, let alone get out of the way. A chunk of brick hit the right side of his head and spun him as he fell to the ground.
His consciousness flowed out of him just like blood.
He started awake to the acrid smell of disinfectant and the sound of electronic beeps. He tried to move, but his head was bound up with bandages. He couldn't even open his right eye. He passed his left eye over his surroundings as quickly as he could.
It was a hospital. He was in a bed. His head was bandaged and a sheet covered his body.
He tried to move, and found his arms and legs were all in good shape, aside from a few scrapes and bruises. He fumbled around with his right hand until it landed on some buttons or controls that he couldn't see, but he figured one of them must be to call a nurse. He prodded at them one by one until one of them clearly turned on a light over his bed and made a ringing sound in the hall. He waited.
A few minutes later, a nurse walked in with a clipboard. She was a short, wide woman, but was more muscle than fat, and her face was gentle and happy. Her crisp white uniform stood out in contrast to her deep brown skin and straight black hair, shoulder length. When she saw him moving around, her face split into a wide, relieved grin. She walked to the left side of his bed and looked at the displays. Then, she looked down at Victor and asked him, in slightly accented English, “How are you feeling?”
Victor mumbled, “Okay.”
She took a seat and glanced at her clipboard. “You were very lucky. A head wound like that... it can be fatal. And to have survived that fall without a single broken bone...”
“Fall?” Victor asked. “What fall?”
“You are still confused, yes? You and your wife, your car went off the road on one of the mountains. You were... ejected?” she said, unsure of the word, “from the car and slid down the mountainside, no?”
“I... I don't remember,” was all Victor could manage. Then, with all the strength he could muster, he blurted, “My wife! Is Amy all right?”
The nurse's smile faded. “She was injured much worse than you. Her arms and legs were all broken.” Victor was hardly conscious of it, but his face must have contorted into something horrible, because the nurse quickly smiled and added, “But she is alive, and that is better than what could have been.”
The words squeezed Victor's heart like a vise. Amy? Alive? Really? After having seen her so horribly deformed and acting with such terrifying hostility, waves of relief and disbelief washed over him. Could it really have worked out so well for him--for them?
“I need to see her,” Victor said, pushing himself up into a seated position. He was deliberately vague. “I was so sure she...”
The nurse nodded. “Yes. Please wait a moment.” She stood up and walked over to the door, where she picked up a cane that was leaning against the wall. She brought it over, and helped him out of bed. “Can you walk?” She handed him the cane and he managed to stand, albeit putting most of his weight on it. He nodded and she led him out the door and to the room next door. He hobbled along slowly.
Amy's body was wrapped in bandages from head to toe, and her arms and legs were covered in bulky casts and held in place with straps, to prevent her from moving. Yet the ECG machine beeped slowly, rhythmically, and reassuringly, and Victor could see his wife's chest moving up and down as she breathed.
“She will need to stay here for some time,” the nurse said from behind him, “but the most dangerous time has passed, no? She will be all right, given time.”
A wave of relief washed over Victor and he fell to his knees. Tears flowed down his cheeks and he sobbed. After a few minutes, he had calmed down enough to ask, “The man who saved us, where is he?”
The nurse shook her head. “Yes, Mr. Martinez. A police officer found you both, and the wreckage of your car, at the bottom of a cliff. There was a fire, and smoke. I will give you his name and telephone number.”
“No,” said Victor, “the other one.” He tried to describe Lawrence to the nurse, but she just gave him a confused look.
“No, Mr. Martinez. There was no one like that where your car was wrecked.” She stepped toward him and put out her hand to help him up. “You are tired, and confused. You should rest.” She started to lead him toward the door, back to his room. But Victor couldn't resist one more glance at his wife.
And then he saw them. On the table next to her bed. There were two familiar yellow pills there, and somehow he knew. An anti-parasitic, or so he was told.
THE END
# # #
Hey, thanks for reading! If you liked this story featuring Lawrence G. Samson, you might like a longer piece of fiction I wrote featuring him: Before Death Blossoms! It's a little slower, more detective-like story, showing off Samson's abilities to track an enemy that is far less... overt than this one.
By the way, the cover image was edited from a picture taken by Guthrie Kuckes, courtesy of Unsplash.
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